CHAPTER XX

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT

I.

THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE

 

THE later Roman Empire was stamped with its own peculiar character by the genius of two men—Constantine and Justinian—and both were sons of Balkan peasants. Theodora the wife of Justinian was in her early days a prostitute; Helen the mother of Constantine was, tradition said, a serving-maid in a Balkan inn, and neither did dishonour to the proud position of an imperial Augusta. The precise date of Constantine’s birth we do not know: but it was at Nish and probably about a.d. 280 that Helen bore to the soldier Constantius the boy who was to become the first Christian emperor. When Diocletian had appointed Constantius to be a Caesar of the Herculian dynasty with the task of recovering Britain from Carausius, Constantine was sent to the East where he became the companion of the senior Augustus: he was with Diocletian in Egypt in 296-7. As a young man he came to know the Christianity of the Asiatic provinces and he saw the part which Christians were playing in the administration and at the court of Diocletian. Men thought that in due time he would be appointed Caesar: he would not be unprepared for the task. In the East he saw the change of policy which was the work of Galerius and the beginnings of the bloody persecution; after the abdication of Diocletian he was kept in the East by Galerius as a useful hostage. But Galerius could not refuse the demand of Constantius, now senior Augustus, that his son should join his father in Gaul, and when Constantius died at York (July 306) Constantine was hailed as emperor by the soldiers. Constantine sought the recognition of Galerius, and the latter acknowledged him as Caesar in the West, while Severus was appointed to succeed Constantius as Augustus.

The history of the following five years has been told in another chapter and but little remains to be said here. Constantius had, it would seem, enforced the first edict of persecution so far as to destroy some Christian churches, but further than that he would not go. The Donatists in Africa knew that in Gaul Christians had not been compelled to surrender their scriptures to the representatives of the Roman State: in the lands ruled by Constantius there had been no traditores. Constantius himself probably believed in the divine monarchy of a summus deus—a belief which might at times approach a pagan monotheism; officially he worshipped Hercules the divine patron of the dynasty. Severus, so far as we know, followed the lead of Constantius, and the Christians remained unmolested. Thus after the abdication of Diocletian persecution ceased in the Western provinces of the Empire. There can, indeed, have been no enthusiasm amongst the pagans for a policy of violent repression: even in Rome itself Maxentius, when he had seized imperial power, although a pagan, thought to win popularity through granting toleration to the Christians. Pope Marcellinus died in 304: in 307 the Roman Christians could proceed to a new election. Marcellinus, it would seem probable, had betrayed the faith as thurificatus and traditor he had surrendered Christian scriptures and burned incense on a pagan altar; in Rome, as in Africa, the problem of the treatment of the lapsi aroused bitter passions. Pope Marcellus, elected in 307, who was a rigorist, was opposed by a party which championed a more liberal treatment of the fallen, and the two sections of the church met in bloody conflicts in the streets of the capital. In defence of public order Marcellus was banished by Maxentius. On April 8, 308 Maxentius permitted the election of Pope Eusebius, but he, too, met with opposition and was banished to Sicily. On July 2,311 Miltiades was consecrated as bishop, and now Maxentius went farther than Galerius had done in his edict of toleration issued in the spring of the same year and restored to the Church the property which had been confiscated during the persecution. It is important to realize that Maxentius in banishing two bishops was but doing his duty in maintaining order within the City. When Constantine marched upon Rome it was not to free the Christians from religious persecution.

Constantine as Caesar naturally continued to acknowledge Hercules as his official patron, especially when, on Maximian’s flight from Italy to Gaul, Constantine married Fausta, Maximian’s daughter, and received from his father-in-law the title of Augustus. But with the treachery and death of Maximian, in 310, a Herculian title to imperial power became impossible: some new basis must be found for Constantine’s imperium. Thus the panegyrist forthwith explains, what had not been realized previously, that Constantine was connected with the family of the heroic third-century Emperor Claudius Gothicus. What the precise relationship may have been the orator discreetly does not seek to determine: the essential point to bring home to his hearers was that the derivation of Constantine’s title from the grant of the discredited Maximian was nothing but an error. Already there had been two emperors in his family: Constantine was born an emperor. He alone of all his colleagues was one of a dynastic line.

The fiction prevailed: the dynasty of the Second Flavians was securely founded. With the change in the title to the throne was associated a change in the Emperor’s religious allegiance. He now returns to the sun-worship of his Balkan ancestors, and henceforth Sol Invictus—Apollo—becomes his divine patron. Constantine’s Herculian past is buried. This has been called Constantine’s first conversion. The new imperial faith is duly celebrated in the panegyric delivered at Traves after the death of Maximian. The orator gives free rein to his fancy and imagines the appearance to the Emperor of Apollo in his temple to which Constantine has made his pilgrimage. At the side of the god stands the goddess Victoria. In Rome when Maximian had become bis Augustus—Augustus for the second time—the coinage had borne the wish that his third decade of rule might be prosperous; men could desire for Constantine no less: Apollo bore wreaths each of which carried the promise of thirty years of rule. No small importance has been attached to this vision by some scholars: it has been interpreted as the model on which the later Christian vision was fashioned. This is to do too much honour to the panegyrist’s invention.

With the year 311 came the edict of toleration and the death of Galerius: Maximin seized his hour, anticipated Licinius and occupied Asia Minor. Henceforth the Hellespont divided the Emperors of the East. Licinius, deprived of the resources which possession of the Asiatic provinces would have given him, turned to Constantine for support. Already in 310 he had been betrothed to Constantine’s sister, Constantia. In the summer of 311 Licinius is at Serdica where by granting special privileges to the soldiers he sought to secure their loyalty. Maxentius in the West deified his murdered father and re-asserted his Herculian claim to rule. As Licinius becomes the ally of Constantine, so Maxentius and Maximin are drawn together. The revolt in Africa suppressed, his corn supplies secured, Maxentius can shelter behind the walls of Aurelian from which both Severus and Galerius had retired discomfited. In 312 Constantine, having re-established Roman authority on the Rhine, decided to march against the ‘tyrant’ who held the Western capital. There follows the lightning campaign which ended at the Milvian Bridge.

