CHAPTER IV

CONSTANTINE PREPARES HIMSELF FOR THE WAR BY PRAYER: LICINIUS BY THE PRACTICE OF DIVINATION

HE took with him also the priests of God, feeling weII assured that now, if ever, he stood in need of the efficacy of prayer, and thinking it right that they should constantly be near and about his person, as most trusty guardians of the soul.

Now, as soon as the tyrant understood that Constantine’s victories over his enemies were secured to him by no other means than the co-operation of God, and that the persons above alluded to were continually with him and about his person; and besides this, that the symbol of the salutary passion preceded both the emperor himself and his whole army; he regarded these precautions with ridicule (as might be expected), at the same time mocking and reviling the emperor with opprobrious terms.

On the other hand, he gathered round himself Egyptian diviners and soothsayers, with sorcerers and enchanters, and the priests of those whom he imagined to be gods. He then, after offering the sacrifices which he thought the occasion demanded, inquired how far he might reckon on a successful termination of the war. They replied with one voice, that he would unquestionably be victorious and triumphant in the war: and the oracles every where held out to him the same prospect in copious and elegant verses. The soothsayers certified him of favourable omens from the flight of birds; the priests declared the same to be indicated by the motion of the entrails of their victims. Elevated, therefore, by these fallacious assurances, he boldly advanced at the head of his army, and prepared for battle.