Licinius Turns on the Christians and Falls

After this defeat Licinius, who had previously respected the Christians, changed his mind. He mistreated many of the priests who lived under his rule, and he persecuted a great many others as well, especially the soldiers. He was bitterly angry with the Christians because of his quarrel with Constantine, and thought to wound him through their sufferings for their religion. Besides, he suspected that the churches were praying, and working eagerly, for Constantine alone to hold the supreme power. On top of all this, on the eve of another battle with Constantine, Licinius did what was customarily done and sought a forecast of the coming war through sacrifices and oracles. Deceived by promises of victory, he went back to the religion of the pagans. [a] The pagans themselves also tell that about this time he consulted the oracle of Apollo of Didyma at Miletus, and received from the demon an answer about the outcome of the war in these lines of Homer: [b]

Many things have often shown me that the teaching of the Christians is upheld, and its progress secured, by the providence of God, and not least what happened then. For at the very moment Licinius was about to persecute all the churches under him, the war in Bithynia broke out. It ended in a war between him and Constantine, in which Constantine was so strengthened by divine help that he defeated his enemies by land and by sea. When his fleet and army were destroyed, Licinius took refuge in Nicomedia. He then lived for some time at Thessalonica as a private citizen, and in the end he was killed there. Such was the end of a man who at the beginning of his reign had distinguished himself in war and in peace, and who had been honored with the hand of Constantine’s sister in marriage. [d]