Chapter XXV.—Victories of Constantine over the Barbarians and the Britons.
As soon then as he was established on the throne, he began to care for the interests of his paternal inheritance, and visited with much considerate kindness all those provinces which had previously been under his father’s government. Some tribes of the barbarians who dwelt on the banks of the Rhine, and the shores of the Western ocean, having ventured to revolt, he reduced them all to obedience, and brought them from their savage state to one of gentleness. He contented himself with checking the inroads of others, and drove from his dominions, like untamed and savage beasts, those whom he perceived to be altogether incapable of the settled order of civilized life. 3101 Having disposed of these affairs to his satisfaction, he directed his attention to other quarters of the world, and first passed over to the British nations, 3102 which lie in the very bosom of the ocean. These he reduced to submission, and then proceeded to consider the state of the remaining portions of the empire, that he might be ready to tender his aid wherever circumstances might require it.
[Eusebius here speaks of a second expedition of Constantine to Britain, which is not mentioned by other ancient writers; or he may have been forgetful or ignorant of the fact that Constantine had received the imperial authority in Britain itself, Constantius having died in his palace at York, a.d. 306. Vide Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, chap. 14.—Bag.] It seems to be a part of the confusion about his crossing to Britain in the first place.