Constantine I

Head of Constantine's colossal statue at Musei Capitolini

Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus (February 27, 272 C.E. – May 22, 337 C.E.), commonly known as Constantine I, Constantine the Great, or (among Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christians) Saint Constantine, was a Roman emperor, proclaimed augustus by his troops on July 25, 306 C.E. and who ruled an ever-growing portion of the Roman Empire until his death.

Constantine is best remembered in modern times for the Edict of Milan in 313, which fully legalized Christianity in the empire for the first time and the Council of Nicaea in 325 which he chaired; these actions completely changed the conditions under which Christians lived. Constantine brought to an end some 300 years of persecution, which Christians had to worship in secret and faced arbitrary arrest and martyrdom in the coliseums. He inaugurated a new era, in which Christians enjoyed the power and patronage of the Roman state.

Constantine's reputation as the "first Christian emperor" has been promulgated by historians from Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea to the present day; although there has been debate over the sincerity of his faith since he was baptized only on his death bed. It has been argued that he conflated the Sun God with the Christian God. His support for Christianity, however, was sincere and reflected in his policies. The church could now own land, Christians could worship openly, and imperial patronage resulted in the affirmation of a single creed. However, now that bishops had imperial support, those who dissented from the dominant concept of orthodoxy or othopraxis could be punished.

Christians, previously reluctant to engage in military action, now joined the army and reconciled violence with their faith. Once Christianity became established as the state religion in the years following Constantine, the state began to impose Christianity on everyone and to persecute dissent, just as it had once persecuted Christians before Constantine's conversion. Christian leaders quickly took advantage of their power to punish heretics, pagans and Jews, now backed by the coercive power of the state.

Life

Early life

Bronze statue of Constantine I in York, England, near the spot where he was proclaimed emperor in 306 C.E.

Constantine was born at Naissus (modern Niš, Serbia) in the province of Moesia Superior on February 27, 272 C.E. or 273 C.E., to Roman a general, Constantius Chlorus, and his first wife Helena, an innkeeper's daughter who was only 16 years old at the time. His father left his mother around 292 C.E. to marry Flavia Maximiana Theodora, daughter or step-daughter of the Western Roman Emperor Maximian. Theodora would give birth to six half-siblings of Constantine, including Julius Constantius.

Young Constantine served at the court of Diocletian in Nicomedia after the appointment of his father as one of the two caesares (junior emperors) of the Tetrarchy in 293 C.E. In 305 C.E., both augusti (senior emperors), Diocletian and Maximian, abdicated, and Constantius succeeded to Maximian's position of western augustus.

Although two legitimate sons of emperors were available (Constantine and Maxentius, the son of Maximian), both of them were overlooked in this transition of power. Instead, Flavius Valerius Severus and Maximinus Daia were made caesares. Constantine subsequently left Nicomedia to join his father in Roman Gaul. However, Constantius fell sick during an expedition against the Picts of Caledonia (Scotland), and died on July 25, 306 C.E. in Eboracum (York). The general Chrocus, of Alamannic descent, and the troops loyal to Constantius' memory immediately proclaimed Constantine an augustus.

Under the Tetrarchy, Constantine's succession was of dubious legitimacy. While Constantius as senior emperor could "create" a new caesar, Constantine's (or, rather, his troops') claim to the title of augustus ignored the system of succession which had been established in 305 C.E. Accordingly, Constantine asked Galerius, the eastern augustus, to be recognized as heir to his father's throne. Galerius granted him the title of caesar, confirming Constantine's rule over his father's territories, and promoted Severus to augustus of the West.

Ruler of the West

Constantine's share of the empire comprised of Roman Britain, Roman Gaul, the Germanic provinces, and Hispania (Spain). He therefore commanded one of the largest Roman armies stationed along the important Rhine frontier. While Gaul was one of the richer regions of the empire, it had suffered much during the Crisis of the Third Century. Many areas were depopulated, the cities left ruined. During his years in Gaul, from 306 C.E. to 316 C.E., Constantine continued his father's efforts to secure the Rhine frontier and rebuild the Gallic provinces. His main residence during that time was in Trier.

