By
circa 330 A.D., Constantine the Great completed his new capital for the
Roman empire and called it Constantinople after himself, originally the
ancient Greek city named Byzantium. Constantinople lay in a
strategically imporant location and could be considered the continuation
of the Roman empire in the east until about 1453 A.D. when it fell to
the Ottoman Turks. For this momentous occasion, he issued two coin types
commemorating this event, with one celebrating Rome and the other
Constantinople. The type that commemorated Rome
had the personification of Rome, Roma with the inscription VRBS ROMA
and the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus on the reverse suckling the
mythical she-wolf. The type that commemorated Constantinople
had the personification of Constantinople on the obverse and Victory on
a galley sailing with a shield. This was a great way for Constantine
the Great to pay homage to both Rome and Constantinople as now the Roman
empire had two official capitals.
Romulus and Remus
are Rome's twin founders in its traditional foundation myth. They are
descendants of the Trojan prince and refugee Aeneas, and are fathered by
the god Mars or the demi-god Hercules on a royal Vestal Virgin, Rhea
Silvia, whose uncle exposes them to die in the wild. They are found by a
she-wolf who suckles and cares for them. The twins are eventually
restored to their regal birthright, acquire many followers and decide to
found a new city.
Romulus wishes to build the new city on the
Palatine Hill; Remus prefers the Aventine Hill. They agree to determine
the site through augury. Romulus appears to receive the more favourable
signs but each claims the results in his favour. In the disputes that
follow, Remus is killed. Ovid has Romulus invent the festival of Lemuria
to appease Remus' resentful ghost. Romulus names the new city Rome,
after himself, and goes on to create the Roman Legions and the Roman
Senate. He adds citizens to his new city by abducting the women of the
neighboring Sabine tribes, which results in the combination of Sabines
and Romans as one Roman people. Rome rapidly expands to become a
dominant force, due to divine favour and the inspired administrative,
military and political leadership of Romulus. In later life Romulus
becomes increasingly autocratic, disappears in mysterious circumstances
and is deified as the god Quirinus, the divine persona of the Roman
people.
The legend of Romulus and Remus encapsulates Rome's ideas
of itself, its origins, moral values and purpose: it has also been
described as one of the most problematic of all foundation myths.
Romulus' name is thought to be a back-formation from the name Rome;
Remus' is a matter for ancient and modern speculation. The main sources
for the legend approach it as history and offer an implausibly exact
chronology: Roman historians dated the city's foundation variously from
758 to 728 BC. Plutarch says Romulus was fifty-three at his death; which
reckoning gives the twins' birth year as c. 771 BC. Possible historical
bases for the broad mythological narrative remain unclear and much
disputed. Romulus and Remus are eminent among the feral children of
ancient mythography.
Caesar
(Recognized): 306-309 A.D. | Filius Augustorum (Recognized): 309-310
A.D. | Augustus (Self-Proclaimed): 307-310 A.D. | Augustus (Recognized):
310-337 A.D. |
| Son of Constantius I 'Chlorus' and Helena | Step-son of Theodora | Husband of Minervina and Fausta | Father (by Minervina) of Crispus and (by Fausta) of Constantine II, Constantius II, Constans, Constantina (wife of Hanniballianus & Constantius Gallus) and Helena the Younger (wife of Julian II) | Son-in-law of Maximian and Eutropia | Brother-in-law of Maxentius | Half-brother of Constantia (w. of Licinius I) | Half-uncle of Delmatius, Hanniballianus, Constantius Gallus, Julian II, Licinius II and Nepotian | Grandfather of Constantia (wife of Gratian) |
Constantine the Great (Latin: Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus; 27 February c. 272 AD - 22 May 337 AD), also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine (in the Orthodox Church as Saint Constantine the Great, Equal-to-the-Apostles),
was a Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD. Constantine was the son of
Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman army officer, and his consort
Helena. His father became Caesar, the deputy emperor in the west
in 293 AD. Constantine was sent east, where he rose through the ranks to
become a military tribune under the emperors Diocletian and Galerius.
In 305, Constantius was raised to the rank of Augustus, senior
western emperor, and Constantine was recalled west to campaign under his
father in Britannia (Britain). Acclaimed as emperor by the army at
Eboracum (modern-day York) after his father's death in 306 AD,
Constantine emerged victorious in a series of civil wars against the
emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become sole ruler of both west and
east by 324 AD.
As emperor, Constantine enacted many
administrative, financial, social, and military reforms to strengthen
the empire. The government was restructured and civil and military
authority separated. A new gold coin, the solidus, was introduced to
combat inflation. It would become the standard for Byzantine and
European currencies for more than a thousand years. The first Roman
emperor to claim conversion to Christianity, Constantine played an
influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which
decreed tolerance for Christianity in the empire. He called the First
Council of Nicaea in 325, at which the Nicene Creed was professed by
Christians. In military matters, the Roman army was reorganised to
consist of mobile field units and garrison soldiers capable of
countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. Constantine pursued
successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers-the
Franks, the Alamanni, the Goths, and the Sarmatians-even resettling
territories abandoned by his predecessors during the Crisis of the Third
Century.
The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the
history of the Roman Empire. He built a new imperial residence at
Byzantium and renamed the city Constantinople after himself (the
laudatory epithet of "New Rome" came later, and was never an official
title). It would later become the capital of the Empire for over one
thousand years; for which reason the later Eastern Empire would come to
be known as the Byzantine Empire. His more immediate political legacy
was that, in leaving the empire to his sons, he replaced Diocletian's
tetrarchy with the principle of dynastic succession. His reputation
flourished during the lifetime of his children and centuries after his
reign. The medieval church upheld him as a paragon of virtue while
secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference, and the
symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity. Beginning with the
Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his reign due to the
rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Critics portrayed him as a
tyrant. Trends in modern and recent scholarship attempted to balance the
extremes of previous scholarship.
Constantine is a significant
figure in the history of Christianity. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
built on his orders at the purported site of Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem,
became the holiest place in Christendom. The Papal claim to temporal
power in the High Middle Ages was based on the supposed Donation of
Constantine. He is venerated as a saint by Eastern Orthodox, Byzantine
Catholics, and Anglicans.
Sources
Constantine was a ruler
of major historical importance, and he has always been a controversial
figure. The fluctuations in Constantine's reputation reflect the nature
of the ancient sources for his reign. These are abundant and detailed,
but have been strongly influenced by the official propaganda of the
period, and are often one-sided. There are no surviving histories or
biographies dealing with Constantine's life and rule. The nearest
replacement is Eusebius of Caesarea's Vita Constantini, a work that is a mixture of eulogy and hagiography. Written between 335 AD and circa 339 AD, the Vita extols Constantine's moral and religious virtues. The Vita
creates a contentiously positive image of Constantine, and modern
historians have frequently challenged its reliability. The fullest
secular life of Constantine is the anonymous Origo Constantini. A work of uncertain date, the Origo focuses on military and political events, to the neglect of cultural and religious matters.
Lactantius' De Mortibus Persecutorum,
a political Christian pamphlet on the reigns of Diocletian and the
Tetrarchy, provides valuable but tendentious detail on Constantine's
predecessors and early life. The ecclesiastical histories of Socrates,
Sozomen, and Theodoret describe the ecclesiastic disputes of
Constantine's later reign. Written during the reign of Theodosius II
(408-50 AD), a century after Constantine's reign, these ecclesiastic
historians obscure the events and theologies of the Constantinian period
through misdirection, misrepresentation and deliberate obscurity. The
contemporary writings of the orthodox Christian Athanasius and the
ecclesiastical history of the Arian Philostorgius also survive, though
their biases are no less firm.
The epitomes of Aurelius Victor (De Caesaribus), Eutropius (Breviarium), Festus (Breviarium), and the anonymous author of the Epitome de Caesaribus
offer compressed secular political and military histories of the
period. Although not Christian, the epitomes paint a favorable image of
Constantine, but omit reference to Constantine's religious policies. The
Panegyrici Latini, a collection of panegyrics from the late
third and early fourth centuries, provide valuable information on the
politics and ideology of the tetrarchic period and the early life of
Constantine. Contemporary architecture, such as the Arch of Constantine
in Rome and palaces in Gamzigrad and Córdoba, epigraphic remains, and
the coinage of the era complement the literary sources.
