The Emperor Constantine the Great, on the way to wage war against his brother-in-law Maxentius in 312 AD, is said to have had a vision of a cross in the sky stating "in hoc signo vinces" (by this sign you will conquer) at the location where La Croix-Valmer is now situated.
In 305, Diocletian and Maximian abdicated, and the former caesares Constantius and Galerius became Augusti.
The speech is peculiar because none of the honoured emperors was present at its delivery, and because it celebrates Constantine's victory over Maxentius (at the Battle of Milvian Bridge) in 312, avoiding almost any reference to contemporaneous events.
312: Maxentius consulted the Sibylline Books in preparation for combat with Constantine, who had recently switched his allegiance from Apollo to Christ.
In this scene, the Chi-Rho monogram of Christ appears before Constantine in the sky at noon just prior to his battle with Maxentius.
On this latter road, beyond Decimo, two milestones, one of Tiberius, the other of Maxentius, each bearing the number II, have been found; and farther on, at Capocotta, traces of ancient buildings, and an important sepulchral inscription of a Jewish ruler of a synagogue have come to light.
The circus-complex of Maxentius as originally conceived can be partly understood as an elaborate imperial version of the type of elite residences that appear in Rome and throughout the provinces in late antiquity, whose pretensions are evidenced in the regular presence of large audience halls, familial tombs and circus-shaped structures - the Villa Gordiani, also in Rome, and the complex at Piazza Armerina in Sicily, are two examples.
In 307, Constantine allied to the Italian Augusti, and this alliance was sealed with the marriage of Constantine to Fausta, daughter of Maximian and sister of Maxentius.
(Tac. Hist. iii. 79.) At a much later period (312) it was also the point to which Maxentius advanced to meet Constantine previous to the battle at the Milvian bridge.
French, son of local antiquarian Gilbert James French, notes that the church is the only one in England dedicated to Saint Maxentius.
Tres Tabernae was the place where the former Emperor Flavius Valerius Severus was held prisoner by Maxentius and Maximian, before being killed (307).