PROLOGUE

A small Roman villa near Colonia Glevum, Britannia

Summer, 333 CE

All of you are likely wondering why you were sent here, to my home along the beautiful Sabrina River. You will hear a story from long ago. It is a true story, the story of how you came to be. Your parents and I wish that you would listen well so that someday you can tell our story to your own children and grandchildren. Remember it keenly, for its lessons are like a map guiding your path into the future.

Fifty years ago, my father was a centurion serving in Persia when Emperor Carus dropped dead on a soggy field outside his tent. “Thought lightning fried him,” my father told me. “But when the son was found dead the next morning, we just shook our heads and sucked down another pour of posca. As their bodies were swelling in the sun, we mules were ordered to vote for Diocletian. T’was an easy vote.”

My father respected Diocletian, and always stood when he said these next words, like an orator delivering his address.

“I rise out of respect for Diocletian. We knew him as Jovius from Dalmatia, never ruffled, a fierce warrior. He clawed up the ranks as a leader should, eating dust, carrying out orders, building roads, and fighting Persians. He served under more emperors than some of us had years of service. He was smart and knew tactics. He cared for his legionaries and wouldn’t waste the lives of men who would bleed for the empire. He made us feel like we were part of something great. We liked him.”

As with any great leader, Diocletian’s strategy cut straight to the bone. Protecting Rome was easier if we could respond quickly to our enemies. He divided the empire into four sections and made his best generals co-emperors to help guard each part. He created more legios and stationed them permanently on the most dangerous frontiers. He reformed taxation, ended inflation by freezing prices across the empire, and signed a peace treaty with the Persians. By then, father had retired, and I was a centurion in Asia, charged with protecting Arabs and their desert trade routes.

When Diocletian stepped down after twenty years, the empire began rotting from the top. Succession plans were ignored as new egos blazed, vying for control, making deals with the troops to become the next emperor. One tried breaking up the capital’s shielding army, but those Praetorians revolted, choosing Maxentius as their new puppet. An eastern general, Galerius, tried to punish him, but Maxentius bribed away the general’s army, forcing him to slink back in defeat to his home in Moesia.

Maxentius’ brother-in-law, Constantine, ruled the western provinces. But their connection mattered not to Constantine, who dubbed him “the usurper,” and said that the Praetorians should be cleaved apart like splitting firewood. The whole empire shuddered as Constantine marched his army east from Britannia through Gaul, smashing his way across the Alps to the Po River, capturing Turin as easily as a hammer pounding through plaster. Shaken, Maxentius fetched legios for his defense from every corner of Italia and Africa.

Constantine’s army aimed its march south, and with every mile, Maxentius surely felt like a noose was tightening around his neck. He sent his best general to Verona to organize defenses, but soon enough, the general joined thousands of his men who lay dead in the mud. Ravens ripped apart their costly flesh, gorging themselves on ragged slices of meat torn from their bodies.

I prayed to Apollo that we in the east would not be dragged into that boiling cauldron. But the fates, and my emperor, Daza, had other ideas.

As philosophers and scribes now know but fear to say, the true history of the Milvian Bridge battle cannot be told. After Nicaea, the new religion’s leaders wanted those war tales buried. Brave deeds were scraped away, obliterating every mention made by those of us who fought along the Tiber. True heroes went unsung, erased by fire and sword, replaced by slavering secondhand accounts written by Lactantius and Eusebius, devotees of Constantine, and quick to do his bidding. Those of us who lived the truth knew that if one dared speak it aloud, he would be no more.

Few of us veterans remain to breathe the fragrance of our beautiful world. As voices vanish under the sands of time, so too will our voices fade.

Thus, my cherished grandchildren, it is time for you to know what we know. You must hear the truth that no one whispers, and revel in the bravest of deeds, and your heart must honor the love that made our family strong. Nurture that love and never let it go.

Please, get comfortable, but not too much, so that you may give full attention to our words. And remember the recurring thread in this story, a caution you must always heed: today’s actions birth tomorrow’s reality, even if the reality does not reflect the truth.