Immediately after his promotion to emperor, Constantine abandoned his father's British campaign and returned to Gaul to quell an uprising by Franks. Another expedition against Frankish tribes followed in 308 C.E. After this victory, he began to build a bridge across the Rhine at Cologne to establish a permanent stronghold on the right bank of the river. A new campaign in 310 had to be abandoned because of Maximian's rebellion (see below). The last of Constantine's wars on the Rhine frontier took place in 313 C.E., after his return from Italy, and saw him again victorious.

Constantine's main goal was stability, and he tried to achieve that by immediate, often brutal punitive expeditions against rebellious tribes, demonstrating his military power by conquering the enemies on their own side of the Rhine frontier, and slaughtering many prisoners during games in the arena. This strategy proved successful, and the Rhine frontier remained relatively quiet during the rest of Constantine's reign.

With respect to the interior conflicts of the Tetrarchy, Constantine tried to remain neutral. In 307 C.E., the senior emperor Maximian (recently returned to the political scene after his abdication in 305 C.E.) visited Constantine to get his support in the war of Maxentius against Flavius Valerius Severus and Galerius. Constantine married Maximian's daughter Fausta to seal the alliance and was promoted to Augustus by Maximian. He did not, however, interfere on Maxentius' behalf.

Maximian returned to Gaul in 308 C.E. after he had failed to depose his son. At the conference of Carnuntum, where Diocletian, Galerius and Maximian met later that year, Maximian was forced to abdicate again and Constantine was reduced to caesar. In 309 C.E., Maximian rebelled against his son-in-law while Constantine was campaigning against the Franks. The rebellion was quickly quelled, and Maximian was killed or forced to commit suicide.

Battle of Milvian Bridge

Christian sources record that Constantine experienced a dramatic event in 312 at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, after which Constantine would claim the emperorship in the West. According to these sources, Constantine looked up to the sun before the battle and saw a cross of light above it, and with it the Greek words "Εν Τουτω Νικα" ("by this, conquer!", often rendered in the Latin "in hoc signo vinces"); Constantine commanded his troops to adorn their shields with a Christian symbol (the Chi-Ro), and thereafter they were victorious.

Following the battle, Constantine ignored the altars to the gods prepared on the Capitoline to receive sacrifices appropriate for the celebration of his victorious entry into Rome, and the new emperor instead went straight to the imperial palace without performing any sacrifice. How much Christianity Constantine adopted at this point, however, is difficult to discern; most influential people in the empire, especially high military officials, were still pagan, and Constantine's rule exhibited at least a willingness to appease these factions. The Roman coins minted up to eight years after the battle still bore the images of Roman gods. Neither did the monuments he first commissioned, such as the Arch of Constantine, contain a reference to Christianity.

His victory over Maxentius resulted in Constantine's becoming Western Augustus, or ruler of the entire Western Roman Empire. He gradually consolidated his military superiority over his rivals in the crumbling Tetrarchy.

In the year 320 C.E., Licinius, emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, reneged on the religious freedom promised by the Edict of Milan in 313 C.E. and began another persecution of Christians. This was a puzzling inconsistency since Constantia, half-sister of Constantine and wife of Licinius, was an influential Christian. It became a challenge to Constantine in the west, climaxing in the great civil war of 324 C.E. The armies were so large that numbers such as theirs would not be seen again until at least the fourteenth century.

Licinius, aided by Goth mercenaries, represented the past and the ancient faith of Paganism. Constantine and his Franks marched under the Christian standard of the labarum, and both sides saw the battle in religious terms. Supposedly outnumbered, but inspired by zeal, Constantine's army emerged victorious. With the defeat and death of Licinius (Constantine was known for being ruthless with his political enemies: Constantine had publicly promised to spare his life, but a year later he accused him of plotting against him and had him executed by strangulation), Constantine then became the sole emperor of the entire Roman Empire.

Founding of New Rome

Constantine the Great, mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, c. 1000

Licinius' defeat represented the passing of old Rome, and the beginning of the role of the Eastern Roman Empire as a center of learning, prosperity, and cultural preservation. Constantine rebuilt the city of Byzantium, and renamed it Nova Roma (New Rome), providing it with a Senate and civic offices similar to those of Rome. The new city was protected by an alleged relic of the True Cross, the Rod of Moses and other holy relics. A cameo now at the Hermitage Museum also represented Constantine crowned by the tyche of the new city. The figures of old gods were replaced and often assimilated into Christian symbolism. On the site of a temple dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite, the new Basilica of the Apostles was built. Generations later there was a story that a divine vision led Constantine to this spot, and an angel visible only to him led him on a circuit of the new walls. After his death, his capital was renamed Constantinopolis (in English Constantinople, "Constantine's City"). Constantinople was a new, Christian city for the new, Christian empire. It was to be nobler than Rome because although glorious, Rome's foundation were pagan.

