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Treves, Milan, Aquileia, Sirmium, Naissus, and Thessalonica, were the occasional places of his residence, till he founded a new Rome on the confines of Europe and Asia. Before Constantine marched into Italy, he had secured the friendship, or at least the neutrality, of Licinius, the Illyrian emperor.
As the recall of the exiles was only due to Western pressure, the death of Constans cleared the way for further operations. Marcellus and Photinus were again deposed by a council held at Sirmium in 351. Ancyra was restored to Basil, Sirmium given to Germinius of Cyzicus. Other Eastern bishops were also expelled, but there was no thought of disturbing Athanasius for the present.
But the memory of Constantine was still a power which could set up emperors and pull them down. The old general Vetranio at Sirmium received the purple from Constantine's daughter, and Nepotianus claimed it at Rome as Constantine's nephew. The Magnentian generals scattered the gladiators of Nepotianus, and disgraced their easy victory with slaughter and proscription.
Disappointed in their attempts against the walls of Sirmium, the indignant Barbarians turned their arms against the master general of the frontier, to whom they unjustly attributed the murder of their king. Equitius could bring into the field no more than two legions; but they contained the veteran strength of the Mæsian and Pannonian bands.
The pestilence which swept away such numbers of the barbarians, at length proved fatal to their conqueror. After a short but glorious reign of two years, Claudius expired at Sirmium, amidst the tears and acclamations of his subjects.
In the language of a Barbarian, without guile, the prince of the Avars affected to complain of the insincerity of the Greeks; yet he was not inferior to the most civilized nations in the refinement of dissimulation and perfidy. As the successor of the Lombards, the chagan asserted his claim to the important city of Sirmium, the ancient bulwark of the Illyrian provinces.
He, too, fancied that all external enemies were subdued forever, and that Rome should henceforth rejoice in eternal peace. But scarcely had the pæans of victory been sung by a triumphant and infatuated people, when he was assassinated in a mutiny of his own troops, whom he had compelled to labor in draining the marshes around Sirmium, A.D. 282.
But these slight obstacles were instantly swept away by the inundation of the Huns. They destroyed, with fire and sword, the populous cities of Sirmium and Singidunum, of Ratiaria and Marcianopolis, of Naissus and Sardica; where every circumstance of the discipline of the people, and the construction of the buildings, had been gradually adapted to the sole purpose of defence.
On some work of this nature the army happened to be employed near Sirmium, and Probus was looking on from a tower, when a sudden frenzy of disobedience seized upon the men: a party of the mutineers ran up to the emperor, and with a hundred wounds laid him instantly dead.
A new creed was also to be drawn up before their meeting and laid before them for acceptance. The 'Dated Creed' was drawn up at Sirmium on Pentecost Eve 359, by a small meeting of Homoean and Semiarian leaders.
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