Take him before a magistrate so he can be properly charged and imprisoned to await trial,” he ordered, and the three marched off, the older man managing to remain proudly erect, though stumbling every now and then.
Most of the day was required for the detail to finish posting copies of the imperial decrees throughout the city. As he was approaching the square before the palace at the head of his detail late that afternoon already savoring the pleasure of the bath and a glass of wine Constantine heard shouting ahead and shortly found further progress barred by a mass of people filling every street leading to the square.
“Whats happening?” he called to a man, who had climbed to a second floor balcony from which he had a view of the square.
“They are going to put the Christian to death, sir.”
“What Christian?”
Caesar Galerius
The one called Amianus, who tore down the decree this morning. They say that at his trial he accused Caesar Galerius of arresting Christians and seizing their property for himself.”
“At least he was telling the truth,” someone said, and a laugh came from the crowd. “Galerius will soon be the richest man in the East, unless he runs out of Christians.”
Decurion, Constantine ordered the petty officer who was secondincommand of the detail, “set four men to force a way through here with the shafts of their spears.”
The soldiers obeyed immediately, paying no attention to the curses and cries of people who were thrust aside, bruised and occasionally cracked over the head if they did not move quickly. An aisle was soon opened and Constantine moved through the crowd to the edge of the square. Dacius was standing at the head of a detail of the guards a little distance away and he moved to join the centurion.
“What s going on here? he demanded. “This morning I ordered a man taken before a magistrate and now they tell me he’s being executed.”
“Justice is swift these days, for Christians. Look over there in front of the church.”
The ashes and cinders of the fire that had consumed the benches and furnishings of the church the day before had not yet been cleaned up. Wood was now being piled around a post which had been erected there and Galerius sat upon his portable throne at the edge of the open space perhaps ten paces from the post. Beside him two brawny soldiers held Amianus.
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