326-Death

The Baptism of Constantine, as imagined by Raphael students

In 326 C.E., Constantine had his eldest son Crispus tried and executed, as he believed accusations that Crispus had an affair with Fausta, Constantine's second wife. A few months later he also had Fausta killed as she was deemed to be the apparent source of these false accusations.

Constantine followed one custom of the time, which postponed baptism until old age or death. Constantine was not baptized until close to his death in 337, when his choice fell upon the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, who happened, despite his being an ally of Arius, to still be the bishop of the region.

Succession

Constantine was succeeded by three sons by Fausta, Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans. A number of other relatives were murdered by followers of Constantius. He also had two daughters, Constantina and Helena, wife of Julian the Apostate.

Constantine and Christianity

Constantine is best known for being the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity, although he may have continued in his pre-Christian beliefs as well, he, along with his co-emperor Licinius was among the first to grant Christianity the status of a tolerated religion (religio licita). There has been much speculation as to whether his conversion was genuine or strategic. As Christians grew more numerous, it made sense to gain their support. Constantine made Sunday a holiday and day of rest throughout the empire. He built three huge churches, St. Peter's in Rome, Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The church was not established as the official religion until the reign of Theodosius I (emperor from 379 until 395 C.E.) but Constantine spend enormous amounts of money from the state treasury to pay clergy.

Reforms

Constantine's iconography and ideology

Coins struck for emperors often reveal details of their personal iconography. During the early part of Constantine's rule, representations first of Mars and then (from 310 C.E.) of Apollo as sun god consistently appeared on the reverse sides of the coinage. Mars had been associated with the Tetrarchy, and Constantine's appropriation of this symbolism served to emphasize the legitimacy of his rule. After his breach with his father's old colleague Maximian in 309 C.E.–310 C.E., Constantine began to claim legitimate descent from the third century emperor Marcus Aurelius Claudius Gothicus, the hero of the Battle of Naissus (September 268). The Augustan History of the fourth century reports Constantine's paternal grandmother Claudia to be a daughter of Crispus, who himself was reportedly the brother of both Claudius II and Quintillus. Modern historians, however, suspect this account to be a genealogical fabrication intended to flatter Constantine.

Follis by Constantine. On the reverse, a labarum with the chi-rho. Coin from CNG Coins

Gothicus had claimed the divine protection of Apollo-Sol Invictus. In mid-310 C.E., two years before the victory at Milvian Bridge, Constantine reportedly experienced the publicly announced vision in which Apollo-Sol Invictus appeared to him with omens of success. Thereafter the reverses of his coinage were dominated for several years by his "companion, the unconquered Sol"— the inscriptions read SOLI INVICTO COMITI. The depiction represents Apollo with a solar halo, Helios-like, and the globe in his hands. In the 320s Constantine received a halo of his own in images. There are also coins depicting Apollo driving the chariot of the Sun on a shield which Constantine is holding and in one example, from 312, shows the Christian symbol of the chi-rho on a helmet worn by Constantine.

An example of "staring eyes" on later Constantine coinage. Coin from CNG Coins

The great staring eyes in the iconography of Constantine, though not specifically Christian, show how official images were moving away from early imperial conventions of realistic portrayals towards schematic representations. Namely, they projected a stylized image of the emperor as emperor, not merely as the particular individual Constantine, with his characteristic broad jaw and cleft chin. The large staring eyes loomed larger as the fourth century progressed: compare the early fifth century silver coinage of Theodosius I.

Constantine's legal standards

Constantine passed numerous laws, encompassing such mundane matters as making the occupations of butcher and baker hereditary. More crucially, supported converting the coloni (tenant farmers) into serfs—laying the foundation for European society during the Middle Ages.

