THE CHRISTIAN ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE TEUTONIC KINGDOMS
CHAPTER I
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT AND HIS CITY
THE first question that has to be considered in laying down the plan of
a Medieval History is, Where to begin? Where shall we draw the line that
separates it from Ancient History? Some would fix it at the death of Domitian,
others at that of Marcus. Some would come down to Constantine, to the death of
Theodosius, to the great barbarian invasion of 406, or to the end of the
Western Empire in 476; and others again would go on to Gregory I, or even as
late as Charlemagne. There is even something to be said for beginning with
Augustus, or at the destruction of Jerusalem, tough perhaps these epochs are
not seriously proposed. However, they all have their advantages. If for example
we consider only the literary merit of the historians, we must draw the line
after Tacitus; and if we fix our eyes on the feud of Roman and barbarian, we
cannot stop till the coronation of Charlemagne. Curiously enough, the epoch
usually laid down at the end of the Western Empire in 476, is precisely the one
for which there is least to be said. We should do better than this by dividing
in the middle of the Gothic War (535-553). We have in quick succession the
closing of the Schools of Athens, the Code of Justinian, the great siege of
Rome, and the abolition of the consulship. The Rome which Belisarius delivered
was still the Rome of the Caesars, while the Rome which Narses entered sixteen
years later is already the Rome of the popes. It is the same in Gaul. The
remains of the old civilization still found under the sons of Clovis are mostly
obliterated in the next generation. Procopius witnessed as great a revolution
as did Polybius.
But even this would not be satisfactory. We cannot cut in two the Gothic
War and the reign of Justinian; and in any case we can draw no sharp division
after Constantine without ignoring the greatest power of the world — that
Eastern Roman Empire which carried down the old Greco-Roman civilization almost
to the end of the Middle Ages. In truth, the precise beginning of Medieval
History is as indefinite as the precise beginning of the fog. There is no point
between Augustus and Charlemagne where we can say: The old is finished, the new
not yet begun. Choose where we will, medieval elements are traceable before it,
ancient elements after it. Thus Theodoric's government of Italy is on the old
lines, while the Frankish invasion of Gaul belongs to the new order. If in the
present work we begin with Constantine, we do not mean that there is any break
in history at this point, though we see important changes in the adoption of
Christianity and the fixing of the government in the form it retained for
centuries. The chief advantage of choosing this epoch is that as the medieval
elements were not strong before the fourth century, we shall be able to trace
nearly the whole of their growth without encroaching too much on Ancient
History. At the same time, we shall hold ourselves free to trace them back as
far as may be needful, and to point out the ancient elements as late as they
may appear.
We begin with an outline of Constantine's life. Its significance we can
discuss later. Flavius Valerius Constantinus was born at Naissus in Dacia,
about the year 274. His father Constantius was already a man of some mark,
though still in the lower stages of the career which brought him to the purple.
On his father's side Constantius belonged to the great families of Dardania,
the hilly province north of Macedonia, while his mother was a niece of the
emperor Claudius Gothicus. But Constantine's own mother Helena was a woman of
low rank from Drepanum in Bithynia, though there is no reason to doubt that she
had the legal (and quite moral) position of concubina or monargatic wife to
Constantius.
Of Constantine's early years we know only that he had no learned
education; and we may presume from his hesitating Greek that he was brought up
in Latin lands, perhaps partly Dalmatia, where his father was at one time
governor. In 293 Constantius was made Caesar, and practically master of Gaul,
with the task assigned him of recovering Britain from Carausius. But as a
condition of his elevation he was required to divorce Helena and marry
Theodora, a stepdaughter of Maximian. Constantine was taken to the court of
Diocletian, partly as a hostage for his father, and partly with a view to a
future place for him in the college of emperors. So he went with Diocletian to
Egypt in 296, and made acquaintance on the way with Eusebius, the future
historian and bishop of Caesarea. Next year he seems to have seen service with
Galerius against the Persians. About this time he must have taken Minervina
(most likely as a concubina), for her son Crispus was already a young man in
317. Early in 303 the Great Persecution was begun with the demolition of the
church at Nicomedia: and there was a tall young officer looking on with
thoughts of his own, like Napoleon watching the riot of June 1792.
When Diocletian and Maximian abdicated (1 May 305) it was generally
believed that Constantine would be one of the new Caesars. There was reason for
this belief. He had been betrothed to Fausta the daughter of Maximian as far
back as 293, when she was a mere child; and daughters of emperors were not
common enough to be thrown away on outsiders. Moreover, money had recently been
coined at Alexandria with the inscription CONSTANTINUS CAESAR. But at the last
moment Diocletian passed him over. Perhaps he was over-persuaded by Galerius:
more likely he was reserving him to succeed his father in Gaul. After this,
however, the court of Galerius was no place for Constantine. Presently he
managed to escape, and joined his father at Boulogne. After a short campaign in
Caledonia, Constantius died at York (25 July 306) and the army hailed
Constantine Augustus. He was a good officer, the sons of Theodora were only
boys, and the army of Britain (always the most mutinous in the Empire) had no
mind to wait for a new Caesar from the East. Its chief mover was Crocus the
Alemannic king (according Gregory of Tours this Crocus overran Gaul and the
north of Italy in the year 268): and this would seem to be the first case of a
barbarian king as a Roman general, and also the first case of barbarian action
in the election of an emperor. Willingly or unwillingly, Galerius recognized
Constantine, though only as Caesar. It mattered little: he had the power, and
the title came a couple of years later.
Thus Constantine succeeded his father in Gaul and Britain. We hear
little of his administration during the next six years (306-312), but we get a
general impression that he was a good ruler, and careful of his people. Such
fighting as he had to do was of the usual sort against the Franks, mostly
inside the Rhine, and against the Alemanni and the Bructeri beyond it. The war
however was merciless, for even heathen feeling was shocked when he gave
barbarian kings to the beasts, along with their followers by thousands at a
time. But Gaul had never recovered from the great invasions (254-285) and his
remissions of taxation gave no permanent relief to the public misery. In
religion he was of course heathen; but he grew more and more monotheistic, and
the Christians always counted him friendly like his father.
The last act of Galerius (Apr. 311) was an edict of toleration for the
Christians. It was not encumbered with any "hard conditions," but it
was given on the heathen principle that every god is entitled to the worship of
his own people, whereas the persecution hindered the Christians from rendering
that worship. A few days after this Galerius died. There were now four
emperors. Constantine held Gaul and Britain, Maxentius Italy, Spain and Africa,
while Licinius (more properly Licinian) ruled Illyricum, Greece and Thrace, and
Maximin Daza (or Daia) held everything beyond the Bosphorus. Their political
alliances were partly determined by their geographical position, Constantine
reaching over Maxentius to Licinius, while Maximin reached over Licinius to
Maxentius; partly also by their relation to the Christians, for this was now
the immediate question of practical politics. Constantine was friendly to them,
and Licinius had never been an active persecutor; whereas Maximin was a cruel
and malicious enemy, and Maxentius, standing as he did for Rome, could not but
be hostile to them. So Maxentius was to crush Constantine, and Maximin to deal
with Licinius.
