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Constantine preferred the road of the Cottian Alps, or, as it is now called, of Mount Cenis, and led his troops with such active diligence, that he descended into the plain of Piedmont before the court of Maxentius had received any certain intelligence of his departure from the banks of the Rhine.
He resolved, therefore, to visit the district known as the Thebaid, where St. Pachomius, the father of monasticism in the East, had founded many monasteries and drawn up a rule for the monks. Pachomius had been one of a body of young soldiers seized against their will and forced to fight in the wars between Constantine and Maxentius.
The elevation of Severus to supreme power in Italy by Galerius, filled the abdicated emperor Maximian with indignation, and humiliated the Roman people. The prætorians rose against the party of Severus, who retired to Ravenna, and soon after committed suicide. The Senate assumed their old prerogative, and conferred the purple on Maxentius, the son of Maximilian.
The facts, therefore, may have been these: Before the battle, Constantine, leaning already toward Christianity as probably the beat and most hopeful of the various religions, seriously sought in prayer, as he related to Eusebius, the assistance of the God of the Christians, while his heathen antagonist, Maxentius, according to Zosimus, was consulting the sibylline books and offering sacrifice to the idols.
For Maxentius, the son-in-law of Galerius Maximianus, being indignant that Galerius should prefer Severus before him, and invest him with imperial power, himself assumed the purple, and took his father, Maximianus Herculius, for his colleague in the empire. In the midst of these commotions Constantine, beyond all expectation, made his way to the imperial throne.
Maximian crossed the Alps in person, won over Constantine to his party, and gave him his daughter, Fausta, in marriage, and conferred upon him the rank of Augustus; so, in the West, Maxentius and Constantine affected to be subordinate to Maximian; while, in the East, Licinius and Maximin obeyed the orders of their benefactor, Galerius.
We may observe, that in this last effort to preserve their expiring freedom, the Romans, from the apprehension of a tribute, had raised Maxentius to the throne. He exacted that tribute from the senate under the name of a free gift. They implored the assistance of Constantine. He vanquished the tyrant, and converted the free gift into a perpetual tax.
In its own sphere of everyday life, it was an epoch of growth in many directions. Even the arts moved forward. Sculpture was enriched by a new and noble style of portraiture. Architecture won new possibilities by the engineering genius which reared the aqueduct of Segovia and the Basilica of Maxentius. But these are only practical expansions of arts that are in themselves unpractical.
About this time Constantine himself was converted to the new religion. In his march against Maxentius, it is declared by Eusebius, that he saw at noonday a cross in the heavens, inscribed with the words, “By this conquer.” It is also asserted that the vision of the cross was seen by the whole army, and the cross henceforth became the standard of the Christian emperors.
While Constantine signalized his conduct and valor in the field, the sovereign of Italy appeared insensible of the calamities and danger of a civil war which reigned in the heart of his dominions. Pleasure was still the only business of Maxentius.
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