Forgiven Bassianus

“There are similarities between a traitor and a serpent,” Hosius agreed. “Are you all right now?”

“Yes. I sent for you to ask how Christ would have treated a man like Bassianus.”

“We believe the Master taught us the will of God when he spoke from a mountain in Galilee and said: ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.’”

“Would Christ have forgiven Bassianus, knowing he would only connive again?”

“Jesus was also a man, Augustus,” Hosius said. “One morning on the way to Jerusalem when he was hungry, he came upon a fig tree. The fruit of this tree usually appears before its leaves and, since the tree was full of leaves, its fruit should have been ripe, yet it was barren. The Master cursed the tree that day and it never again bore fruit.”

“Then the man you worship as god was no more consistent than an ordinary man would be. He taught us to forgive those who err, yet cursed a tree that failed to bear fruit.”

“That passage in the Holy Scriptures has troubled many people,” Hosius admitted. “It appears in two of the gospels which we consider authentic, so we believe it really happened.”

“You still haven’t explained the difference between what Christ said and what he did.”

Son of God

“I remind you again that Jesus was not only the Son of God but also a man, Augustus. Since he was born of woman and therefore mortal, he could act as a man in cursing the fig tree. But he is also God and taught the word of God. We believe the incident of the fig tree really means that when a man has the outward show of a good character, but not the fruit he should bear, he cannot be considered valuable to the kingdom of God and thus should be cast out.”

“Bassianus had the outward show of good works but certainly not the inward quality of loyalty,” Constantine said. “Does that mean I am justified in executing him as a traitor?”

Dacius Crispus

With proof of his fellow Emperor’s treachery in the shattered statues and the harboring of traitors, Constantine made one of his characteristic swift decisions, followed by equally swift action. The courier service of the Imperial Post had already brought word that Dacius, Crispus and an army of some ten thousand veterans from Gaul were encamped far enough from the border with Licinius for their presence not to be an obvious threat, yet close enough to enter Licinius’ domain in a few days of forced marches.

A message now went to Dacius by the swift chain of couriers, telling him to move eastward for a junction with Constantine’s own forces between Virunum on the headwaters of the river Savus, and Galerius’ old capital of Sirmium on the same stream some fifty miles west of the junction of that river with the Danube. At the same time, Constantine himself moved northward with ten thousand troops, mostly cavalry.

When Constantine’s spies reported that Licinius’ army, now moving westward from Sirmium along the banks of the river Savus, numbered about thirtyfive thousand roughly twice as many as he commanded he began to seek a field of battle where the terrain would be favorable to his forces, evening somewhat the odds against him. Shortly after joining Dacius and Crispus, Constantine found a spot suitable for his needs not far from a town named Cibalae.

It was a defile lying between a deep swamp on one side and a steep hill on the other, enabling him to present a solid front in depth against Licinius’ attack in spite of the difference in numbers. His foot soldiers were stationed in the defile, while behind the hill, hidden from observation, he placed a force of nearly five thousand horse. These preparations made, he set up his own command post on top of the elevation.

Valens

Licinius’ army, under the command of an experienced general named Valens, advanced to attack but were thrown back with it seemed to Constantine, as he watched from the hilltop suspicious ease. His suspicion became a certainty, when he saw his eager front rank, ignoring Dacius’ fiercely shouted commands, pursue the seemingly fleeing enemy.

Belonging to a single Augustus

“Have you no more to say in defense of your treachery?”

“It is not myself I serve, but Rome. What crime can be found in that?”

“The crime of deciding that what is in your own interest is always best for the state,” Constantine said gravely. “Emperor Diocletian could have retained the power and glory belonging to a single Augustus, yet he chose to share it because he believed the Empire could be ruled more effectively from several capitals. Under his direction Rome’s frontiers were extended from the river Tigris in Persia to the Antonine Wall in Britain, proving him right. The greatness of a ruler is not measured in pride, Bassianus, or in lust for power, but in compassion for those he rules and the desire to improve the lot of the people. You cannot make men free by forging chains of gold; the lowest plebe unchained is far more free than you, bound as you are by the fetters of lust for power that you have forged for yourself.”

Constantine nodded to the magister memoriae who sat beside him. “Let it be recorded that the prisoner Bassianus is hereby ordered beheaded ”

“But you cannot!” Bassianus protested. “Emperor Licinius ”

“Licinius doesn’t rule here!” Constantine snapped. “Your sentence is death.”

“Then let me choose ”

“A traitor has no choice. Only consideration for my sister keeps me from ordering your head paraded through Italy, as I did with Maxentius in Africa.”

