CHAPTER 51: THE WAR FOR THE WORLD

The peace of the Augusti, a brittle truce signed in the blood of their own soldiers, had lasted nearly eight years. By the spring of 324 AD, that peace was a forgotten memory. The plains near Thessalonica became a vast, sprawling city of arms. From every province in the West, the legions had come. There were the weathered cohorts from Britannia who had first acclaimed him, marching alongside the Gallic legions he had won in his first continental campaign. He saw the grim, disciplined soldiers recruited from the Pannonian frontier, men who had once fought for Licinius but now served a harder, more successful master. Spanish cavalry, African skirmishers, and Crocus’s fierce Alemanni all swelled the ranks. It was a force of more than one hundred and twenty thousand men, the unified might of an entire half of the Empire, brought together by his singular, unyielding will.

Constantine rode through the sprawling camp, a city of leather tents and smoking cookfires. His single eye missed nothing: a cohort of Gallic recruits whose shields were angled incorrectly, a Pannonian centurion whose armor bore the marks of too many repairs, a supply train whose wagons were mired in mud. His presence was a current of electricity, and wherever he passed, officers straightened their backs and men moved with a renewed, nervous energy. He was not a beloved commander in the manner of a charismatic hero; he was a respected one, a figure of awe and fear who delivered victory and demanded perfection.

In the praetorium, he held his final grand council of war. Before his assembled generals—the grizzled Valerius, the pragmatic Metellus, the fierce Crocus, and a dozen others—he laid out the vast, two-pronged strategy for the final war. "Licinius has two great strengths," he stated, his voice cutting through the silence of the tent. "His formidable army, entrenched on the plains of Thrace, and his powerful fleet of nearly four hundred ships, which controls the Hellespont and seals the passage to Asia." He pointed to the map. "We must break both to win. To do so, we will attack on two fronts."

Metellus spoke first, his brow furrowed. "Augustus, their fleet is nearly double the size of our own. A direct naval confrontation is a terrible risk."

"A risk that will be managed by a capable commander," Constantine replied, his gaze settling on his eldest son. "Caesar Crispus." Crispus, a confident young man who wore his military experience with an ease that belied his years, stepped forward. "Augustus."

"You have proven your skill on the Rhine. You have proven you can think independently and act decisively. Now you will prove it on the sea," Constantine declared, his voice leaving no room for argument. "You will take command of our fleet. Your objective is the Hellespont. You will find Licinius’s admiral, Amandus, and you will destroy his fleet. The army cannot cross to Asia until you control the waves. The fate of the entire campaign rests on your success."

It was an immense responsibility, a command of staggering importance. A great honor, and a great risk. Constantine saw the flash of fierce pride in his son’s eyes, a mirror of his own ambition. Then, his gaze flicked past Crispus to his wife, Fausta, who stood observing the council. She inclined her head graciously toward her stepson, a perfect picture of support. "A great honor for a great Caesar," she said, her voice smooth as silk. The compliment was flawless, but Constantine noted the cold, calculating stillness in her eyes.

"I will not fail you, Father," Crispus said, his voice ringing with confidence.

"See that you do not," Constantine replied, his tone flat. He turned back to the map. "I will lead the land army myself. We will march into Thrace and force Licinius to give battle. We will crush his legions, and then we will take his capital, Byzantium."

The plan was set. The army marched east. At the head of the colossal column, carried by a member of the Scholae Palatinae, was the Labarum. The great purple banner, emblazoned with the Chi-Rho, was now Constantine’s primary standard. The army marched not just as soldiers of Rome, but as soldiers of their emperor’s divine patron. For the growing number of Christians in the ranks, it was a holy war. For the pagans, it was the emblem of a general who had never known defeat. For Constantine, it was a powerful symbol of unity, a banner that promised victory, whatever its true origin.

Valerius’s scouts reported that Licinius had chosen his ground with care. He had encamped his army of over one hundred and fifty thousand men on a hill overlooking the Hebrus river, near the major city of Adrianople. It was a strong, defensible position. He would not be easily dislodged.

Constantine’s army made camp on their side of the Hebrus river, the water a tense, grey ribbon separating them from Licinius’s legions. The first days were a sharp, bloody conversation carried out by skirmishers. Constantine would send a wing of Crocus’s Alemanni cavalry across a shallow ford to test a section of the enemy line, only to see them met by a disciplined formation of Danubian horsemen. Each side tested the other, taking small, bloody bites, but neither would commit to a full engagement. In his command tent, Constantine poured over rough maps of the terrain, cross-referencing them with reports from his scouts. "His position is like a tortoise in its shell," he told Metellus, tracing the enemy’s fortified lines on the hill. "He means to force us to cross the river under fire and assault him uphill. A fool’s errand." He kept sending out the skirmishers, not hoping for a breakthrough, but searching. Always searching for a single, overlooked weakness.

On the night before he decided to force the battle, Constantine walked through his own camp. The mood was sober, grimly determined. He passed a group of legionaries from Hispania, quietly sharpening their swords. He saw a knot of his Alemanni, listening intently as Crocus spoke to them in their harsh tongue. He stopped near a group of Christians gathered around a priest, their heads bowed in prayer. He listened to their quiet, fervent murmurs, a stark contrast to the boisterous sacrifices to Mars he saw elsewhere. He turned away, his expression unreadable.

He retreated to his tent. On a small table, locked in a lead-lined chest, was the strange, cold iron nail from Trier. He did not look at it, but he was aware of its presence. It was a silent reminder that there were variables in this world he did not yet understand. But he understood war. He understood power. And he understood that tomorrow, all the power he had amassed, all the victories he had won, would be meaningless if he failed.

He stood at the entrance of his tent, his single eye looking across the dark river at the thousands upon thousands of enemy campfires. They burned like a defiant constellation, the final obstacle between him and sole mastery of the Roman world. Tomorrow, one of them would be extinguished.