Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

Longing for the stability of those golden years before the Roman juggernaut began to wobble, Diocletian had resurrected the adoptive system, but he should have known better than to pick two men with grown sons. Maximian and Constantius the Pale’s sons, Maxentius and Constantine, considered the throne their birthright and eagerly expected a share of imperial power. But when Maximian reluctantly followed Diocletian into retirement, both boys were left with nothing. Once the sons of living gods, Constantine and Maxentius were left as nothing more than private citizens, feeling bitterly betrayed.

Determined not to let events pass him by, Constantine joined his father’s campaign in Britain against the Picts. Easily subduing the barbarians, they both retired to York, where it became apparent that Constantius was pale because he was dying of leukemia. He’d been the most modest of the tetrarchs, largely ignoring the religious persecution of his more zealous eastern colleagues, and was wildly popular with the army, whose ranks included many Christians and sun worshippers. When he died on July 25, 306, an ambassador informed his heartbroken men that a distant Caesar named Severus would take his place. But the soldiers in the field had no intention of listening to some court bureaucrat. Most of them had never heard of Severus and didn’t care to find out who he was. They had a younger, more vibrant version of their beloved leader much closer at hand. Raising Constantine up on their shields, the army hailed him as Augustus, and plunged the Roman world into war.

The island of Britain had not often intruded itself on the imperial consciousness, but Constantine’s elevation was a shout heard in the empire’s remotest corners, undoing at a stroke everything that Diocletian had been trying to establish about the succession. Encouraged by the way he had claimed power, others started to push against the limits forced upon them by Diocletian, eager to seize by force what was denied by law. Maxentius, still smarting from being passed over, seized Rome, tempting his father out of retirement to bolster his credibility, and successfully fought off every attempt to oust him. To the bewilderment of contemporaries and the annoyance of students studying the period ever since, there were soon six men claiming to be Augustus.

Mercifully, the confusion didn’t last for long. As vast as the empire was, it wasn’t large enough for six rulers, and the multiplying emperors helpfully started to kill one another off. By 312, there were only four of them left, and Constantine decided that the moment was right to strike. He had largely held his peace while the empire imploded, and now the tetrarchy was in hopeless shambles, both emperors in the West had seized power illegally, and the East was distracted with its own affairs. There was little possibility of outside interference, and only Maxentius was standing between him and complete control of the West. Carrying the standards of his patron god Sol Invictus (“unconquerable sun”) before him, Constantine assembled forty thousand men, crossed the Alps, and descended on Italy.

As usual with great men, Constantine had both impeccable timing and remarkable luck. Maxentius’s popularity was at an all-time low. Claiming that he was seriously short of money, he had ruthlessly taxed the Roman population, but then had used the funds to build a massive basilica in the Forum complete with a monumental statue of himself, provoking the exasperated citizens to revolt.^* Order was finally restored by the slaughter of several thousand civilians, but Max-entius’s popularity never recovered. When he heard of Constantine’s approach, the frightened emperor was no longer sure of the city’s loyalty, so he left the safety of Rome’s walls and crossed the Tiber River by the old Milvian Bridge. Setting up camp a few miles away from the city, Maxentius consulted his soothsayers to see what the omens were and was assured that they were favorable. The next day would be his dies imperii—the six-year anniversary of his assumption of power. There could be no more auspicious time to attack.

Across the plain, Constantine, waiting with his army, also searched for signs of divine favor. The soothsayers and magicians thronging around Maxentius’s camp unnerved him, and he was uncertain of how he should negate their influence. Priests representing every god in the pantheon had stared at the entrails of animals or the flights of birds and assured him that he would receive the blessings of divine favor, but surely his enemy was hearing the same lofty promises.