Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 1 1911.djvu/40

8 After some difficult manoeuvres, Constantine won the first battle (3 July 323), but was brought to a stop before the walls of Byzantium. Licinius was safe there, so long as he held the sea; so he chose Martinianus his magister officiorum for the new Augustus of the West. Meanwhile Constantine strengthened his fleet, and his son Crispus completely defeated Amandus in the Hellespont. Licinius left Byzantium to defend itself—it had held out two years against Severus—and prepared to maintain the Asiatic shore. Constantine left Byzantium on one side and landed near Chrysopolis, where he found the whole army of Licinius drawn up to meet him. The battle of Chrysopolis (18 or 20 Sept. 323) was decisive. Licinius fled to Nicomedia, and presently Constantia came out to ask for her husband's life. It was granted, and Constantine confirmed his promise with an oath. Nevertheless Licinius was put to death in October 325 on a charge of treasonable intrigue. The charge is unlikely but Licinius was quite capable of it, and his execution does not seem to have estranged Constantia from her brother. But perhaps the matter is best connected with the family tragedy which we shall come to presently.

As a general, Constantine ranks high among the emperors. Good soldiers as they mostly were, none but Severus and Aurelian could boast of any such career of victory as had brought Constantine from the shores of Britain to the banks of the Tiber and the walls of Byzantium. But after the "crowning mercy" of Chrysopolis there was no more fighting, except with the Goths. The last fourteen years of Constantine (329-337) were years of peace: and the first question which then confronted him was the question of religion. By what road did he approach Christianity, and how far did he come on the journey?

Two fables may be dismissed at once the heathen fable told by Zosimus in the fifth century, that the Christians were complaisant when the philosophers refused to absolve him for the murder of his son Crispus; and the papal fable of the eighth century, that he was healed of leprosy by Pope Sylvester, and thereupon gave him dominion over "the palace, the city of Rome, and the entire West." These legends are summarily refuted by the fact that he was baptised in 337, not as they tell us in 326. Turning now to history, we have no reason to suppose that he owed Christian impressions to his mother's teaching : but Constantius was an eclectic of the better sort, and a man of some culture; and his memory contrasted well with that of his colleagues. Constantine seems to have begun where his father left off, as more or less monotheistic and averse to idols, and more or less friendly to the Christians; and all these things grew upon him. The last of them may not have meant much at first, for even hostile emperors like Severus and Diocletian had sense enough to keep on good terms with the Christians when they were not prepared to crush them. But Constantine was drawn to them personally as well as politically; by his pure life and