Scaling defended walls

[Nathan Ross]

Or a true, blood'n'guts Roman!

Yes! I didn't mean that impetuosity and hurry were necessarily UnRoman - Constantine's celeritas is compared to that of Caesar. The implication of the panegyric, I think, is that another, less daring, commander might have chosen to besiege Susa, whereas Constantine just rushed the place. In fact he probably needed to get his force across the Alps before Maxentius had a chance to reinforce his army on the Lombard plain.

In the case of Massilia, there were possibly political reasons (which, obviously, aren't registered in the panegyric!) why Constantine couldn't wait out a lengthy siege or blockade.