From Gaul Constantine struck across the Alps: he left behind him troops to guard the frontier of the Rhine, and, though we can form no precise numerical estimate of the strength of the army of invasion, it was less than 40,000 men. Maxentius, we are told, had in Italy some 100,000 soldiers, though many of these remained with the ‘tyrant’ in Rome; Constantine’s march over the Mont Genevre was unopposed, though the garrison of Susa had been reinforced. That fortress was stormed, and the discipline in Constantine’s army was such that there was no plundering of the town. This rare moderation later bore its fruits: as Constantine advanced through Italy he was greeted with enthusiasm in other cities. The first important engagement was fought in the neighbourhood of Turin—perhaps between Alpignano and Rivoli: Constantine’s centre gave way before the mail-clad cavalry of Maxentius, then the wings closed in upon the horsemen, and clubmen brought down horse and rider. Turin shut its gates against the fugitives and then surrendered. A large force under the command of Pompeianus Ruricius was concentrated at Verona. After a short stay in Milan and an engagement at Brixia Constantine under cover of night crossed the Adige and began the siege of Verona; Ruricius broke through Constantine’s lines to bring up reinforcements. Constantine did not hesitate: without abandoning the siege he immediately advanced against the troops with which Ruricius was returning. He himself led the attack; the battle lasted far into the night. Ruricius fell; his men were scattered. Aquileia was secured, Verona capitulated.

The march through central Italy continued; Modena after a short siege surrendered; and the way to Rome lay open. But it was precisely from the walls of Rome that Severus and Galerius had retreated baffled and helpless: Constantine had prepared a fleet with which to intercept the transport of grain to the Western capital, but in vain, for the rebellion of Alexander had been crushed in time, and Maxentius had drawn from the granary of Africa copious supplies. Constantine’s great fear was that Maxentius would not quit Rome. It was the guardians of the Sibylline books who achieved for Constantine that which he himself would have been powerless to enforce. Maxentius determined to leave to his generals the command of his forces; his army advanced along the Via Flaminia as far as Saxa Rubra, where it apparently came in contact with Constantine’s troops. In the first encounter the soldiers of Maxentius were victorious. Then ‘Constantine moved all his forces nearer to the city and encamped in the neighbourhood “regione” of the Milvian Bridge.’ The real difficulty of the battle, if we accept this statement of Lactantius, is to understand how it was that, in face of the superior numbers of Maxentius, Constantine was allowed to execute this flanking movement unmolested. Are we to understand a previous retreat and a wide detour? Just before dawn on October 28 ‘Constantine was sleeping when he was bidden to mark on the shields of his men the sublime sign of God and thus engage the enemy. He did as he was bidden and marked on the shields the letter X with a line drawn through it and turned round at the top, i.e. Christus.’ Maxentius on the same day, the anniversary of his assumption of power, ordered that the Sibylline books should be consulted: the answer was given that on that day the enemy of the Romans would perish. The battle was already begun when Maxentius, assured of victory, joined his army. Constantine with like confidence threw his cavalry against the enemy, and his infantry followed. It was a bitterly contested struggle, but when the lines of Maxentius broke they could not retreat, for the Tiber ran close behind them. The bridge of boats by which they had crossed gave way under the press, and Maxentius perished with the fugitives.

Constantine as victor entered the Western capital. Against the advice of the augurs, in despite of his military counsellors, unsupported by the troops of Licinius, with incredible audacity Constantine had risked everything on a single hazard—and won. How shall that success be explained ? Constantine himself knew well the reason for his victory: it had been won ‘ instinctu divinitatis,’ by a ‘virtus’ which was no mere human valour, but was a mysterious force which had its origin in God. And as the ground of that conviction tradition has repeated the story of the Vision of the Cross athwart the afternoon sun—a vision which came to Constantine, it seems, while he was still in Gaul before he began his march into Italy. For that Vision of the Cross we have no contemporary evidence: indeed our only evidence is the assertion of Eusebius, made after Constantine’s death in the Vita Constantine, that the Emperor had on his oath assured him of the fact. No mention of that vision occurs in any of the editions of the Church History of Eusebius: this of course proves nothing: Eusebius did not come into close contact with Constantine until a.d. 325 which is the probable date of the last edition of his History. It has been contended that the whole account is an interpolation of the Theodosian period, but that contention is at present unproven. In the year 351 Constantius was granted a vision of the Cross in the heavens and it was then remarked that the son was more blessed than the father: Constantine had but found in the earth the true Cross: Constantius had seen it in the sky. Does this denote ignorance of the story of Eusebius or a politic denial of Eusebius’ statement? Who shall say? The one thing which is critically illegitimate is to treat the account given by Lactantius of the dream of Constantine before the walls of Rome as though it described the same vision as that related by Eusebius. In recent discussions the two quite distinct divine interventions have at times been confused. But even though at present the historical student may be forced to conclude any discussion of the Eusebian report with a judgment of non liquet, to the present writer it appears that the account of the church historian is at least a true reflection of the Emperor’s own thought—or at least of his afterthought. Victory had been promised him by the God of the Christians; he had challenged the Christian God to an Ordeal by Battle and that God had kept his pledge. This belief of Constantine remains of fundamental significance for the understanding of the policy of the reign.

II.

