The Via Aemilia unfurled ahead in winter sunlight, its stones newly repaired at Constantine's command. Town after town offered scripted welcomes—garlands, bread, garishly painted Chi-Rho banners—but the emperor accepted each ovation with polite brevity. He was measuring harvest stores, counting militia strengths, noting every bridge that sagged under the baggage wagons. By the time his column reached Mediolanum, he possessed a mental ledger of Italy's strengths and liabilities longer than any tribute list the Senate could provide.
Mediolanum itself glittered with nervous wealth: mansions faced in pink Verona marble, a circus large enough to rival Rome's, bathhouses steaming like volcanic vents in the chill air. Constantine quartered his legions outside the walls—no need to tempt merchants with Rhine-hardened pickpockets—then installed his court in Diocletian's old palace. There he waited, watching couriers flash eastward and back like shuttle threads in a looming tapestry of war.