Early life
Remains of the luxurious residence palace of Mediana, erected by Constantine I near his birth town of Naissus
Flavius
Valerius Constantinus, as he was originally named, was born in the city
of Naissus, (today Niš, Serbia) part of the Dardania province of Moesia
on 27 February, probably c. 272 AD. His father was Flavius Constantius,
an Illyrian, and a native of Dardania province of Moesia (later Dacia
Ripensis). Constantine probably spent little time with his father who
was an officer in the Roman army, part of the Emperor Aurelian's
imperial bodyguard. Being described as a tolerant and politically
skilled man, Constantius advanced through the ranks, earning the
governorship of Dalmatia from Emperor Diocletian, another of Aurelian's
companions from Illyricum, in 284 or 285. Constantine's mother was
Helena, possibly a Bithynian woman of low social standing. It is
uncertain whether she was legally married to Constantius or merely his
concubine. It is unclear if Constantine could speak Thracian, his main
language being Latin, and during his public speeches he needed Greek
translators.
Constantine's parents and siblings, the dates in square brackets indicate the possession of minor titles
In
July 285 AD, Diocletian declared Maximian, another colleague from
Illyricum, his co-emperor. Each emperor would have his own court, his
own military and administrative faculties, and each would rule with a
separate praetorian prefect as chief lieutenant. Maximian ruled in the
West, from his capitals at Mediolanum (Milan, Italy) or Augusta
Treverorum (Trier, Germany), while Diocletian ruled in the East, from
Nicomedia (İzmit, Turkey). The division was merely pragmatic: the Empire
was called "indivisible" in official panegyric, and both emperors could
move freely throughout the Empire. In 288, Maximian appointed
Constantius to serve as his praetorian prefect in Gaul. Constantius left
Helena to marry Maximian's stepdaughter Theodora in 288 or 289.
Diocletian
divided the Empire again in 293 AD, appointing two Caesars (junior
emperors) to rule over further subdivisions of East and West. Each would
be subordinate to their respective Augustus (senior emperor) but would
act with supreme authority in his assigned lands. This system would
later be called the Tetrarchy. Diocletian's first appointee for the
office of Caesar was Constantius; his second was Galerius, a native of
Felix Romuliana. According to Lactantius, Galerius was a brutal,
animalistic man. Although he shared the paganism of Rome's aristocracy,
he seemed to them an alien figure, a semi-barbarian. On 1 March,
Constantius was promoted to the office of Caesar, and dispatched to Gaul
to fight the rebels Carausius and Allectus. In spite of meritocratic
overtones, the Tetrarchy retained vestiges of hereditary privilege, and
Constantine became the prime candidate for future appointment as Caesar
as soon as his father took the position. Constantine went to the court
of Diocletian, where he lived as his father's heir presumptive.
In the East
Head from a statue of Diocletian, Augustus of the East
Constantine
received a formal education at Diocletian's court, where he learned
Latin literature, Greek, and philosophy. The cultural environment in
Nicomedia was open, fluid and socially mobile, and Constantine could mix
with intellectuals both pagan and Christian. He may have attended the
lectures of Lactantius, a Christian scholar of Latin in the city.
Because Diocletian did not completely trust Constantius-none of the
Tetrarchs fully trusted their colleagues-Constantine was held as
something of a hostage, a tool to ensure Constantius's best behavior.
Constantine was nonetheless a prominent member of the court: he fought
for Diocletian and Galerius in Asia, and served in a variety of
tribunates; he campaigned against barbarians on the Danube in 296 AD,
and fought the Persians under Diocletian in Syria (297 AD) and under
Galerius in Mesopotamia (298-299 AD). By late 305 AD, he had become a
tribune of the first order, a tribunus ordinis primi.
Constantine
had returned to Nicomedia from the eastern front by the spring of
303 AD, in time to witness the beginnings of Diocletian's "Great
Persecution", the most severe persecution of Christians in Roman
history. In late 302, Diocletian and Galerius sent a messenger to the
oracle of Apollo at Didyma with an inquiry about Christians. Constantine
could recall his presence at the palace when the messenger returned,
when Diocletian accepted his court's demands for universal persecution.
On 23 February 303 AD, Diocletian ordered the destruction of Nicomedia's
new church, condemned its scriptures to the flames, and had its
treasures seized. In the months that followed, churches and scriptures
were destroyed, Christians were deprived of official ranks, and priests
were imprisoned.
It is unlikely that Constantine played any role
in the persecution. In his later writings he would attempt to present
himself as an opponent of Diocletian's "sanguinary edicts" against the
"worshippers of God", but nothing indicates that he opposed it
effectively at the time. Although no contemporary Christian challenged
Constantine for his inaction during the persecutions, it remained a
political liability throughout his life.
On 1 May 305 AD,
Diocletian, as a result of a debilitating sickness taken in the winter
of 304-305 AD, announced his resignation. In a parallel ceremony in
Milan, Maximian did the same. Lactantius states that Galerius
manipulated the weakened Diocletian into resigning, and forced him to
accept Galerius' allies in the imperial succession. According to
Lactantius, the crowd listening to Diocletian's resignation speech
believed, until the very last moment, that Diocletian would choose
Constantine and Maxentius (Maximian's son) as his successors. It was not
to be: Constantius and Galerius were promoted to Augusti, while Severus
and Maximinus Daia, Galerius' nephew, were appointed their Caesars
respectively. Constantine and Maxentius were ignored.
Some of the
ancient sources detail plots that Galerius made on Constantine's life in
the months following Diocletian's abdication. They assert that Galerius
assigned Constantine to lead an advance unit in a cavalry charge
through a swamp on the middle Danube, made him enter into single combat
with a lion, and attempted to kill him in hunts and wars. Constantine
always emerged victorious: the lion emerged from the contest in a poorer
condition than Constantine; Constantine returned to Nicomedia from the
Danube with a Sarmatian captive to drop at Galerius' feet. It is
uncertain how much these tales can be trusted.
In the West
Constantine
recognized the implicit danger in remaining at Galerius's court, where
he was held as a virtual hostage. His career depended on being rescued
by his father in the west. Constantius was quick to intervene. In the
late spring or early summer of 305 AD, Constantius requested leave for
his son to help him campaign in Britain. After a long evening of
drinking, Galerius granted the request. Constantine's later propaganda
describes how he fled the court in the night, before Galerius could
change his mind. He rode from post-house to post-house at high speed,
hamstringing every horse in his wake. By the time Galerius awoke the
following morning, Constantine had fled too far to be caught.
Constantine joined his father in Gaul, at Bononia (Boulogne) before the
summer of 305 AD.
Bronze statue of Constantine I in York, England, near the spot where he was proclaimed Augustus in 306
From
Bononia they crossed the Channel to Britain and made their way to
Eboracum (York), capital of the province of Britannia Secunda and home
to a large military base. Constantine was able to spend a year in
northern Britain at his father's side, campaigning against the Picts
beyond Hadrian's Wall in the summer and autumn. Constantius's campaign,
like that of Septimius Severus before it, probably advanced far into the
north without achieving great success. Constantius had become severely
sick over the course of his reign, and died on 25 July 306 in Eboracum
(York). Before dying, he declared his support for raising Constantine to
the rank of full Augustus. The Alamannic king Chrocus, a barbarian
taken into service under Constantius, then proclaimed Constantine as
Augustus. The troops loyal to Constantius' memory followed him in
acclamation. Gaul and Britain quickly accepted his rule; Iberia, which
had been in his father's domain for less than a year, rejected it.
Constantine
sent Galerius an official notice of Constantius's death and his own
acclamation. Along with the notice, he included a portrait of himself in
the robes of an Augustus. The portrait was wreathed in bay. He
requested recognition as heir to his father's throne, and passed off
responsibility for his unlawful ascension on his army, claiming they had
"forced it upon him". Galerius was put into a fury by the message; he
almost set the portrait on fire. His advisers calmed him, and argued
that outright denial of Constantine's claims would mean certain war.