CONSTANTINE AND CHRISTIANITY

Many are the scholars who have discussed Constantine’s relation to Christianity and the Christian Church, and assuredly that discussion is not ended, for no agreement has been reached. In this place very little can be said, but at least it can be asserted that until the authenticity of Constantine’s letters written in connection with the Donatist controversy has been successfully challenged, it must be admitted that the Emperor long before his conquest of the Roman East regarded himself as a Christian. Yet it must never be forgotten that he was at the same time the ruler of subjects who were for the most part pagan, and that therefore his acts and even his beliefs must, at least in these earlier years, be tolerant of a pagan interpretation. Though Constantine might be assured that the victory of the Milvian Bridge had been won through the aid of the Christian God, yet pagan rhetoricians must be allowed to express that conviction of divine aid through the medium of their own pagan interpretation of the fact.

The real content of Constantine’s thought may well have been very different from that of its pagan interpreters. The language of the panegyrists indeed gives back the thought of Constantine reflected from a refracting mirror. And for Constantine, it may be suggested, an outworn past lives on because that past has been transformed into a symbol which has lost its original significance. The solar imagery of an earlier religious conviction is retained because Constantine is a member of a dynasty, and that solar imagery has become a part of a dynastic heraldry which proclaims an inherited title to imperial power. The student must therefore be prepared to recognize a conscious ambiguity in the acts of Constantine—an ambiguity necessarily arising from the ambiguous position of a Christian emperor ruling a pagan empire, and bound to a pagan past. Thus the Senate may erect a statue in traditional form to its divinely guided sovereign and may have placed in the hand of the statue a traditional vexillum; as the ruler of a pagan world Constantine may have accepted this homage of his pagan subjects while for himself the vexillum was no mere traditional tribute: he may have seen in it the symbol of his personal faith, the Cross; it would thus have both for him and for the Christians its own novelty, its own peculiar character: ‘in hoc singular signo’ the victory had been won, and the interpretation given by Eusebius to the traditional imagery of the statue may after all have rightly interpreted the ambiguity of the inscription. It is through concessions to the past that Constantine mediated the transition to the Christian Empire of the future—that Empire which his sons educated in the Christian faith might one day behold as accomplished fact.

Discussion continues concerning the vision recounted by Lactantius; but whatever conclusions criticism may reach it is at least obvious that Lactantius is endeavouring to describe a definite form of the Christian monogram, and that description cannot be lightly dismissed. It must ultimately be explained, and not explained away. Certain it is that after the victory Constantine acts just as he might have been expected to act if the story in Lac­tantius were true. Created senior Augustus by the Senate, he writes to his Eastern colleague Maximin bidding him stay the persecution. If at this time, having abolished the acta of Maxentius, he formally published in Italy and Africa Galerius’ Edict of Toleration, he immediately went far beyond that grudging recognition of Christian rights: not only did he order restoration of confiscated Church property, but instructions were given to the provincial finance officers to give to the Catholics—but not to the Donatists—such monies from the public funds as the Church might need. When early in 313 Constantine met his ally Licinius at Milan a policy of complete religious freedom was agreed upon. Technically it may be true that there was no Edict of Milan, but, in the view of the present writer, that is because Constantine had already accorded to all his subjects those rights which were granted to the provinces of Asia in the letter issued at Nicomedia by Licinius a few months later, which itself summarized Constantine’s legislation promulgated by him as senior Augustus after the crowning mercy of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. The facts for which the ‘Edict of Milan’ once stood are still facts, though the Edict itself has gone the way of many another symbolic representation of historical truth. But let it not be thought that Constantine was a passionless exponent of a philosophic doctrine of toleration. It has been contended that when error prevails it is right to invoke liberty of conscience, when on the contrary truth predominates it is just to use coercion. Such doubtless was the view of Constantine : he was, it must be repeated, the ruler of a pagan world, and the Christian in Constantine must for the present yield to the statesman. To the Donatist schismatic and to the Christian heretic no such consideration need be shown. Constantine’s ideal State would be hampered by no fetters of toleration.

Meanwhile in the Eastern provinces Maximin had unwillingly accepted the Edict issued just before his death by Galerius. The text of the Edict was not published by him, but he gave verbal instructions to his Praetorian Prefect, Sabinus, to write to the provincial governors: of that letter we possess a Greek translation: the authorities are directed that if any Christian be found following the religion of his nation he should be set free from molestation and from danger and should henceforth not be deemed punishable on this charge. The administration welcomed the permission to stay the persecution: the Christian prisoners were released: those relegated to the mines returned with joy, and the pagans themselves shared in the general rejoicing. But in Nicomedia men soon learned that the concession had been wrung from Maximin, and that the city might look for imperial favour if the citizens would give the Emperor an excuse for a change of policy. A petition was presented asking that the Christians might be banished from Nicomedia. Before the year was out (October—November 311) persecution had begun afresh: on November 24 Peter Bishop of Alexandria was martyred; about the same time Silvanus, who had been bishop for forty years, suffered death at Emesa; on January 7, 312 Lucian was martyred at Nicomedia.

The example of Nicomedia was followed in Antioch where Theotecnus, curator of the city, instigated a similar demonstration, and the pagans in other cities. likewise forwarded their petitions. These requests were graciously answered by Maximin in a rescript issued c. June 312; in return for their devotion to the gods the Emperor would forthwith grant any boon for which the cities might ask. Maximin now developed a constructive policy and planned to create a pagan Church: priests of the gods were appointed in each city and those who had distinguished themselves in the public service were made provincial high-priests propaganda should support the pagan counter-reformation: to discredit the Christian faith forged Acts of Pilate were circulated throughout the Eastern provinces; they were to be studied in the schools and learnt by heart—‘children in the schools had every day on their lips the names of Jesus and Pilate.’ At Damascus a Roman general forced prostitutes under the threat of torture to state that they had formerly been Christians and that they had witnessed deeds of shame committed even in the Christian churches. These confessions were published at the Emperor’s command. From an inscription we learn that in Pisidia members of the governor’s civil staff were ordered to sacrifice, and the right to resign from the service was denied them. Sheep and cattle were carried off from the fields for daily sacrifice: the soldiers, fed on sacrificial flesh, scorned their rations of bread. Attention has been called to traces in the epigraphy of Asia Minor of encouragement by the emperors of the pagan revival: this policy may be reflected in the association of the Tekmoreian Guest-Friends, a pagan society on the Imperial estates of Pisidian Antioch. From an inscription the name of one of Maximin’s priests has been recovered—Athanatos Epitynchanos; he was a priest in Phrygia who had been initiated by the high-priestess Ispatale; she had ‘ransomed many from evil torments,’ probably those who through initiation had been rescued from the torments of the after-life, but possibly Christians saved from torture during the persecution.

