So, when Constantius had died in Britain, as I said, Constantine was made emperor, the first of the emperors to be a Christian — with the exception of Philip, who, a Christian for only a very few years, seems to me to have been appointed solely for this purpose: that the thousandth year of Rome should be dedicated to Christ rather than to idols.
1 Igitur mortuo, ut dixi, Constantio in Britanniis Constantinus imperator creatus, primus imperatorum Christianus excepto Philippo, qui Christianus annis admodum paucissimis ad hoc tantum constitutus fuisse mihi uisus est, ut millesimus Romae annus Christo potius quam idolis dicaretur.
From Constantine onward, however, all the emperors made down to the present day have been Christians, except Julian, whose deadly life, as they say, deserted him while he was plotting impious things.
2 a Constantino autem omnes semper Christiani imperatores usque in hodiernum diem creati sunt excepto Iuliano, quem impia, ut aiunt, machinantem exitiabilis uita deseruit.
This is that slow but sure punishment of the pagans: from this the sane go mad; from this the unwounded are pierced; from this those who laugh groan; from this the living waste away; from this those whom no one persecutes are tortured in secret; from this very few of them now remain, though they were never punished by any persecutor.
3 haec est lenta illa paganorum poena sed certa; hinc sani insaniunt, hinc non uulnerati conpunguntur, hinc ridentes gemunt, hinc uiuentes deficiunt, hinc secreto excruciantur, quos nemo persequitur, hinc iam paucissimi remanserunt, qui numquam aliquo persequente puniti sunt.
Nevertheless I shall set out what kind of end then awaited those persecutors, about whose freedom from punishment they try not only to boast but even to taunt us.
4 uerumtamen qualis tunc persecutores illos, de quorum impunitate non solum gloriari sed etiam insultare conantur, finis mansit, expediam.
While Constantine was administering the commonwealth most vigorously in the Gallic provinces, the praetorian soldiers at Rome proclaimed as Augustus Maxentius, the son of Herculius, who was living as a private man in Lucania.
5 Constantino in Galliis strenuissime rempublicam procurante praetoriani milites Romae Maxentium filium Herculii, qui priuatus in Lucania morabatur, Augustum nuncupauerunt.
Maximian Herculius, now a private man after being Augustus, and still a public persecutor, was tempted by the opportunity his son offered; and he who had cast aside the imperial power seized a tyranny.
6 Maximianus Herculius, iam ex Augusto priuatus et adhuc publicus persecutor, occasione filii sollicitatus, qui imperium abiecerat, arripuit tyrannidem.
Galerius Augustus sent Severus Caesar with an army to Rome against Maxentius.1
7 Galerius Augustus Seuerum Caesarem aduersus Maxentium Romam cum exercitu misit.
1Severus had been raised from Caesar to Augustus on Constantius’s death in 306; Orosius, following Eutropius, still calls him Caesar.
While Severus was besieging the City, he was deserted and betrayed through the crime of his own soldiers, and, fleeing on that account, was killed at Ravenna.2
8 Seuerus cum urbem obsideret, militum suorum scelere desertus et proditus atque ex eo fugiens Rauennae interfectus est.
2Severus in fact surrendered at Ravenna (307) and was put to death some time later near Rome.
Herculius Maximian, persecutor, and from Augustus become a tyrant, tried to strip his son, now confirmed in power, of the royal robe and authority; but, openly terrified by the abuse and uproar of the soldiers, he set out for Gaul, so that, attaching himself by guile to his son-in-law Constantine, he might take the imperial power from him in the same way.
9 Herculius Maximianus, persecutor et ex Augusto tyrannus, confirmatum iam in imperio filium ueste ac potestate regia spoliare conatus, conuiciis autem ac tumultibus militum palam conterritus in Galliam profectus est, ut Constantino genero aeque dolis iunctus auferret imperium.
But, detected and betrayed by his daughter, and then put to flight, he was caught and killed at Marseille.
10 sed per filiam deprehensus et proditus, deinde in fugam uersus Massiliae oppressus et interfectus est.
Galerius, moreover, after Severus had been killed, made Licinius emperor.