Galerius was compelled to compromise: he granted Constantine the title
"Caesar" rather than "Augustus" (the latter office went to Severus
instead). Wishing to make it clear that he alone gave Constantine
legitimacy, Galerius personally sent Constantine the emperor's
traditional purple robes. Constantine accepted the decision, knowing
that it would remove doubts as to his legitimacy.
Early rule
Constantine's
share of the Empire consisted of Britain, Gaul, and Spain. He therefore
commanded one of the largest Roman armies, stationed along the
important Rhine frontier. After his promotion to emperor, Constantine
remained in Britain, driving back the tribes of the Picts and secured
his control in the northwestern dioceses. He completed the
reconstruction of military bases begun under his father's rule, and
ordered the repair of the region's roadways. He soon left for Augusta
Treverorum (Trier) in Gaul, the Tetrarchic capital of the northwestern
Roman Empire. The Franks, after learning of Constantine's acclamation,
invaded Gaul across the lower Rhine over the winter of 306-307 AD.
Constantine drove them back beyond the Rhine and captured two of their
kings, Ascaric and Merogaisus. The kings and their soldiers were fed to
the beasts of Trier's amphitheater in the adventus (arrival) celebrations that followed.
Public baths (thermae)
built in Trier by Constantine. More than 100 metres (328 ft) wide by
200 metres (656 ft) long, and capable of serving several thousands at a
time, the baths were built to rival those of Rome.
Constantine
began a major expansion of Trier. He strengthened the circuit wall
around the city with military towers and fortified gates, and began
building a palace complex in the northeastern part of the city. To the
south of his palace, he ordered the construction of a large formal
audience hall, and a massive imperial bathhouse. Constantine sponsored
many building projects across Gaul during his tenure as emperor of the
West, especially in Augustodunum (Autun) and Arelate (Arles). According
to Lactantius, Constantine followed his father in following a tolerant
policy towards Christianity. Although not yet a Christian, he probably
judged it a more sensible policy than open persecution, and a way to
distinguish himself from the "great persecutor", Galerius. Constantine
decreed a formal end to persecution, and returned to Christians all they
had lost during the persecutions.
Because Constantine was still
largely untried and had a hint of illegitimacy about him, he relied on
his father's reputation in his early propaganda: the earliest panegyrics
to Constantine give as much coverage to his father's deeds as to those
of Constantine himself. Constantine's military skill and building
projects soon gave the panegyrist the opportunity to comment favorably
on the similarities between father and son, and Eusebius remarked that
Constantine was a "renewal, as it were, in his own person, of his
father's life and reign". Constantinian coinage, sculpture and oratory
also shows a new tendency for disdain towards the "barbarians" beyond
the frontiers. After Constantine's victory over the Alemanni, he minted a
coin issue depicting weeping and begging Alemannic tribesmen-"The
Alemanni conquered"-beneath the phrase "Romans' rejoicing". There was
little sympathy for these enemies. As his panegyrist declared: "It is a
stupid clemency that spares the conquered foe."
Maxentius' rebellion
Dresden bust of Maxentius
Following
Galerius' recognition of Constantine as caesar, Constantine's portrait
was brought to Rome, as was customary. Maxentius mocked the portrait's
subject as the son of a harlot, and lamented his own powerlessness.
Maxentius, envious of Constantine's authority, seized the title of
emperor on 28 October 306 AD. Galerius refused to recognize him, but
failed to unseat him. Galerius sent Severus against Maxentius, but
during the campaign, Severus' armies, previously under command of
Maxentius' father Maximian, defected, and Severus was seized and
imprisoned. Maximian, brought out of retirement by his son's rebellion,
left for Gaul to confer with Constantine in late 307 AD. He offered to
marry his daughter Fausta to Constantine, and elevate him to Augustan
rank. In return, Constantine would reaffirm the old family alliance
between Maximian and Constantius, and offer support to Maxentius' cause
in Italy. Constantine accepted, and married Fausta in Trier in late
summer 307 AD. Constantine now gave Maxentius his meagre support,
offering Maxentius political recognition.
Constantine remained
aloof from the Italian conflict, however. Over the spring and summer of
307 AD, he had left Gaul for Britain to avoid any involvement in the
Italian turmoil; now, instead of giving Maxentius military aid, he sent
his troops against Germanic tribes along the Rhine. In 308 AD, he raided
the territory of the Bructeri, and made a bridge across the Rhine at
Colonia Agrippinensium (Cologne). In 310 AD, he marched to the northern
Rhine and fought the Franks. When not campaigning, he toured his lands
advertising his benevolence, and supporting the economy and the arts.
His refusal to participate in the war increased his popularity among his
people, and strengthened his power base in the West. Maximian returned
to Rome in the winter of 307-308 AD, but soon fell out with his son. In
early 308 AD, after a failed attempt to usurp Maxentius' title, Maximian
returned to Constantine's court.
On 11 November 308 AD, Galerius
called a general council at the military city of Carnuntum
(Petronell-Carnuntum, Austria) to resolve the instability in the western
provinces. In attendance were Diocletian, briefly returned from
retirement, Galerius, and Maximian. Maximian was forced to abdicate
again and Constantine was again demoted to Caesar. Licinius, one of
Galerius' old military companions, was appointed Augustus in the western
regions. The new system did not last long: Constantine refused to
accept the demotion, and continued to style himself as Augustus on his
coinage, even as other members of the Tetrarchy referred to him as a
Caesar on theirs. Maximinus Daia was frustrated that he had been passed
over for promotion while the newcomer Licinius had been raised to the
office of Augustus, and demanded that Galerius promote him. Galerius
offered to call both Maximinus and Constantine "sons of the Augusti",
but neither accepted the new title. By the spring of 310 AD, Galerius
was referring to both men as Augusti.
Maximian's rebellion
In
310 AD, a dispossessed Maximian rebelled against Constantine while
Constantine was away campaigning against the Franks. Maximian had been
sent south to Arles with a contingent of Constantine's army, in
preparation for any attacks by Maxentius in southern Gaul. He announced
that Constantine was dead, and took up the imperial purple. In spite of a
large donative pledge to any who would support him as emperor, most of
Constantine's army remained loyal to their emperor, and Maximian was
soon compelled to leave. Constantine soon heard of the rebellion,
abandoned his campaign against the Franks, and marched his army up the
Rhine. At Cabillunum (Chalon-sur-Saône), he moved his troops onto
waiting boats to row down the slow waters of the Saône to the quicker
waters of the Rhone. He disembarked at Lugdunum (Lyon). Maximian fled to
Massilia (Marseille), a town better able to withstand a long siege than
Arles. It made little difference, however, as loyal citizens opened the
rear gates to Constantine. Maximian was captured and reproved for his
crimes. Constantine granted some clemency, but strongly encouraged his
suicide. In July 310 AD, Maximian hanged himself.
In spite of the
earlier rupture in their relations, Maxentius was eager to present
himself as his father's devoted son after his death. He began minting
coins with his father's deified image, proclaiming his desire to avenge
Maximian's death. Constantine initially presented the suicide as an
unfortunate family tragedy. By 311 AD, however, he was spreading another
version. According to this, after Constantine had pardoned him,
Maximian planned to murder Constantine in his sleep. Fausta learned of
the plot and warned Constantine, who put a eunuch in his own place in
bed. Maximian was apprehended when he killed the eunuch and was offered
suicide, which he accepted. Along with using propaganda, Constantine
instituted a damnatio memoriae on Maximian, destroying all inscriptions referring to him and eliminating any public work bearing his image.