Constantine did not wait to be crushed. Breaking up his camp at Colmar,
he pushed rapidly across the Alps. In a cavalry fight near Turin, the Gauls
overcame the formidable cataphracti —
horse and rider clad in mail—of Maxentius. Then straight to Verona, where in
Ruricius Pompeianus he found a foeman worthy of his steel. Right well did
Pompeianus defend Verona; and if he escaped from the siege, it was only to
gather an army for its relief. Then another great battle. Pompeianus was
killed, Verona surrendered, and Constantine made straight for Rome. Still
Maxentius gave no sign. He had baffled invasion twice before by sitting still
in Rome, and Constantine could not have besieged the city with far inferior
forces. At the last moment Maxentius came out a few miles, and offered battle
(28 Oct. 312) at Saxa Rubra. A skilful flank march of Constantine forced him to
fight with the Tiber behind him, and the Mulvian bridge for his retreat. His
Numidians fled before the Gaulish cavalry, the Praetorian Guard fell fighting
where it stood, and the rest of the army was driven headlong into the river.
Maxentius perished in the waters, and Constantine was master of the West.
This short campaign—the most brilliant feat of arms since Aurelian's
time — was an epoch for Constantine himself. To it belongs the story of the
Shining Cross. Somewhere between Colmar and Saxa Rubra he saw in the sky one
afternoon a bright cross with the words Hoc
Vince, and the army saw it too; and in a dream that night Christ bade him
take it for his standard. So Constantine himself told Eusebius, and so Eusebius
recorded it in 338; and there is no reason to suspect either the one or the
other of deceit. The evidence of the army is in any case not worth much; but
that of Lactantius in 314 and of the heathen Nazarius in 321 puts it beyond
reasonable doubt that something of the sort did happen. But we need not
therefore set it down for a miracle. The cross observed may very well have been
a halo, such as Whymper saw when he came down after the accident on the
Matterhorn in 1865 —three crosses for his three, lost companions. The rest is
no more than can be accounted for by Constantine's imagination, inflamed as it
must have been by the intense anxiety of the unequal contest. Yet after all,
the cross was not an exclusively Christian symbol. The action was ambiguous,
like most of Constantine's actions at this period of his life. He was quite
clear about monotheism; but he was not equally clear about the difference
between Christ and the Unconquered Sun. The Gauls had fought of old beneath the
Sun-god's cross of light: so while the Christians saw in the labarum the cross
of Christ, the heathens in the army would only be receiving an old standard
back again. Such was the origin of the Byzantine Labarum.
One enduring monument of the victory is the triumphal arch still
standing at Rome, dedicated to him by the Senate and People in 315.
Its inscription recites how INSTINCTU DIVINITATIS he inflicted just
punishment on the tyrant and all his party. The expression has been set down as
a later correction of some such heathen form as NUTU IOVIS O. M.: but it is
certainly original, and must express Constantine's declared belief — for we may
trust the Senate and the other panegyrists for knowing what was likely to
please him.
Constantine remained two months in Rome, leaving in the first days of
313 for Milan, where he gave his sister Constantia in marriage to Licinius, and
conferred with him on policy generally, and on the hostile attitude of Maximin
in particular. That ruler had not published the edict of Galerius, but merely
sent a circular to the officials that actual persecution was to be stopped for
the present. A few months later (about Nov. 311) he resumed it, with less
bloodshed and more statesmanship. It was far more skillfully planned than any
that had gone before. Maximin’s endeavor was to stir up the municipalities
against the Christians, to organize a rival church of heathenism, and to give a
definitely antichristian bias to education. Even the fall of Maxentius had
drawn from him only a rescript so full of inconsistencies that neither heathens
nor Christians could make head or tail of it, except that Maximin was a
prodigious liar. He even denied that there had been any persecution during his
reign. At all events, this was not the complete change of policy needed to save
him. Constantine and Licinius saw their advantage, and issued from Milan a new
edict of toleration. Its text is lost, but it went far beyond the edict of
Galerius. For the first time in history, the principle of universal toleration
was officially laid down — that every man has a right to choose his religion
and to practice it in his own way without any discouragement from the State. No
doubt it was laid down as a political move, for neither Constantine nor
Licinius kept to it. Constantine tried to crush Donatists and Arians, and
Licinius fell back even from toleration of Christians. Still the old heathen
principle, that no man may worship gods who are not on the official list, was
rejected for the present, and toleration became the general law of the Empire,
till the time of Theodosius.
The wedding festivities were rudely interrupted by the news that Maximin
had made a sudden attack without waiting for the end of the winter, and met
with brilliant success, capturing Byzantium and pushing on towards Hadrianople.
There, however, Licinius met him with a very inferior force, and completely
routed him (30 April 313). Maximin fled to Nicomedia, and soon found that it
would be as much as he could do to hold the line of Mount Taurus. Now he had no
choice — the Christians were strong in Egypt and Syria, and must be conciliated
at any cost. So he issued a new edict, explaining that the officials had
committed many oppressions very painful to a benevolent ruler like himself; and
now, to make further mistakes impossible, he lets all men know that everyone is
free to practice whatever religion he pleases. Maximin gives the same liberty
as Constantine and Licinius — he could not safely offer less—but he states no
principle of toleration. However, it was too late now. Maximin died in the
summer, and Licinius issued a rescript carrying out the decisions of Milan, and
restoring confiscated property to "the corporation of the
Christians." It was published at Nicomedia 13 June 313. Constantine sent
out similar letters in the West.
The defeat of Maximin ends the long contest of Church and State begun by
Nero. Former persecutions had died out of themselves, and even Gallienus had
only restored the confiscated property; but now the Christians had gained full
legal recognition, of which they were never again deprived. Licinius and Julian
might devise annoyances and connive at outrages, and work the administration in
a hostile spirit; but they never ventured to revoke the Edict of Milan.
Heathenism was still strong in its associations with Greek philosophy and
culture, with Roman law and social order, and its moral character stood higher
than it had done. It hardly looked like a beaten enemy: yet such it was. Its
last real hope was gone.
Religious peace was assured, but the unity of the Empire was not yet
restored. Constantine and Licinius were both ambitious, and war between them
was only a question of time. They were not unequally matched. If Constantine
had the victorious legions of Gaul, Licinius ruled the East from the frontier
of Armenia to that of Italy, so that he was master of the Illyrian provinces,
which furnished the best soldiers of the Roman army. Every emperor from
Claudius to Licinius himself was an Illyrian, except Tacitus and Carus. And if
Constantine had done a splendid feat of arms, Licinius was a fine soldier too,
and (with all his personal vices) not less careful of his subjects.
The Wars with Licinius. 314-323
Constantine was called away from Milan by some incursions of the Franks,
who kept him busy during the summer of 313. When things were more settled, he
proposed to institute a middle domain for his other brother-in-law Bassianus.
