They took judicious steps. When the troops of Maximin, crossing the Julian Alps, reached the borders of Italy, they were terrified by the silence and desolation that prevailed. The villages and open towns had been abandoned, the bridges destroyed, the cattle driven away, the provisions removed, the country made a desert. The people had gathered into the walled cities, which were plentifully provisioned and garrisoned. The purpose of the senate was to weaken Maximin by famine and retard him by siege.
The first city assailed was Aquileia, It was fully provisioned and vigorously defended, the inhabitants preferring death on their walls to death by the tyrant's order. Yet Rome was in imminent danger. Maximin might at any moment abandon the siege of a frontier city and march upon the capital. There was no army capable of opposing him. The fate of Rome hung upon a thread.
The hand of an assassin cut that thread. The severity of the weather, the growth of disease, the lack of food, had spread disaffection through Maximin's army. Ignorant of the true state of affairs, many of the soldiers feared that the whole empire was in arms against them. The tyrant, vexed at the obstinate defence of Aquileia, visited his anger on his men, and roused a stern desire for revenge. The end came soon. A party of Prætorian guards, in dread for their wives and children, who were in the camp of Alba, near Rome, broke into sudden revolt, entered Maximin's tent, and killed him, his son, and the principal ministers of his tyranny.
The whole army sympathized with this impulsive act. The heads of the dead, borne on the points of spears, were shown the garrison, and at once the gates were thrown open, the hungry troops supplied with food, and a general fraternization took place. Joy in the fall of the tyrant was universal throughout the empire, the two new emperors entered Rome in a triumphal procession, people and nobles alike went wild with enthusiasm, and the belief was entertained that a golden age was to succeed the age of iron that had come to an end. Yet within three months afterwards both the new emperors were massacred in the streets of Rome, and the hoped-for era of happiness and prosperity vanished before the swelling tide of oppression, demoralization, and decline.
THE DEEDS OF CONSTANTINE.
In the century that followed the reign of Maximin great changes came upon the empire of Rome. The process of decline went steadily on. The city of Rome sank in importance as the centre of the empire. The armies were recruited from former barbarian tribes; many of the emperors reigned in the field; the savage inmates of the northern forests, hitherto sternly restrained, now began to gain a footing within the borders; the Goths plundered Greece; the Persians took Armenia; the day of the downfall of the great empire was coming, slowly but surely. One important event during this period, the rebellion of Zenobia and the ruin of Palmyra, we have told in "Tales of Greece." There are two other events to be told: the rise of Christianity, and the founding of a new capital of the empire.
From the date of the death of Christ, the Christian religion made continual progress in the city and empire of Rome. Despite the contempt with which its believers were viewed, despite the persecution to which they were subjected, despite frequent massacres and martyrdoms, their numbers rapidly increased, and the many superstitions of the empire gradually gave way before the doctrines of human brotherhood, infinite love and mercy, and the eternal existence and happiness of those who believed in Christ and practised virtue. By the time of the accession of the great emperor Constantine, 306 A.D., the Christians were so numerous in the army and populace of the empire that they had to be dealt with more mercifully than of old, and their teachings were no longer confined to the lowly, but ascended to the level of the throne itself.
The traditional story handed down to us is that Constantine, in his struggle with Maxentius for the empire of the West, saw in the sky, above the mid-day sun, a great luminous cross, marked with the words, "In hoc signo vinces" ("In this sign conquer"). The whole army beheld this amazing object; and during the following night Christ appeared to the emperor in a vision, and directed him to march against his enemies under the standard of the cross. Another writer claims that a whole army of divine warriors were seen descending from the sky, and flying to the aid of Constantine.