A little east of the Forum at the center of the city were the magnificent imperial baths, called the barbarathermen. Consisting of three stories, they compared favorably with any Constantine had seen elsewhere. Beyond them, the entire northeastern quarter of the city was devoted largely to government offices, including the imperial palace and the buildings of state. South of the baths was the temple area, with a large shrine of Rome’s patron god, Jupiter Capitolinus. And since the people of Gaul were particularly devoted to the games, a large amphitheater had been built against the wall on the east side of the city with, a little north of it, a Circus for chariot races and other public functions.
Constantine approached
Constantine approached the palace on foot, a little awed by what his father had been able to accomplish here in this land so far from the Dalmatian hills in which he had grown up. He did not enter the living quarters of the palace immediately but went instead to the great audience hall, the Aula Palatina. It was paved and tiled with a mosaic effect and the walls were elaborately decorated with the rich colors loved by the Gauls.
The sound of his footfalls was loud in the silence of the building, echoing back to him from the walls as he crossed the chamber to the elevated dais at the end, where stood the throne. A little hesitantly, he approached the steps and stood looking up at the empty chair, feeling somewhat the same sense of awe he’d experienced when, as a boy, he had first seen his father in the magnificent uniform of a Roman general. Slowly he ascended the steps and seated himself, looking down into the great hall and imagining it as it must often have been during his father’s audiences packed with people in the colorful garb favored by Gallic nobles and peasantry alike. And suddenly overcome by the magnitude of the task that faced him in filling his father’s footprints, he spoke a silent prayer to a god he did not name asking that he be given the strength and the wisdom to rule well.
A light footfall on the dais startled him, and he turned quickly to see a slender woman robed in white, with the pearlstudded silver band of a coronet upon her head, looking at him with startled eyes. Constantine would have been sure of her identity, even without the coronet, for there was a regal dignity about the Empress Theodora and a quiet pride which his mother had also possessed. Here, he recognized, was a woman of stature: nor would he have expected less, for he knew his father had been devoted to her.
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