The
death of Maximian required a shift in Constantine's public image. He
could no longer rely on his connection to the elder emperor Maximian,
and needed a new source of legitimacy. In a speech delivered in Gaul on
25 July 310 AD, the anonymous orator reveals a previously unknown
dynastic connection to Claudius II, a 3rd Century emperor famed for
defeating the Goths and restoring order to the empire. Breaking away
from tetrarchic models, the speech emphasizes Constantine's ancestral
prerogative to rule, rather than principles of imperial equality. The
new ideology expressed in the speech made Galerius and Maximian
irrelevant to Constantine's right to rule. Indeed, the orator emphasizes
ancestry to the exclusion of all other factors: "No chance agreement of
men, nor some unexpected consequence of favor, made you emperor," the
orator declares to Constantine.
The oration also moves away from
the religious ideology of the Tetrarchy, with its focus on twin
dynasties of Jupiter and Hercules. Instead, the orator proclaims that
Constantine experienced a divine vision of Apollo and Victory granting
him laurel wreaths of health and a long reign. In the likeness of Apollo
Constantine recognized himself as the saving figure to whom would be
granted "rule of the whole world", as the poet Virgil had once foretold.
The oration's religious shift is paralleled by a similar shift in
Constantine's coinage. In his early reign, the coinage of Constantine
advertised Mars as his patron. From 310 AD on, Mars was replaced by Sol
Invictus, a god conventionally identified with Apollo. There is little
reason to believe that either the dynastic connection or the divine
vision are anything other than fiction, but their proclamation
strengthened Constantine's claims to legitimacy and increased his
popularity among the citizens of Gaul.
Civil wars
See also: Civil wars of the TetrarchyWar against Maxentius
By
the middle of 310 AD, Galerius had become too ill to involve himself in
imperial politics. His final act survives: a letter to the provincials
posted in Nicomedia on 30 April 311 AD, proclaiming an end to the
persecutions, and the resumption of religious toleration. He died soon
after the edict's proclamation, destroying what little remained of the
tetrarchy. Maximinus mobilized against Licinius, and seized Asia Minor. A
hasty peace was signed on a boat in the middle of the Bosphorus. While
Constantine toured Britain and Gaul, Maxentius prepared for war. He
fortified northern Italy, and strengthened his support in the Christian
community by allowing it to elect a new Bishop of Rome, Eusebius.
Maxentius'
rule was nevertheless insecure. His early support dissolved in the wake
of heightened tax rates and depressed trade; riots broke out in Rome
and Carthage; and Domitius Alexander was able to briefly usurp his
authority in Africa. By 312 AD, he was a man barely tolerated, not one
actively supported, even among Christian Italians. In the summer of
311 AD, Maxentius mobilized against Constantine while Licinius was
occupied with affairs in the East. He declared war on Constantine,
vowing to avenge his father's "murder". To prevent Maxentius from
forming an alliance against him with Licinius, Constantine forged his
own alliance with Licinius over the winter of 311-312 AD, and offered
him his sister Constantia in marriage. Maximin considered Constantine's
arrangement with Licinius an affront to his authority. In response, he
sent ambassadors to Rome, offering political recognition to Maxentius in
exchange for a military support. Maxentius accepted. According to
Eusebius, inter-regional travel became impossible, and there was
military buildup everywhere. There was "not a place where people were
not expecting the onset of hostilities every day".
Constantine's
advisers and generals cautioned against preemptive attack on Maxentius;
even his soothsayers recommended against it, stating that the sacrifices
had produced unfavorable omens. Constantine, with a spirit that left a
deep impression on his followers, inspiring some to believe that he had
some form of supernatural guidance, ignored all these cautions. Early in
the spring of 312 AD, Constantine crossed the Cottian Alps with a
quarter of his army, a force numbering about 40,000. The first town his
army encountered was Segusium (Susa, Italy), a heavily fortified town
that shut its gates to him. Constantine ordered his men to set fire to
its gates and scale its walls. He took the town quickly. Constantine
ordered his troops not to loot the town, and advanced with them into
northern Italy.
At the approach to the west of the important city
of Augusta Taurinorum (Turin, Italy), Constantine met a large force of
heavily armed Maxentian cavalry. In the ensuing battle Constantine's
army encircled Maxentius' cavalry, flanked them with his own cavalry,
and dismounted them with blows from his soldiers' iron-tipped clubs.
Constantine's armies emerged victorious. Turin refused to give refuge to
Maxentius' retreating forces, opening its gates to Constantine instead.
Other cities of the north Italian plain sent Constantine embassies of
congratulation for his victory. He moved on to Milan, where he was met
with open gates and jubilant rejoicing. Constantine rested his army in
Milan until mid-summer 312 AD, when he moved on to Brixia (Brescia).
Brescia's
army was easily dispersed, and Constantine quickly advanced to Verona,
where a large Maxentian force was camped. Ruricius Pompeianus, general
of the Veronese forces and Maxentius' praetorian prefect, was in a
strong defensive position, since the town was surrounded on three sides
by the Adige. Constantine sent a small force north of the town in an
attempt to cross the river unnoticed. Ruricius sent a large detachment
to counter Constantine's expeditionary force, but was defeated.
Constantine's forces successfully surrounded the town and laid siege.
Ruricius gave Constantine the slip and returned with a larger force to
oppose Constantine. Constantine refused to let up on the siege, and sent
only a small force to oppose him. In the desperately fought encounter
that followed, Ruricius was killed and his army destroyed. Verona
surrendered soon afterwards, followed by Aquileia, Mutina (Modena), and
Ravenna. The road to Rome was now wide open to Constantine.
The
Milvian Bridge (Ponte Milvio) over the Tiber, north of Rome, where
Constantine and Maxentius fought in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge
Maxentius
prepared for the same type of war he had waged against Severus and
Galerius: he sat in Rome and prepared for a siege. He still controlled
Rome's praetorian guards, was well-stocked with African grain, and was
surrounded on all sides by the seemingly impregnable Aurelian Walls. He
ordered all bridges across the Tiber cut, reportedly on the counsel of
the gods, and left the rest of central Italy undefended; Constantine
secured that region's support without challenge. Constantine progressed
slowly along the Via Flaminia, allowing the weakness of Maxentius
to draw his regime further into turmoil. Maxentius' support continued
to weaken: at chariot races on 27 October, the crowd openly taunted
Maxentius, shouting that Constantine was invincible. Maxentius, no
longer certain that he would emerge from a siege victorious, built a
temporary boat bridge across the Tiber in preparation for a field battle
against Constantine. On 28 October 312 AD, the sixth anniversary of his
reign, he approached the keepers of the Sibylline Books for guidance.
The keepers prophesied that, on that very day, "the enemy of the Romans"
would die. Maxentius advanced north to meet Constantine in battle.
The
description from 28th October 312, 'A cross centered on the Sun" fits
with modern-day photographs of Sun dogs.Constantine and his army adopt
the Greek letters for Christ's initials: Chi Rho
Further information: Battle of the Milvian Bridge
The Battle of the Milvian Bridge by Giulio Romano
Maxentius
organized his forces-still twice the size of Constantine's-in long
lines facing the battle plain, with their backs to the river.
Constantine's army arrived at the field bearing unfamiliar symbols on
either its standards or its soldiers' shields. According to Lactantius,
Constantine was visited by a dream the night before the battle, wherein
he was advised "to mark the heavenly sign of God on the shields of his
soldiers ... by means of a slanted letter X with the top of its head
bent round, he marked Christ on their shields." Eusebius describes
another version, where, while marching at midday, "he saw with his own
eyes in the heavens a trophy of the cross arising from the light of the
sun, carrying the message, In Hoc Signo Vinces or "with this
sign, you will conquer"; in Eusebius's account, Constantine had a dream
the following night, in which Christ appeared with the same heavenly
sign, and told him to make a standard, the labarum, for his army
in that form. Eusebius is vague about when and where these events took
place, but it enters his narrative before the war against Maxentius
begins. Eusebius describes the sign as Chi (Χ) traversed by Rho (Ρ): ☧, a
symbol representing the first two letters of the Greek spelling of the
word Christos or Christ. In 315 AD a medallion was issued at Ticinum showing Constantine wearing a helmet emblazoned with the Chi Rho,
and coins issued at Siscia in 317/318 AD repeat the image. The figure
was otherwise rare, however, and is uncommon in imperial iconography and
propaganda before the 320s.
