A. 6.—When Constantius thus became Caesar of the West, his first task was to restore Britain to the Imperial system. He was already, it seems, connected with the island, and had married a British lady named Helen.[[325]] Their son Constantine, a youth of special promise (according to the panegyrists), had been born at York, about A.D. 274, and now appeared on the scene to aid his father's operations with supernatural speed, [223] "quasi divino quodam curriculo."[[326]] Extraordinary celerity, indeed, marked all these operations. Allectus was on his guard, with one squadron at Boulogne to sweep the coast of Gaul, and another cruising in the Channel. By a sudden dash Constantius [in A.D. 296] seized the mouth of Boulogne harbour, threw a boom across it, "defixis in aditu trabibus," and effectually barred the pirates from access to the sea.[[327]] Meanwhile the fleet which he had been building simultaneously in various Gallic ports was able to rendezvous undisturbed at Havre.
A. 7.—His men were no expert mariners like their adversaries; and, for this very reason, were ready, with their Caesar at their head, to put to sea in threatening weather, which made their better-skilled pilots hesitate. "What can we fear?" was the cry, "Caesar is with us." Dropping down the Seine with the tide on a wild and rainy morning, they set sail with a cross wind, probably from the north-east, a rare thing with ancient ships. As they neared the British coast the breeze sank to a dead calm, with a heavy mist lying on the waveless sea, in which the fleet found it impossible to keep together. One division, with Constantius himself on board, made their land-fall somewhere in the west, perhaps at Exeter, the other far to the east, possibly at Richborough.
A. 8.—But the wonderful luck which attended Constantius, and on which his panegyrists specially [224] dwell, made all turn out for the best. The mist enabled both his divisions to escape the notice of the British fleet, which was lying off the Isle of Wight on the watch for him; and the unexpected landing at two such distant points utterly demoralized the usurper. Of the large force which had been mustered for land defence, only the Frankish auxiliaries could be got together in time to meet Constantius—who, having burnt his ships (for his only hope now lay in victory), was marching, with his wonted speed, straight on London. One battle,[[328]] in which scarcely a single Roman fell on the British side, was enough; the corpse of Allectus [ipse vexillarius latrocinii] was found, stripped of the Imperial insignia, amongst the heaps of slain barbarians, and the routed Franks fled to London. Here, while they were engaged in sacking the city before evacuating it, they were set upon by the eastern division of the Roman army (under Asclepiodotus the Praetorian Prefect)[[329]] and slaughtered almost to a man. The rescued metropolis eagerly welcomed its deliverers, and the example was followed by the rest of Britain; the more readily that the few surviving Franks were distributed throughout the land to perish in the provincial amphitheatres.
A. 9.—The Diocletian system was now introduced; [225] and, instead of Hadrian's old divisions of Upper and Lower Britain, the island south of his Wall was distributed into four Provinces, "Britannia Prima," "Britannia Secunda," "Maxima Caesariensis," and "Flavia Caesariensis." That the Thames, the Severn, and the Humber formed the frontier lines between these new divisions is probable. But their identification, in the current maps of Roman Britain, with the later Wessex, Wales, Northumbria, and Mercia (with East Anglia), respectively, is purely conjectural.[[330]] All that we know is that when the district between Hadrian's Wall and Agricola's Rampart was reconquered in 369, it was made a fifth British Province under the name Valentia. The Governor of each Province exercised his functions under the "Vicar" of the "Diocese," an official of "Respectable" rank—the second in precedence of the Diocletian hierarchy (exclusive of the Imperial Family).
A. 10.—With the Diocletian administration necessarily came the Diocletian Persecution—an essential feature of the situation. There is no reason to imagine that the great reforming Emperor had, like his colleague Maximian, any personal hatred for Christianity. But Christianity was not among the religiones licitae of the Empire. Over and over again it had been pronounced [226] by Imperial Rescript unlawful. This being so, Diocletian saw in its toleration merely one of those corruptions of lax government which it was his special mission to sweep away, and proceeded to deal with it as with any other abuse,—to be put down with whole-hearted vigour and rigour.