Bassianus was dragged away

Babbling pleas for mercy, Bassianus was dragged away. As Constantine turned to the door leading to his private cabinet behind the chamber, he ordered the guard who stood there to send for Bishop Hosius, and was standing at the window breathing deeply of the fresh air outside when Hosius of Cordoba entered.

“Are you ill, Augustus?” the priest asked anxiously.

“Only with a nausea of the spirit that became too great for the body to stand.” Constantine turned to face the churchman. “I remember feeling this way once after a venomous serpent struck at me when I was walking through the woods. I was seized by such a rage then that I beat the snake to death without knowing what I was doing, but afterwards was so spent from retching that I had to sit upon a log for a while before going on.”

Walls of Heraclea

Thracia, in the heart of Licinius’ domain, appeared likely to be conquered by Daia’s lightning advance before its ruler could even move an army eastward, but fortunately the invasion was stopped for more than a week by the walls of Heraclea, some fifty miles west of Byzantium. The delay gave Licinius time to bring up his troops and, in the battle that followed, Daia’s failure to bring adequate supplies and weapons with him on the forced march across the Galatian uplands told heavily against him. As a result, Licinius’ Illyrian veterans put Daia’s forces to flight and Daia himself was destroyed.

Reading reports of the downfall of Maximin Daia brought to him by the Imperial Post, Constantine found much to praise in the rapidity with which Licinius had opposed Daia. But of what followed the victory, he could hardly approve. First, Licinius ordered the destruction of Daia’s young children, a boy of eight and a girl of seven. Two other refugees, Lady Valeria, the widow of Galerius, and the Empress Prisca, who being Christians had been in hiding from persecution in Syria, now came to Licinius’ new court at Nicomedia, expecting to be welcomed there, since Galerius had raised Licinius first to the rank of general and then to the purple of a Caesar and Augustus. Instead, they were harshly treated and only managed to escape alive with the help of the Christians of Nicomedia.

Frankish rebellion

Busy putting down the Frankish rebellion during the rest of the winter and early spring, Constantine heard of these melancholy events, but could do nothing at the moment about them. He had thought that Licinius had been convinced by his example of how effectively people could be ruled by the application of justice and fair treatment to all.

But it was only too apparent now that, suddenly finding himself ruler of more territory than he had imagined could ever be his, the Emperor of the East had succumbed to the same lust for power that had brought about the downfall of Daia, Maxentius and Maximian. At the moment, however, each of the two remaining Augusti where once there had been six needed each other, so the situation was left at that.

Constantine assured

“If it were anything so minor, Dominus,” Adrian said, “I would have haled them before the tribunal of the praetor urbanus and brought you their heads as proof that I had no part in it.”

“I would need no proof of that,” Constantine assured him. “You have served me well, Adrian, and no one knows it better than I. What did bring you to make the long journey from Rome to Milan?” “Something so grave that I could not trust it to hands other than my own,” Adrian told him. “Ten days ago one of our galleys returned from Trapezus at the eastern end of the Pontus Euxinus. During the voyage, our ship rescued the crew of a galley belonging to Senecio, the brother of Bassianus. It was sinking in the Mare Aegeum after a storm.”

“Bassianus will no doubt be glad to hear they are safe.”

Nephew Camianus

“I haven’t told him yet, Dominus,” Adrian said. “My nephew Camianus happened to be aboard our ship as supercargo; I am training him to be my deputy. He went aboard Senecio’s galley with some men Istanbul old city tours, trying to save her for salvage, but they were forced to leave the ship later though not before he removed some letters the Captain had failed to destroy.”

“You opened them?” Constantine’s voice was grave.

“The water had broken the seals, Dominus, and when Camianus saw what was written there, he brought the letters directly to me. The captain of the galley still thinks they were destroyed,” he added pointedly, as he opened the package he carried and revealed two small scrolls such as were regularly used for correspondence.

The parchment was stained from exposure to water and the wax seals had broken loose from their attachment, allowing the letters to become unrolled. The seals were still intact, however, even to the deep imprint pressed upon them while the wax had been warm and soft. Constantine needed no second look at the imprint in the wax to recognize it; he’d seen it often enough before.

“What possible need could there be for official correspondence between Bassianus’ family and Emperor Licinius?” he asked.

“I asked myself the same question, Dominus,” Adrian said. “The answer is there in the scrolls.”

Knowing Maximin Daia

Another purpose of the edict was not quite so obvious. Knowing Maximin Daia, he sent a copy to the Emperor of the East, with the request that it be published. Certain that Daia would defy him, Constantine was thus laying the groundwork for a charge of disobedience which could serve to legalize any move he might choose to make against his old fellow cadet later on.

