Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/63

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 45 with the new Caesar, to irritate his discontents, and to CHA P. urge him to the rash enterprise of extorting by vio- ^^^ ' lence what he might in vain sohcit from the justice of Constantine. But the vigilant emperor discovered the conspiracy before it was ripe for execution; and, after solemnly renouncing the alliance of Bassianus, despoiled him of the purple, and inflicted the deserved punish- ment on his treason and ingratitude. The haughty refusal of Licinius, when he was required to deliver up the criminals, who had taken refuge in his dominions, confirmed the suspicions already entertained of his perfidy; and the indignities offered at iEmona, on the frontiers of Italy, to the statues of Constantine, became the signal of discord between the two princes'. The first battle was fought near Cibalis, a city of First civil Pannonia, situated on the river Save, about fifty miles tweenVhem above Sirmium*. From the inconsiderable forces which i|^"'^ ^^ in this important contest two such powerful monarchs a.d. 315. brought into the field, it may be inferred, that the one ^^^- ^■ was suddenly provoked, and that the other was unex- pectedly surprised. The emperor of the west had onlv twenty thousand, and the sovereign of the east no more than five and thirty thousand men. The in- feriority of number was however compensated by the advantage of the ground. Constantine had taken post in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a steep hill and a deep morass ; and in that situation he steadily expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued his success, and advanced into the plain. But the veteran legions of Illyricum rallied under the standard of a leader who had been trained to arms in » The situation of .Emona, or, as it is now called, Laybach, in Carniola, (d'Anville, Geograpliie Ancienne, torn. i. p. 187.) may suggest a conjec- ture. As it lay to the north-east of the Julian Alps, that important territory became a natural object of dispute between the sovereigns of Italy and of Illyricum. « Cibalis or Cibalae (whose name is still preserved in the obscure ruins of Swilei) was situated about fifty miles from Sirmium, the capital of Illyricum, and about one hundred from Taurunum, or Belgrade, and the conflux of the Danube and the Save. The Roman garrisons and cities on those rivers are finely illustrated by M. d'Anville, in a memoir inserted in I'Academie des Inscriptions, torn, xxviii.