Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
So the two forces drew nearer, the trumpets sounded, and the standards moved forward. Licinius's men made their charge and fell upon the enemy, who were so terrified that they could neither draw their swords nor throw their weapons. Maximinus rode around the line, trying now with entreaties, now with gifts, to win over Licinius's soldiers, but he was heeded nowhere. A rush was made against him and he fled back to his own men. His battle line was cut down with impunity, and so great a number of legions, so great a mass of soldiers, was mown down by a mere handful. No one remembered his name, his courage, or the rewards he had once earned, as though they had come not to fight a battle but to a death already vowed — so did the Most High God deliver them to their enemies to have their throats cut. Already a huge multitude lay strewn on the ground. Maximinus saw that things were going otherwise than he had supposed. He threw off his purple, put on the clothing of a slave, and fled, crossing the strait. As for his army, half of it was struck down, and the rest either surrendered or turned to flight; for their emperor, by deserting them, had stripped away any shame in deserting him in turn. He himself, on the Kalends of May, that is in a single night and a single day [ ], reached Nicomedia on another night, though the battlefield was a hundred and sixty miles away; and snatching up his children and his wife [ ], he set out for the East with a few companions from the palace. But in Cappadocia he halted, gathering soldiers from among the fugitives and from the East, and there he put his imperial robe on again.
Licinius, having taken over part of the army and distributed it, crossed with his forces into Bithynia a few days after the battle, and entering Nicomedia gave thanks to God, by whose help he had won the victory; it was the Ides of June, and that year's consulship belonged jointly to Constantine and to him for a third term; on that date he had a letter of this sort delivered to the governor and posted publicly, concerning the Church's restoration: Since I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus, had happily met together at Milan and were discussing all matters that concern the advantage and security of the public, we judged that among the other things that seemed likely to benefit the greater number of people, the arrangements touching reverence for the Divinity ought to be settled first of all, so that we might grant to Christians and to all others free power to follow whatever religion each one wished, so that whatever divinity there is in the seat of heaven might be rendered kind and favorable toward us and toward all who are placed under our authority. We therefore judged it right, by a wholesome and most correct reasoning, to hold that no one whatsoever should be refused leave to devote his mind either to the observance of the Christians or to whatever religion he himself felt to be most fitting for him, so that the supreme Divinity, to whose worship we render free obedience of mind, might in all things grant us its accustomed favor and benevolence. Therefore it is fitting that your Devotedness should know that it has pleased us that all conditions whatsoever which were previously contained in the writings sent to your office concerning the name of the Christians, and which seemed wholly ill-omened and foreign to our clemency, should now be removed, and that now freely and simply each one of those who hold this same intention of observing the religion of the Christians should hasten to observe it, without any disturbance or molestation to himself. We judged it right to make this known most fully to your Care, so that you might know that we have granted to these same Christians a free and unconditional power of cultivating their own religion. And since you see this indulged to them by us, your Devotedness will understand that a like open and free power in the practice of their own religion or observance has likewise been granted to others also, for the sake of the peace of our times, so that each may have free power to worship whatever he has chosen; this we have done so that it might not appear that any honor or any religion has been diminished by us. And besides this we have judged it right to decree, concerning the Christians in particular, that if those same places to which they had previously been accustomed to assemble, concerning which a definite ruling had earlier been set out in the letters sent to your office, should be found to have been purchased before now by anyone, whether from our treasury or from any other source, these same places are to be restored to the Christians without payment and without any demand for a price, all delay and ambiguity set aside; and those who obtained the same by way of gift are likewise to return them as quickly as possible to these same Christians — and if those who bought them, or those who received them as a gift, should ask anything of our benevolence, let them apply to the vicar, so that provision may be made for them too through our clemency. All these things must be handed over to the body of the Christians at once through your intervention and without delay. And since these same Christians are known to have possessed not only the places to which they were accustomed to assemble, but other places also, belonging by right to their body, that is to their churches, and not to individual persons, you shall order all these, under the law we have set out above, to be restored, without any ambiguity or dispute whatsoever, to these same Christians, that is, to their body and their congregations — the rule stated above being observed, of course, that those who restore the same without payment, as we have said, may hope for indemnity from our benevolence. In all these matters you ought to furnish your most effective intervention to the aforesaid body of the Christians, so that our order may be fulfilled as quickly as possible, so that in this too, through our clemency, provision may be made for the public peace. In this way it shall come to pass that, as has been set out above, the divine favor toward us, which we have experienced in matters of such moment, may continue throughout all time to attend our successes, together with the well-being of the public. And in order that the terms of this our decree and benevolence may come to the knowledge of all, it will be fitting that you have this writing published by your own edict everywhere and brought to the knowledge of all, so that this decree of our benevolence may not remain hidden. When this letter had been published, he further urged by word of mouth that the meeting-places be restored to their former condition. So from the overthrow of the Church to its restoration there passed ten years, and some four months more.
