Constantius, who, under the later emperors, ruled Gaul, Britain, and Spain, for fifteen years, continued his reign for one year afterwards over the whole empire in the West, Maximin being emperor in the East. He founded Constances in that part of Gaul which is now called Normandy, and received in marriage the daughter of the British king of Colchester, whose name was Hoel or Helen, our Saint Helena, by whom he had Constantine the Great. Constantius, a great and accomplished prince, died at York. "He was studious to advance the prosperity of the provinces and of private individuals; he was unwilling to avail himself of the power of taxing them severely, saying that the public wealth was better in individual hands than locked up in a single coffer. His own expenses were moderate, his temper gentle. He was not only beloved, but venerated, by the Gauls."[1]
Constantine, who reigned thirty years and ten months, was the flower of Britain; for he was British both by birth and country; and Britain never produced his equal, before or afterwards. He led an army from Britain and Gaul into Italy, for Maximian had ploclaimed Maximin his son Augustus at Rome. When marching against him, being yet a heathen, he beheld an angel of God exhibiting to him the sign of the cross, and calling upon him to have faith in the Crucified, and he believed instantly, and God overwhelmed Maxentius in the river's flood. Constantine then, having twice overcome Maximian in battle, became sole emperor of the world, and having been, as we find it written, cleansed from his leprosy by St. Sylvester in the water of baptism, he founded at Rome, on the spot where he was baptized, the Basilica of John the Baptist, which is called the Constantine church. He also founded the basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul, on the site of the temple of Apollo, surrounding their bodies with a tomb of brass five feet in breadth. He also founded a basilica in the Sosorian Palace, which is named Jerusalem, where he deposited a piece of the wood of the cross. He also dedicated a basilica to St. Laurence, on the land of Veranus, near the Tiburtine Road; and another, on the Lavican Way, to Peter and Marcellus, martyrs; where he
- ↑ Eutrop. x. i.
