s. The age of the
great Constantine and his sons is filled with important events; but
the historian must be oppressed by their number and variety, unless he
diligently separates from each other the scenes which are connected only
by the order of time. He will describe the political institutions that
gave strength and stability to the empire, before he proceeds to relate
the wars and revolutions which hastened its decline. He will adopt the
division unknown to the ancients of civil and ecclesiastical affairs:
the victory of the Christians, and their intestine discord, will supply
copious and distinct materials both for edification and for scandal.

After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival
proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in future
times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire and religion
of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which
first induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient seat
of government, had acquired additional weight by the example of
his successors, and the habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly
confounded with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged
her supremacy; and the country of the Caesars was viewed with cold
indifference by a martial prince, born in the neighborhood of the
Danube, educated in the courts and armies of Asia, and invested with
the purple by the legions of Britain. The Italians, who had received
Constantine as their deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he
sometimes condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome;
but they were seldom honored with the presence of their new sovereign.
During the vigor of his age, Constantine, according to the various
exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity, or with active
diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive dominions; and was
always prepared to take the field either against a foreign or a domestic
enemy. But as he gradually reached the summit of prosperity and the
decline of life, he began to meditate the design of fixing in a more
permanent station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the
choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of Europe
and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians who dwelt between
the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of jealousy the conduct
of the Persian monarch, who indignantly supported the yoke of an
ignominious treaty.