But after Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge the plans of Maximin for a general revival of paganism in Roman Asia were rudely checked. He was told by Constantine that repression of the Christians must cease. That order he dared not disobey, and thus towards the end of 312 Maximin addressed another letter to Sabinus in which he explained that it was only fitting that he should grant the petitions of the cities, for their request had been pleasing to the gods; but he still desired that through persuasion his subjects should be brought fitly to reverence the gods: the Christians should not be constrained thereto by violence. The winter of 312—3 was indeed a disastrous time for Maximin: the harvest had failed, and famine and pestilence devastated the Eastern provinces. Maximin had sought to impose pagan worship upon the newly converted Armenians, and as a consequence war was declared. We know no details: the conflict' must have been brief, for in the depth of winter, through rain and snow, while Licinius was still in Italy, Maximin by forced marches advanced from Syria to the Straits and invaded Europe. Licinius hastily left Milan to meet the invasion. The garrison of Byzantium capitulated after an investment of eleven days, and Heraclea and Perinthus similarly opened their gates. Licinius with a small force had now reached Adrianople, and, rapidly collecting as many troops as possible from the near neighbourhood, at the post­station of Tzirallum he faced with barely 30,000 men the 70,000 of Maximin’s army. While Maximin vowed to Juppiter that, were victory granted him, he would extirpate the Christian name, an angel, so Lactantius tells us, dictated a prayer to Licinius: victory would be his, if he and his army would appeal to the Summus Deus.

It is a fine litany that, three times recited, inspired with confidence of divine succour the troops of Licinius:

Summe deus te rogamus

Sancte deus te rogamus

Omnem iustitiam tibi commendamus

Salutem nostram tibi commendamus

Imperium nostrum tibi commendamus

Per te vivimus, per te victores et felices existimus:

Summe, sancte deus, preces nostras exaudi:

Bracchia nostra ad te tendimus:

Exaudi, sancte, summe deus.

Maximin refused to consider terms of peace: he had hoped to win over the army of Licinius without a struggle, and then with united forces march against Constantine. But the angel’s promise was kept: when the armies engaged, the soldiers of Maximin fled and with them their emperor (May 1, 313). His wrath fell heavily on the pagan priests who had promised him victory and at length he sought the support of the Christians: in Nicomedia (probably May 313) he not only issued an edict of toleration but even restored its confiscated property to the Church. But it was too late; before the advance of Licinius he retreated beyond the Taurus line, and in Tarsus he died, not in battle, but of a disease which blinded him and reduced him to a skeleton (c. August 313). In June 313 Licinius in Nicomedia published a letter granting complete freedom of belief in terms which we have every reason to think had been agreed upon with Constantine at the meeting in Milan. A translation may be attempted:

‘Since we saw that freedom of worship ought not to be denied, but that to each man’s judgment and will the right should be given to care for sacred things according to each man’s free choice, we have already some time ago bidden the Christians to maintain the faith of their own sect and worship. But since in that edict by which such right was granted to the aforesaid Christians many and varied conditions clearly appeared to have been added, it may well perchance have come about that after a short time many were repelled from practising their religion. Thus when Constantine Augustus, and Licinius Augustus, had met at Mediolanum (Milan) and were discussing all those matters which relate to the advantage and security of the State, amongst the other things which we saw would benefit the majority of men we were convinced that first of all those conditions by which reverence for the Divinity is secured should be put in order by us to the end that we might give to the Christians and to all men the right to follow freely whatever religion each had wished, so that thereby whatever of Divinity there be in the heavenly seat may be favourable and propitious to us and to all those who are placed under our authority. And so by a salutary and most fitting line of reasoning we came to the conclusion that we should adopt this policy—namely our view should be that to no one whatsoever should we deny liberty to follow either the religion of the Christians or any other cult which of his own free choice he has thought to be best adapted for himself, in order that the supreme Divinity, to whose service we render our free obedience, may bestow upon us in all things his wonted favour and benevolence. Wherefore we would that your Devotion should know that it is our will that all those conditions should be altogether removed which were contained in our former letters addressed to you concerning the Christians [and which seemed to be entirely perverse and alien from our clemency]—these should be removed and now in freedom and without restriction let all those who desire to follow the aforesaid religion of the Christians hasten to follow the same without any molestation or interference. We have felt that the fullest information should be furnished on this matter to your Carefulness that you might be assured that we have given to the aforesaid Christians complete and unrestricted liberty to follow their religion. Further, when you see that this indulgence has been granted by us to the aforesaid Christians, your Devotion will understand that to others also a similar free and unhindered liberty of religion and cult has been granted, for such a grant is befitting to the peace of our times, so that it may be open to every man to worship as he will. This has been done by us so that we should not seem to have done dishonour to any religion.’

The Emperors then proceed to order the return to the Chris­tians of all confiscated churches, whether held by the imperial Treasury, or by private persons; such restoration is to be made. Similarly all other properties formerly are to be given back. The Treasury will undertake to indemnify those who are thus deprived of land which they may have purchased. The aim of the imperial legislators is then re­affirmed: it is that ‘the divine favour which we have experienced in a crisis of our fortunes may for all time prosper our undertak­ings and serve the public weal.’

