In greater detail Zosimus[127] accuses Constantine of wasting the public money on useless buildings. As a pagan, he would naturally regard expenditure upon the construction of sumptuous Christian churches as money thrown away, but it is perfectly certain that the state of the Imperial resources did not justify the Emperor in lavishing vast sums upon churches in all parts of the Empire. If we consider what must have been the capital cost of his churches in Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Mamre, and Antioch,—to mention only a few places,—and remember that he was constantly urging the bishops to keep building and constantly sending instructions to his vicars to make handsome subsidies out of the State funds, we cannot but conclude that the grumbling of the pagan tax payer was thoroughly well justified. Constantine, indeed, seems to have been as _entêté_ in the matter of building churches as was in our day the mad King Ludwig of Bavaria in the building of royal castles. Nor was this the only form in which the passion for bricks and mortar—_il mal di pietra_—seized him. He built a new basilica even in Rome—though he rarely set foot in the city. In Constantinople he must have sunk millions of unproductive capital, which were far more urgently required for the development of agriculture and commerce. In one epigrammatic sentence Zosimus sums up his indictment by saying that Constantine thought to gain distinction by lavish outlay.[128] He also wasted the public revenue on unworthy and useless favourites,[129] whom he taught, in the phrase of Ammianus Marcellinus, to open their greedy jaws (_fauces aperuit_). Zosimus says bluntly that in his opinion it was Constantine who sowed the seeds of the ruinous waste and destruction that prevailed when he wrote his history, and he roundly declares that the Emperor devoted his life to his own selfish pleasures.[130] ----- Footnote 127: ii., 32, 35. Footnote 128: τὴν γὰρ ἀσωτίαν ἡγεῖτο φιλοτιμίαν (ii., 38). Footnote 129: εἰς ἀναξίους καὶ ἀνωφελεῖς ἀνθρώπονς τοὺς φορους ἐκδαπανῶν. Footnote 130: καὶ τρυφῇ τὸν βίον ἐκδοίς (ii., 32). -----