The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories by Ian Watson, Ian Whates Page B
Authors: Ian Watson, Ian Whates
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy, Alternative histories (Fiction); English, Fantasy Fiction; American, Alternative History, Fantasy Fiction; English, Alternative histories (Fiction), Alternative histories (Fiction); American
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worshipped German tribal deities, the orthodox Roman gods, or were followers of Mithras. None were upset by Constantine’s conversion. The Romans regarded a man’s religion as his own business, and it was almost traditional for an Emperor or would-be Emperor to favour a particular cult. So nobody was uncomfortable with the idea of a Christian leader and my comrades-in-arms and I got along well enough once they had beaten me up and twisted my arm until I promised to stop trying to convert them.
Constantine bided his time until at last he broke with the tetrarchy and marched across the Alps to invade Italy. His aim was to overthrow the tetrarch Maxentius, whose base was at Rome.
While Constantine was a Christian, many of his officers consulted soothsayers and astrologers. Not one of them said that the omens for Constantine’s success were good. Some predicted outright disaster. There was a Jew, Benjamin, in our platoon, and he went around for days shaking his head and waving his hands whenever anyone asked him how he expected us to do in the war.
We marched into Italy, fought a series of skirmishes and small battles and on each occasion we thrashed that bastard Maxentius. With the remains of his army, Maxentius retreated to Rome and barricaded himself in the city to pass his days and nights furiously sacrificing to his pagan gods and casting spells against Constantine.
Now we reached the outskirts of Rome, expecting that we would have to settle down to a long siege. As you know, this isn’t an easy city to take by force and it was no different back then, seven hundred years ago.
But on the day we arrived there was a strange sign in the noonday sun. Not all the soldiers could see it, but many did. It was the sign of the cross, symbol of the love of Christos, set into the middle of the sun’s orb.
Does that sound familiar?
Beneath it there appeared a legend in Latin writing. I explained to those of my fellow-soldiers around me - they could not read - that it said, “by this sign, conquer”.
A message from God! Or so we thought.
Everyone who saw the sign understood it to mean that Christianity was about to win us the war. In camp that night, we talked of nothing else, and the other soldiers were at last interested in hearing what I had to tell them about Christos. Benjamin converted on the spot since, as a Jew, he had a head start on Yeshua’s teachings, which extended the One True Testament.
Constantine, who had also seen everything, now gave orders that a special banner be made bearing the sign of the cross to be carried at the head of the army. He further ordered that we soldiers paint the sign of the cross on our shields, for had it not said in the sky that we would conquer by that sign? This was an order I complied with joyfully, though many of the other soldiers grumbled because they had already painted the images, or symbols of their pagan gods, or the thunderbolts of Zeus, on their shields.
The following day dawned and, before Constantine could set about investing the city properly, Maxentius emerged from the gates to offer us pitched battle.
This looked really promising, because there were 40,000 trained fighting men in our army, while Maxentius could barely muster half that number, and many of them were reluctant conscripts. Even without the sign of the cross in the sky we would have been confident of winning.
The two armies faced one another on a plain to the north of the city crossed by the Tevere. We grunts guessed that Constantine’s strategy would be to overwhelm the enemy’s flanks, try to surround him, then squeeze Maxentius like an orange in his fist. We were looking forward to the squeezing.
This is indeed how the battle began, with cavalry and infantry at either side advancing first. But then the enemy’s heavy cataphract cavalry came charging at our centre, which is where I was posted. This should not have panicked us; we should
Constantine bided his time until at last he broke with the tetrarchy and marched across the Alps to invade Italy. His aim was to overthrow the tetrarch Maxentius, whose base was at Rome.
While Constantine was a Christian, many of his officers consulted soothsayers and astrologers. Not one of them said that the omens for Constantine’s success were good. Some predicted outright disaster. There was a Jew, Benjamin, in our platoon, and he went around for days shaking his head and waving his hands whenever anyone asked him how he expected us to do in the war.
We marched into Italy, fought a series of skirmishes and small battles and on each occasion we thrashed that bastard Maxentius. With the remains of his army, Maxentius retreated to Rome and barricaded himself in the city to pass his days and nights furiously sacrificing to his pagan gods and casting spells against Constantine.
Now we reached the outskirts of Rome, expecting that we would have to settle down to a long siege. As you know, this isn’t an easy city to take by force and it was no different back then, seven hundred years ago.
But on the day we arrived there was a strange sign in the noonday sun. Not all the soldiers could see it, but many did. It was the sign of the cross, symbol of the love of Christos, set into the middle of the sun’s orb.
Does that sound familiar?
Beneath it there appeared a legend in Latin writing. I explained to those of my fellow-soldiers around me - they could not read - that it said, “by this sign, conquer”.
A message from God! Or so we thought.
Everyone who saw the sign understood it to mean that Christianity was about to win us the war. In camp that night, we talked of nothing else, and the other soldiers were at last interested in hearing what I had to tell them about Christos. Benjamin converted on the spot since, as a Jew, he had a head start on Yeshua’s teachings, which extended the One True Testament.
Constantine, who had also seen everything, now gave orders that a special banner be made bearing the sign of the cross to be carried at the head of the army. He further ordered that we soldiers paint the sign of the cross on our shields, for had it not said in the sky that we would conquer by that sign? This was an order I complied with joyfully, though many of the other soldiers grumbled because they had already painted the images, or symbols of their pagan gods, or the thunderbolts of Zeus, on their shields.
The following day dawned and, before Constantine could set about investing the city properly, Maxentius emerged from the gates to offer us pitched battle.
This looked really promising, because there were 40,000 trained fighting men in our army, while Maxentius could barely muster half that number, and many of them were reluctant conscripts. Even without the sign of the cross in the sky we would have been confident of winning.
The two armies faced one another on a plain to the north of the city crossed by the Tevere. We grunts guessed that Constantine’s strategy would be to overwhelm the enemy’s flanks, try to surround him, then squeeze Maxentius like an orange in his fist. We were looking forward to the squeezing.
This is indeed how the battle began, with cavalry and infantry at either side advancing first. But then the enemy’s heavy cataphract cavalry came charging at our centre, which is where I was posted. This should not have panicked us; we should
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