294 
The Empire. 
R O M E. 
torture of pouring down their throats a quantity of melted 
lead. As the crime was of a public kind, the accusation 
was permitted even to strangers. The commencement of 
the action was not limited to any term of years, and the 
consequences of the sentence were extended to the inno¬ 
cent offspring of such an irregular union. But whenever 
the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the 
rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common 
feelings of mankind. The most odious parts of this edict were 
softened or repealed in the subsequent reigns; and even 
Constantine himself very frequently alleviated, by partial 
acts of mercy, the stern temper of his general institu¬ 
tions. 
The conquest of a large portion of Dacia from the Goths, 
and the condition of furnishing him with an auxiliary force 
of 40,000 men, which he forced them to submit to, en¬ 
abled Constantine to usurp from his colleague, the entire sove¬ 
reignty of the Roman state. The advanced age and slothful 
vices of Licinius seemed to render him a very easy conquest. 
But the old emperor, awakened by the approaching danger, 
deceived the expectations of his friends, as well as of his ene¬ 
mies. Calling forth that spirit and those abilities by which 
he had deserved the friendship of Galerius and the Imperial 
purple, he collected the forces of the East, and soon filled the 
plains of Adrianople with his troops, and the straits of the 
Hellespont with his fleet. The army consisted of one hundred 
and fifty-thousand foot, and fifteen thousand horse. The fleet 
was composed of three hundred and fifty galleys of three ranks of 
oars. The troops of Constantine were ordered to rendezvous 
at Thessalonica; they only amounted to one hundred and 
twenty thousand horse and foot; but he was satisfied with 
their martial appearance, and that his army contained more 
soldiers, though fewer men, than that of his eastern 
competitor. They had been levied in the warlike pro¬ 
vinces of Europe: action had confirmed their discipline, 
victory had elevated their hopes, and there were among them 
a great number of veterans, who, after seventeen glorious 
campaigns under the same leader, prepared themselves to 
deserve an honourable dismission by a last effort of their 
valour. But the naval preparations of Constantine were in 
every respect much inferior to those of Licinius; and if the 
eastern emperor, who possessed so great a superiority at sea, 
had seized the opportunity of carrying an offensive war into 
the centre of his rival’s dominions, the event might have 
been far otherwise. 
Instead of embracing such an active resolution, the pru¬ 
dent Licinius expected the approach of his rival in a camp 
near Adrianople, which he had fortified with an anxious 
care that betrayed his apprehension of the event. Many 
days were spent in doubtful and distant skirmishes; but at 
length the obstacles of the passage and of the attack were 
removed by the intrepid conduct of Constantine. A body 
of five thousand archers marched round to occupy a thick 
wood in the rear of the enemy, 'whose attention was diverted 
by the construction of a bridge, and Licinius, perplexed by 
so many artful evolutions, was reluctantly drawn from his 
advantageous post to combat on equal ground in the plain. 
The contest was no longer equal. His confused multitude 
of new levies was easily vanquished by the experienced vete¬ 
rans of the west. Thirty-four thousand men are reported to 
have been slain. The fortified camp of Licinius was taken 
by assault the evening of the battle; the greater part of the 
fugitives, who had retired to the mountains, surrendered them¬ 
selves next day to the discretion of the conqueror; and his 
rival, who could no louger keep the field, confined himself 
within the walls of Byzantium. Here, after his fleet had been 
destroyed by Crispus,thesonofConstantine, Licinius defended 
himself for some time, but was at length obliged to remove 
his person and treasures to Calcedon in Asia; and as he was 
always desirous of associating companions to the hopes and 
dangers of his fortune, he now bestowed the title of Caesar on 
Martinianus, who exercised one of the most important offices 
of the empire. 
Such were still the resources, and such the abilities, of 
Licinius, that after so many successive defeats, he collected 
The Empire. 
in Bithynia a new army of fifty or sixty thousand men. 
These troops, though they were lately raised, ill armed, and 
worse disciplined, made head against their conquerors with 
fruitless but desperate valour, till a total defeat, and the 
slaughter of five and twenty thousand men, irretrievably 
determined the fate of their leader. He retired to Nicomedia, 
rather with a view of gaining some time for negociation, than 
with the hope of any effectual defence. Constantia, his 
wife and the sister of Constantine, interceded with her 
brother in favour of her husband, and obtained from his 
policy rather than from his compassion, a solemn promise, 
confirmed by an oath, that after the sacrifice of Martinianus, 
and the resignation of the purple, Licinius himself should be 
permitted to pass the remainder of his life in peace and 
affluence’. Licinius solicited and accepted the pardon of his 
offences, laid himself and his purple at the feet of his lord and 
master, was raised from the ground with insulting pity, 
was admitted the same day to the Imperial banquet, 
was sent away to Thessalonica, which had been chosen 
for the place of his confinement, and soon after on some 
pretence was executed. By this victory of Constantine, 
the Roman world was again united under the authority of one 
emperor, thirty-seven years after Dioclesian had divided his 
power and provinces with his associate Maximian. 
The successive steps of the elevation of Constantine, from 
his first assuming the purple at York, to the resignation of 
Licinius at Nicomedia, have been related with some minute¬ 
ness and precision, not only as the events are in themselves 
both interesting and important, but still more as they con¬ 
tribute to the decline of the empire by the expense of blood 
and treasure, and by the perpetual increase, as well of the 
taxes, as of the military establishment. The establishment 
of the Christian religion, and the foundation of Constanti¬ 
nople, were the immediate and memorable consequences of 
this revolution. 
In considering the former of these events, our attention is 
naturally directed to a retrospective view of the state of the 
Christian population during the empire of Rome. The per¬ 
secutions instituted against the primitive believers by Ti¬ 
berius and Nero, and their successors, have already received 
our notice. It seems that these persecutions were rather dic¬ 
tated by considerations of political expediency than by 
bigotry or malevolence; since we find the mild Antoninus 
as vigorous in enforcing Christian persecutions as the worst 
of the emperors. Gibbon, iowever, has shewn that the 
liberal spirit of the philosophical Romans was very much ex¬ 
erted in favour of toleration ; that the pagans bore from the 
new religionists a series of insults never before equalled; 
that the persecutors never sought out victims, but were con¬ 
tented with those who ostentatiously protruded their opinions 
into notice; and that of these but few were actually exe¬ 
cuted. So that amidst the frequent revolutions of the empire, 
the Christians still flourished in peace and prosperity; and 
notwithstanding a celebrated sera of martyrs has been de¬ 
duced from the accession of Dioclesian ; the new system 
of policy introduced and maintained by the wisdom of that 
prince, continued, during more than eighteen years, to 
breathe the mildest and most liberal spirit of religious tolera¬ 
tion. But although the policy of Dioclesian inclined him to 
preserve inviolate the maxims of toleration, it was soon 
discovered that his two associates, Maximian and Galerius, 
entertained the most implacable aversion for the name and 
religion of the Christians. 
After the success of the Persian war had raised the hopes 
and the reputation of the latter, he passed a winter with 
Dioclesian in the palace of Nicomedia; and the fate of Chris¬ 
tianity became the object of their secret consultations. The 
experienced emperor was still inclined to pursue measures of 
lenity; and though he readily consented to exclude the 
Christians from holding any employments in the household 
or the army, he urged, in the strongest terms, the danger as 
well as cruelty of shedding the blood of those deluded 
fanatics. Galerius at length extorted from him the permission ‘ 
of summoning a council, composed of a few persons the 
most distinguished in the civil and military departments of 
