The three years spent at Nicomedia while attaining his majority were in many ways a period of frustration for Constantine. For although he was honored by being in the Emperor’s own household, he would gladly have exchanged all of it for a chance to participate in the exciting events going on in the West, under his father’s able and vigorous direction.
Gesoriacum, the major seaport of Gaul facing Britain, had fallen when Constantius, emulating the example of Alexander the Great in the siege of Tyre, had built a great mole that put the harbor within range of his machines of war. With the fall of the port to Rome, the usurper Augustus, Carausius, lost the base from which his fleet had ravaged shipping in the Fretum Gallicum and held the Alemanni tribes of the north in partial subjection. And with Gesoriacum in his hands, Constantius had been able to prepare a fleet for the invasion of Britain.
The main thrust was to have been launched directly against the British coast across the channel but, as a diversionary tactic, Constantius sent a squadron under command of the Prefect Asclepiodo tus from the mouth of the river Seine. This smaller fleet succeeded beyond all expectations when, under the cover of a thick fog, they were able to enter one of the main rivers of Britain and ascend to the town of Londinium.f Meanwhile, Carausius had been murdered by his secondincommand, Allectus, and the latter, caught unprepared near Londinium, was quickly defeated by the forces under Asclepiodotus. As a result, Constantius made his major landing almost without opposition and Britain fell without any battle of consequence.
CoEmperor Maximian
It was about this time that Diocletian, in conjunction with the CoEmperor Maximian, issued the edicts he had discussed with Constantine that evening in the palace garden. Under them, all prices of goods and services in the Empire were fixed at the time the edict went into effect, as well as the wages of every working person. The proportion of precious metal in the coinage was also set at a fixed proportion but its effect was not enough to counteract the evils resulting from the former actions, and the result was, literally, pandemonium.
Merchants held back goods, selling them secretly at higher prices when the supply became scarce. Men refused to work for the wages offered and those who hired workers were forced to pay extra wages secretly. Inevitably the populace became largely a nation of lawbreakers and a period of internal turbulence followed.
Constantine was finding a source of happiness during this time in visiting Drepanum and Minervina, who was blossoming into an extremely beautiful young woman. In addition, news from the South suddenly stirred once again his hopes of seeing actual military action.
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