Constantine deployed his own forces
along the whole length of Maxentius' line. He ordered his cavalry to
charge, and they broke Maxentius' cavalry. He then sent his infantry
against Maxentius' infantry, pushing many into the Tiber where they were
slaughtered and drowned. The battle was brief: Maxentius' troops were
broken before the first charge. Maxentius' horse guards and praetorians
initially held their position, but broke under the force of a
Constantinian cavalry charge; they also broke ranks and fled to the
river. Maxentius rode with them, and attempted to cross the bridge of
boats, but he was pushed by the mass of his fleeing soldiers into the
Tiber, and drowned.
In Rome
Colossal
head of Constantine, from a seated statue: a youthful, classicising,
other-worldly official image (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Constantine entered Rome on 29 October 312. He staged a grand adventus
in the city, and was met with popular jubilation. Maxentius' body was
fished out of the Tiber and decapitated. His head was paraded through
the streets for all to see. After the ceremonies, Maxentius' disembodied
head was sent to Carthage; at this, Carthage would offer no further
resistance. Unlike his predecessors, Constantine neglected to make the
trip to the Capitoline Hill and perform customary sacrifices at the
Temple of Jupiter. He did, however, choose to honor the Senatorial Curia
with a visit, where he promised to restore its ancestral privileges and
give it a secure role in his reformed government: there would be no
revenge against Maxentius' supporters. In response, the Senate decreed
him "title of the first name", which meant his name would be listed
first in all official documents, and acclaimed him as "the greatest
Augustus". He issued decrees returning property lost under Maxentius,
recalling political exiles, and releasing Maxentius' imprisoned
opponents.
An extensive propaganda campaign followed, during which
Maxentius' image was systematically purged from all public places.
Maxentius was written up as a "tyrant", and set against an idealized
image of the "liberator", Constantine. Eusebius, in his later works, is
the best representative of this strand of Constantinian propaganda.
Maxentius' rescripts were declared invalid, and the honors Maxentius had
granted to leaders of the Senate were invalidated. Constantine also
attempted to remove Maxentius' influence on Rome's urban landscape. All
structures built by Maxentius were re-dedicated to Constantine,
including the Temple of Romulus and the Basilica of Maxentius. At the
focal point of the basilica, a stone statue of Constantine holding the
Christian labarum in its hand was erected. Its inscription bore
the message the statue had already made clear: By this sign Constantine
had freed Rome from the yoke of the tyrant.
Where he did not
overwrite Maxentius' achievements, Constantine upstaged them: the Circus
Maximus was redeveloped so that its total seating capacity was
twenty-five times larger than that of Maxentius' racing complex on the
Via Appia. Maxentius' strongest supporters in the military were
neutralized when the Praetorian Guard and Imperial Horse Guard (equites singulares)
were disbanded. The tombstones of the Imperial Horse Guard were ground
up and put to use in a basilica on the Via Labicana. On November 9,
312 AD, barely two weeks after Constantine captured the city, the former
base of the Imperial Horse Guard was chosen for redevelopment into the
Lateran Basilica. The Legio II Parthica was removed from Alba (Albano
Laziale), and the remainder of Maxentius' armies were sent to do
frontier duty on the Rhine.
Wars against Licinius
In the
following years, Constantine gradually consolidated his military
superiority over his rivals in the crumbling Tetrarchy. In 313, he met
Licinius in Milan to secure their alliance by the marriage of Licinius
and Constantine's half-sister Constantia. During this meeting, the
emperors agreed on the so-called Edict of Milan, officially granting
full tolerance to Christianity and all religions in the Empire. The
document had special benefits for Christians, legalizing their religion
and granting them restoration for all property seized during
Diocletian's persecution. It repudiates past methods of religious
coercion and used only general terms to refer to the divine
sphere-"Divinity" and "Supreme Divinity", summa divinitas. The
conference was cut short, however, when news reached Licinius that his
rival Maximin had crossed the Bosporus and invaded European territory.
Licinius departed and eventually defeated Maximin, gaining control over
the entire eastern half of the Roman Empire. Relations between the two
remaining emperors deteriorated, as Constantine suffered an
assassination attempt at the hands of a character that Licinius wanted
elevated to the rank of Caesar; Licinius, for his part had Constantine's
statues in Emona destroyed. In either 314 or 316 the two Augusti fought
against one another at the Battle of Cibalae, with Constantine being
victorious. They clashed again at the Battle of Mardia in 317, and
agreed to a settlement in which Constantine's sons Crispus and
Constantine II, and Licinius' son Licinianus were made caesars.
After this arrangement, Constantine ruled the dioceses of Pannonia and
Macedonia and took residence at Sirmium, whence he could wage war on the
Goths and Sarmatians in 322, and on the Goths in 323.
In the year
320, Licinius allegedly reneged on the religious freedom promised by
the Edict of Milan in 313 and began to oppress Christians anew,
generally without bloodshed, but resorting to confiscations and sacking
of Christian office-holders. Although this characterization of Licinius
as anti-Christian is somewhat doubtful, the fact is that he seems to
have been far less open in his support of Christianity than Constantine.
Therefore, Licinius was prone to see the Church as a force more loyal
to Constantine than to the Imperial system in general - the explanation
offered by the Church historian Sozomen.
This dubious arrangement
eventually became a challenge to Constantine in the West, climaxing in
the great civil war of 324. Licinius, aided by Goth mercenaries,
represented the past and the ancient Pagan faiths. Constantine and his
Franks marched under the standard of the labarum, and both sides
saw the battle in religious terms. Outnumbered, but fired by their zeal,
Constantine's army emerged victorious in the Battle of Adrianople.
Licinius fled across the Bosphorus and appointed Martius Martinianus,
the commander of his bodyguard, as Caesar, but Constantine next won the
Battle of the Hellespont, and finally the Battle of Chrysopolis on 18
September 324. Licinius and Martinianus surrendered to Constantine at
Nicomedia on the promise their lives would be spared: they were sent to
live as private citizens in Thessalonica and Cappadocia respectively,
but in 325 Constantine accused Licinius of plotting against him and had
them both arrested and hanged; Licinius's son (the son of Constantine's
half-sister) was also killed. Thus Constantine became the sole emperor
of the Roman Empire.
Later rule
Foundation of Constantinople
Coin struck by Constantine I to commemorate the founding of Constantinople
Licinius'
defeat came to represent the defeat of a rival center of Pagan and
Greek-speaking political activity in the East, as opposed to the
Christian and Latin-speaking Rome, and it was proposed that a new
Eastern capital should represent the integration of the East into the
Roman Empire as a whole, as a center of learning, prosperity, and
cultural preservation for the whole of the Eastern Roman Empire. Among
the various locations proposed for this alternative capital, Constantine
appears to have toyed earlier with Serdica (present-day Sofia), as he
was reported saying that "Serdica is my Rome". Sirmium and
Thessalonica were also considered. Eventually, however, Constantine
decided to work on the Greek city of Byzantium, which offered the
advantage of having already been extensively rebuilt on Roman patterns
of urbanism, during the preceding century, by Septimius Severus and
Caracalla, who had already acknowledged its strategic importance. The
city was thus founded in 324, dedicated on 11 May 330 and renamed Constantinopolis
("Constantine's City" or Constantinople in English). Special
commemorative coins were issued in 330 to honor the event. The new city
was protected by the relics of the True Cross, the Rod of Moses and
other holy relics, though a cameo now at the Hermitage Museum also
represented Constantine crowned by the tyche of the new city. The
figures of old gods were either replaced or assimilated into a framework
of Christian symbolism. Constantine built the new Church of the Holy
Apostles on the site of a temple to Aphrodite. Generations later there
was the story that a divine vision led Constantine to this spot, and an
angel no one else could see, led him on a circuit of the new walls. The
capital would often be compared to the 'old' Rome as Nova Roma Constantinopolitana, the "New Rome of Constantinople".
Religious policy
Further information: Constantine I and Christianity, Constantine I and paganism, and Constantine the Great and Judaism
Constantine the Great, mosaic in Hagia Sophia, c. 1000
Constantine
was the first emperor to stop Christian persecutions and to legalise
Christianity along with all other religions and cults in the Roman
Empire.