A. 11.—The Faith had by this time everywhere become so widespread that the good-will of its professors was a political power to be reckoned with. Few of the passing Pretenders of the Era of Confusion had dared to despise it, some had even courted it; and thus throughout the Empire the Christian hierarchy had been established, and Christian churches been built everywhere; while Christians swarmed in every department of the Imperial service,—their neglect of the official worship winked at, while they, in turn, were not vigorous in rebuking the idolatry of their heathen fellow-servants. Now all was changed. The sacred edifices were thrown down, or (as in the famous case of St. Clement's at Rome) made over for heathen worship, the sacred books and vessels destroyed, and every citizen, however humble, had to produce a libellus,[[331]] or magisterial certificate, testifying that he had formally done homage to the Gods of the State, by burning incense at their shrines, by pouring libations in their name, and by partaking of the victims sacrificed upon their altars. Torture and death were the lot of all recusants; and to the noble army of martyrs who now sealed their testimony with [227] their blood Britain is said (by Gildas) to have contributed a contingent of no fewer than seventeen thousand, headed by St. Alban at Verulam.
A. 12.—So thorough-going a persecution the Church had never known. But it came too late for Diocletian's purpose; and it was probably the latent consciousness of his failure that impelled him, in 305, to resign the purple and retire to his cabbage-garden at Dyrrhachium. Maximian found himself unwillingly obliged to retire likewise; and the two Caesars, Galerius and Constantius, became, by the operation of the new constitution, ipso facto Augusti.
A. 13.—But already the mutual jealousy and distrust in which that constitution was so soon to perish began to manifest themselves. Galerius, though properly only Emperor of the East, seized on Rome, and with it on the person of the young Constantine, whom he hoped to keep as hostage for his father's submission. The youth, however, contrived to flee, and post down to join Constantius in Gaul, slaughtering every stud of relays along the entire road to delay his pursuers. Both father and son at once sailed for Britain, where the former shortly died, like Severus, at York. With their arrival the persecution promptly ceased;[[332]] for Helena, at least, was an ardent Christian, and her husband well-affected to the Faith. Yet, on his death, he was, like his predecessors, proclaimed Divus; the last formal bestowal of that title being thus, like the first,[[333]] specially connected with Britain. [228] Constantius was buried, according to Nennius,[[334]] at Segontium, wherever that may have been; and Constantine, though not yet even a Caesar, was at once proclaimed by the soldiers (at his native York) Augustus in his father's room.
A. 14.—This was the signal for a whole outburst of similar proclamations all over the Roman world, Licinius, Constantine's brother-in-law, declared himself Emperor at Carnutum, Maxentius, son of Maximian and son-in-law of Galerius, in Rome, Severus in the Illyrian provinces, and Maximin (who had been a Caesar) in Syria. Galerius still reigned, and even Maximian revoked his resignation and appeared once more as Augustus. But one by one this medley of Pretenders swept each other away, and the survival of the fittest was exemplified by the final victory of Constantine over them all. For a few years he bided his time, and then, at the head of the British army, marched on Rome. Clear-sighted enough to perceive that events were irresistibly tending to the triumph of Christianity, he declared himself the champion of the Faith; and it was not under the Roman Eagle, but the Banner of Christ,[[335]] that his soldiers fought and [229] won. Coins of his found in Britain, bearing the Sacred Monogram which led his men to the crowning victory of 312 at the Milvian Bridge (the intertwined letters Χ [Chi] and Ρ [Rho] between Α [Alpha] and Ω [Omega], the whole forming the word ΧΡΑΩ [ARChÔ], "I reign"), with the motto Hoc Signo Victor Eris, testify to the special part taken by our country in the establishment of our Faith as the officially recognized religion of Rome,—that is to say, of the whole civilized world. And henceforward, as long as Britain remained Roman at all, it was a monarch of British connection who occupied the Imperial throne. The dynasties of Constantius, Valentinian, and Theodosius, who between them (with the brief interlude of the reign of Julian) fill the next 150 years (300-450), were all markedly associated with our island. So, indeed, was Julian also.