The silence in the hall at Arelate was absolute following Constantine's pronouncement. Bassianus, his face a mask of disbelief and terror, simply stared at the evidence of his own undoing. He had gambled on the ambition of one emperor and fatally underestimated the cold, calculating nature of another.
His end was swift and without ceremony. There was no public trial, no grand spectacle. Treason against the Augustus required no further judgment. Valerius and the Scholae Palatinae carried out the sentence that same day. The message to any who might consider betraying Constantine was unambiguous: the price was not disgrace or exile, but a quick and quiet death.