Though the young Emperor had become in less than a year the champion of the Christians, Christianity itself had not become the official religion of the Roman state. That, for the city of Rome itself at least, was still the reverence of Jupiter, but, with the waning of Rome’s influence as a center of empire, so waned the influence of Jupiter and the rites of his worship. Christianity, in turn, tended to look with Constantine toward the East, where lay a city much more intimately bound up in its history Jerusalem, called Aelia Capitolina by the Romans.

Maximin Daia

With Licinius now his ally by marriage, Constantine began building up his forces for the eventual conflict with Maximin Daia, whose acts of cruelty and rapine had become notorious throughout the Empire. Before he could launch any punitive action, however, an uprising by one of the Frankish tribes in northern Gaul demanded his presence, with a substantial part of his army, in a forced march into that vitally important territory.

Watching always for a chance to move against the often ineffective Licinius, while Constantine was otherwise occupied, Maximin Daia acted with great rapidity. It was still winter when news of Constantine’s departure for the West reached him, but Daia at once began a forced march westward.

Before Licinius who was still at Milan with his young bride knew what was happening, Daia had moved a large army out of Syria into Bithynia along the excellent roads built across the Galatian uplands long ago by the Romans. Crossing the Bosporus, he moved into Licinius’ own territory and attacked the city of Byzantium, which fell after a siege of only about seven days.

counsel of Eumenius

“It wasn’t planned. The boy handled himself well in battle and I need someone I can trust to rule in Gaul and Britain.”

“A mere youth with no experience? Where is the wisdom in that?”

“I was only a youth when I became Caesar of Gaul,” he reminded her. “But I had the wise counsel of Eumenius and so will Crispus. Besides, I’m sending Dacius with him to Treves.”

“You and Licinius have already made plans for your sons,” Fausta flared. private tour guide Turkey  “What about mine when they are born? Will there be any place for them?”

“You once said the Empire is large enough for all my male

offspring if there are any more,” he reminded her. “Give me a son and, when he is christened, I will make him Caesar in Pannonia.” “Christened? What is that?”

“A Christian custom, and a very beautiful one. Hosius has been telling me about it.”

“Then you’re really becoming a Christian? And not simply using them to help you control the Empire?”

“The Christian Church has more to offer me than any other religion, and no one could deny that it is a considerable influence for stability in the Empire.” He put his arm about her and drew her close. “Give me three sons and I will name each to rule a quarter, as in the days of Diocletian.”

“I shall make you keep that promise,” she warned him. “Our next child will be a boy; I’ve decided on it.”

“As you decided that we would be married when you first saw me at Nicomedia?”

She wrinkled her nose at him and was once more the delightful creature with whom he had fallen so violently in love in Rome. And in his happiness that the growing coolness between them over his refusal to spend much time at Rome seemed to have abated, he found it easy to forget that her father had tried to destroy him twice and her brother once.

Constantine’s sponsorship of the Christian Church

Originally, Constantine’s sponsorship of the Christian Church had been motivated by two convictions. The first was his belief that at two crucial points in his career at Dura, when he had been unsure of the course he had plotted for his command, and again at Saxa Rubra Christ himself had guided him to victory. The second was his realization that, highly organized as it was through bishops, local churches and clergy, the Christian faith could help him unify the Empire. To these two had now been added a third factor, a genuine faith and conviction of the truth inherent in Christianity brought to him by his studies of the Scriptures with Hosius.

Discuss the forthcoming divorce

The house where Constantine had spent his boyhood was little changed by the years and he almost expected Helena to step out and greet them. That night he slept in his own room and felt a lump come into his throat once again, when he remembered getting up for a drink in the night and hearing his father and mother discuss the forthcoming divorce, so Constantius would be free to marry Theodora.

In the morning the troops marched southward toward the crucial battle for which, spies reported, Licinius was gathering a considerable army south of Naissus on the Plain of Mardia in Thrace. Before leaving, Constantine walked with Crispus through the treelined streets to the former Temple of Asklepios but found it decrepit and uncared for, with only the small paintings he remembered so well to indicate its former status. These, though dimmed by dust and cobwebs, were still as brilliant as on the day when he had opened the door and stepped inside, then raced away, his heart thumping with the fear that the evil spirits whose pictures he was certain those upon the wall had been might be in pursuit of him.

Christians worshiped

“What has happened here?” he asked the prefect of the town, who accompanied him. “In my boyhood, the Christians worshiped in this temple.”

“They did, until the edict of Emperor Diocletian, Augustus,” the prefect said. “When the soldiers came, they took it to be still the Temple of Asklepios, so it was spared.”

“What happened to the Christians?”