11 porro Galerius occiso Seuero Licinium imperatorem creauit.
And when he himself had heaped up the persecution set in motion by Diocletian and Maximian with yet more savage edicts, and had drained the provinces of every kind of person for ten years, his chest rotted inwardly and his vital organs dissolved, so that, beyond the very horror of human misery, he even vomited up worms, and his physicians, no longer able to bear the stench, were repeatedly put to death at his command;
12 cumque persecutionem a Diocletiano et Maximiano missam ipse atrocioribus edictis adcumulauisset ac postquam per annos decem omni genere hominum exhausit prouincias, putrefacto introrsum pectore et uitalibus dissolutis, cum ultra horrorem humanae miseriae etiam uermes eructaret neque medici ultra iam foetorem ferentes crebro iussu eius occiderentur:
and when he was rebuked by one physician, who took courage from despair, and told that his punishment was the wrath of God and therefore could not be cured by physicians, he recalled the Christians from exile by edicts sent far and wide. He himself, however, unable to bear his torments, laid violent hands on his own life.3
13 a quodam medico constantiam ex desperatione sumente increpitus, iram Dei esse poenam suam atque ideo a medicis non posse curari, edictis late missis Christianos de exiliis reuocauit. ipse autem cruciatus non sustinens uim uitae suae adtulit.
3Galerius died of his disease in 311, a few days after issuing his edict of toleration; neither Lactantius nor Eusebius, who describe his end in detail, speaks of suicide.
Thus the commonwealth was then under four new princes: Constantine and Maxentius, sons of Augusti, and Licinius and Maximinus, new men.
14 ita respublica tunc sub nouis quattuor principibus fuit Constantino et Maxentio, filiis Augustorum, Licinio autem et Maximino, hominibus nouis.
Constantine granted peace to the churches ten years after they had begun to be harried by the persecutors.
15 Constantinus pacem ecclesiis post decem annos quam a persecutoribus uexabantur indulsit.
Then a civil war arose between Constantine and Maxentius. Maxentius, worn down by many battles, was finally defeated and killed at the Milvian Bridge.
16 deinde inter Constantinum et Maxentium bellum ciuile exortum est. Maxentius, saepe multis proeliis fatigatus, ultime ad pontem Muluium uictus et interfectus est.
Maximinus, the instigator and most hostile executor of the persecution of the Christians, died at Tarsus while preparing a civil war against Licinius.4
17 Maximinus, persecutionis Christianorum incentor exsecutorque infestissimus, apud Tharsum, dum ciuile bellum contra Licinium disponit, interiit.
4Maximinus Daia had already been defeated by Licinius near Adrianople in 313; he died at Tarsus a few months later while trying to renew the war.
Licinius, stirred by a sudden frenzy, ordered all Christians to be expelled from his palace. Soon war boiled up between Licinius himself and Constantine.
18 Licinius, repentina rabie suscitatus, omnes Christianos e palatio suo iussit expelli. mox bellum inter ipsum Licinium et Constantinum efferbuit.
But Constantine first defeated Licinius, his sister’s husband, in Pannonia, then crushed him at Cibalae, and, having made himself master of all Greece, at last forced Licinius, who kept rising up again in frequent wars by land and sea and kept being beaten back, to surrender;5
19 sed Constantinus Licinium, sororis suae uirum, in Pannonia primum uicit, deinde apud Cibalas oppressit uniuersaque Graecia potitus Licinium crebris bellis terra marique adsurgentem et repressum tandem ad deditionem coegit;
5Cibalae (modern Vinkovci) itself lies in Pannonia. The first war between the two was decided at Cibalae and then at Mardia in Thrace; the last (324) at Adrianople and Chrysopolis.
but, moved by the example of his father-in-law Maximian Herculius, lest Licinius should once more take up the purple he had laid down, to the ruin of the commonwealth, he ordered him to be killed as a private man —
20 sed Herculii Maximiani soceri sui motus exemplo, ne iterum depositam purpuram in perniciem reipublicae sumeret, priuatum iussit occidi;
although, now that all the agents of the wicked persecution had been destroyed, a fitting punishment was demanding this man too, in so far as he had been able to show himself a persecutor.