III.

CONSTANTINE AND LICINIUS

The Roman world was divided between the two victors. But, Italy won, Constantine showed no desire to transfer his court to Rome: he had for many years governed Gaul, and it seemed probable that Arles would become the capital of the Roman West. It was to Arles that the Christian bishops were summoned early in 314. Italy might be ruled by another. Accordingly, Constantine suggested to Licinius that Bassianus, who had married Constantine’s sister Anastasia, should be created Caesar. The brother of Bassianus, Senicio, was a partisan of Licinius, and it was agreed with the latter that Bassianus should attack Constantine. But the treacherous scheme was discovered. Already at Emona the statues of Constantine had been overthrown, and when Licinius refused to surrender Senicio, his complicity was declared. Constantine on his coinage re-asserted his Claudian descent and dynastic claim, collected his forces in the north of Italy and at the head of 20,000 men advanced by way of Aquileia and Noviodunum to Siscia (autumn 314). Near Cibalae (Vinkovce) in Pannonia he was met by the army of Licinius 35,000 strong. That army was encamped in a wide plain; Constantine’s march led through a defile, a hill on one side, a deep swamp on the other. But, undeterred, he forthwith attacked with his cavalry and thus won freedom for the advance of his infantry. The battle was fiercely contested until nightfall, when the army of Licinius, deserting its baggage train, fled and did not halt until it reached Sirmium. Here the bridge over the Save was destroyed, and Licinius, having lost, it is said, 20,000 men in the battle at Cibalae, made for Thrace where he collected reinforcements. At Adrianople the frontier dux Valens was created Augustus, and then envoys were sent to Constantine, who was by this time in Philippopolis, to treat for peace. Constantine rejected the proposals, and at Campus Mardiensis which probably lay somewhere between Philippopolis and Adrianople, a second battle was fought with great determination on both sides, but with indecisive result. After the battle Constantine lost touch with Licinius: thinking that the latter would make for Byzantium, he marched with all speed for that city only to find that Licinius was at Beroea and that his own lines of communication were thus broken, and re­inforcements from the West could be intercepted. But by Constantine’s march Licinius was similarly cut off from contact with his base in Asia, and thus it was Licinius who once more sought to negotiate a peace: he sent the comes Mestrianus to Constantine and after diplomatic delays a new partition of the Roman world was agreed upon: Constantine gained the provinces of Pannonia, Illyricum, Macedonia, Greece and Moesia, while in Europe Licinius retained only Thrace. Licinius sacrificed his newly created Augustus Valens, and an attempt to secure the recogni­tion of his own son as Caesar was defeated by Constantine.

When in the early spring of 313 Licinius had returned to the East to meet the invasion of Maximin, Constantine had been recalled from Milan to Gaul to repel Germans and Franks on the Rhine: at the end of the campaign Ludi Francici (15—20 July) celebrated his success. Henceforth the peace of Gaul was undisturbed: it was the religious divisions in Africa which claimed the Emperor’s attention. The Donatists challenged Constantine’s decision to exclude them from participation in the imperial benefactions : they prayed him to appoint bishops from Gaul to determine the issue between themselves and the Catholics: it was a step which was to have far-reaching consequences. It is unnecessary in this place to relate in detail the events which followed that appeal, but significant stages must be briefly noticed. Constantine on receipt of the petition referred the matter to Pope Miltiades and three Gallic bishops. Miltiades transformed this small committee into a Council in accordance with the traditional practice of the Church. From the adverse decision of this Roman synod the Donatists appealed: Constantine agreed to summon a more representative assembly. To Arles in 314 came bishops from all those parts of the empire ruled by Constantine: the Church raised no objection to this revision of the Roman judgment, which they independently confirmed. At the same time they took the opportunity to revise the canons issued a few years before by a Council held at Elvira: they expressly recognized that Christians could hold civil office without prejudice to their position in the Church; in respect of service in the army, however, canon 3 is less explicit and has provoked discussion: ‘Qui in pace arma proiiciunt excommunicentur’: the words ‘in pace’ have been taken to mean ‘now that persecution has ceased.’ The present writer believes that the words should be given their natural sense: the Council condemns such conduct as that of Maximilian and Marcellus; it will not derogate from the rule that for a Christian the shedding of blood has once for all been condemned. But with the adverse decision of the Council of Arles the Donatists were not content: they appealed for Constantine’s own judgment on their case: for a long time he hesitated, but at last in November 316 he yielded, and himself determined the issue: by an imperial constitution the Donatist churches were confiscated, the military repression of Donatism began, and the Donatist calendar of martyrs was formed. It was this experience which determined the action of Constantine when the Council of Nicaea had met in 325: there must be no Donatist schism in the Eastern provinces.

Constantine’s plan for devolving upon another the government of Italy had failed. He spent the first half of the year 315 in the provinces which he had acquired from Licinius, and die second in Rome and Milan. In 316 he was in the Gaul which he knew so well. From Treves by way of Vienne he went to Arles. And then there comes the change: Gaul which he had pacified held him no longer: he turned to his eastern provinces: at Sardica on March 1, 317  new Caesars were created—Constantine’s two sons Crispus and Constantine and the younger Licinius, a bastard born of a slave. It is at Sirmium in the same year that Constantine’s third son Constantius was born. Apart from a visit to Italy in the summer of 318 Constantine did not return to the West: from his constitutions he can be followed as he moves from Serdica to Sirmium and back again to Sardica: it must have been at this time that he thought of making Sardica his capital: ‘My Rome is Sardica,’ he said. It was from these provinces that he was to march to the second and conclusive struggle with his colleague Licinius.

