The Foundation Stone

The year 329 AD pressed upon the Roman world with the weight of an iron lid. Peace, hard and total, stretched from the wild Atlantic coast to the dry, trembling edge of the Syrian desert. On the surface it was an age of order, of new aqueducts and paved roads, of ships gliding on calm seas beneath banners stamped with the Chi-Rho. But beneath this serenity, every man, woman, and child could sense something else-a silence so profound it felt like the hush before an executioner's axe. For all the empire's outward glory, there was no laughter in its streets, no ease in its cities, only the taut, stifling quiet of a world rebuilt and ruled by one man's will.