As Licinius followed after him with his army, the tyrant fled and again made for the narrow passes of the Taurus mountain range. There he built fortifications and towers, trying to block the way, but was dislodged as the victors broke through everything, and at last took refuge in Tarsus. There, hard pressed already by land and sea and with no hope of escape left him, in anguish of soul and in fear he fled to death as though it were a remedy for the evils that God had heaped upon his head. But first he stuffed himself with food and gorged himself with wine, as those do who suppose this to be their last act, and so he drank the poison. Its force, driven back by his overfull stomach, could not take effect at once, but turned into a lingering, wasting sickness resembling plague, so that, his breath drawn out longer, he might feel the torment all the more. Already the poison had begun to rage within him. As its force made his vitals seethe, he was driven by unbearable pain to the verge of madness, so much so that for four days, frenzied with insanity, he devoured with his own hands the earth he scooped up, as though famished. Then, after many grievous torments, as he dashed his head against the walls, his eyes started from their sockets. Then at last, having lost his sight, he began to see God, with shining attendants, sitting in judgment upon him. So he cried out, as those under torture are wont to do, saying that it was not he but others who had done these things. Then, as though driven by the torments themselves, he confessed Christ, begging and imploring again and again that Christ have mercy upon him. So, amid the groans he uttered as though he were being burned, he breathed out his guilty spirit in a death of a most detestable kind.
In this way God overthrew all the persecutors of his name, so that not so much as a shoot or a root of them remained. For Licinius, once he had gained mastery of everything, first ordered the killing of Valeria, whom Maximinus in his rage had not dared to kill even after his flight, when he saw that he himself must perish; and likewise of Candidianus, whom Valeria had adopted, being the son of a concubine, because she herself was barren. The woman, however, on learning that Licinius had won, had changed her dress and mingled with his retinue in order to watch over Candidianus's fortunes; but he, because he had presented himself at Nicomedia and seemed to be held in honor, suspecting nothing of the sort, was killed. And she, on hearing of his death, at once fled. Licinius likewise put to death, under sentence of capital punishment, Severianus the son of Severus, already a grown man, who had followed the fleeing Maximinus from the battlefield, on the charge that after his death he had thought of assuming the purple. All these men, already fearing Licinius as an evil to come, had preferred to side with Maximinus, except Valeria, who, though Licinius wished it, had refused to yield to him by right of inheritance all of Maximian's goods, and had likewise refused Maximinus. Licinius also put to death Maximinus's own eldest son, a boy of eight years, and his daughter, seven years old, who had been betrothed to Candidianus. But their mother had first been cast headlong into the Orontes — the same river into which she had often ordered chaste women to be thrown. So all these wicked men, by God's true and just judgment, received the very same things they themselves had done.
Valeria too, wandering through various provinces for fifteen months in the dress of a commoner, was at last recognized at Thessalonica, and, seized together with her mother, paid the penalty. The women were led out to execution amid a vast crowd watching and pitying so great a fall, and, their heads cut off, their bodies were cast into the sea. So it was that their chastity and their rank brought about their destruction.
All these things, in good faith — for I speak as one who knows — I have believed should be committed to writing just as they happened, so that neither should the memory of such great events perish, nor, if anyone should wish to write this history, should he corrupt the truth by passing over in silence either their sins against God or God's judgment against them. To his eternal goodness we owe thanks, for he at last looked down upon the earth, since he has deigned to restore and gather together his flock, part of it ravaged by rapacious wolves, part of it scattered, and to root out the evil beasts that had trampled the pastures of the divine flock and torn apart its folds. Where now are those magnificent and famous titles of the Jovians and the Herculians, celebrated among the nations, which Diocletian and Maximian first arrogantly assumed and which afterward flourished, passed on to their successors? The Lord has indeed destroyed them and blotted them from the earth. Let us then celebrate the triumph of God with rejoicing; let us keep the victory of the Lord with praises; let us keep it with prayers by day and by night, let us keep it, that he may confirm forever the peace granted to his people after ten years. You above all, dearest Donatus, who deserve to be heard by God, entreat the Lord that he may keep his mercy, gracious and gentle, toward his servants also, that he may ward off from his people every snare and assault of the devil, and that he may guard the flourishing Church in perpetual peace.