Dawn of a New Rome

The Via Aemilia stretched in a pale ribbon beneath the winter sun, stones gleaming where the frost had receded. Constantine's column wound south and east in disciplined silence. Each town they passed put on its best face-garlands strung from arches, Chi-Rho banners painted in hurried brushstrokes, choruses of children rehearsed to cheer. The emperor received every ovation with courteous brevity, nodding from his horse, his gaze never lingering on the performances. His mind tallied harvest stores and militia rosters, assessed bridge piers for rot, watched how the local notables eyed his officers. He saw every gap in the census, every hollow in the granary, every tavern where militia drank too freely. By the time they reached Mediolanum he knew more about the pulse of northern Italy than any tax collector or magistrate would ever confess.

Mediolanum presented itself as the jewel of the West: grand avenues lined with statues and marble porticoes, mansions flush with wealth from the alpine passes, a circus that rivaled Rome's for both size and spectacle. But beneath the bright surface, nerves thrummed. Shops sold out of flour and olives to quartermasters. Bankers sent discreet letters south, hedging against future chaos. Local militia stood a little straighter when Rhine legionaries strolled the streets, but their eyes gave away a fear of deeper trouble.

Constantine billeted his legions beyond the city's ancient walls. He had no desire for his hardened veterans to test their discipline among soft-skinned merchant sons or leave coin behind in the city's smoke-filled taverns. His own court took up residence in Diocletian's half-abandoned palace, its high halls echoing with the steps of new power. There he waited, working through reports late into the night, sending envoys east and west, assembling a ledger of Italy's strengths and flaws that would have shamed any previous emperor.

Licinius arrived as the first week of February ended, escorted by a phalanx of Illyrian veterans. Their arrival cut the city's noisy confidence to a hush. The citizens watched these newcomers from doorways and balconies, muttering that wolves had entered in human form. Licinius himself stepped from his horse unhurried, his weathered face unreadable, his cloak streaked with dust from the mountain passes. No gold thread, no jewelled clasps. Only iron.

At the palace, he met Constantine in the audience hall. There were no musicians, no silver platters, no crowd of courtiers. Just the two rulers, a cedar table, two plain wax tablets and the business of empire to settle. Servants withdrew, leaving the air thick with the memory of past wars and the weight of all that could follow.

Licinius saluted him. "Brother in empire."

Constantine's answer was measured, cold. "Brother, for now."

The opening exchanges covered familiar ground. Maximinus Daia, eastward in Nicomedia, had issued new decrees. Christian bishops imprisoned, church lands seized, conscription imposed on towns that barely fed themselves. Licinius recited these facts with no emotion, only the clipped efficiency of a general reviewing a field report. He finished, voice gravelly from the road: "Daia weakens his own house. He will not trouble our borders until he has finished devouring his own tax base."

Constantine leaned forward, stylus poised above the blank tablet. "When a ruler makes enemies of his own bakers, he sharpens the knives for his neighbors. We will be ready."

Agreement came quickly on the manifesto. Constantine composed its language as if drafting a military order. "Full and irrevocable liberty of worship is granted to all inhabitants of the Roman world; property seized under earlier edicts is to be restored at once; any governor obstructing this order will answer to both Augusti." He signed with the Chi-Rho; Licinius added his mark, bold and deep. Two strokes on wax and clay changed the moral logic of the empire overnight.

The harder subject was territory. Together, they drew lines with their styluses, sketching the limits of spheres neither expected to last. The line began in the Julian Alps, ran east through the Sava valley, and curved south to the Haemus Mountains. Everything west-Gaul, Hispania, Britannia, Africa, Italy-fell to Constantine. Licinius kept the central Balkans and Greece. No one needed to say that every river and hill along that frontier would be mapped, garrisoned, and watched.

Then came the marriage. At dusk, as the banquet lamps were being trimmed, Constantia entered the chamber. The last time Constantine had seen her, she had been a child in her father's court, bright and wary. Now she crossed the marble with a grace trained for perilous rooms. Her gown shimmered with garnet beadwork, her dark eyes steady as she bowed to her brother and to Licinius. There was no flutter or falter.

Licinius regarded her with rare softness. "Augusta," he said, and offered a hand in the gesture of a soldier who means alliance, not possession.

Constantia did not lower her gaze. "My lord Licinius, I bring my father's blood and my brother's trust. May peace grow where suspicion once divided us."

Constantine felt the tension ease, if only for a moment. A strong seal, he thought, outlasts the wax it sets.

The marriage was celebrated four days later in the basilica beside the palace. Every senator, provincial governor, merchant prince, and bishop who could reach Mediolanum in time squeezed into marble aisles hung with imperial purple. Outside, citizens filled the forum, eager to witness an alliance that promised an end to the years of chaos.

The vows were exchanged before a crowd that cheered every line. When the rings were set and the blessing spoken, the two emperors stepped onto a balcony over the torch-lit square. Trumpets sounded. Constantine lifted his arm in salute, Licinius mirrored the gesture. Banners unfurled above: one the old Tetrarchic image of four united rulers, the other the new Chi-Rho symbol glimmering on pale silk. The roar of the crowd echoed off stone and into the night, a thousand throats convinced that history had turned a new page.

The feast that followed stretched until midnight. Constantine drank sparingly, toasted every province, acknowledged the poets and dignitaries, and offered a polite nod even to the priest of Jupiter who blessed the meal. Through it all, Licinius watched him-never threatening, never friendly, just weighing, just measuring. Equals rarely relax in the same room.

At one point, Constantia found her brother at the edge of the hall, watching Licinius. "You still expect treachery," she whispered.

He smiled. "I expect probability. Your husband is too disciplined to be trusted, too rational to despise. He is the kind of adversary history favors in the long run."

Constantia placed her hand over his. "Do not burn this bridge lightly."

"Bridges are precious," Constantine answered. "But even rivers freeze." He squeezed her fingers. "You are safe. Licinius values you, if not for love, then for loyalty. Cruelty is wasteful."

When the last guests had departed and only servants remained, Constantine stood on a terrace above the city. Below, lamps marked out the lines of the Roman forum, and soldiers changed the watch at the palace gates. He reviewed the day's gains: an edict of tolerance carried to every province, a marriage binding his eastern border, a frontier that bought him time to reform logistics and reinforce the West. Each was a variable well-managed, but his mind turned again and again to the future, to Licinius, and to the inevitable collision ahead.

Licinius was no Maxentius, no fool waiting for auguries. He would not anchor his army beside a river and wait for the gods. He would probe, he would reinforce bridges, he would raise new legions from Thrace and Bithynia. When he saw a margin, he would move.

Constantine accepted this as necessity, not fate. Conflict clarified everything. Peace only muddied the board, made men sentimental, led them to miscalculate. For now, the Empire's two rulers would share trade routes, issue joint edicts, and let bishops and augurs argue side by side. But the logic of power could not tolerate more than one solution.

As the city quieted, he walked the halls of the palace, his steps ringing on marble. He imagined new supply roads stretching from Milan to Sirmium, garrisons rebuilt on the Rhine model, every twenty miles a depot, every frontier post rebuilt. He pictured the Chi-Rho fluttering above ranks of legionaries waiting for the next order. When the rivers thawed and the last calculations were made, he would be ready.

The cold wind tasted of iron and possibility. Behind him, servants doused lamps, and the embers of alliance faded into darkness. Ahead lay the provinces, each one a number in an equation only he could balance. Peace, he knew, was nothing more than the interval between two battles.

He turned toward his study, where ink and parchment waited for the next command.