Constantine, however, spoke before his father could answer. “I still say I must earn whatever honor shall come to me,” he insisted. “Name me your deputy for now, Father; we will let the future take care of itself.”

Constantine was far north of the Antonine Wall, at the villa of Bonar, the Piet chieftain, when an urgent message arrived from Eumenius at Eboracum, the capital of northern Britain. Constantius, the message said, was gravely ill and might not last until his arrival there. Taking horse less than an hour later, Constantine rode southward with a small bodyguard, for the Piet chieftain and his people were now at peace with Britain, a feat which many considered no less remarkable than Constantine’s daring dash by water and land a few months earlier into the heart of Bonar’s domain to capture the rebel leader.

Arrival at Gesoriacum

The plan Constantine had outlined to his father and the assembled commanders the day of his arrival at Gesoriacum had gone off almost without a hitch. While the main body of the troops rode northward to the provincial capital at Eboracum following the crossing of the channel and the landing in Britain itself Constantine’s picked band had angled northwestward across Britain. There they had joined a fleet of galleys dispatched on the long seaward run around the island’s southwestern tip and northward along the coast facing the green island called Hibernia. Embarking far to the north and guided by the green painted boats of the coastal patrol, they had gone ashore deep in the territory of Bonar, the Piet chieftain, and, after a forced march inland, had captured both the villa and the person of the rebel leader.

The Piets, powerful warriors who often wore the skins of animak and went into battle with fierce cries, had fought well, but the element of surprise, plus their antiquated weapons, had proved their undoing. After burning the villa, Constantine had retreated

southward, with Bonar in chains, to meet a force under the command of Crocus riding northward from Eboracum.

Constantius and the generals had thought only of executing Bonar, but Constantine had insisted upon carrying out the second portion of a plan by which he hoped to remove northern Britain as a trouble spot in the Empire. And, with such a spectacular victory behind him, even his father had not opposed the move.

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