The plan seems to have been that while Constantine gave him Italy, Licinius
should give him Illyricum. Licinius frustrated it by engaging Bassianus in a
plot for which he was put to death, and then refused to give up to Constantine
his agent Senecio, the brother of Bassianus. This meant war. Constantine took
the offensive as he had done before, pushing into Pannonia with no more than
20,000 men, and attacking Licinius where he was endeavoring to cover Sirmium.
He had 35,000 against him, but a hard-fought battle (8 Oct. 314) ended in a
complete victory, and the capture of Sirmium. Licinius fled towards
Hadrianople, deepening the quarrel on the way by giving the rank of Caesar to
his Illyrian general Valens. A new army was collected; but another great battle
on the Mardian plain was indecisive. Constantine won the victory; but Licinius
and Valens were able to take up a threatening position in his rear at Beroea.
So peace had to be made. First Valens was sacrificed: then Licinius gave up
Illyricum from the Danube to the extremity of Greece, retaining in Europe only
Thrace, which, however, in those days reached north to the Danube. So things
settled down. Constantine returned to Rome in the summer to celebrate his
Decennalia (25 July 315), and in 317 the succession was secured by the
nomination of Caesars, Crispus and Constantine the sons of Constantine, and
Licinianus the son of Licinius. Crispus was grown up, but Constantine was a
baby.
The treaty might be hollow, but it kept the peace for nearly eight
years. If Constantine was evidently the stronger, Licinius was still too strong
to be rashly attacked. So each went his own way. It soon appeared which was the
better statesman. Constantine drew nearer to the Christians, while Licinius
drifted into persecution, devising annoyances enough to make them enemies but
not enough to make them harmless. Thus Constantine allows manumission in
church, judges the Donatists, closes the courts on Sundays, loads the churches
with gifts, and, at last (May 323), frees Christians from all pagan ceremonies
of state. Licinius drove the Christians from his court, forbade meetings of
bishops, and meddled vexatiously with their worship. This gave the war
something of a religious character; but its occasion was not religious. The
Goths had been pretty quiet since Aurelian had settled them in Dacia. It was
not till 322 that Rausimod their king crossed the Danube on a foray.
Constantine drove them back, chased them beyond the Danube, slew Rausimod, and
settled thousands of Gothic serfs in the adjacent provinces. But in the pursuit
he crossed the territory of Licinius; and this led to war. Constantine's army
was 130,000 strong, and his son Crispus had a fleet of 200 sail, in the Piraeus.
Licinius awaited him with 160,000 men near Hadrianople, while his admiral
Amandus was to hold the Hellespont with 350 ships. There was no idea of using
the fleet to take Constantine in the rear.
After some difficult maneuvers, Constantine won the first battle (3 July
323), but was brought to a stop before the walls of Byzantium. Licinius was
safe there, so long as he held the sea; so he chose Martinianus his magister officiorum for the new Augustus
of the West. Meanwhile Constantine strengthened his fleet, and his son Crispus
completely defeated Amandus in the Hellespont. Licinius left Byzantium to
defend itself — it had held out two years against Severus — and prepared to
maintain the Asiatic shore. Constantine left Byzantium on one side and landed near
Chrysopolis, where he found the whole army of Licinius drawn up to meet him.
The battle of Chrysopolis (18 or 20 Sept. 323) was decisive. Licinius fled to
Nicomedia, and presently Constantia came out to ask for her husband's life. It
was granted, and Constantine confirmed his promise with an oath. Nevertheless
Licinius was put to death in October 325 on a charge of treasonable intrigue.
The charge is unlikely: but Licinius was quite capable of it, and his execution
does not seem to have estranged Constantia from her brother. But perhaps the
matter is best connected with the family tragedy which we shall come to
presently.
As a general, Constantine ranks high among the emperors. Good soldiers
as they mostly were, none but Severus and Aurelian could boast of any such
career of victory as had brought Constantine from the shores of Britain to the
banks of the Tiber and the walls of Byzantium. But after the "crowning
mercy" of Chrysopolis there was no more fighting, except with the Goths.
The last fourteen years of Constantine (323-337) were years of peace: and the
first question which then confronted him was the question of religion. By what
road did he approach Christianity, and how far did he come on the journey?
Two fables may be dismissed at once — the heathen fable told by Zosimus
in the fifth century, that the Christians were complaisant when the
philosophers refused to absolve him for the murder of his son Crispus; and the
papal fable of the eighth century, that he was healed of leprosy by Pope Sylvester,
and thereupon gave him dominion over "the palace, the city of Rome, and
the entire West." These legends are summarily refuted by the fact that he
was baptized in 337, not as they tell us in 326. Turning now to history, we
have no reason to suppose that he owed Christian impressions to his mother's
teaching: but Constantius was an eclectic of the better sort, and a man of some
culture; and his memory contrasted well with that of his colleagues.
Constantine seems to have begun where his father left off, as more or less
monotheistic and averse to idols, and more or less friendly to the Christians;
and all these things grew upon him. The last of them may not have meant much at
first, for even hostile emperors like Severus and Diocletian had sense enough
to keep on good terms with the Christians when they were not prepared to crush
them. But Constantine was drawn to them personally as well as politically; by
his pure life and genuine humanity as well as by his shrewd statesmanship.
Their lofty monotheism and austere morals attracted the man, their strong organization
arrested the attention of the ruler. When Diocletian threw down his challenge
to the Church, he made religion the urgent question of the time: and the
persecution was a visible failure before Constantine was well settled in Gaul.
If Diocletian had failed to crush the Church, others were not likely to
succeed. Maximin or Licinius might hark back to the past; but Constantine saw
clearly that the Empire would have to make some sort of terms with the Church,
so that the only question was how far it would be needful or safe to go. For
the moment, a little friendliness to the Gaulish bishops was enough to secure
the good will of the Christians all over the Empire. Then came the wars of
312-3, which forced on Constantine and Licinius the championship of the
Christians, and made it plain good policy to give them full legal toleration.
Licinius stopped there, and Constantine did not make up his mind without
anxiety. The God of the Christians V had shown great power, and might be the
best protector ; and in any case a firm alliance with their strong hierarchy
would not only remove a great danger, but give the very help which the Empire
needed. On the other hand, it was a serious thing to break with the past and brave
the terrors of heathen magic. Moreover, the Christians were a minority even in
the East, and he could not openly go over to them without risk of a pagan
reaction. So he moved cautiously. Christianity differed forsooth very little
from the better sort of heathenism. They could both be brought under the broad
shield of monotheism, if the heathens would give up their idols and immoral
worships, and the Christians would not insist too rudely on that awkward
doctrine of the deity of Christ. On these terms the lion of Christianity might
lie down with the lamb of Eclecticism, and the guileless emperor would be the
little child to lead them both.
