Constantine rode through the gates of Byzantium at the head of a single cohort of his Scholae Palatinae. The city's populace, expecting a brutal sack, peered from windows with silent, terrified faces. In the main forum, a delegation of city fathers met him, their heads bowed low, offering him the keys to the city with trembling hands. Constantine accepted them, his gaze already moving past the supplicant officials, sweeping across the landscape. His mind, armed with the secret surveys he had commissioned years ago, was already at work, overlaying his grand vision onto the existing city. He saw not the current collection of buildings, but the placement of his future Forum, the line of the Hippodrome, the site of his Imperial Palace on the acropolis, commanding the sea.
"Augustus," the lead official stammered, "the city's granaries and treasury are open to you."
