Hellespont, and, when it is assisted by a north wind, no vessel can attempt the passage, but a south wind renders the force thereof almost imperceptible. One hundred and thirty vessels were destroyed, five thousand men were slain, and Amandus, the admiral of the fleet, escaped with the utmost difficulty to the shores of Chalcedon. As soon as the Hellespont was open, a plentiful convoy of provisions flowed into the camp of Constantine, who had already advanced the operations of the siege. He constructed artificial mounds of earth of equal height with the ramparts of Byzantium. The lofty towers which were erected on that foundation galled the besieged with large stones and darts from the military engines, and the battering-rams had shaken the walls in several places. If Licinius persisted much longer in the defense, he exposed himself to be involved in the ruin of the place. Before he was surrounded, he prudently removed his person and his treasures to Chalcedon, in Asia.... Such were the resources and such the abilities of Licinius, that, after so many successive defeats, he collected in Bithynia a new army of fifty or sixty thousand men, while the activity of Constantine was employed in the siege of Byzantium. The vigilant emperor did not, however, neglect the last struggles of his antagonist. A considerable part of his victorious army was transported over the Bosporus in small vessels, and the decisive engagement was fought soon after their landing on the heights of Chrysopolis, now called Scutari. The troops of Licinius, though they were lately raised, ill armed, and worse disciplined, made head against the conquerors with fruitless but desperate valor, till a total defeat, and a slaughter of five-and-twenty thousand men, irretrievably determined the fate of their leader. He retired to Nicomedia, rather with the view of gaining some time for negotiation, than with the hope of any effectual defense. Constantia, his wife, the sister of Constantine, interceded with her brother in favor of her husband, and obtained from his policy, rather than from his compassion, a solemn promise, confirmed by an oath, that, after the resignation of the purple, Licinius should be permitted to pass the remainder of his life in peace and affluence.... By this victory of Constantine the Roman world was again united under one emperor, thirty-seven years after Diocletian had divided his power and provinces with his associate Maximian.... The foundation of Constantinople, and the _legal establishment_ of the Christian religion, were the immediate and memorable consequences of this revolution."