Policy of Constantine. 323-337
The problem of Church and State was new, for the old religion of Rome
was never more than a department of the State, and the worshippers of Isis and
Mithras readily "conformed to the ceremonies of the Roman people."
But when Christianity made a practical distinction between Caesar's things and
God's, the relation of Church and State became a difficult question.
Constantine handled it with great skill and much success. He not only made the
Christians thoroughly loyal, but won the active support of the churches, and
obtained such influence over the bishops that they seemed almost willing to
sink into a department of the State. But he forgot one thing. The surface
thought of his time, Christian as well as heathen, tended to a vague monotheism
which looked on Christ and the sun as almost equally good symbols of the
Supreme: and this obscured the deeper conviction of the Christians that the
deity of Christ is as essential as the unity of God. After all, Christianity is not a monotheistic
philosophy, but a life in Christ
When this conviction asserted itself with overwhelming power at the
Council of Nicaea, Constantine gave way with a good grace. As it had been
decided at Saxa Rubra that the Empire
was to fight beneath the cross of God, so now it was decided at Nicaea that the
cross was to be the cross of Christ, and not the Sun-god's cross of light.
We may doubt whether Constantine took in the full meaning of the
decision: but at any rate it meant that the Christians refused to be included
with others in a monotheistic state religion. If the Empire was to have their
full friendship, it must become definitely Christian: and this is the goal to
which Constantine seems to have looked forward in his later years, though he
can hardly have hoped himself to reach it. Heathenism was still strong, and he
continued to use vague monotheistic language. Only in his last illness did he
feel it safe to throw off the mask and avow himself a Christian. "Let
there be no ambiguity," said he, as he asked for baptism; and then he laid
aside the purple, and passed away in the white robe of a Christian neophyte (22
May 337).
This would seem to be the general outline of Constantine's religious
life and policy. We can now return to the of Chrysopolis, and take it more in
detail. Now that he was master of the empire, he made his alliance with the
Christians as close as he could without abandoning the official neutrality of
his monotheism. His attitude is well shown by his coins. Mars and Genius P. R.
disappear after Saxa Rubra, or at
latest by 317: Sol invictus by 315,
or at any rate 3t3. Coins of Jupiter Aug. seem to have been struck only for
Licinius. Later on, the heathen inscriptions are replaced by phrases as neutral
as the cross itself, like Beata
tranquillitas or Providentia Augg.,
or Instinctu Divinitatis on his
triumphal arch at Rome. His laws keep pace with the coins. In form they are
mostly neutral; an increasing leaning to Christianity. Thus his edict for the
observance of "the venerable day of the Sun" only raised it to the
rank of the heathen feriae by closing the law-courts; and the Latin prayer he
imposed on the army (the first case known of prayer in an unknown tongue) is
quite indeterminate as between Christ and Jupiter. So too when before 316 he
sanctioned manumissions in churches, he was only taking a hint from the
manumissions in certain temples. Yet again, when in 313 (and by later law) he
exempted the clergy of the Catholic Church — not those of the sects — from the decurionate and other burdens, he gave
them only the privileges already enjoyed by some of the heathen priests and
teachers. But the relief was great enough to cause an ungodly rush for holy
Orders, and with it such a loss of taxpayers that in 320 he had to forbid the
ordination of anyone qualified for the curia of his city. None but the poor
(and an occasional official) could now be ordained, and those only to fill
vacancies caused by death. The second limitation may not have been enforced,
but the first remained. To save the revenue, the Church was debased at a
stroke.
Other laws however lean more to a side, like the edict of 319 which
threatens to burn the Jews if they stone "a convert to the worship of
God." No doubt such converts needed protection; and Roman law was not
squeamish about burning criminals, if they were of low rank. Upon the whole,
this policy of official neutrality and personal favour powerfully stimulated
the growth of the churches. The time-servers were all Christians now, and
Eusebius plainly denounces their "unspeakable hypocrisy." At least in
later years, Constantine himself had to rebuke bishops for flattery. The defeat
of Licinius enabled him to come forward more openly as the patron of the
churches. His letter to the provincials of the Empire (Eusebius naturally gives
the copy which went to Palestine) begins with high praise of the confessors and
strong denunciation of the persecutors, whose wickedness is shown by their
miserable ends. They would have destroyed the republic, if the Divinity had not
raised up me, Constantine, from the far West of Britain to destroy them. He
then restores rank and property to all the victims of persecution in the
islands, the mines, and the houses of forced labor, and finishes with an
earnest exhortation to the worship of the one true God.
But after all, the Church was not quite what Constantine wanted it to
be. He was not more attracted to it by its lofty monotheism than by the
imposing unity which promised new life to the weary State. For six hundred
years the world had been in quest of a universal religion. Stoicism was no more
than a philosophy for the few, the worship of the emperor was debased by
officialism, and by this time quite outworn, and even Mithraism had never shown
such living power as Christianity. Here then was something that could realize the
religious side of the Empire in a nobler form than Augustus or Hadrian had ever
dreamed of — a universal Church that could stand beside the universal Empire
and worthily support its labors for the peace and welfare of the world. But for
this purpose unity was essential. If the Church was divided against
itself, it could not help the Empire. Worse than this; it could hardly be
divided against itself without being also divided against the Empire. One of
the parties was likely to appeal to the emperor; and then he would have to
decide between them and make an enemy of the defeated party; and if he tried to
enforce his decision, they were likely to resist him as stubbornly as the whole
Church had resisted the heathen emperors. This would bring back the whole difficulty
of the persecutions, though possibly on a smaller scale. To put it shortly, the
Christians had a conscience in matters of religion, and sometimes mistook
self-will for conscience.
The Donatists. 311-321
Constantine had experience of Christian self-will in Africa soon after
the defeat of Maxentius. When Diocletian commanded the Christians to give up
their sacred books, all parties agreed in refusing to obey. Those who did obey
were called traditores. But the
officers did not always care what books they took: might apocryphal books be
given up? So thought Mensurius of Carthage, while others counted it apostasy to
give up any books at all. The controversy became acute at the death of
Mensurius in 311, when Felix of Aptunga consecrated his successor Caecilian.
But that right was claimed by Secundus of Tigisis, the senior bishop of
Numidia, who consecrated a rival bishop of Carthage. It was some time before
the Donatists (as they soon came to be called) got their position clear. They
held that Felix was a traditor, that the ministrations of a traditor are null
and void, and that a church which has communion with a traditor is apostate.
