The victor entered Rome. He had won the prize which he sought—the mastery of the West—and, like scores of Roman conquerors before him, he marched through the famous streets. His triumphal procession was graced, says Nazarius, not by captive chiefs or barbarians in chains, but by senators who now tasted the joy of freedom again, and by consulars whose prison doors had been opened by Constantine’s victory—in a word, by a Free Rome.[[47]] Only the head of Maxentius, whose features still wore the savage, threatening look which even death itself had not been able to obliterate, was carried on the point of a spear behind Constantine amid the jeers and insults of the crowd. Another Panegyrist gives us a very lively picture of the throngs as they waited for the Emperor to pass, describing how they crowded at the rear of the procession and swept up to the palace, almost venturing to cross the sacred threshold itself, and how, when Constantine appeared in the streets on the succeeding days, they sought to unhorse his carriage and draw it along with their hands. One of the conqueror’s first acts was to extirpate the family of his fallen rival. Maxentius’s elder son, Romulus, who for a short time had borne the name of Cæsar, was already dead; the younger son, and probably the wife too, were now quietly removed. There were other victims, who had committed themselves too deeply to Maxentius’ fortunes to escape. Rome, says Nazarius,[[48]] was reconstituted afresh on a lasting basis by the complete destruction of those who might have given trouble. But still the victims were comparatively few, so few, in the estimation of public opinion, that the victory was regarded as a bloodless one, and Constantine’s clemency was the theme and admiration of all. When the people clamoured for more victims—doubtless the most hated instruments of Maxentius’s tyranny—and when the informer pressed forward to offer his deadly services, Constantine refused to listen. He was resolved to let bygones be bygones. The laws of the period immediately succeeding his victory, as they appear in the Theodosian Code, amply confirm what might otherwise be the suspect eulogies of the Panegyrists. A general act of amnesty was passed, and the ghastly head of Maxentius was sent to Africa to allay the terrors of the population and convince them that their oppressor would trouble them no more. There, it is to be supposed, it found a final burial-place.

Another early act of Constantine was to disband the Prætorians, thus carrying out the intention and decrees of Galerius. The survivors of these long-famous regiments were marched out of Rome away from the Circus, the Theatre of Pompeius, and the Baths, and were set to do their share in the guarding of the Rhine and the Danube. Whether they bore the change as voluntarily as the Panegyrist suggests[[49]] is doubtful, and we may question whether they so soon forgot in their rude cantonments the fleshpots and “deliciæ” of the capital. But the expulsion was final. The Prætorians ceased to exist. Rome may have been glad to see the empty barracks, for the Prætorians had been hated and feared. But the vacant quarters also spoke eloquently of the fact that Rome was no longer the mistress of the world. The “domina gentium,” the “regina terrarum” without her Prætorians, was a thing unthinkable.

Constantine only stayed two months in Rome, but in that short time, says Nazarius, he cured all the maladies which the six years’ savage tyranny of Maxentius had brought upon the city. He restored to their confiscated estates all who had been exiled or deprived of their property during the recent reign of terror. He shewed himself easy of approach; his ears were the most patient of listeners; he charmed all by his kindliness, dignity, and good humour. To the Senate he shewed unwonted deference. Diocletian, during his solitary visit to Rome just prior to his retirement, had treated the senators with brusqueness, and hardly concealed his contempt for their mouldy dignities. Constantine preferred to conciliate them. According to Nazarius, he invested with senatorial rank a number of representative provincials, so that the Senate once more became a dignified body in reality as well as in name, now that it consisted of the flower of the whole world.[[50]] Probably this signifies little more than that Constantine filled up the vacancies with respectable nominees, spoke the Senate fair, and swore to maintain its ancient rights and privileges. The Emperor certainly entertained no such quixotic idea as that of giving the Senate a vestige of real governing power or a share in the administration of the Empire. In return for his consideration, the Senate bestowed upon him the title of Senior Augustus, and a golden statue, adorned, according to the Ninth Panegyrist (c. 25), with the attributes of a god, while all Italy subscribed for the shield and the crown.

