For nearly three years Allectus reigned. At last, in 296, Constantius set forth for the overthrow of this new usurper. “Other emperors,” cries his flatterer, “have received the credit of victories won under their auspices though they themselves were tarrying in Rome. You, unconquered Cæsar! put yourself at the head of your troops; you gave the signal to start, when sea and sky were alike turbid, notwithstanding the hesitation of the other leaders. The wind struck obliquely on your sail: you made your vessel tack. All the soldiers, enraptured, cried: ‘Let us follow Cæsar wherever he leads us’. Fortune did indeed favour you. We have heard from the companions of your voyage how the mists hung low over the back of the sea so that the hostile fleet stationed in ambush round the Isle of Wight never saw you pass. As soon as they touched the shore of Britain your unconquered army set fire to all their ships, urged surely, by some warning voice of your divinity, to seek their safety only in fight and victory.” And so, with more of these pompous periods, the orator describes how the usurper Allectus fled as soon as he saw the imperial fleet, and fleeing fell into the hands of the soldiers of Constantius, how half dead with terror he thus hastened to his death, and by his neglect of all military precautions handed over an easy victory to the imperial troops. “Scarcely one Roman was killed while all the hills and plains around were covered with the ugly bodies of the slain. Those dresses worn in barbarian fashion, those locks of bright red hue were now all defiled with dust and gore. That standard bearer of rebellion himself [Allectus], having in the hope of concealment stripped off the purple robe which he had degraded by wearing it, now lay with scarce a rag to cover his nakedness.”[18] The orator then goes on to describe in words of turgid obscurity how some of the soldiers of Constantius, parted from the main body of the fleet in the fog which had baffled the look-out of Allectus, wandered to the “oppidum Londiniense,” and there were fortunate enough to meet and defeat the remains of the “mercenary multitude” of the usurper’s forces which had taken refuge in that town. We thank even the bombastic orator for some slight indication of what was passing in the streets of the little Roman London at the end of the third century.