After the battle of Saxa Rubra Constantine sent money to Caecilian for the clergy "of the catholic
church"; and as he "had heard that some evil-disposed persons were
troubling them", he directed Caecilian to refer them to the civil
authorities for punishment. Thereupon they appealed to him. Constantine seems
to have contemplated a small court to try the case — Miltiades of Rome, three
Gaulish bishops, and apparently the archdeacon of Rome: but a small council met
instead (Oct. 313) at Rome, which pronounced for Caecilian. The Donatists were
furious, and appealed again. This time Constantine summoned as many bishops as
he could, directing each to bring so many clergy and servants with him, and
giving him power to use the state post (curses
publicus) for the journey. So a large council of the Western churches met
at Arles in August 314 (possibly 315). Even Britain sent bishops from London,
York, and some other place. It destroyed the Donatist contention by deciding
that Felix was not a traditor. It
also settled some more outstanding controversies, in favor of the Roman date of
Easter, and the Roman custom of not repeating heretical baptism, if it had been
given in the name of the Trinity. The decisions were sent to Sylvester of Rome
for circulation—not for confirmation. We can recognize in Arles the pattern of
the Nicene Council. Still the Donatists were not satisfied. They asked the
emperor to decide the matter himself, and he unwillingly consented. He heard
them at Milan (Nov. 316) and once more decided against them. Then they turned
round and said, What business has the emperor to meddle with the Church? A
vigorous persecution was begun, but with small success. A band of Donatist
fanatics called Circumcelliones ranged the country, committing disorders and defying the authorities to make
martyrs of them. Even in 317 Constantine ordered that their outrages were not
to be retaliated; and when they sent him a message in 321 that they would in no
way communicate with "that scoundrel, his bishop," he stopped the
persecution as useless, and frankly gave them toleration. Africa was fairly
quiet for the rest of his reign.
The Council of Nicaea. 325
After the defeat of Licinius, Constantine found several disputes in the
Eastern churches. The old Easter question was still unsettled, the Meletian
schism was dividing Egypt, and there was no knowing how far the Arian controversy
would spread. Unity must be restored at once, and that by the old plan of
calling a council. The churches had long been in the habit of conferring
together when difficulties arose. They could refuse to recognize an
unsatisfactory bishop; and cir. 269 a
council ventured to depose Paul of Samosata, and Aurelian had enforced its
decision. The weak point of this method was that rival councils could be got
up, so that every local quarrel had an excellent chance of becoming a general
controversy. Arianism in particular was setting council against council.
Constantine determined to go a step beyond these local meetings. As he had
summoned the Western bishops to Arles, so now he summoned all the bishops of
Christendom. If he could bring them to a decision, it was not likely to be
disputed; and in any case he could safely give it the force of law. An
ecumenical council would be a grand demonstration, not only of the unity of the
Church, but of its close alliance with the Empire. So he issued invitations to
all Christian bishops to meet him at Nicaea in Bithynia in the summer of 325,
to make a final end of all the disputes which rent the unity of Christendom.
The programme was even wider than at Arles; but the Donatists were not included
in it. Constantine could let sleeping dogs lie. We note here the choice of
Nicaea for its auspicious name — the city of victory — and convenience of
access; and we see in it one of many signs that the true center of the Empire
was settling down somewhere near the Bosphorus.
We need not closely analyze the imposing list of bishops present from
almost every province of the Empire, with a few from beyond its frontiers in
the far East and North. Legend made them 318, the holy number of the cross of
Jesus. We have lists in sundry languages, none of them giving more than 221
names; but these are known to be incomplete. The actual number may have been
near 300. All the thirteen great dioceses of the Empire were represented except
Britain and Illyricum, though only single bishops came from Africa, Spain, Gaul and Dacia. Only one came in
person from Italy, though two presbyters appeared for the bishop of Rome. So
the vast majority came from the Eastern provinces of the Empire. The outsiders
were four or five — Theophilus bishop of the Goths beyond the Danube, Cathirius
(the name is corrupt) of the Crimean Bosphorus, John the Persian, and Restates
the Armenian, the son of Gregory the Illuminator, with perhaps another Armenian
bishop. Eusebius is full of enthusiasm over his majestic roll of churches far
and near, from the extremity of Europe to the furthest ends of Asia. It was a
day of victory for both the Empire and the Church. The Empire had not only made
peace with the stubbornest of its enemies, but been accepted as its protector
and k guide. The Church had won the greatest of all its victories when Galerius
issued his edict of toleration: but its mission to the whole world has never
been so vividly embodied as by that august assembly. We miss half the meaning
of the Council if we overlook the tremulous hope and joy of those first years
of worldwide victory. Athanasius shows it even more than Eusebius. One thing at
least was clear. The new world faced the old, and the spell of the Holy Roman
Empire had already begun to work.
Constantine took up at once the position of a moderator. He began by
burning unread the budget of complaints against each other which the bishops
had presented to him. He then preached them a sermon on unity; and unity was
his text all through. He was much more anxious to make the decisions unanimous
than to influence them one way or another. His one object was to make an end of
division in the churches. So whatever pleased the bishops pleased the emperor
too. Easter was fixed according to the custom of Rome and Alexandria for the
Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. It is the rule we have
now, and though it did not produce complete unity till the lunar cycle was
quite settled, it secured that Easter should come after the Passover, “for”
said Constantine, “how can we who are Christians keep the same day as those
ungodly Jews?” The Meletian schism was peacefully settled — to the disgust of
Athanasius in later years — by giving the Meletian clergy a status next to the
orthodox, with a right of succession if found worthy. So far well: but the
condemnation of Arianism may have been something of a trial to Constantine, who
could not quite see why they thought it worthwhile to be so hot on such a
trifling question as the deity of Christ. However that may be, Arianism was
politically impossible. He must have known already from Hosius that the West
would not accept it, and the first act of the Council meant its almost
unanimous rejection by the East. As soon as there was no doubt what the
decision would be, he did his best to make it quite unanimous. All the arts of
imperial persuasion were tried on the waverers, till in the end only two
stubborn recusants remained to be sent into exile.
To some wider aspects of the Council we shall return hereafter. For the
moment it may be enough to say that Constantine had won a great success. He had
not only got his questions settled, but had himself taken a conspicuous part in
settling them. More than this. He had established formal relations, no longer
with bishops or groups of bishops, but with a great confederacy of churches.
The churches had long been tending to organize themselves on the lines of the
Empire, as we see in Cyprian's theories; and now Constantine made the Church an
alter ego of the State, and gave it a concrete unity of the political sort
which it never had before. Henceforth the holy Catholic Church of the creeds
was more and more limited to the confederation of churches recognized by the
State, so that it only remained to compel all men to come into these, and prevent
the formation of any other religious communities. In this way the Church became
much more useful to the State, and also perhaps fitter to resist the shock of
the barbarian conquests which followed; but surely something was lost in
freedom and spirituality, and therefore also in practical morality.
Crispus and Fausta
We pass from the Council of Nicaea to a family tragedy. So far
Constantine may pass as fairly merciful to the plotters of his own house.
