Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Hall of the Roman Empire
Constantine the Great
Emperor 306–337; Constantinople, Edict of Milan
- c. 272 – 337 CE
- Roman Empire · 9 of 10
Hall of the Roman Empire
Emperor 306–337; Constantinople, Edict of Milan
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Constantine I (27 February 272 – 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, co-ruling as part of the Tetrarchy until 324. The first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine played a pivotal role in elevating the religion's status in the Roman Empire, with the Edict of Milan decriminalising its practice and ceasing Christian persecution. He founded the city of Constantinople (now Istanbul) and made it the capital of the Empire, which it remained for over a millennium.
Born in Naissus, a city located in the province of Moesia Superior (now Niš, Serbia), Constantine was the son of Flavius Constantius, a Roman army officer from Moesia Superior, who would become one of the four emperors of the Tetrarchy. His mother, Helena, was a woman of low birth, probably from Bithynia. Later canonised as a saint, she is credited for the conversion of her son in some traditions, though others believe that Constantine converted her. He served with distinction under emperors Diocletian and Galerius. He began his career by campaigning in the eastern provinces against the Persians, before being recalled to the west in AD 305 to fight with his father in the province of Britannia. After his father's death in 306, Constantine was proclaimed as augustus (emperor) by his army at Eboracum (York, England). He eventually emerged victorious in the civil wars of the Tetrarchy against the emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become the sole ruler of the empire in 324.
Upon his accession, Constantine enacted many reforms to strengthen the empire. He restructured the government, separating civil and military authorities. To combat inflation, he introduced the solidus, a new gold coin that became the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. He disbanded the Praetorian Guard, which had supported Maxentius. The Roman army was reorganised to consist of mobile units (comitatenses), often around the emperor, to serve on campaigns against external enemies or Roman rebels, and frontier-garrison troops (limitanei) who could counter barbarian raids but were less and less effective against full-scale barbarian invasions. Constantine pursued campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers—such as the Franks, the Alemanni, the Goths, and the Sarmatians—and resettled territories abandoned by his predecessors during the Crisis of the Third Century with citizens of Roman society.
Although Constantine lived much of his life as a pagan, he later became a catechumen, as he began to favour Christianity in 312, finally being baptised by Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian bishop. He played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which legalised Christianity in the Roman Empire. He convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which produced the Christian statement of belief known as the Nicene Creed. On his orders, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built at the site claimed to be the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem and was deemed the holiest place in Christendom. He has historically been referred to as the "First Christian Emperor", but while he did favour the Christian Church, some modern scholars debate his beliefs and even his comprehension of Christianity. He strongly influenced the Christianization of the Roman Empire and is venerated as a saint in Eastern Christianity and parts of Western Christianity.
The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire and a pivotal moment in the evolution from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. He built a new imperial residence in the city of Byzantium, which was officially renamed New Rome, while also taking on the name Constantinople in his honour. It subsequently served as the capital of the empire for more than a thousand years—with the Eastern Roman Empire for most of that period commonly referred to retrospectively as the Byzantine Empire in English. In leaving the empire to his sons and other members of the Constantinian dynasty, Constantine's immediate political legacy was the replacement of Diocletian's Tetrarchy with the principle of dynastic succession. His memory was held in high regard during the lifetime of his children and for centuries after his reign. The medieval church held him up as a paragon of virtue, while secular rulers invoked him as a symbol of imperial legitimacy. The rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources in the early Renaissance engendered more critical appraisals of his reign, with modern and contemporary scholarship often seeking to balance the extremes of earlier accounts.
Constantine was born on 27 February 272. While his official birthday is recorded in sources, his year of birth is not, and scholars have given several estimates between 271 and 280, with most leaning for 272 or 273. However, the evidence points to 272 being the correct year. He was born inside the city of Naissus, during a time when the unity of the Empire was threatened by the breakaway wars of the Palmyrene Empire. The city (modern Niš, Serbia) was located in Dardania within the province of Moesia Superior. His father was Flavius Constantius, an Illyrian or, according to his nephew, Julian The Apostate, a Thracian. His original full name, as well as that of his father, is not known. His praenomen is variously given as Lucius, Marcus and Gaius. Whatever the case, praenomina had already disappeared from most public records by this time. He also adopted the name "Valerius", the nomen of emperor Diocletian, following his father's ascension as caesar.
Constantine probably spent little time with his father Constantius, who was an officer in the Roman army, part of 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, a Greek woman of low social standing, possibly from Drepanum (later renamed Helenopolis) of Bithynia, which would likely have made her a Greek-speaker. It is uncertain whether she was legally married to Constantius or merely his concubine. Constantine's own language was Latin, and during his public speeches in the church councils, which were held in Greek, he needed Greek translators.
In April 286 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, appointing two caesars to rule over further subdivisions of East and West. Each would be subordinate to his respective augustus 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.
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; in it, 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' best behaviour. 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 and fought the Persians under Diocletian in Syria in 297, as well as under Galerius in Mesopotamia in 298–299. By late 305, according to some, 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, 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 and Diocletian accepted the imperial court's demands for universal persecution. On 23 February 303, 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 attempted 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 Diocletian, as a result of a debilitating sickness taken in the winter of 304–305, 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 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, 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.
Constantine recognised the implicit danger in remaining at Galerius' 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, 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.
From Bononia they crossed the English Channel to Britain and made their way to Eboracum (modern 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' 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. Before dying, he declared his support for raising Constantine as emperor. 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; Hispania, which had been in his father's domain for less than a year, rejected it.
Constantine sent Galerius an official notice of Constantius' 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 and messenger 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.
Constantine's share of the empire consisted of Britain, Gaul, and Spain. He commanded one of the largest Roman armies, stationed along the strategically important Rhine frontier. He remained in Britain after his promotion to emperor, driving back the tribes of the Picts and securing his control in the northwestern dioceses. He completed the military bases begun under his father's rule and ordered the region's roads repaired. He then left for Augusta Treverorum (Trier) in Gaul, the Tetrarchic capital of the northwestern Roman Empire. The Franks learned of Constantine's acclamation and invaded Gaul across the lower Rhine over the winter of 306–307. He drove them back beyond the Rhine and captured kings Ascaric and Merogais; the kings and their soldiers were fed to the beasts of Trier Amphitheater in the adventus (arrival) celebrations which followed.
Constantine began a major expansion of Trier. He strengthened the circuit wall around the city with military towers and fortified gates, and he 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. He sponsored many building projects throughout Gaul during his tenure as emperor of the West, especially in Augustodunum (Autun) and Arelate (Arles). According to Lactantius, Constantine followed a tolerant policy towards Christianity, although he may not have yet adopted the Christian faith. There is no consensus among scholars on Constantine's religious convictions at the beginning of his reign, and some suggest an adoption of Christianity from his youth. Regardless, he probably judged toleration a more sensible policy than open persecution and a way to distinguish himself from the "great persecutor" Galerius. He decreed a formal end to persecution and returned to Christians all that they had lost under the first of the persecuting edicts.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Constantine the Great”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.