In February 313, Constantine met with Licinius in Milan,
where they developed the Edict of Milan. The edict stated that
Christians should be allowed to follow the faith without oppression.
This removed penalties for professing Christianity, under which many had
been martyred previously, and returned confiscated Church property. The
edict protected from religious persecution not only Christians but all
religions, allowing anyone to worship whichever deity they chose. A
similar edict had been issued in 311 by Galerius, then senior emperor of
the Tetrarchy; Galerius' edict granted Christians the right to practise
their religion but did not restore any property to them. The Edict of
Milan included several clauses which stated that all confiscated
churches would be returned as well as other provisions for previously
persecuted Christians.
Scholars debate whether Constantine adopted
his mother St. Helena's Christianity in his youth, or whether he
adopted it gradually over the course of his life. Constantine possibly
retained the title of pontifex maximus, a title emperors bore as heads of the ancient Roman religion priesthood until Gratian (r.
375-383) renounced the title. According to Christian writers,
Constantine was over 40 when he finally declared himself a Christian,
writing to Christians to make clear that he believed he owed his
successes to the protection of the Christian High God alone. Throughout
his rule, Constantine supported the Church financially, built basilicas,
granted privileges to clergy (e.g. exemption from certain taxes),
promoted Christians to high office, and returned property confiscated
during the Diocletianic persecution. His most famous building projects
include the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Old Saint Peter's
Basilica.
Apparently Constantine did not patronize Christianity
alone. After gaining victory in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312), a
triumphal arch-the Arch of Constantine-was built (315) to celebrate his
triumph. The arch is decorated with images of the goddess Victoria. At
the time of its dedication, sacrifices to gods like Apollo, Diana, and
Hercules were made. Absent from the Arch are any depictions of Christian
symbolism. However, as the Arch was commissioned by the Senate, the
absence of Christian symbols may reflect the role of the Curia at the
time as a pagan redoubt.
In 321, he legislated that the venerable day of the sun
should be a day of rest for all citizens. In the year 323, he issued a
decree banning Christians from participating in state sacrifices
Furthermore, Constantine's coinage continued to carry the symbols of the
sun. After the pagan gods had disappeared from his coinage, Christian
symbols appeared as Constantine's attributes: the chi rho between his
hands or on his labarum, as well on the coin itself.
The reign of
Constantine established a precedent for the position of the emperor as
having great influence and ultimate regulatory authority within the
religious discussions involving the early Christian councils of that
time, e.g., most notably the dispute over Arianism. Constantine himself
disliked the risks to societal stability that religious disputes and
controversies brought with them, preferring where possible to establish
an orthodoxy. His influence over the early Church councils was to
enforce doctrine, root out heresy, and uphold ecclesiastical unity; what
proper worship and doctrines and dogma consisted of was for the Church
to determine, in the hands of the participating bishops.
Most
notably, from 313 to 316 bishops in North Africa struggled with other
Christian bishops who had been ordained by Donatus in opposition to
Caecilian. The African bishops could not come to terms and the Donatists
asked Constantine to act as a judge in the dispute. Three regional
Church councils and another trial before Constantine all ruled against
Donatus and the Donatism movement in North Africa. In 317 Constantine
issued an edict to confiscate Donatist church property and to send
Donatist clergy into exile. More significantly, in 325 he summoned the
Council of Nicaea, effectively the first Ecumenical Council (unless the
Council of Jerusalem is so classified), most known for its dealing with
Arianism and for instituting the Nicene Creed.
Constantine
enforced the prohibition of the First Council of Nicaea against
celebrating the Lord's Supper on the day before the Jewish Passover (14 Nisan)
(see Quartodecimanism and Easter controversy). This marked a definite
break of Christianity from the Judaic tradition. From then on the Roman
Julian Calendar, a solar calendar, was given precedence over the
lunisolar Hebrew Calendar among the Christian churches of the Roman
Empire.
Constantine made some new laws regarding the Jews, but
while some of his edicts were unfavorable towards Jews, they were not
harsher than those of his predecessors. It was made illegal for Jews to
seek converts or to attack other Jews who had converted to Christianity.
They were forbidden to own Christian slaves or to circumcise their
slaves. On the other hand, Jewish clergy were given the same exemptions
as Christian clergy.
Administrative reforms
Head
of Constantine's colossal statue at the Capitoline Museums. The
original statue of marble was acrolithic with the torso consisting of a
cuirass in bronze.
Beginning in the mid-3rd century
the emperors began to favor members of the equestrian order over
senators, who had had a monopoly on the most important offices of state.
Senators were stripped of the command of legions and most provincial
governorships (as it was felt that they lacked the specialized military
upbringing needed in an age of acute defense needs), such posts being
given to equestrians by Diocletian and his colleagues-following a
practice enforced piecemeal by their predecessors. The emperors,
however, still needed the talents and the help of the very rich, who
were relied on to maintain social order and cohesion by means of a web
of powerful influence and contacts at all levels. Exclusion of the old
senatorial aristocracy threatened this arrangement.
In 326,
Constantine reversed this pro-equestrian trend, raising many
administrative positions to senatorial rank and thus opening these
offices to the old aristocracy, and at the same time elevating the rank
of already existing equestrians office-holders to senator, degrading the
equestrian order -at least as a bureaucratic rank -in the process, so
that by the end of the 4th century the title of perfectissimus was granted only to mid-low officials.
By
the new Constantinian arrangement, one could become a senator, either
by being elected praetor or (in most cases) by fulfilling a function of
senatorial rank: from then on, holding of actual power and social status
were melded together into a joint imperial hierarchy. At the same time,
Constantine gained with this the support of the old nobility, as the
Senate was allowed itself to elect praetors and quaestors, in place of
the usual practice of the emperors directly creating new magistrates (adlectio).
In one inscription in honor of city prefect (336-337) Ceionius Rufus
Albinus, it was written that Constantine had restored the Senate "the auctoritas it had lost at Caesar's time".
The
Senate as a body remained devoid of any significant power;
nevertheless, the senators, who had been marginalized as potential
holders of imperial functions during the 3rd century, could now dispute
such positions alongside more upstart bureaucrats. Some modern
historians see in those administrative reforms an attempt by Constantine
at reintegrating the senatorial order into the imperial administrative
elite to counter the possibility of alienating pagan senators from a
Christianized imperial rule; however, such an interpretation remains
conjectural, given the fact that we do not have the precise numbers
about pre-Constantine conversions to Christianity in the old senatorial
milieu-some historians suggesting that early conversions among the old
aristocracy were more numerous than previously supposed.
Constantine's
reforms had to do only with the civilian administration: the military
chiefs, who since the Crisis of the Third Century had risen from the
ranks, remained outside the senate, in which they were included only by
Constantine's children.
Monetary reforms
After the runaway
inflation of the third century, associated with the production of fiat
money to pay for public expenses, Diocletian had tried unsuccessfully to
re establish trustworthy minting of silver and billon coins. The
failure of the various Diocletianic attempts at the restoration of a
functioning silver coin resided in the fact that the silver currency was
overvalued in terms of its actual metal content, and therefore could
only circulate at much discounted rates. Minting of the Diocletianic
"pure" silver argenteus ceased, therefore, soon after 305, while
the billon currency continued to be used until the 360s. From the early
300s on, Constantine forsook any attempts at restoring the silver
currency, preferring instead to concentrate on minting large quantities
of good standard gold pieces-the solidus, 72 of which made a pound of
gold. New (and highly debased) silver pieces would continue to be issued
during Constantine's later reign and after his death, in a continuous
process of retariffing, until this bullion minting eventually ceased, de jure, in 367, with the silver piece being de facto continued by various denominations of bronze coins, the most important being the centenionalis.
