Most often Constantine placed himself at the eastern center of the Empire, the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia in the beautiful province of Bithynia, whose shores were washed by the warm waters of the Euxine or Black Sea. But sometimes he was at Mediolanum or Milanin northern Italy, where the CoEmperor Maximian held his court and ruled the Empire’s western half. For as the descendant of an Emperor, he fully expected one day to wear the purple cloak of an Augustus and rule from one of the two capitals if not both.
To the east, Constantine could see a familiar dark irregular line on the horizon marking the Haemus mountain range where his father and his greatuncle Marios had taken him on a hunting trip the spring before. A former companioninarms of Emperor Diocletian, Constantius ranked high among the Roman generals and was presently governor of a province in Dalmatia, the rugged seacoast area lying between the Danube bastions of Pannonia and Greece to the south. Busy with the affairs of government, Constantius rarely had a chance to visit Naissus anymore, however, and the boy sensed that this was somehow connected with the fact that his mother, Helena, was only a concubine though legally married to his father.
Greatuncle Marios
Fiercely he reminded himself once again that, though not of noble birth, his mother’s family was important in Drepanum, the Bithynian city that was the family seat as well as in the capital city of Nicomedia not far away. And he knew that his greatuncle Marios, though little older than Helena, had served ably in the army with his father, until crippled by a sword thrust while fighting the Persians on the banks of the river Tigris.
A more inquiring mind might have wondered why he and his mother lived here in Naissus instead of with his father at the capital of the district. But it was enough for Constantine that the city had been the site of the famous victory of his imperial ancestor, that it was a pleasant place near where two rivers joined to form a tributary flowing north to the Danube and the frontier with the Germanic tribes; and that Constantius had promised to let him begin his military training soon.
A flash of sunlight reflected from the copper plates forming its roof called Constantines attention to a small temple not far from the center of the town, where two highways crossed. Once the temple had been dedicated to Asklepios, the Greek god of healing, but lately had been used as a meeting place by that strange sect known as Christians.
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