Constantine was ambitious to unite the empire. He had now found the means with which to realize that ambition. But for the time being he held himself back. He knew that if he openly supported Christianity he would expose a political flank. The upholders of the traditional gods among the senators, governors and administrators of the empire could still attack him, strategically claiming that he was persecuting pagans. Overt favouring of the Christians, Constantine understood, would not only offend those who supported the traditional gods, but would also expose their weakness, suggesting their disadvantage in the new empire. And with the majority of Roman citizens pagan, there was potentially a plentiful source of support for such rivals to draw on. However, it was not pagan senators that Constantine feared most, but a pagan emperor.
In the same month as the celebrations in Rome took place (July 315), Constantia, the wife of Licinius, gave birth to a son. Just over a year later, on 7 August 316, Constantine’s wife, Fausta, also gave birth to a baby boy. But the arrival of these children was not entirely a cause for jubilation because two new chains of legitimacy were being formed. In the minds of Constantine and Licinius it sparked a question that they had not yet confronted: to whom did the empire really belong? Since their alliance had been struck, the answer seemed increasingly to suggest Constantine.
Motivated perhaps by genuine belief, perhaps by calculated self-interest, Constantine’s industrious reforms in favour of the Christians were not just unifying the empire with a new theme. They were winning him vital support in Licinius’s territory, where the majority of the Roman empire’s Christians resided. As Constantine looked at his commemorative arch, he could see how the portraits of both him and Licinius showed the emperors in harmony. Their joint holding of the consulship, and the depiction of both their heads on the coins of the period supported that impression. But Constantine’s new brand of government did not fit with the façade. The logical conclusion of one God, one empire was one emperor.
It would not be long before both Licinius and Constantine showed their hands. When that happened, the two men would become rivals and precipitate a new war. It was to be a war between the supporters of Constantine and the radical new religion he had embraced and those who wanted to uphold Rome’s traditions. So at least the banners of the two sides would claim. In reality, although dressed up in the robes of a holy war, this conflict was aimed at achieving a time-honoured goaclass="underline" control of the Roman empire.
WAR OF RELIGIONS
The steps that turned an alliance of emperors into a fierce rivalry are difficult to piece together. Certainly Licinius had reason to be resentful, even jealous.36 Constantine had taken control of the part of the empire that Licinius believed was rightfully his. To make matters worse, the eastern emperor had only to look around his own territory to see that Constantine enjoyed far greater popularity than he did. Christians of the east offered prayers for Constantine; they hoped that the same largesse he showed their brothers in the west might one day rain down on them too; indeed, because they were prepared to die for their faith, they were prepared to die for him too. They knew that Licinius was neither their saviour nor their voice. In fact, it is possible that it had been Constantine’s intention all along to place Licinius in a vice: to use him to settle the eastern empire at the beginning, but then, when that had been achieved, to destabilize him through the instrument of Christianity. Despite envying Constantine’s popularity, Licinius harboured a much greater source of bitterness – something that would ultimately push him over the edge.
What most riled the emperor of the east were the steps that Constantine took to cut out Licinius’s newborn son from succession to imperial power. In 315 Constantine gave his half-sister Anastasia in marriage to the prominent senator Bassianus. He then sent a delegate to Licinius proposing that Bassianus become deputy emperor in the west. Licinius took offence. It must have occurred to him that it would only require Constantine to appoint his teenage son Crispus as deputy in the east for Constantine to bring the whole empire within the control of his own dynasty. Perhaps it was for this reason that Licinius decided to terminate his friendship with Constantine in the most decisive way: by plotting his assassination.
To carry off such an action, Licinius quickly needed to acquire a pretext and allies. Fortunately, both were easily attainable. He could justify toppling his fellow emperor on the grounds that Constantine had broken the Edict of Milan; he had begun favouring Christians above pagans. If that was not sufficient grounds for action, then, according to a pagan historian, Constantine’s infringement of Licinius’s territory in the autumn of 315 certainly did the trick.37 As for help in carrying out the murder of the western emperor, Licinius needed only to look as far as the Senate in Rome.
By 316 some pagan senators, for all the favour that Constantine had promised them, were quietly seething with disaffection. They disapproved of his lavish spending from the imperial treasury to build Christian churches. To them it seemed that only bishops had the emperor’s ear and were his favoured dinner guests in the palace. There was no point in expressing ambition, they moaned, for now it was only possible to get ahead in the new regime if you were Christian.
Licinius knew the time was ripe for action. In Nicomedia he asked his court official Senecio to find a willing conspirator in Rome. The ideal assassin needed to have elevated status, be able to gain close access to the emperor and be above suspicion. Senecio had one particularly suitable candidate in mind: his own brother and Constantine’s brother-in-law, Senator Bassianus. In setting the plot in motion, however, Licinius had overlooked his own weakness. It is easy to imagine that just as he had been able to find an ally in Constantine’s inner court, he had forgotten that the western emperor also had a devout ally in the east. One might speculate that it was she who now passed on a surreptitious alert.
Perhaps Constantia had chanced upon a rumour drifting through the corridors of the Nicomedian palace, or perhaps she herself had accidentally overheard the conversation between Licinius and Senecio. It is even possible that she, on discovering the plot against her brother’s life, immediately wrote a letter warning him and dispatched it through a trusted Christian channel of communication. What is certain is that when Bassianus attempted the assassination, he was taken completely by surprise. Constantine had been expecting him. The man who was murdered that night was not the God-beloved emperor, but the putative assassin. When Licinius heard the news he ordered the statues and busts of Constantine in Nicomedia to be smashed. With that, war was declared.
The first encounters between the two armies took place in 316 at Cibalae and Serdica in the Balkans. Although Constantine had the upper hand in both battles, he failed to deliver the decisive blow. As a result, a new alliance was drawn up between the two men. The territories of the Balkans and Greece were ceded to Constantine, while Licinius retained Thrace, Asia Minor, Egypt and the Roman east. The two grudging allies also agreed on the thorny issue of succession: on 1 March 317 Constantine announced from his new seat at Serdica (now Sofia in Bulgaria) that both his sons (his baby by Fausta and Flavius Julius Crispus) and Licinius’s child by Constantia were to be declared Caesars – future emperors in waiting. They also agreed to hold the joint consulship for 317, and thereafter to alternate the consulship of each half of the empire between father and son each year. But beneath this paper-thin show of harmony there were deep cracks. In reality, the peace was at best unstable, at worst a piece of diplomatic cynicism on the part of Constantine. The war had simply been shelved.