THE ARCH OF CONSTANTINE AT ROME.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI.

The Senate also instituted games and festivals in honour of Constantine’s victory, and voted him the triumphal arch which still survives as one of the most imposing ruins of Imperial Rome and a lasting monument to the outrageous vandalism which stripped the Arch of Titus of its sculptures to grace the memorial of his successor. Under the central arch on the one side is the dedication, “To the Liberator of the City,” on the other, “To the Founder of Our Repose” (Fundatori quietis). Above stands the famous inscription[[51]] in which the Senate and people of Rome dedicate this triumphal arch to Constantine “because, at the suggestion of the divinity (instinctu divinitatis), and at the prompting of his own magnanimity, he and his army had vindicated the Republic by striking down the tyrant and all his satellites at a single blow.” “At the suggestion of the divinity!” The words lead us naturally to discuss the conversion of Constantine and the Vision of the Cross.

CHAPTER VI
THE VISION OF THE CROSS AND THE EDICT OF
MILAN

It was during the course of the successful invasion of Italy, which culminated in the battle of the Milvian Bridge and the capture of Rome, that there took place—or was said to have taken place—the famous vision of the cross, surrounded by the words, “Conquer by This,” which accompanied the triumph of Constantine’s arms. There are two main authorities for the legend, Eusebius and Lactantius, both, of course, Christians and uncompromising champions of Constantine, with whom they were in close personal contact. A third, though he makes no mention of the cross, is Nazarius, the author of the Tenth Panegyric. The variations which subsequent writers introduce into the story relate merely to details, or are obvious embroideries upon an original legend, such, for example, as the statement of Philostorgius that the words of promise around the cross were written in stars. We need not trouble, therefore, with the much later versions of Sozomen, Socrates, Gregory of Nazianzen, and Nicephorus; it will be enough to study the more or less contemporary statements of Eusebius, Lactantius, and Nazarius. And of these by far the fullest and most important is that of Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, who explicitly declares that he is repeating the story as it was told to him by Constantine himself.

Eusebius shews us the Emperor of Gaul anxiously debating within his own mind whether his forces were equal to the dangerous enterprise upon which he had embarked. Maxentius had a formidable army. He had also laboured to bring over to his side the powers of heaven and hell. Constantine’s information from Rome apprised him that Maxentius was assiduously employing all the black arts of magic and wizardry to gain the favour of the gods. And Constantine grew uneasy and apprehensive, for no one then disbelieved in the efficacy of magic, and he considered whether he might not counterbalance this undue advantage which Maxentius was obtaining by securing the protecting services of some equally potent deity. Such is the only possible meaning of Eusebius’s words, ἐννοεῖ δῆτα ὁποῖον δέοι θέον ἐπιγράψασθαι βοηθὸν—words which seem strange in the twentieth century, but were natural enough in the fourth. “He thought in his own mind what sort of god he ought to secure as ally.” And then, says his biographer, the idea occurred to him that though his predecessors in the purple had believed in a multiplicity of gods, the great majority of them had perished miserably. The gods, at whose altars they had offered rich sacrifice and plenteous libation, had deserted them in their hour of trouble, and had looked on unmoved while they and their families were exterminated from off the face of the earth, leaving scarcely so much as a name or a recollection behind them. The gods had cheated them and lured them to their doom with suave promises of treacherous oracles. Whereas, on the other hand, his father, Constantius, had believed in but one god, and had marvellously prospered throughout his life, helped and protected by this single deity who had showered every blessing upon his head. From such a contrast, what other deduction could be drawn than that the god of Constantius was the deity for Constantius’s son to honour? Constantine resolved that it would be folly to waste time or thought upon deities who were of no account (περὶ τούς μηδὲν ὄντας θεοὺς). He would worship no other god than the god of his father.