He Resolves to Free Rome from Maxentius

He looked on the whole world as one immense body, and saw that its head, the royal city of the Roman Empire, was bowed down under the weight of a tyrant’s oppression. At first he had left the task of setting it free to those who governed the other divisions of the empire, since they were his seniors in age. But none of them proved able to bring relief, and those who had attempted it had come to a disastrous end. Then he said that life held no joy for him as long as he saw the imperial city so afflicted, and he prepared himself to overthrow the tyranny. [a]