The family strife ruined the esteem people of Rome had for Constantine.
Not only had he celebrated his vicennalia outside the City but rumours were coming in of a new City being built along the Bosphorus...

They also were rupugnant of this man who paraded around in fine silks, damask and followed by his Court flunkies.
The nobility of the city were admirers of the old Republican Order and to them Constantine had become nothing less than an Eastern Despot.

Constantine had deserted the old gods and taken up the despised Christian Faith which the nobility associated with the plebians and such.
They had watched powerless, as the walls of his huge new basilica rose ever higher next to the old Laterani Palace.
On the 3rd of January 326AD, months before his arrival in the city they watched in silence as his nominee, Acilius Severus, took office as its first Christian governor.

Constantine refused to take part in the traditional Capitoline procession to the Temple of Jupiter, waiting until the parade was already drawn up before announcing his decision.
This not only offended the nobility, it offended the army as most were still pagans.

He was determined to make Rome a great Christian city.
A basilica was built in honour of St. Paul at the site of his tomb andalso near the site of his martyrdom on the road to Ostia.
Another basilica was made for the Holy Apostles on the Appian Way in which he personally carried twelve basketfuls of earth from the site for each of them.

The most famous basilica though was the one he ordered to be built above the traditional resting-place of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill, near Nero's Circus.
It must have begun a year or two earlier as it was consecrated on the 18th of November 326AD, a few months after Constantine arrived.

He was determined to make it a shrine to Christianity, second only to Jerusalem in importance.
However he had no sentiments for Rome, he longed for the East.
After the consecration of the Vatican basilica he left Rome.

He would not return.

A New Rome was being built on the Bosphorus over eight-hundred miles away.
Armies of architects, builders and engineers awaited him.

Byzantium beckoned...