Maximian, Bassianus and Licinius had all tried to assassinate him; and if he
put to death Bassianus, he had spared Maximian till he plotted again, and so
far he had spared Licinius also. But now in a few months from Oct. 325 he puts
to death not only Licinius but his own son Crispus and the younger Licinius,
then his own wife Fausta, and then a number of his friends. The facts are
certain, but their exact meaning is obscure. It must however be noticed that
the dynastic policy of Diocletian had given a new political importance to
members of an imperial family. The widows of the third century emperors fall
into obscurity; but the widow of Galerius is first sought in marriage by
Maximin Daza, then executed by Licinius, who also put to death the children of
Severus, Daza and Galerius. Now Constantine married twice; and there may well
have been a bitter division in his family. Minervina was the mother of Crispus,
whom we have seen greatly distinguishing himself in the war with Licinius: and
there seems no serious doubt that the three younger sons were children of
Fausta, though the eldest of them was not born till 315-6, eight years after
her marriage. So we come to the questions we cannot answer. Was Constantine
jealous of his eldest son, or anxious to get him out of the way of the others?
Or was Crispus a plotter justly put to death? And how came Fausta to share his
fate a little later? They are not likely to have been accomplices in a plot or
connected by a guilty passion, though the story of Zosimus is not impossible,
that she accused him falsely, and was herself put to death for it when Helena
convicted her. We have not material enough for any decided opinion. The worst
point, it may be, against Constantine is that he did not spare the young
Licinius. If he was the son of Constantia, he cannot have been more
than twelve years old. But the allusions to him suggest that he was something
more than a boy, and we know that Constantia was on the best of terms with her
brother when she died a couple of years later. If Constantine suspected the
elder Licinius, the new sultanism would involve the younger in his fate; and if
Crispus had married Helena his daughter, suspicion might attach to him too.
Fausta’s fate is the mystery. Or was Constantine more or less out of his mind
that winter, as despots occasionally are? One or two of his laws may point that
way, and the possibility may help to explain a good deal.
The site of Constantinople. 326
Constantine kept his Vicennalia at
Rome in the summer of 316. It was an unhappy visit, even if the domestic
tragedy had already taken place. Rome was the focus of heathenism, and of Roman
pride. She expected to see her sovereigns at the ceremonies, and to treat them
with something of republican familiarity. Constantine scandalized her with his
Eastern pomp, and gave deep offence to the senate and people by refusing to
join the immemorial procession of the knights of Rome to the Capitol. When he
left the city in September, he left it forever.
Rome indeed had long ceased to be a good capital. It was too far from
the frontier for military purposes, too full of republican survivals for such
sultans as the emperors had now become, too heathen for Christian Caesars. So
Maximian held his court at Milan, while Diocletian gradually shifted his chief
resort eastward from Sirmium to Nicomedia. There were many signs now that the
seat of empire ought it to be somewhere near the Bosphorus. The chief dangers
had always come from the Danube and the Euphrates; and about the Bosphorus was
the only point which commanded both. If these were watched by the emperor
himself, the Rhine might be left in charge of a Caesar. This was much the best
course for the present; but in the long run the problem was insoluble. The Rhine
and the Danube might be guarded, or the Danube and the Euphrates; but now that
Rome had failed to make a solid nation of her empire, she could not permanently
guard all three together. Sooner or later it must come to a choice between the
Rhine and the Euphrates, between Italy and Greece, between Europe and Asia.
Constantine is not likely to have seen clearly all this; but he did see that he
commanded more important countries from the Bosphorus than he could from Rome
or Milan. These might control the Latin West and the upper Danube; but at the
Bosphorus he had at his feet the Greek world from Taurus to the Balkans,
flanked northward by the warlike peoples of Illyricum, and eastward by the
great barbarian fringe of Egypt, Syria and Armenia, reaching from the Caucasus
to the cataracts of the Nile. Nobody could yet foresee that by the seventh
century nothing but the Greek world would be left. But where precisely was the
new capital to be placed? Nicomedia would have been Diocletian's city, not
Constantine's, and in any case it lay at the far end of a gulf, some fifty
miles from the main line of traffic. Constantine may at one time have dreamed
of his own birthplace Naissus, or of Sardica, and at another he began buildings
on the site of Troy, before he fixed upon the matchless position of Byzantium.
Europe and Asia are separated by the broad expanses of the Euxine and
Aegean seas, together stretching nearly a thousand miles from the Crimea to the
mountains of Crete, and in ancient times almost fringed round with Greek
cities. It is not all a land of the vine and the olive, even in Aegean waters,
for the Russian wind sweeps over the whole region except in sheltered parts, as
where Trebizond is protected by the Caucasus, Philippi by the Rhodope, or
Sparta by Taygetus, or where Ionia hides behind the Mysian Olympus and the
Trojan Ida. For all its heat in summer, Constantinople is quite as cold in
winter as London, and the western ports of the Black Sea are more cumbered with
ice than the north of Norway. But the Aegean and the Euxine are not a single
broad sheet of water. In the narrows between them the coasts of Europe and Asia
draw so close together that we can sail for more than two hundred miles in full
view of both continents. Leaving the warm South behind at Lesbos (Mitylene) we
pass from the Aegean to the Propontis (Marmora) by the Hellespont (Dardanelles)
a channel of some fifty miles in length to Gallipoli, and two or three miles
broad. Then a voyage of a hundred and forty miles through the more open waters
of the Propontis brings us to the Bosphorus, which averages only three-quarters
of a mile wide, and has a winding course of sixteen miles from Byzantium to the
Cyanean rocks at the entrance of the Euxine. It follows that a city on the
Propontis is protected north and south by the narrow passages of the Bosphorus
and the Dardanelles, and that all traffic between the Aegean and the Euxine
must pass its walls. Moreover, the Bosphorus lay more conveniently than the
Dardanelles for the passage from Europe to Asia. Thus two of the chief
trade-routes of the Roman world crossed each other at Byzantium.
The Megarians may have had some idea of these things when they colonized
Chalcedon (674 BC) just outside the south end of the Bosphorus, on the Asiatic
side of the Propontis. But the site of Chalcedon has no special advantages, so
that its founders became a proverb of blindness for overlooking the superb
position of Byzantium across the water, which was not occupied till 657 BC. At
the south end of the Bosphorus, but on the European side, a blunt triangle is
formed by the Propontis and the Golden Horn, a deep inlet of the Bosphorus
running seven miles to the north-west. On the rising ground between them was
built the city of Byzantium. Small as its extent was in Greek times, it played
a great part in history. Its command of the corn trade of the Euxine made it t
one of the most important strategic positions in the Greek world, so that its
capture by Alexander (it had repulsed Philip) was one of the chief steps of his
advance to empire. It formed an early alliance with the Romans, who freed it
from its perpetual trouble with the barbarians of Thrace, whom neither peace
nor war could keep quiet. Vespasian (73 A.D.) took away its privileges and
threw it into the province of Thrace. In the civil wars of Septimius Severus it
took the side of Pescennius Niger, and held out for two years after Niger's
overthrow at Issus in 194. Severus destroyed its walls, and made it a
subject-village of Perinthus. Caracalla made it a city again, but it was sacked
afresh by Gallienus. Meanwhile the Gothic Vikings came sailing past its ruined
walls to spread terror all over the Aegean and to the shores of Italy. Under
the Illyrian emperors it was fortified again. Even then it was taken first by
Maximin Daza and then by Constantine in the first Licinian war, so that its
full significance only came out in the second. Licinius was a good general, and
pivoted the whole war upon it after his defeat at Hadrianople. He might have
held his ground indefinitely, if the destruction of his fleet in the Hellespont
had not driven him from Byzantium.