In the legislation of the years which preceded that civil war the influence of Christianity can be traced. Thus, for example, in 318 it is provided that even where the hearing of a case has begun before a civil judge, the matter shall at the wish of the parties be transferred to the bishop’s court and the latter’s decision shall be final. In 321 it is enacted that manumissions, if granted in a church in presence of the clergy, shall be valid without the further formalities required by Roman law. Despite the doubts of some scholars the constitutions dealing with the observance of the Venerabilis dies soils, though cast in a pagan form, were probably inspired by reverence for the Christian Sunday. In the Eastern provinces Licinius, after the publication of his letter of 313, so far as we know, showed no further favour towards the Christians, and gradually drifted back into a policy of repression. This change seems to have been the result of the growing alienation between Constantine and his colleague. In 319 Constantine as senior Augustus announced himself and his son Constantine as consuls for 320; for 321 he nominated his sons Crispus and Constantine; the Caesar Licinius was passed over. That nomination was not recognized by Licinius. Hostility was thus openly declared.

It is from this time (320—321), it would seem, that the vexatious measures of Licinius against the Christians are first enforced. No Church Councils might in future be held, Christians must not meet in churches, but only in the open air outside the cities, and at their services men and women should not share in a common worship. Once more the imperial court was cleared of Christians, while civil servants lost their appointments if they refused to sacrifice. Many governors went much further, and some bishops were martyred—though we know no details. Thus at Amasia exceptional brutality was shown, and the account of the deaths of the Forty Martyrs of Sebastia may be rightly dated to the persecution of Licinius. It has been contended that the repressive policy of Licinius was intended to secure the support against Constantine of the pagans of the West: but Constantine’s pagan subjects had no cause for complaint, and the Roman West had not shown any enthusiasm for repressive measures. There seems little reason to abandon the explanation of Eusebius: Licinius regarded the Christians of the Eastern provinces as partisans of Constantine and in consequence sought to weaken the Christian Church.

In the years after 320 it became increasingly clear that a civil war was imminent, and both rulers prepared for the struggle. Each realized that sea-power would be of importance for the control of the waterway between Europe and Asia, and for this reason built up large fleets. Constantine constructed a new harbour at Salonica. In 323 Constantine, while repelling a Gothic invasion, trespassed on the territory of Licinius, and thus gave the latter a ground for complaint. It now appears certain that the outbreak of war is to be dated not to a.d. 323, but to a.d. 324. At Adrianople, situated at the confluence of the Maritza and the Tunja, Licinius in a fortified camp awaited Constantine’s attack. Advancing from Salonica the latter, after some days of incon­siderable skirmishes, distracted the attention of Licinius, crossed the river, and then under the cover of an attack by 5000 archers was joined by his army on the further bank. On July 3 there was a hotly fought general engagement. Licinius, leaving, we are told, 34,000 men dead on the field of battle, fled to Byzantium, where he was besieged by Constantine. Crispus, Constantine’s seventeen-year-old son, now sailed from Salonica in nominal command of his father’s fleet. The admiral of Licinius, Abantus, was posted at the mouth of the Dardanelles on the Asiatic side of the Straits. In the first day’s engagement, owing to the narrowness of the channel, Crispus brought only eighty of his ships into action, and the result of the encounter was indecisive. Crispus withdrew to the shelter of Cape Helles. The following morning Constantine’s whole fleet was engaged: the elements fought against Licinius: the northerly wind which had carried both fleets out to sea died down: and then a gale from the south spread panic amongst the crews of Licinius’ ships: the galleys were dashed upon the rocks and islets south of the entrance to the Dardanelles. One hundred and thirty ships were lost. Crispus could sail to Byzantium unmolested. Before his arrival Licinius had crossed to the Asiatic shore. Constantine then collected as many light transports as he could find, and without raising the suspicions of Licinius by moving his fleet from Byzantium, he effected a landing on the Asiatic coast at a point ‘near the mouth of the Pontus,’ perhaps in the neighbourhood of the village of Riva. Hence he pressed on to Scutari (Chrysopolis) where Licinius had fixed his camp. Here on September 18, 324 the battle was fought which sealed the fate of Licinius. His wife Constantia appealed to the generosity of her brother: Constantine spared his rival and banished him to Salonica. The era of persecution was closed.

IV.

CONSTANTINE AND THE CHURCH

This struggle between Licinius and Constantine is represented as a religious war, a trial of strength between the gods of paganism and the Christian God, and there is no reason to doubt the substantial truth of that interpretation. But it is also true that Constantine was now set upon realizing that vision of world-wide empire which long before had formed the theme of Gallic panegyrists. He claimed to be a descendant of Claudius Gothicus—once the sole ruler of the Roman world—and the title to that single imperium was his by right of birth. He had waited long, but the restoration of unity was the mission entrusted to him by the God of the Christians and that God had sustained him in all his ways. Lactantius had been right: the end of the persecutors had proven their sin. Diocletian’s death had passed almost unnoticed, probably in 316; he had refused to be brought back to the tasks of government. The building of his palace at Salonae had filled his idle days, and after his abdication the only intimate view of him that has been preserved is his exasperation when the consciences of Christian stone-masons in Pannonia forbade them to fashion for that palace a statue of Aesculapius. Galerius and Maximin had both died of loathsome diseases, and Licinius owed his life only to the victor’s clemency. The Christian standard, the Labarum, had triumphed, and a Christian capital of the Roman world should form a majestic war memorial.

