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QINGDAO TODAY
在线翻译:
szdaily -> Speak Shenzhen -> 
The Battle of Chrysopolis
    2020-04-02  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

James Baquet

Rome’s “Tetrarchy” was a two-decade experiment in power shared between four people that led to civil war and, ultimately, the rule of Constantine, who made Christianity the official religion of the empire.

The Tetrarchy was the solution to a squabble between rival claimants to the position of emperor of Rome. Through retirement, death and succession, the situation finally boiled down to just two — Constantine in the West, and Licinius in the East — who then went to war against each other.

Licinius’s troops were depleted at the Battle of Adrianople on July 3, 324, and he lost his navy at the Battle of the Hellespont later that same month. Constantine was then able to move his troops across the Bosporus, a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey that separates the continents of Europe and Asia.

Licinius had withdrawn from Byzantium (on the European side of the Bosporus) to Chalcedon, on the Asian side, facing Byzantium. Constantine landed north of Chalcedon and marched southward. Licinius moved his army north, towards Constantine, and met him at Chrysopolis. Constantine’s army had arrived first, and took the initiative.

Almost a dozen years earlier, Constantine had had a vision before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, in which he was told that a Christian symbol, meaning “Christ,” would assure him victory in battle. Against this, Licinius placed images of Rome’s pagan gods in the front of his battle lines. Licinius had developed a superstitious dread of Constantine’s symbol; he prohibited his troops from harming it in any way, or even looking at it.

Alas, such precautions were not enough. Constantine took the day — Sept. 18, 324 — in one massive frontal assault, in which 25,000 to 30,000 of Licinius’s troops were killed, and thousands more fled. As the historian Zosimus put it succinctly, “There was great slaughter at Chrysopolis.”

Knowing he was beaten, Licinius gave up; his wife (who was Constantine’s half-sister) Constantia served as intermediary. Granting clemency at first, Constantine later had Licinius executed on suspicion of treason.

Vocabulary:

Which word or phrase above means:

1. people who think they have a right to something

2. seriously decreased, exhausted

3. mercy

4. in few words

5. an experience like a dream when one is awake

6. huge

7. killing of great numbers of people

8. passing on of a position from one person to the next

9. disallowed, forbade

10. lasting around 20 years

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