Constantinople. 330-1204
The lesson was not lost on Constantine. He began the work sometime after
his visit to Rome, and pushed it forward with impatience. He traced his walls
to form a base two and a half miles from the apex of the triangle. Byzantium
stood on a single hill, but he took in five, and his successors counted seven,
according to the number of the hills of Rome. The market-place was on the second
hill, where his camp had been during the siege. He erected great buildings, and
gathered works of art from all parts to adorn it. The temples of Byzantium
remained, though they were overshadowed by the great cathedral of the Twelve
Apostles. Some heathen ceremonies also were used, for Constantinople was the
last and greatest colony of Rome, and for centuries retained the flavor of a
Latin city. He gave it a senate also, and brought over many of the senators of
Rome to be senators of the New Rome — for such was its official title, though
it has always been known as the City of Constantine. The Northmen called it
simply Miklagard, the Great City. It never had much in the way of amphitheater
or beast-fights: amusement more Christian and humane was provided by a circus
and horse-races. Its corn largesses were like those of Rome, and the corn of
Egypt was diverted to its use, leaving that of Sicily and Africa for Rome. The
New Rome stood next to the Old in rank and dignity, being separated from the
province of Europa, and governed by proconsuls till it received a Praefectus Urbi like Rome in 359. The
bishop also soon shook off his dependence on Perinthus, and was recognized as
standing next to the bishop of Rome, "because Constantinople is New
Rome," by the Council of 381. This ousted Alexandria from the second
place, and the jealousy thereupon arising had important ecclesiastical
consequences. The work was complete, so far as the hasty building would allow,
by the spring of 330: and 11 May of that year is the official date for the
foundation of Constantinople.'
It would be hard to overestimate the strength given to the Empire by the
new capital. So long as the Romans held the sea, the city was impregnable. If
it was attacked on one side, it could draw supplies from the other; and when it
was attacked on both sides in 628, Persians and Avars could not join hands
across the Bosphorus. Even when the command of the sea was lost, it still
remained a fortress of uncommon strength. So stood Constantinople for more than
a thousand years. Goths and Avars, Persians and Saracens, Bulgarians and
Russians, dashed in vain upon its walls, and even the Turks failed more than
once. It was often enough taken in civil war by help from within; but no
foreign enemy ever stormed its walls till the Fourth Crusade (1204 A.D.). The
Arian controversy first made it clear that the heart of the Empire was in the
Greek world, or more precisely in Asiatic Greece between the Taurus and the
Bosphorus; and of the Greek world Constantinople was the natural capital. It
did not however at once become the regular residence of the emperors.
Constantine himself died in a suburb of Nicomedia, Constantius led a wandering
life, Jovian never reached the city, and Valens in his later years avoided it.
Theodosius was the first emperor who made it his usual residence. But the
commercial supremacy of Constantinople was assured from the outset. The center
of gravity of Asia Minor had shifted northward since the first century, and the
Bosphorus gave an easier passage to Europe than the Aegean. So the roads which
had converged on Ephesus now converged on Constantinople. It dominated the
Greek world; and the Greek world was the solid part of the Empire which
resisted all attacks for ages. The loss was more apparent than real when first
the Slavic lands were torn away, then Syria and Egypt, and lastly Sicily and
Italy. The Empire was never struck in a vital part till the Seljuks rooted out
Greek civilization from the highland of Asia Minor in the eleventh century.
Even after that it was still a conquering power under the Comnenians and the
house of Lascaris; and its fate was never hopeless till its last firm ground in
Asia was destroyed by the corrupt and selfish policy of Michael Palaeologus.
We know little of Constantine's declining years, except that they were
generally years of peace. The civil wars were ended at Chrysopolis: now there
was not even a pretender, unless we count as such Calocerus the camel-driver in
Cyprus, who was put down without much difficulty, and duly burned in the
market-place of Tarsus (335). If the Rhine was not entirely quiet, the troubles
there were not serious. The Jews, to be sure, were never loyal, and the
Christian Empire had already shown marked hostility to them. A rising mentioned
only by Chrysostom is most likely a legend: but there may have been already
some signs of the great outbreak put down by Ursicinus in 352. However, upon
the whole there was peace. The old emperor never again took the field in
person. His last war was with the Goths; and that was conducted by the younger
Constantine.
The Gothic Wars
On a broad view, the legions of the Danube faced the Germans in its
upper course and the Goths lower down, with the Sarmatians between them; and
each of these names stands for sundry tribes and groups of tribes, whose mutual
enmities were diligently fostered by the policy of Rome. In 331 the Sarmatians
and the Vandals had somehow got mixed up together, and suffered a great defeat
from the Goths. They asked Constantine for help, and he was very willing to
check the growth of the Gothic power. Araric the Gothic king replied by
carrying the war into the Roman province of Moesia, from which he was driven
out with heavy loss. The younger Constantine gained a great victory over him,
20 April 332; and when peace was made, the Goths returned to their old position
as servants and allies of Rome. But when the Sarmatians themselves made inroads
on Roman territory, Constantine left them to their fate. They were soon in
difficulties with Geberic the new Gothic king, and with their own slaves the
Limigantes, who drove them out of their country. Some fled to the Quadi, some
found refuge among the Gothic tribes, but 300,000 of them sought shelter in the
Empire, and were given lands by Constantine, chiefly in Pannonia.
The most interesting circumstance of the Gothic war is the help
Constantine received from Cherson, the last of the Greek republics. It stood
where Sebastopol now stands. The story is told only by Constantine
Porphyrogenitus (911-959), but the learned emperor was an excellent
antiquarian, and used original authorities. Cherson and the Goths were old
enemies, Rome and Cherson old allies. The republic decided for war, and its
first magistrate Diogenes struck a decisive blow by attacking the rear of the
Goths. Cherson received a rich reward from Constantine, and remained in
generally friendly relations to the Empire till its annexation in 829, and even
till its capture by the Russians in 988.
The settlement of the Danube was the last of Constantine's great 'services to the Empire. The Edict of Milan had removed the standing danger of Christian disaffection in the East, the defeat of Licinius had put an end to the civil wars, the reform of the administration completed Diocletian's work of reducing the army to permanent obedience, the Council of Nicaea had secured the active alliance of the Christian churches, the foundation of Constantinople made the seat of power safe for centuries; and now the consolidation of the northern frontier seemed to enlist all the most dangerous enemies of Rome in her defence. The Empire gained three hundred thousand settlers for the wastes of the Gothic march, and a firm peace of more than thirty years with the greatest of the northern nations. Henceforth the Rhine was guarded by the Franks, the Danube covered by the Goths, and the Euphrates flanked by the Christian kingdom of Armenia. The Empire was already dangerously dependent on barbarian help inside and outside its frontiers; but the Roman peace never seemed more secure than when the skillful policy of Constantine had formed its chief barbarian enemies into a covering ring of friendly client states.