These bronze pieces continued to be devalued, assuring the possibility
of keeping fiduciary minting alongside a gold standard. The anonymous
author of the possibly contemporary treatise on military affairs De Rebus Bellicis
held that, as a consequence of this monetary policy, the rift between
classes widened: the rich benefited from the stability in purchasing
power of the gold piece, while the poor had to cope with ever-degrading
bronze pieces. Later emperors like Julian the Apostate tried to present
themselves as advocates of the humiles by insisting on trustworthy mintings of the bronze currency.
Constantine's
monetary policy were closely associated with his religious ones, in
that increased minting was associated with measures of
confiscation-taken since 331 and closed in 336-of all gold, silver and
bronze statues from pagan temples, who were declared as imperial
property and, as such, as monetary assets. Two imperial commissioners
for each province had the task of getting hold of the statues and having
them melded for immediate minting-with the exception of a number of
bronze statues who were used as public monuments for the beautification
of the new capital in Constantinople.
Executions of Crispus and Fausta
On
some date between 15 May and 17 June 326, Constantine had his eldest
son Crispus, by Minervina, seized and put to death by "cold poison" at
Pola (Pula, Croatia). In July, Constantine had his wife, the Empress
Fausta, killed in an over-heated bath. Their names were wiped from the
face of many inscriptions, references to their lives in the literary
record were erased, and the memory of both was condemned. Eusebius, for
example, edited praise of Crispus out of later copies of his Historia Ecclesiastica, and his Vita Constantini
contains no mention of Fausta or Crispus at all. Few ancient sources
are willing to discuss possible motives for the events; those few that
do, offer unconvincing rationales, are of later provenance, and are
generally unreliable. At the time of the executions, it was commonly
believed that the Empress Fausta was either in an illicit relationship
with Crispus, or was spreading rumors to that effect. A popular myth
arose, modified to allude to Hippolytus-Phaedra legend, with the
suggestion that Constantine killed Crispus and Fausta for their
immoralities. One source, the largely fictional Passion of Artemius,
probably penned in the eighth century by John of Damascus, makes the
legendary connection explicit. As an interpretation of the executions,
the myth rests on only "the slimmest of evidence": sources that allude
to the relationship between Crispus and Fausta are late and unreliable,
and the modern suggestion that Constantine's "godly" edicts of 326 and
the irregularities of Crispus are somehow connected rests on no evidence
at all.
Although Constantine created his apparent heirs
"Caesars", following a pattern established by Diocletian, he gave his
creations a hereditary character, alien to the tetrarchic system:
Constantine's Caesars were to be kept in the hope of ascending to
Empire, and entirely subordinated to their Augustus, as long as he was
alive. Therefore, an alternative explanation for the execution of
Crispus was, perhaps, Constantine's desire to keep a firm grip on his
prospective heirs, this-and Fausta's desire for having her sons
inheriting instead of their half-brother-being reason enough for killing
Crispus; the subsequent execution of Fausta, however, was probably
meant as a reminder to her children that Constantine would not hesitate
in "killing his own relatives when he felt this was necessary".
Later campaigns
The
Roman Empire in 337, showing Constantine's conquests in Dacia across
the lower Danube (shaded purple) and other Roman dependencies (light
purple).
Constantine considered Constantinople his
capital and permanent residence. He lived there for a good portion of
his later life. He rebuilt Trajan's bridge across the Danube, in hopes
of reconquering Dacia, a province that had been abandoned under
Aurelian. In the late winter of 332, Constantine campaigned with the
Sarmatians against the Goths. The weather and lack of food cost the
Goths dearly: reportedly, nearly one hundred thousand died before they
submitted to Rome. In 334, after Sarmatian commoners had overthrown
their leaders, Constantine led a campaign against the tribe. He won a
victory in the war and extended his control over the region, as remains
of camps and fortifications in the region indicate. Constantine
resettled some Sarmatian exiles as farmers in Illyrian and Roman
districts, and conscripted the rest into the army. Constantine took the
title Dacicus maximus in 336.
In the last years of his life
Constantine made plans for a campaign against Persia. In a letter
written to the king of Persia, Shapur, Constantine had asserted his
patronage over Persia's Christian subjects and urged Shapur to treat
them well. The letter is undatable. In response to border raids,
Constantine sent Constantius to guard the eastern frontier in 335. In
336, prince Narseh invaded Armenia (a Christian kingdom since 301) and
installed a Persian client on the throne. Constantine then resolved to
campaign against Persia himself. He treated the war as a Christian
crusade, calling for bishops to accompany the army and commissioning a
tent in the shape of a church to follow him everywhere. Constantine
planned to be baptized in the Jordan River before crossing into Persia.
Persian diplomats came to Constantinople over the winter of 336-337,
seeking peace, but Constantine turned them away. The campaign was called
off, however, when Constantine became sick in the spring of 337.
Sickness and death
The Baptism of Constantine, as imagined by students of Raphael
Constantine
had known death would soon come. Within the Church of the Holy
Apostles, Constantine had secretly prepared a final resting-place for
himself. It came sooner than he had expected. Soon after the Feast of
Easter 337, Constantine fell seriously ill. He left Constantinople for
the hot baths near his mother's city of Helenopolis (Altinova), on the
southern shores of the Gulf of Nicomedia (present-day Gulf of İzmit).
There, in a church his mother built in honor of Lucian the Apostle, he
prayed, and there he realized that he was dying. Seeking purification,
he became a catechumen, and attempted a return to Constantinople, making
it only as far as a suburb of Nicomedia. He summoned the bishops, and
told them of his hope to be baptized in the River Jordan, where Christ
was written to have been baptized. He requested the baptism right away,
promising to live a more Christian life should he live through his
illness. The bishops, Eusebius records, "performed the sacred ceremonies
according to custom". He chose the Arianizing bishop Eusebius of
Nicomedia, bishop of the city where he lay dying, as his baptizer. In
postponing his baptism, he followed one custom at the time which
postponed baptism until after infancy. It has been thought that
Constantine put off baptism as long as he did so as to be absolved from
as much of his sin as possible.[266] Constantine died soon
after at a suburban villa called Achyron, on the last day of the
fifty-day festival of Pentecost directly following Pascha (or Easter),
on 22 May 337.
The Constantinian dynasty down to Gratian (r. 367-383)
Although
Constantine's death follows the conclusion of the Persian campaign in
Eusebius's account, most other sources report his death as occurring in
its middle. Emperor Julian (a nephew of Constantine), writing in the
mid-350s, observes that the Sassanians escaped punishment for their
ill-deeds, because Constantine died "in the middle of his preparations
for war". Similar accounts are given in the Origo Constantini, an anonymous document composed while Constantine was still living, and which has Constantine dying in Nicomedia; the Historiae abbreviatae
of Sextus Aurelius Victor, written in 361, which has Constantine dying
at an estate near Nicomedia called Achyrona while marching against the
Persians; and the Breviarium of Eutropius, a handbook compiled in
369 for the Emperor Valens, which has Constantine dying in a nameless
state villa in Nicomedia. From these and other accounts, some have
concluded that Eusebius's Vita was edited to defend Constantine's reputation against what Eusebius saw as a less congenial version of the campaign.
Following
his death, his body was transferred to Constantinople and buried in the
Church of the Holy Apostles there. He was succeeded by his three sons
born of Fausta, Constantine II, Constantius II and Constans. A number of
relatives were killed by followers of Constantius, notably
Constantine's nephews Dalmatius (who held the rank of Caesar) and
Hannibalianus, presumably to eliminate possible contenders to an already
complicated succession. He also had two daughters, Constantina and
Helena, wife of Emperor Julian.
Legacy
Bronze head of Constantine, from a colossal statue (4th century).
Although
he earned his honorific of "The Great" ("Μέγας") from Christian
historians long after he had died, he could have claimed the title on
his military achievements and victories alone. Besides reuniting the
Empire under one emperor, Constantine won major victories over the
Franks and Alamanni in 306-308, the Franks again in 313-314, the Goths
in 332 and the Sarmatians in 334. By 336, Constantine had reoccupied
most of the long-lost province of Dacia, which Aurelian had been forced
to abandon in 271. At the time of his death, he was planning a great
expedition to end raids on the eastern provinces from the Persian
Empire. Serving for a total of almost 31 years (combining his years as
co-ruler and sole ruler), he was also the longest serving emperor since
Augustus and the second longest serving emperor in Roman history.
