Following the Carnuntum conference, as it is named and which we dealt with towards the end of the previous volume, there followed three years of tension in the West (and indeed in the East, though that is not the focus of our tale). The retirement, both voluntary and forced, of the former Augusti left a dangerously unstable world with a pack of claimants loosely bound by a system that was already in a state of collapse. Galerius and Daia in the East could follow the Tetrarchic system well enough, but unfortunately the West had three claimants, each to the title of Augustus with no junior Caesar. Constantine held the north, Maxentius the south, and Licinius loitered on the eastern borders seeking advantage wherever he could.
The world this created could hardly be considered stable. In the northern regions the tribes hovering on the periphery pushed and picked at the Rhine borders, forcing Constantine to tend to them repeatedly, yet due to their changing attitudes to Rome and the spread of Christianity in the region they conversely also supplied Constantine’s world with a ready force of manpower for both military and agricultural matters. In addition to constant tribal difficulties, and the ever-worrying presence of hostile emperors in the East, and rival claimants both to the south and in the central regions, Constantine also faced difficulties caused by his father-in-law Maximian, whose forced retirement had clearly rankled and who had spent the time since then brooding and planning a return to power. Having failed to do so at his son’s court in Rome, he had fled to Constantine’s lands and attempted to take power there.
In the south, Maxentius faced his own difficulties, juggling financial and social issues and walking a fine line between different potential disasters. The end of the Christian Persecutions did not herald the era of peace one might expect, but rather left the strong young sect with freedom to cause more and more trouble, mostly among themselves, but with effects that spilled over into the wider landscape. Adding to this the revolt in Africa, which must have proved considerably more difficult to put down than expected due to the sheer length of time involved, the southern claimant was largely too wrapped up in his own troubles to spend much time worrying about his opponents elsewhere.
The death of Galerius remains one of the most startling and gruesomely described demises in ancient history – thought to be a form of cancer that ‘devoured his genitals’. But beyond the death itself, the ramifications of the passing of the main player in the surviving Tetrarchy threw out what remaining political balance there was, and left the claimants with little choice but conflict. Galerius’ presence must have been an oddly unifying force, since he remained the most powerful enemy of both Constantine and Maxentius, and his absence would leave them without a major mutual enemy (Licinius being much less powerful than his master). The old emperor died in agony in his palace at Felix Romuliana (which still exists). The visits by Constantine and Maxentius and their meeting at the palace are our own creation and not attested in sources, though such things are entirely possible as the terminally ill emperor languished there for some time and there are hints that he was preparing himself to face what came next.
Thus the political, military and social landscapes of the West were somewhat in turmoil throughout those years. It is into this cauldron of troubles we have thrown our characters, attempting to guide them within the bounds of known and accepted history while attempting to divine the truth of their actions and motivations with the heavy application of logic and common sense and a touch of adventure and derring-do.
Maxentius from 308 to 312 AD faced immense difficulties. Sources paint a picture of a man who was no friend to Christianity, but then the sources are almost uniformly Christian, and are therefore clearly biased towards Constantine, and were bound to damn his opposition. Tellingly, they are equally derogatory of Galerius and Licinius. From the early fourth century comes a peculiar anecdote involving the martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, which is fanciful to say the least and we have discounted it, excluding it from our tale. Yet despite the view the Christian writers paint of him, the facts show something different. Maxentius allowed the Christians to elect a Pope after the banning of the institution under his predecessor. He returned the Church’s property, ultimately contributing to his own downfall. And in his retinue were men of power who worshipped as Christians. Strange as it may seem, the humorous sequence of events described here, with Pope after Pope failing to solve the problems and being exiled by Maxentius, is based upon historical fact.
The African expedition is interesting. History tells us very little about what happened other than that Maxentius sent Volusianus and Zenas to deal with the usurper there. Most of the detail of these events, therefore, are our own interpretations, down even to the locations of the major action. There is no reference to Maxentius being there at all, though for the sake of our tale and the continued points of view of the protagonists, his presence was the only way for us to adequately relay the importance of the rebellion and its resolution.
On a side note, since the removal of Anullinus’s brother Gaius from his position in 307, we have had Zenas in overall command of the Urban Cohorts. A full list of the prefects who actually commanded that force between 306 and 312 is available, and numbers eight people. We have chosen to leave Zenas in control, however, rather than introduce a series of characters who would have little bearing upon the plot and would vastly increase and complicate the cast list.
Without a doubt, the most important event during this time in the personal life of Maxentius was the death of his son, Romulus. The young man’s tomb at his father’s villa is still visible beside the Via Appia, south of Rome and next to the circus that Maxentius built. The precise cause of Romulus’ death remains unknown, though it is recorded that he drowned in the Tiber. The effect of his death upon his father might be expected by the reader anyway, but it is made clear by the grand monuments dedicated to him (the mausoleum, the temple in the forum, the statue voted by the Governor of Sardinia) and by the young man’s deification and commemoration on coins. How Maxentius dealt with this issue remains unknown, though he went on ruling his empire and facing off against men likely more powerful than he, so he must have found a reservoir of inner strength from somewhere. We have made this a Christian advisor in the form of Miltiades, Rome’s 32nd Pope and the last Maxentius would meet. Miltiades was a native North African of Berber descent, a Christian, and a Roman citizen, an interesting combination that fits into our tale like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle.
