His thirst satisfied, he was returning to the sleeping quarters by way of the atrium, the large room at the front of the house, when the murmur of voices brought him up short. He recognized the tones of his father and his mother and was turning to creep unobserved to his room by the route he had used to reach the kitchen, when his father’s voice rose suddenly and he was able to distinguish the words.
“I can still give it all up, dearest,” Constantius was saying to Helena. “Diocletian wrote the decree of divorcement himself, but I insisted on coming here with it before I made a final decision.” “When will the marriage to Theodora take place?”
‘When I reach Milan. Maximian and his court are there.”
Caesar and Filius Augusti
The names were not strange to Constantine. Theodora, the stepdaughter of the Emperor Maximian, was said to possess great beauty. She was still unmarried, however, and what Constantine had overheard could only mean that his father was divorcing his concubina to make way for a marriage more favorable to the promotion of his own career, now that he was Caesar and Filius Augusti, with the prospect of one day becoming Augustus. Shaken by his father’s words, Constantine felt a flood of anger and pain surge through him anger that Constantius would even consider divorcing his mother for political reasons, and pain that the man he had idolized above all others should turn out to be moved by the same impulses that governed most men.
“You must not even think of refusing to go through with the marriage,” Helena said and Constantine wondered how she could speak so calmly when their whole world was being destroyed.
“But it is not right that I should put you away, as if you were a dancing girl hired for the night,” Constantius protested.
‘We must think of your career more than my feelings, and Flavius’ future most of all,” Helena said quietly. “What would happen if you refused to accept the decree of divorcement and marry Theodora?” “Rome has no place for a Caesar who rebels against the Augustus who named him.”
“Then neither you nor I have any choice.”
“My heart will be broken. Even the thought of divorcing you causes me pain.”
“But can either of us sacrifice less for our son?”
There was a long silence, broken only by his mother’s quiet sobbing and his father’s murmuring voice as he sought to comfort her. Numbed beyond all feeling and fighting against the urge to hate the father who until a few moments ago had been his only god, Constantine crept back to his couch. He was still awake almost an hour later when his father came to the room but shut his eyes tightly, less Constantius realize that he was not asleep. And when his father’s hand touched his dark hair in a tender caress he could hardly keep from striking it away.
Read More about Why Flavius task is so important