In November 324 the transformation of Byzantium into the City of Constantine was begun. It has been objected that it is an error to speak of Constantine’s foundation as a Christian city: it is true that the pagan temples were not destroyed, that just as Rome had her Tyche—her Fortune—so naturally must the Eastern capital have her Tyche, her presiding spirit: this is traditional form; true also that pagan statues were collected from every side and housed in Constantinople as an adornment for the city, but when all this—and more—is admitted, the fact remains that the essential act in pagan worship was sacrifice, and pagan sacrifice, it is acknowledged, was banished from Constantine’s city. That is the crucial fact, and because of that fact Constantinople stood as a Christian Rome. From the first its destiny was determined. Some have sought to minimize the significance of Constantinople in the later history of the Empire: in the writer’s view, that significance can hardly be overestimated. While Constantinople stood impregnable, the Empire stood, and it might without paradox be claimed that the foundation of the city which through the centuries bore his name was Constantine’s most signal achievement.

But though imperial unity had been restored, there remained a further task for ‘the man of God’: he must restore unity within the Christian Church. The Council of Nicaea is in its own sphere the necessary complement to the victory at Chrysopolis. In the West the repression of the Donatists had proved a failure: on May 5, 321 a letter from Constantine granted to the schismatics a scornful tolerance. At a time when Licinius was beginning to persecute the Christians, Constantine would make no more martyrs. He left to God the punishment of the schismatics. Constantine had hoped to find in the provinces of the Roman East that religious unity which had been broken in the West: in place of unity he was faced with discord, with the Melitian schism—the Eastern parallel to Donatism—and the Arian heresy. To apply the remedy for such disunion was an urgent duty which admitted of no delay. At Nicaea Constantine’s influence secured the adoption of a creed which should form the basis for the reconciliation of the conflicting parties. The Emperor asked only that the bishops should accept the creed: he declined to allow any official interpretation of its meaning: it was to be an eirenicon and not a source of further disagreements. To the creed of Nicaea Constantine remained loyal until his death, and at his death his policy had been so far successful that there was only one recalcitrant exile, Athanasius, and for him the see of Alexandria remained vacant. Athanasius had but to kiss the rod and the Emperor’s triumph was complete.

In any attempt to recover and interpret the thought of Constantine it must never be forgotten that he is a Roman Emperor and a statesman. The emperor’s ecclesiastical policy is a part of his imperial statesmanship, for that statesmanship was based upon the conviction of a mission in the service of the Christian God. Thus Christian theology may become a danger if it threatens to create disunion amongst the faithful. The dispute between Arius and his bishop is for Constantine an idle enquiry on points of the smallest consequence. Other Christian rulers have shared his outlook. We are reminded of the contempt of Elizabeth of England for the disputes of the German Protestants concerning the omnipresence of the body of Christ: to the Queen these were ‘unprofitable discussions.’ To Constantine, as to James I, unity was ‘the mother of order’ and it was thus but natural that James should hold that it was the duty of Christian Kings to govern their church ‘by reforming of corruptions...by judging and cutting off all frivolous questions and schisms, as Constantine did.’ Constantine’s refusal to enquire curiously how bishops might interpret the creed of Nicaea provided only that they accepted it recalls Elizabeth’s denial that she sought ‘to make a window into men’s souls,’ and to a Tudor sovereign as to the Roman Emperor national prosperity was the seal which God had set upon the ruler’s work: ‘it is clear as daylight that God’s blessing rests upon us, upon our people and realm with all the plainest signs of prosperity, peace, obedience, riches, power and increase of our subjects.’ The words do but echo Constantine’s thought. It is through comparison with other rulers who were faced with similar problems of ecclesiastical statesmanship that we may gain a fuller insight into the policy of the first Christian Emperor.

With the later years of the reign of Constantine this chapter has no concern: it is intended merely to form the bridge which leads to another history—the story of Europe’s Middle Age. Eusebius had. celebrated the issue of the first Edict of Toleration by publishing his History of the Church, after Constantine’s victory over every rival the bishop of Caesarea formulated for the first time the theory of Christian sovereignty which was to remain the unquestioned foundation for the political thought of the East Roman world. But in that formulation there is no complete breach with the past; many threads are gathered up and woven into the new pattern. The Iranian conception of kingly power as a trust from God had, since Aurelian’s day, once more taken the place of an identification of the ruler with deity. And this view of the Emperor as deriving his authority from God had close parallels in Jewish and Christian thought: ‘thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above.’ And when once the God-kingship had been abandoned, the rest of the Hellenistic theory of sovereignty could be adopted with hardly any change of language. The emperor’s aim, for the Christian as for the pagan, is the imitation of God, just as the earthly State should be a copy of the heavenly order. Precisely as the Greek king has for guiding principle the divine Logos, so for the Christian emperor there is a divine Logos, the Word of God, to lead and counsel him. Thus the theory of Christian sovereignty as Eusebius set it forth is itself a symbol of the way in which the past of the ancient world was carried over into the Christian Empire. But though the transition is thus mediated there is none the less at this time a break and a turning-point in Roman history; the first Christian emperor was, indeed, as Ammianus described him, a ‘turbator rerum,’ a revolutionary. Constantine sitting amongst the Christian bishops at the oecumenical council of Nicaea is in his own person the beginning of Europe’s Middle Age.

EPILOGUE

The third century of our era witnessed what must have seemed for a time to be the break-up of that strong system which for generations had held together the civilized world, a system in which the internationalism of the ancient world had culminated. What the Roman Empire made fact had, it is true, been preceded by partial approximations, and its debt to these is not to be underrated, hard though it often is to define it with certainty. The effect of the past is deeper and more extensive than is accounted for by tradition and memory, by institutions and conscious culture. Particularly among the ancient peoples of the Near East, who had largely come to be subjects of the Roman Empire, there were deep-seated instincts that reflected their life centuries before Rome was even a name to them. These peoples had seen the rise and fall of empires, the dignity of Egypt, the force of the Assyrians, the sophistication of Babylonia, and, as the archives of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries show, the world of the Near East had known an age of precocious internationalism from the Aegean to Babylonia. The Iranian Empire of Persia had proved that a people, small in numbers but heirs of that internationalism, could dominate, if not wholly govern, a great range of countries, the power of the Great King radiating along roads which foreshadowed the achievements of the Romans. The politic wisdom of toleration, and that not in religion only, was known to the Persians, and some of their statecraft was taken over by their final conquerors and became part of the general heritage of imperial ideas.