The later years of Constantine. 325-337
At all events, the years of peace were not a time of healthful recovery. The Empire had not gained strength in the long peace of the Antonines; and it had gone a long way downhill since the second century. When Diocletian came to the throne in 284, he found three great problems before him. The first was military — how to stop the continual mutinies which cut off the emperors before they could do their work. This he solved, though at the cost of leaving behind him a period of civil war. The second was religious—how to deal with the Christians. Diocletian went wrong on this, and left his mistake to be repaired by Constantine. The third and hardest was mainly economic — to restore the dwindled agriculture, commerce, and population of the Empire. On this Diocletian and Constantine went wrong together. They not only failed to cure the evil, but greatly increased it. Not much was gained by remitting taxes that could not be paid, and settling barbarian colonists and barbarian serfs in the wasted provinces. Serious economic difficulties have moral causes, and there was no radical cure short of a complete change in the temper of society. Yet much might have been done by a permanent reduction of taxation and a reform of its incidence and of the methods of collection. Instead of this, the machinery of government (and its expense) was greatly increased. The army had to be held in check by courts of Oriental splendor and a vast establishment of corrupt officials. We can see the growth of officialism even in the language, if we compare the Latin words in Athanasius with those in the New Testament. So heavier taxes had to be levied from a smaller and poorer population. Taxation under the Empire had never been light; in the third century it grew heavy, under Diocletian it was crushing, and in the later years of Constantine the burden was further increased by the enormous expenditure which built up the new capital like the city in a fairy tale. We are within sight of the time when the whole policy of the government was dictated by dire financial need. We have already reached a state of things like that we see in Russia. The strongest of the emperors had never been able to put down brigandage; and now disorder was rampant in the mountains, and often elsewhere. The greats army of officials was all-powerful for oppression, and very little controlled by the emperor. He might displace an official at a moment's notice, or "deliver him to the avenging flames"; but he could enforce no reform against the passive resistance of the officials and the landowners. So things drifted on from bad to worse.
Nor can we doubt that Constantine himself grew slacker in the years of
peace. Nature had richly gifted him with sound health, strong limbs, and a stately
presence. His energy was untiring, his observation keen, his decision quick. He
was a splendid soldier, and the best general since Aurelian. If he had no
learned education, he was not without interest in literature, and in practical
statesmanship he may fairly rank with Diocletian. His general humanity
stands out clear in his laws, for no emperor ever did more for the slave, the
foundling, and the oppressed. If he began by giving the Frankish kings to the
beasts, he went on (325) to forbid the games of the amphitheater. In private
life he was chaste and sober, moderate and pleasant. Yet he was given to
raillery, and his nearest friends could not entirely trust him. His ambition
was great, and he was very susceptible to flattery. So freely was it ministered
to him that he sometimes had to check it himself: but in his later years he was
more or less influenced by unworthy favorites, as Ablabius and Sopater seem to
have been. No doubt his Christianity is of itself an offence to Zosimus and
Julian, so that we may discount their charges of sloth and luxury: but upon the
whole, the judgment of Eutropius would seem impartial, that Constantine was a
match for the best emperors in the early part of his reign, and at its end no
more than average.
Constantine's disposition of
the Empire. 217-380
As Constantine had won the Empire, so now he had to dispose of it.
Constantine, Constantius, and Constans, his three sons by Fausta, were born in
316, 317, 320, and received the title of Caesar in 317, 323, 333. In 335 their
inheritance was marked out. Constantine was to have the Gaulish prefecture,
Constantius the Eastern, Constans the Italian and Illyrian. This is the
partition actually made after the emperor's death; but for the present it was
complicated by some obscure transactions. Constantine had made honorable
provision for his half-brothers Delmatius and Julius Constantius, the sons of
Theodora, and they never gave him political trouble. Of their sisters, he
married Constantia to Licinius, Anastasia to Bassianus and Nepotianus, of whom
the second certainly was a great Roman noble, so that they too suffered no
disparagement. Basilina also, the wife of Julius Constantius and mother of the
emperor Julian, belonged to the great Anician family. Now Delmatius left two
sons, Delmatius and Hanniballianus. Of these Delmatius must have been a man of
mark, for he held the high office of magister
militum, and was made Caesar in 335, while Hanniballianus was the husband
of Constantine's daughter Constantina. But they had no proper claim to any
share in the succession, and we do not know why they were given it. There may
have been parties in the palace; and if so, Ablabius is likely to have had a
share in the matter, for he was put to death along with them in the massacre which
followed Constantine's death. Certain it is that shares were carved out for
them from the inheritance of their cousins. Delmatius was to have the Gothic
march, while Hanniballianus received Pontus, with the astonishing title of rex regum — for no Roman since the
Tarquins had ever borne the name of king.
The strange title may point to some design upon Armenia, for the whole
Eastern Question of the day was raised when Persia threatened war. Four
emperors in the third century had met with disaster on the Persian frontier,
but there had been forty years of peace since the victory of Galerius in 297.
The Empire gained Mesopotamia to the Aboras, and the five provinces which
covered the southern slopes of the Armenian mountains; and in Armenia itself,
Roman supremacy was fully recognized by its great king Tiridates (287-314). If
his adoption of Christianity led to a short war with Maximin Daza, it only drew
Armenia closer to Constantine. But if the royal house was Christian and leaned
on Rome, there was a large heathen party which looked to Persia: and Persia was
an aggressive power under Sapor II (309-380). A vigorous persecution of
Christians was carried on, and war with Rome was only a question of time. Sapor
demanded back the five provinces and attacked Mesopotamia, while a revolution
in the palace threw Armenia into his hands.
Death of Constantine. 337
How much of this was done during Constantine's lifetime is more than we
can say: but at all events a Persian war was plain in sight by the spring of
337; and a war with Persia was too serious a matter to be left to Caesars like
a Frankish foray or a Gothic inroad, so the old emperor prepared to take the
field in person. He never set out. Constantine fell sick soon after Easter, and
when the sickness grew upon him, he took up his abode at Ancyrona, a suburb of
Nicomedia. As his end drew near, he received the imposition of hands, for up to
that time he had not been even a catechumen. He then applied for baptism,
explaining that he had hoped some day to receive it in the waters of the Jordan
like the Lord himself. After the ceremony he laid aside the purple, and passed
away in stainless white (22 May 337). As all his sons were absent, the
government was carried on for three months in the dead emperor's name, till
they had made their arrangements, and the soldiers had slaughtered almost the
entire house of Theodora. Constantine was buried on the spot he had himself
marked out in the cathedral of the Twelve Apostles in his own imperial city.
The Greek Church still calls him isaposotolos - an equal of the Apostles.