21 quamuis omnibus iam ministris nefariae persecutionis extinctis hunc quoque in quantum exerere potuit persecutorem digna punitio flagitaret.
Constantine’s sons Crispus and Constantine, and the young Licinius, son of Licinius Augustus and Constantine’s nephew by his sister, were made Caesars.
22 Constantini filii, Crispus et Constantinus et Licinius adulescens, Licini Augusti filius, Constantini autem ex sorore nepos, Caesares sunt creati.
In these days Arius, a presbyter of the city of Alexandria, straying from the truth of the catholic faith, established a doctrine that proved deadly to very many.
23 His diebus Arrius, Alexandrinae urbis presbyter, a ueritate fidei catholicae deuians, exitiabile plurimis dogma constituit.
As soon as he had first become, at Alexandria, known — or rather notorious — amid the confused throng of his followers and his assailants, he was driven out of the church by Alexander, then bishop of that city.
24 qui simul ut primum Alexandriae uel notus uel notatus inter confusos uulgo sectatores insectatoresque factus est, ab Alexandro, eiusdem tunc urbis episcopo, pulsus ecclesia est.
And when he went on to stir up to sedition the men whom he had led astray into error, a council of 318 bishops was held at Nicaea, a city of Bithynia, by whom the Arian doctrine was most clearly found to be deadly and wretched, and was publicly exposed and condemned.6
25 cumque homines, quos in errorem seduxerat, etiam in seditionem excitaret, apud Nicaeam urbem Bithyniae conuentus trecentorum decem et octo episcoporum factus est, per quos Arrianum dogma exitiabile et miserum esse euidentissime deprehensum, palam proditum ac reprobatum est.
6The figure of 318, which became traditional and recalls the 318 servants of Abraham (Genesis 14:14), is a later round number; Eusebius, who attended, speaks of more than 250 bishops.
But amid these things the reasons lie hidden why the emperor Constantine turned the avenging sword and the punishment destined for the ungodly even against his own kin; for he killed his son Crispus and his sister’s son Licinius. Besides this, he subdued many nations in various battles.
26 sed inter haec latent causae, cur uindicem gladium et destinatam in impios punitionem Constantinus imperator etiam in proprios egit affectus. nam Crispum filium suum et Licinium sororis filium interfecit. praeterea multas gentes diuersis proeliis subegit.
He was the first, or rather the only one, of the Roman kings to found a city bearing his own name. This city, alone free of idols, was raised by a Christian emperor, in the very short time since its founding, to such a height that it alone can rightly be equalled in beauty and power to Rome, raised up through so many centuries and so many miseries.
27 urbem nominis sui Romanorum regum uel primus uel solus instituit. quae sola expers idolorum ad hoc breuissimo tempore condita a Christiano imperatore prouecta est, ut sola Romae, tot saeculis miseriisque prouectae, forma et potentia merito possit aequari.
Then Constantine was the first to turn the tables, in a just and holy order: for he decreed by edict that the temples of the pagans be closed, without any killing of men.7
28 tum deinde primus Constantinus iusto ordine et pio uicem uertit: edicto siquidem statuit citra ullam hominum caedem paganorum templa claudi.
7Constantine despoiled and destroyed some temples but issued no general order closing them; laws ordering the temples shut came under his sons.
Soon afterwards he destroyed the most valiant and populous nations of the Goths in the very heart of barbarian soil, that is, in the region of the Sarmatians.
29 mox Gothorum fortissimas et copiosissimas gentes in ipso barbarici soli sinu, hoc est in Sarmatarum regione, deleuit.
He crushed a certain Calocaerus in Cyprus, who was aspiring to revolution. At the celebration of his thirtieth year he chose Dalmatius as Caesar.
30 Calocaerum quendam in Cypro adspirantem nouis rebus oppressit. tricennalibus suis Dalmatium Caesarem legit.
And while he was preparing war against the Persians, he died at a public villa near Nicomedia, handing over to his sons a commonwealth well set in order.
31 cumque bellum in Persas moliretur, in uilla publica iuxta Nicomediam, dispositam bene rempublicam filiis tradens, diem obiit.