Sometimes the path is smooth, often strangely rough. So with Constantine, affairs did not go as he had hoped. Waves of trouble, one after another, descended upon him. At one time the empire was gravely perturbed by civil wars, at another by the incursions of barbaric tribes, who plundered most of our provinces and returned to their own countries laden with useful articles of all kinds and with booty to their hearts’ content.
73. It would require much time and many words to describe in detail all these things in order as they occurred, to give an accurate account of the causes and results of every single event, to tell of the armies and camps, the skirmishes and battles, and all the other minutiae in which the careful historian is accustomed to indulge. For the moment I must defer such a plan, for it was your express desire, my dearest friend,**101 that I should produce a history which was more a summary than an elaborate treatise.
Most important facts
To meet your wishes I have passed over in this work many facts worthy of mention. The years have not been numbered by Olympiads nor divided into seasons (as Thucydides divided his), but I have simply drawn attention to the most important facts and all the things which I have been able to recollect as I was writing this book. As I say, I am not making any attempt, at the moment, to investigate the special circumstances of each event.
My object is rather to pursue a middle course between those who recorded the imperial acts of ancient Rome on the one hand, and our own modern chroniclers on the other. I have neither aspired to the diffuseness of the former, nor sought to imitate the extreme brevity of the latter, for fear lest my own composition should be over-burdened, or else omit what was essential.
74. I will say no more on that subject now. To return to Constantine: I will describe the events of his reign in chronological order, beginning with the very first war in which he was engaged as emperor. But first I will go back a little further still, putting the head, as it were, on the body that I am creating. ‘Goodness’, say the epigrammatists, ‘is scarce’.**102 True enough, but even the few are not immune from the creeping paralysis of envy.
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