“They were either destroyed or recanted.”

“Are none here now?”

“No, Augustus. Few dared to worship the Christian god after Emperor Licinius proscribed it.”

“Did you ever hear of the Edict of Milan, signed by both me and Emperor Licinius?”

The prefect he was an old man shook his head, proving again that Licinius had never bothered to enforce the edict in his territory.

“Was anything wrong back there, sir?” Crispus asked as they rode out of Naissus in the wake of the army.

“The old temple was once a Christian church. Your grandmother used to go there to pray.”

“I remember that she looked after the Christians in Drepanum. We even sheltered my teacher, Lactantius, for a while.”

“Did Lactantius teach you about the Christian god?”

Trimalchio in Petronius drama

“You find the life of a Senator hard, then?” Constantine asked with a smile.

“Harder than you know, Augustus.” Adrian sighed gustily. “All day I scramble to be where I should be on time. In fact, I might as well be like Trimalchio in Petronius’ drama, with a trumpeter to tell me the hours and how much of my life is gone.”

“I remember feeling the same way years ago, when I first came to Nicomedia as a cadet and Dacius routed us out before dawn for a crosscountry run.”

I go at a run all day, even though I have neither the figure nor the wind for it anymore. Dawn hardly breaks before my servants descend upon the house like so many ants, attacking it with mops, sponges and brooms, to the tune of buckets clattering and the cries of dolts falling off ladders. Then when I rise, I must put on a toga instead of a pallium, and must employ a servant merely to pleat

it. I tell you, Augustus, those garments were invented only to try men’s souls.”

“That’s why I wear a tunic most of the time,” Constantine admitted.

“Next I must put myself in the hands of my tonsor, though I don’t understand how he can take an hour just to shave me and dress my thinning locks,” Adrian said plaintively. “The day I consented to my depositio barbae was the beginning of my slavery.”

Constantine could not help laughing at the plump merchant’s tale of woe, particularly because he knew it was only partially true and that Adrian was very proud of being a Senator.

Jupiter Capitolinus

“I’ll wager that you looked forward to your first shaving at the hands of a tonsor no less than I did,” he said. “Why Nero even offered up the first shavings of his beard in a casket of gold to Jupiter Capitolinus.”

“And who is all this preparation wasted upon when I open my door?” Adrian asked. “My clients, made up mostly of my wife’s impecunious relatives.”

“Why not settle a sum upon them?”

“They would only spend it and be back on my doorstep in a month. Do you know that I cannot even go to bed without being sure I have enough coins to go around in the morning? Six and a quarter sesterces I must have every day for each one, else he will scream that he is being starved to death and word will get around that stingy Adrian no longer takes proper care of his clients. Then how can I expect to gain from those richer than I am?”

Military one brought a warm glow

“I might rule better if I had learned that lesson years ago,” Constantine admitted.

“Oh no, Fatherl ” The term of affection little used by the boy because their relationship was most often a military one brought a warm glow to Constantine’s heart. “Eumenius says you are the greatest ruler Rome has ever known. That’s why ” He paused.

“Yes?”

“I was going to say you should guard yourself more in battle.”

“Dacius is always lecturing me on that subect,” Constantine admitted. “You’ve had a taste yourself of the joy of battle, so you know how hard it will be to give it up, but in the next battle, you will command the horse and Dacius the foot. private guided Turkey tours Don’t be surprised though, if you suddenly find me riding beside you, jabbing with my lance and slashing with my sword like any other mounted trooper.”

The necessity for each of the warring Emperors to raise additional armies delayed the crucial battle for some weeks. This time Licinius had chosen the ground the Plain of Mardia in Thrace and the odds were nearer even, though still weighted in his favor.

For hours the two forces were locked in combat, with the wavering battlefront now advancing for one and now for the other. Constantine had planned carefully, however, and not long before the sun went down, when the tired troops were almost ready to disengage, he sent a large body of horse led by Crispus against the enemy’s front in a smashing attack that broke through the front line of Valens’ troops, forcing him to withdraw toward the hill and leave the front ranks to surrender or be cut to pieces.

Mountains of Macedonia

When morning came, only the wounded and the dead occupied the plain, Licinius’ main army having withdrawn into the mountains of Macedonia to the south. Nor was Constantine surprised to see an emissary approach toward midmorning, bearing the traditional white banner requesting a parley.

“Tribune Galba,” the emissary announced himself stiffly. “Augustus Licinius requests that you receive an ambassador to discuss terms for ending the fighting.”

“You may tell my brother, Licinius, that I will receive the ambassador at sunset,” Constantine said gravely, ignoring an explosive, but quickly muffled, oath from Crispus at his words.