Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/45

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 27 sents ami promises, would desert the standard of that ClIAr. prince, and unanimously declare themselves his soldiers ^^^' and subjects ^ Constantine no longer hesitated. lie had deliberated with caution, he acted with viffour. He gave a })rivate audience to the and)assadors, who, in the name of the senate and people, conjured him to deliver Rome from a detested tyrant; and, without regarding the timid remonstrances of his council, he resolved to prevent the enemy, and to carry the war into the heart of Italy''. The enterprise was as full of danger as of glory ; Prepara- and the unsuccessful event of two former invasions ''°°*' was sufficient to inspire the most serious apprehen- sions. The veteran troops, who revered the name of Maximian, had embraced in both those wars the party of his son, and were now restrained by a sense of honour, as well as of interest, from entertaining an idea of a second desertion. Maxentius, who consi- dered the pretorian guards as the firmest defence of his throne, had increased them to their ancient estab- lishment; and they composed, including the rest of the Italians who were enlisted into his service, a for- midable body of fourscore thousand men. Forty thou- sand Moors and Carthaginians had been raised since the reduction of Africa. Even Sicily furnished its proportion of troops ; and the armies of Maxentius amounted to one hundred and seventy thousand foot and eighteen thousand horse. The wealth of Italy supplied the expenses of the war ; and the adjacent provinces were exhausted, to form immense magazines of corn and every other kind of provisions. The whole force of Constantine consisted of ninety thousand foot c Zosimus, l.ii.p. 84, 85; azarius in Panegyr. x. 7 — 13. <• See Panej(yr. Vet. ix. 2. Omnibus fere tuis comitibus et ducibus non solum tacite mussantibus, sed etiam aperle timentibus ; contra consilia ho- minum, contra haruspicum monita, ipse per teraet liberandae urbis tempus venisse sentires. The embassy of the Romans is mentioned only by Zona- ras, (1. xiii.) and by Cedrenus, (in Compend. Hist. p. 270 ;) but those mo- dern Greeks had the opportunity of consulting many writers which have since been lost, among which we may reckon the life of Constantine by Praxaforas. Photius (p. 63.) has made a short extract from that his- torical work.