ruspicum monita, ipse per temet
liberandae arbis tempus venisse sentires. The embassy of the Romans is
mentioned only by Zonaras, (l. xiii.,) and by Cedrenus, (in Compend.
Hist. p. 370;) but those modern Greeks had the opportunity of consulting
many writers which have since been lost, among which we may reckon the
life of Constantine by Praxagoras. Photius (p. 63) has made a short
extract from that historical work.]

The enterprise was as full of danger as of glory; and the unsuccessful
event of two former invasions was sufficient to inspire the most serious
apprehensions. The veteran troops, who revered the name of Maximian, had
embraced in both those wars the party of his son, and were now
restrained by a sense of honor, as well as of interest, from
entertaining an idea of a second desertion. Maxentius, who considered
the Praetorian guards as the firmest defence of his throne, had
increased them to their ancient establishment; and they composed,
including the rest of the Italians who were enlisted into his service, a
formidable body of fourscore thousand men. Forty thousand Moors and
Carthaginians had been raised since the reduction of Africa. Even Sicily
furnished its proportion of troops; and the armies of Maxentius amounted
to one hundred and seventy thousand foot and eighteen thousand horse.
The wealth of Italy supplied the expenses of the war; and the adjacent
provinces were exhausted, to form immense magazines of corn and every
other kind of provisions.

The whole force of Constantine consisted of ninety thousand foot and
eight thousand horse; [51] and as the defence of the Rhine required an
extraordinary attention during the absence of the emperor, it was not
in his power to employ above half his troops in the Italian expedition,
unless he sacrificed the public safety to his private quarrel. [52] At
the head of about forty thousand soldiers he marched to encounter an
enemy whose numbers were at least four times superior to his own.
But the armies of Rome, placed at a secure distance from danger, were
enervated by indulgence and luxury. Habituated to the baths and theatres
of Rome, they took the field with reluctance, and were chiefly composed
of veterans who had almost forgotten, or of new levies who had never
acquired, the use of arms and the practice of war. The hardy legions
of Gaul had long defended the frontiers of the empire against the
barbarians of the North; and in the performance of that laborious
s