the inheritance of the Roman Empire; a new capital, a new policy, and a
new religion; and the innovations which he established have been
embraced and consecrated by succeeding generations.

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. With these views, Diocletian had selected and
embellished the residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was
justly abhorred by the protector of the Church; and Constantine was not
insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the
glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against
Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a
soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position of Byzanti