Constantine's laws, in many ways, improved upon those of his predecessors, though they also reflected the growing violence of his age, as the following examples suggest:

• For the first time, young females could not be abducted (this may actually refer to elopements, which were considered kidnapping because girls could not legally consent to the elopement).
• A punishment of death was mandated to anyone collecting taxes over the authorized amount.
• A prisoner was no longer to be kept in total darkness, but must be given access to the outdoors and daylight.
• A condemned man was allowed to die in the arena, but he could not be branded on his "heavenly beautified" face, just on his feet (because God made man in his image).
• Slave "nurses" or chaperones caught allowing the girls they were responsible for to be seduced were to have molten lead poured down their throats.
• Gladiatorial games were ordered to be eliminated in 325 C.E., although this had little real effect.
• A slave master's rights were limited, but a slave could still be beaten to death.
• Crucifixion was abolished for reasons of Christian piety, but was replaced with hanging, to show that there was still Roman law and justice.
• Easter could be publicly celebrated.
• Sunday was declared a day of rest, on which market activity was banned and public offices were closed (except for the purpose of freeing slaves). However, there were no restrictions on farming work (which was the work of the great majority of the population).

Constantine's legacy

File:Musei Capitolini-testa bronzea di Costantino-antmoose.jpg

Contemporary bronze head of Constantine

Although he earned his honorific of "The Great" from Christian historians long after he had died, Constantine could have claimed the title on his military achievements and victories alone. In addition to reuniting the empire under one emperor, Constantine won major victories over the Franks and Alamanni (306 C.E.–308 C.E.), the Franks again (313–314), the Visigoths in 332 C.E. and the Sarmatians in 334 C.E. In fact, by 336 C.E., Constantine had actually reoccupied most of the long-lost province of Dacia, which Aurelian had been forced to abandon in 271 C.E. At the time of his death, he was planning a great expedition to put an end to raids on the eastern provinces from the Persian Empire.

The Byzantine Empire considered Constantine its founder and the Holy Roman Empire reckoned him among the venerable figures of its tradition. In both East and West, emperors were sometimes hailed as "new Constantines." Most Eastern Christian churches, both Catholic and Orthodox, consider Constantine a saint. In the East he is sometimes called "Equal-to-apostles" (isapostolos) or the "thirteenth apostle."

Legend and Donation of Constantine

In later years, historical facts became clouded by legend. It was considered inappropriate that Constantine was baptized only on his death-bed and by a bishop of questionable orthodoxy, and hence a legend emerged that Pope Silvester I (314-335 C.E.) had cured the pagan emperor from leprosy. According to this legend, Constantine was baptized after that and donated buildings to the pope. In the eighth century, a document called the "Donation of Constantine" first appeared, in which the freshly converted Constantine hands the temporal rule over Rome, Italy and the Occident to the pope. 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, Holy Roman Emperor and lamented as the root of papal worldliness by the poet Dante Alighieri. The fifteenth century, philologist Lorenzo Valla proved the document was indeed a forgery.

References and further reading

• Chapman, John. "Donatists." The Catholic Encyclopedia (1909).
• Chuvin, Pierre. 1990. A Chronicle of the Last Pagans. Translated by B. A. Archer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674129709
• Dodds, Eric Robertson. 1951. The Greeks and the Irrational. Boston: Beacon Press.
• Dodds, Eric Robertson. 1990. Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety: Some Aspects of the Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521385997
• Herbermann, Charles G. and Georg Grupp. "Constantine the Great." The Catholic Encyclopedia (1908).
• Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin. 1962. Constantine and the Conversion of Europe. New York: Collier Books.
• Lactantius. Of the Manner the in Which the Persecutors Died. London: T. Cadell, 1782.
• MacMullen, Ramsay. 1987. Constantine. London: Croom Helm. ISBN 0709946856
• MacMullen, Ramsay. 1984. Christianizing the Roman Empire: (A.D. 100-400). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300032161
• MacMullen, Ramsay. 1990. Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691036012
• MacMullen, Ramsay. 1992. Enemies of the Roman Order: Treason, Unrest, and Alienation in the Empire . London: Routledge. ISBN 0415086213
• Odahl, Charles Matson. 2004. Constantine and the Christian Empire. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415174856
• Wilken, Robert L. 2003. Christians As the Romans Saw Them. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300098391

External links

All links retrieved June 1, 2007.

• The Edict of Milan
• Letters of Constantine: Book 1, Book 2, & Book 3
• RomanEmperors.org Vita of Constantine
• Ammianus Marcellinus Online Project
• 12 Byzantine Rulers by Lars Brownworth; 40 minute audio lecture on Constantine
• Constantine I in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

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