rists, ix. 16, x.
28.]

[Footnote 68: Exceptis latrocinii illius primis auctoribus, qui
desperata venia ocum quem pugnae sumpserant texere corporibus. Panegyr.
Vet 17.]

[Footnote 69: A very idle rumor soon prevailed, that Maxentius,
who had not taken any precaution for his own retreat, had contrived
a very artful snare to destroy the army of the pursuers; but that
the wooden bridge, which was to have been loosened on the approach
of Constantine, unluckily broke down under the weight of the flying
Italians. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. part i. p. 576)
very seriously examines whether, in contradiction to common sense, the
testimony of Eusebius and Zosimus ought to prevail over the silence of
Lactantius, Nazarius, and the anonymous, but contemporary orator, who
composed the ninth Panegyric. * Note: Manso (Beylage, vi.) examines the
question, and adduces two manifest allusions to the bridge, from the
Life of Constantine by Praxagoras, and from Libanius. Is it not very
probable that such a bridge was thrown over the river to facilitate the
advance, and to secure the retreat, of the army of Maxentius? In case of
defeat, orders were given for destroying it, in order to check the
pursuit: it broke down accidentally, or in the confusion was destroyed,
as has not unfrequently been the case, before the proper time.--M.]

[Footnote 70: Zosimus, l. ii. p. 86-88, and the two Panegyrics, the
former of which was pronounced a few months afterwards, afford the
clearest notion of this great battle. Lactantius, Eusebius, and even the
Epitomes, supply several useful hints.]

In the use of victory, Constantine neither deserved the praise of
clemency, nor incurred the censure of immoderate rigor. [71] He inflicted
the same treatment to which a defeat would have exposed his own person
and family, put to death the two sons of the tyrant, and carefully
extirpated his whole race. The most distinguished adherents of Maxentius
must have expected to share his fate, as they had shared his prosperity
and his crimes; but when the Roman people loudly demanded a greater
number of victims, the conqueror resisted with firmness and humanity,
those servile clamors, which were dictated by flattery as well as by
resentment. Informers were punished and discouraged; the innocent,
who had suffered under the late tyranny, were recalled from exile, and
restored to their estates. A general act of oblivion quieted the minds
and settled the pro