Lastly, the sequence of events that led to Maxentius’ downfall is to some extent an echo of what is widely regarded as the decline of the Roman Empire. With an increasing shortage of funds compounded by religious unrest, crumbling borders, the inclusion of neighbouring tribes, endless usurpations and rivals, there was little Maxentius could do to halt the snowballing troubles. By the end of 311 he was, as they say, robbing Peter to pay Paul, and something would have to give. It did in spectacular fashion with the deaths of thousands of Roman citizens at the point of Praetorian blades, one of the darkest moments of Maxentius’ reign and the apex of his troubles. While we have laid the blame for this, like other matters, at the feet of Volusianus, history attributes the massacre to Maxentius, adding to his notoriety.
Whatever the truth, Maxentius’ world was truly crumbling by the dawn of 312, and he was now faced with the greatest threat of all: Constantine.
Constantine, like his southern rival, found no shortage of troubles in the spell between 308 and 312, a period when he was at once hailed as Augustus of the West by some and denounced as a false emperor of ignoble lineage by others.
Initially, his most persistent threat was not the rival Roman factions pressed against his domain of Gaul, Hispania and Britannia, but the ever-troublesome Frankish tribes who saw themselves as honour-bound to make war at every opportunity, and frequently flooded across the River Rhenus in small packs and occasionally in confederate multitudes. The Bructeri were but one of the troublesome Frankish peoples, and we have chosen them to illustrate Constantine’s policy, which emerged in these years. Rather than fighting endless battles in an unwinnable war, he opted instead to offer clemency and alliance to the tribesmen: a space on Roman soil to call their own in return for fealty and conversion to the Roman way of life. Such measures relieved the pressure on his over-raided and under-tended grain fields, allowing Roman citizens to gather harvests without threat of barbarian attacks – and for their newly settled Frankish allies to join them in these endeavours.
Ultimately, the men of such tribes – the Regii, the Cornuti, the Bructeri, the Petulantes and the Ubii – would emerge as fully-fledged Roman regiments classed – perhaps confusingly (hence our choice not to use the term) – as auxilia. But these regiments were not the sub-legionary-quality auxiliaries of previous centuries; instead they were hardy and fierce, on a par at least with their legionary equivalents and favoured by Constantine who installed them as a private ‘Comitatus’ of sorts. These auxilia forces retained their tribal names but fought in the Roman way, and sometime later would become the basis of the famed auxilium palatinum (palace regiments).
The late Roman writer Zosimus attacks Constantine’s policy of drawing many legions away from his borders (sometimes referred to as a ‘defence-in-depth’ approach). This account tends towards caricature, for the conventional legions had been splitting into smaller, ad-hoc units since Diocletian’s reign and earlier. Old-style legions of over five thousand men had by Constantine’s time proved insufficiently mobile and flexible to meet the rapidly changing threats of the fourth century. Pertinently, in an age of civil war, bolstering a central reserve could be considered as a prudent strategy.
Concerning the religious make-up of Constantine’s army: by 311, his legions were certainly not universally Christian, just as Maxentius’ were not all pagan. There were a growing number of Christians in his forces, however. It seems that in this era a ‘just war’ psyche was developed to win over doubters and allay their misgivings over violence and bloodshed.
Constantine’s vision at the broken shrine of Apollo (Apollo Grannus, to be precise) is little understood, although one outcome of the event was the divination of a thirty-year reign for him. More importantly, it seems to have moved him further down the road towards an appreciation of the power of an all-encompassing God, one which all of his subjects could genuinely believe in. It also served as a metaphor supporting his break from the now-toxic gods of the broken Tetrarchy (Jove and Hercules).
His later vision of an unnamed God, loosely identified as Mens Divina (the Divine Mind), is even less understood, but seems to have nudged him on past another milestone in his ‘journey’ – be that political or pious.
Regarding the death of Maximian: Constantine was enraged by his father-in-law’s attempted coup, but actually showed some mercy once he had regained control of matters. One version of events has it that, having stormed and retaken the city of Massilia, Constantine at first allowed the one-time Augustus a period of reprieve, only for Fausta to become entangled in some devious plot of her father’s to assassinate her husband. Ultimately, this consigned Maximian to his fate, which appears to have been death by suicide (hanging) or maybe strangulation by the hands of another.
On a side note, the siege of Massilia did actually see – as we have described – Constantine’s bungling siege engineers mis-measure the height of the city’s walls, resulting in what must have been the rather comical sight of his legionaries having to stand upon each other’s shoulder to reach the battlements.
Constantine’s clash with Licinius at Noricum is fictional, but it brings about the factual occurrence of a pact arising between the two in late 311. This was the key – maybe or maybe not the one that Constantine had been seeking – to smashing the deadlock: with Licinius backing away, Constantine could realistically consider an assault on Italia.
And it is there we shall resume in the third and final volume of our saga with a tale that became the stuff of legend… and changed the world.