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206 but of a less full and generous nature. This did not prevent him from taking advantage of the absence of Licinius to invade his territory, who had in consequence to fight Maximinus at Adrianople with a force half as large as that opposed to him. The battle was in many details like that against Maxentius—Licinius was favoured with a mysterious dream, and solemnly put his army under the protection of the God of the Christians, and on the morning of the battle repeated aloud three times with his officers a prayer to the holy and supreme God (de M. P. xlvi.). After his victory he entered Nicomedia in triumph, proclaimed the edict of Milan, June 13, and then pursued Maximinus into Cilicia, where he found that last of the persecutors dying a horrible and painful death (de M. P. xlix.; Eus. H. E. ix, 10, 14). The brothers-in-law were thus raised to an equality of power, and were not likely to remain long at peace. The occasion of their quarrel is obscure. Constantine accused Licinius of fomenting a conspiracy against him. Licinius was defeated and made peace by the cession of Illyricum—i.e. of the whole peninsula of which Greece is the extremity. Constantine was not too busy during this campaign to attend to the arrangement of the council of Arles, and to interest himself vehemently in the Donatist disputes. Peace followed for nine years, during which the emperor employed himself with barbarian wars, and with legislation civil and religious, as detailed below. His Decennalia were celebrated at Rome 315, 316, and the triumphal arch dedicated. Two years later his son Crispus, now a young man, and his infant son and nephew Constantine and Licinianus, were raised to the rank of Caesar at Arles (Zos. ii. 20, etc.). His other sons by Fausta were born also in this period, Constantius in 317 and Constans in 323. Licinius meanwhile began to oppress his subjects, especially the Christians. He forbade the synods of bishops, interfered with their worship, and in many cases destroyed their churches (even Julian, Caes. p. 315, is unfavourable to Licinius). Constantine was engaged in defending his Danubian frontier from Goths and Sarmatians, and took the Sarmatian king Rausimodes prisoner (Zos. ii. 21). In some of these expeditions he had trespassed across the boundaries of Licinius, and this was the pretext for a quarrel, which was increased by the expostulations of Constantine against the treatment of the Christians, and after some changes of temper on the part of Licinius, an open rupture took place.

The character of the former war was ambiguous. This one was in great measure a religious war or crusade (Eus. H. E. x. 9). Before any conflict was fought (it was said) the subjects of Licinius thought they saw the victorious legions of Constantine marching through their streets at midday (V. C. ii. 6). The monogram of Christ was now stamped on almost all his coinage (infra, § VI.). The labarum became a talisman of victory (οἱονεί τι νικητικὸν ἀλεξιφάρμακον, V. C. ii, 7), The emperor surrounded himself with Christian priests, and believed himself favoured with visions as he prayed in the tent containing the standard of the cross, and leapt up as if inspired to victory (ib. 12). The sentiment of a divine vocation was probably a real one to him, and was fostered by the approbation of the Christians. Licinius, on the very scene of his conflict as a Christian champion with Maximinus, prepared for battle by sacrifice and worship of the gods, against whom he had then fought, and Constantine prepared by prayer and by giving the watchword Θεὸς σωτήρ (V. C. ii. 5 and 6; cf. Soz. H. E. i. 7 on the perversion of Licinius). The battle of Adrianople, July 3, 323, was a second victory for the Christian arms. Constantine pursued his opponent to Byzantium. Meanwhile Crispus, who had already won his youthful laurels against the Franks, shewed himself most active in command of the fleet, and defeated the admiral Amandus in the Hellespont. This caused Licinius to quit Byzantium for Chalcedon, where he appointed one of his chief officers, Martinianus, as Caesar. Constantine pursued him, and on Sept. 10, after some negotiations, achieved a final victory at Chrysopolis. Licinius, on the entreaty of Constantia, was permitted to retire to Thessalonica; but was not allowed to live above a year longer. Socrates relates that after remaining quiet a short time, "he collected some barbarians, and attempted to repair his defeat" (H. E. i. 4; so Zonaras and Niceph. Call.), and Eusebius justifies his execution by the law of war (V. C. ii. 19). Zosimus and the heathen historians make it an instance of the emperor's faithlessness (Zos. ii. 28; Victor, Epit. l.c.; Eutrop. Brev. x. 6), as does also the chronicle of Jerome (ann. 2339. "Licinius Thessalonicae contra jus sacramenti privatus occiditur"). Yet apparently Constantia did not resent the execution of her husband, nor Fausta the death of her father. Constantine was thus master of the whole empire, and his first act was to issue edicts of toleration and favour to the Christians of the East (V. C. ii. 24 seq., cited as Provincialibus Palestinae and 48 seq. Prov. Orientis). He now specially assumed the title of Victor (νικήτης) (V. C. ii. 19). He had won it by his constant successes against barbarians on the Rhine and Danube and rival emperors from the Tiber to the Bosphorus: his twenty years of empire had brought him from London in the far West to Byzantium, the centre of the Eastern world, and had been years of uninterrupted conquest. He was not unthankful to the Providence which had guided him, nor indisposed to acknowledge that something was due from him in return (Prov. Pal. V. C. ii. 28, 29). But his progress had not led him to a victory over himself, or rather his success made him forget his own liability to crime.

Period iii. 324‒337. Constantine sole emperor.—The history of the last twelve years of Constantine's reign is of a very different character from that of preceding periods. As sole emperor he loses rather than gains in our estimation. He had no longer a religious cause to fight for nor a dangerous rival to overthrow. The hardness of his character fitted him for a life of strong excitement, but not for the intrigues of an Eastern court and the subtle questions of Eastern theology. His immoderate profusion in building and other expensive operations gained him the name of 