In
the cultural sphere Constantine contributed to the revival of the clean
shaven face fashion of the Roman emperors from Augustus to Trajan,
which was originally introduced among the Romans by Scipio Africanus.
This new Roman imperial fashion lasted until the reign of Phocas.
The
Byzantine Empire considered Constantine its founder and the Holy Roman
Empire reckoned him among the venerable figures of its tradition. In the
later Byzantine state, it had become a great honor for an emperor to be
hailed as a "new Constantine". Ten emperors, including the last emperor
of the Eastern Roman Empire, carried the name. Monumental Constantinian
forms were used at the court of Charlemagne to suggest that he was
Constantine's successor and equal. Constantine acquired a mythic role as
a warrior against "heathens". The motif of the Romanesque equestrian,
the mounted figure in the posture of a triumphant Roman emperor, became a
visual metaphor in statuary in praise of local benefactors. The name
"Constantine" itself enjoyed renewed popularity in western France in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Orthodox Church considers
Constantine a saint (Άγιος Κωνσταντίνος, Saint Constantine), having a
feast day on 3 September, and calls him isapostolos (Ισαπόστολος Κωνσταντίνος)-an equal of the Apostles.
The
Niš Airport is named "Constantine the Great" in honor of him. A large
Cross was planned to be built on a hill overlooking Niš, but the project
was cancelled. In 2012, a memorial was erected in Niš in his honor. The
Commemoration of the Edict of Milan was held in Niš in 2013.
Historiography
During
his life and those of his sons, Constantine was presented as a paragon
of virtue. Pagans such as Praxagoras of Athens and Libanius showered him
with praise. When the last of his sons died in 361, however, his nephew
(and son-in-law) Julian the Apostate wrote the satire Symposium, or the Saturnalia,
which denigrated Constantine, calling him inferior to the great pagan
emperors, and given over to luxury and greed. Following Julian, Eunapius
began-and Zosimus continued-a historiographic tradition that blamed
Constantine for weakening the Empire through his indulgence to the
Christians.
Constantius appoints Constantine as his successor by Peter Paul Rubens, 1622
In
both medieval East and West, Constantine was presented as an ideal
ruler, the standard against which any king or emperor could be measured.
The Renaissance rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources prompted a
re-evaluation of Constantine's career. The German humanist Johann
Löwenklau, discoverer of Zosimus' writings, published a Latin
translation thereof in 1576. In its preface, he argued that Zosimus'
picture of Constantine was superior to that offered by Eusebius and the
Church historians, offered a more balanced view. Cardinal Caesar
Baronius, a man of the Counter-Reformation, criticized Zosimus, favoring
Eusebius' account of the Constantinian era. Baronius' Life of Constantine (1588) presents Constantine as the model of a Christian prince. For his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(1776-89), Edward Gibbon, aiming to unite the two extremes of
Constantinian scholarship, offered a portrait of Constantine built on
the contrasted narratives of Eusebius and Zosimus. In a form that
parallels his account of the empire's decline, Gibbon presents a noble
war hero corrupted by Christian influences, who transforms into an
Oriental despot in his old age: "a hero ... degenerating into a cruel
and dissolute monarch".
Modern interpretations of Constantine's rule begin with Jacob Burckhardt's The Age of Constantine the Great
(1853, rev. 1880). Burckhardt's Constantine is a scheming secularist, a
politician who manipulates all parties in a quest to secure his own
power. Henri Grégoire, writing in the 1930s, followed Burckhardt's
evaluation of Constantine. For Grégoire, Constantine developed an
interest in Christianity only after witnessing its political usefulness.
Grégoire was skeptical of the authenticity of Eusebius' Vita,
and postulated a pseudo-Eusebius to assume responsibility for the vision
and conversion narratives of that work. Otto Seeck, in Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt (1920-23), and André Piganiol, in L'empereur Constantin
(1932), wrote against this historiographic tradition. Seeck presented
Constantine as a sincere war hero, whose ambiguities were the product of
his own naïve inconsistency. Piganiol's Constantine is a philosophical
monotheist, a child of his era's religious syncretism. Related histories
by A.H.M. Jones (Constantine and the Conversion of Europe, 1949) and Ramsay MacMullen (Constantine, 1969) gave portraits of a less visionary, and more impulsive, Constantine.
These
later accounts were more willing to present Constantine as a genuine
convert to Christianity. Beginning with Norman H. Baynes' Constantine the Great and the Christian Church (1929) and reinforced by Andreas Alföldi's The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome (1948), a historiographic tradition developed which presented Constantine as a committed Christian. T. D. Barnes's seminal Constantine and Eusebius
(1981) represents the culmination of this trend. Barnes' Constantine
experienced a radical conversion, which drove him on a personal crusade
to convert his empire. Charles Matson Odahl's recent Constantine and the Christian Empire
(2004) takes much the same tack. In spite of Barnes' work, arguments
over the strength and depth of Constantine's religious conversion
continue. Certain themes in this school reached new extremes in T.G.
Elliott's The Christianity of Constantine the Great (1996), which
presented Constantine as a committed Christian from early childhood. A
similar view of Constantine is held in Paul Veyne's recent (2007) work, Quand notre monde est devenu chrétien,
which does not speculate on the origins of Constantine's Christian
motivation, but presents him, in his role as Emperor, as a religious
revolutionary who fervently believed himself meant "to play a
providential role in the millenary economy of the salvation of
humanity".
Donation of Constantine
Main article: Donation of ConstantineLatin
Rite Catholics considered it inappropriate that Constantine was
baptized only on his death-bed and by an unorthodox bishop, as it
undermined the authority of the Papacy. Hence, by the early fourth
century, a legend had emerged that Pope Sylvester I (314-335) had cured
the pagan emperor from leprosy. According to this legend, Constantine
was soon baptized, and began the construction of a church in the Lateran
Palace. In the eighth century, most likely during the pontificate of
Stephen II (752-757), a document called the Donation of Constantine
first appeared, in which the freshly converted Constantine hands the
temporal rule over "the city of Rome and all the provinces, districts,
and cities of Italy and the Western regions" to Sylvester and his
successors. In the High Middle Ages, this document was used and accepted
as the basis for the Pope's temporal power, though it was denounced as a
forgery by Emperor Otto III and lamented as the root of papal
worldliness by the poet Dante Alighieri. The 15th century philologist
Lorenzo Valla proved the document was indeed a forgery.
Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia
During
the medieval period, Britons regarded Constantine as a king of their
own people, particularly associating him with Caernarfon in Gwynedd.
While some of this is owed to his fame and his proclamation as Emperor
in Britain, there was also confusion of his family with Magnus Maximus's
supposed wife Saint Elen and her son, another Constantine (Welsh: Custennin). In the 12th century Henry of Huntingdon included a passage in his Historia Anglorum
that the emperor Constantine's mother was a Briton, making her the
daughter of King Cole of Colchester. Geoffrey of Monmouth expanded this
story in his highly fictionalized Historia Regum Britanniae, an
account of the supposed Kings of Britain from their Trojan origins to
the Anglo-Saxon invasion. According to Geoffrey, Cole was King of the
Britons when Constantius, here a senator, came to Britain. Afraid of the
Romans, Cole submitted to Roman law so long as he retained his
kingship. However, he died only a month later, and Constantius took the
throne himself, marrying Cole's daughter Helena. They had their son
Constantine, who succeeded his father as King of Britain before becoming
Roman Emperor.
Historically, this series of events is extremely
improbable. Constantius had already left Helena by the time he left for
Britain. Additionally, no earlier source mentions that Helena was born
in Britain, let alone that she was a princess. Henry's source for the
story is unknown, though it may have been a lost hagiography of Helena.
Documentaries
Documentaries
of Constantine include: PBS' "From Jesus To Christ: The First
Christians" Chapter 12 and Hector Galan's "Ancient Roads from Christ to
Constantine" Episode 6 Constantine.