Apart from experiments in the art of imperial government, the earliest period of known ancient history saw adventures in culture. Two thousand years before Rome became a city, ordered life in Crete had sheltered an art which was later matched by Greece of the Mycenaean age. And at the time when the labyrinthine palace of Cnossus was rising in secure splendour, a king in Babylon, Hammurabi, was elaborating a code in which men were subtly enmeshed in niceties of law, niceties which never entirely lost their hold. Masterful Pharaohs built their tombs to commemorate the past and to challenge the future. Whatever might be the disasters that broke upon the empires of the Tigris and the Nile, the idea may well have penetrated the minds of men that external grandeur and culture linked with power were to be defended as a possession or acquired as a prize. The ancient world was adept in taking its captors captive. Civilizations might appear to die, but civilization seemed to have in itself the seeds of immortality. In general, culture was bound up with authority. As time went on, art in Persia, for example, was the handmaid of an imperial sovereignty, the formal expression of a political fact.

In the meantime, in a small land that was of slight political importance, there was developed a new form of religion, authoritarian in its monotheism, which in Judaism by slow degrees raised up new values that outlived mundane vicissitudes, and ended by exalting the figure of the martyr rather than of the conqueror. Overlaid though it was by the racial and the legalistic, Jewish religion was destined to burn through to be a light from the East, so that from Judaism there was to proceed a religious movement which, in part by continuity and in part by conflict, was to become a power able to mould the Roman Empire itself. Nor was this the only contribution which the Eastern world was to make. Mithraism had its roots in ancient Persian belief, the religiosity of Egypt was long lived, the wisdom of the Babylonians continued to appeal to those who sought to rationalize, or at least dignify, fatalism.

But in all this something was still lacking, the claim of an unfettered intellectualism and of political ideas whereby nothing passed unchallenged. There grew up in Greek lands the city-state, in which culture belonged to the citizens, in which the citizen was the measure of all things human and almost all things divine. First in Ionia and then in Greece physical and ethical speculation, freed from the mythological elements of the past, led on to systems of philosophy which were to affect profoundly the culture of the ancient world. Despite comparatively transient autocracies, the Greek States were tenaciously republican, and when they had to accept the hegemony of a king, they retained institutions which continued to be theirs for centuries after they had become parts of the Roman Empire. Under Alexander the Great and his successors the Greek city-state spread over the Eastern world, and though the Greeks were too few to recreate the East in their own image, their culture and ways of thinking set standards to which a great Western power might appeal.

This power presently arose. On the banks of the Tiber another city grew to strength at the cost or for the advantage of its neighbours. The Italian peninsula, under Roman control, became the political centre of the Mediterranean world. Never wholly untouched by things Greek, Roman civilization acquired a Hellenic element which fitted the Republic to compound its instinctive statecraft with the more intellectualized practice of the Hellenistic monarchies which it supplanted. Destructive as Rome’s power was to much that was finest in Greek life, relentless as was her advance to domination, yet she preserved Hellenic ideas and added to them her own. Policy and the chances of war brought the Western Mediterranean lands within the range of Roman control, and to the peoples of those lands Rome could bring a civilization that was Graeco-Roman and not Roman alone. All Italy became Roman, and the Italo-Roman people was able to set on the West a stamp still visible today.

In the Near East Rome had put an end to the wars of the rival Greek monarchies. The dream of the restoration of the single empire of Alexander the Great had now become accomplished fact. That which the Greeks had failed to effect had been achieved by Rome. And when the Hellenistic kingdoms had been overthrown, the conqueror was content to leave the Greek East to live its own life and think its own thoughts within a world secured by the ‘immense majesty of the Roman peace.’ The early Principate did not rudely impose upon all provinces alike a single administrative system; methods remained flexible, there was room for local adaptation and for the survival of cherished institutions. That is Rome’s imperial secret: she was not in a hurry. In Western Europe she could trust to the attraction exercised by the civilization which was her gift. There was thus within the Empire diversity, but diversity in unity. From the first the subjects of Rome acquired the habit of looking to the princeps as to a human Providence: ‘through him they lived, through him they sailed the seas, through him they enjoyed their liberty and their fortunes.’ Under the protection of this Providence the countries of the Mediterranean world were bound together through peaceful commerce and intercourse, and through likeness, if not uniformity, of culture.

The early Empire was not always successful: it could not appease Jewish nationalism, it did nothing permanent to alleviate the lot of the Egyptian peasant. Apart, too, from any resistance it met, Graeco-Roman culture was not as vigorous and as secure as it seemed to be. Its ideals were too static, and the world did not stand still. Rome had contributed few vital and original ideas to form the content of the peace which she had established. The Greek world of thought was living on an inherited capital, and a rhetorical education made words of greater importance than the thoughts which they expressed. Imperial intervention in municipal affairs, however well-intentioned, tended to paralyse the generosity and patriotism of the city’s benefactors, while the peasants, exploited by the city-dwellers, were also the victims of the greed and violence of an undisciplined soldiery. The opening decades of the third century saw in Persia the overthrow of Parthian rule and the establishment of the Sassanid dynasty supported by a newly awakened national sentiment. Antioch lay too near to enemy territory; Persian raiders crossed the Euphrates and sacked the capital of the Roman East. Throughout the length of the Empire’s northern frontier—from the Rhine to the Black Sea— the barbarian world was on the move. Germanic tribes which lived by war saw before them an empire to plunder. An Empire organized on a peace footing, as Augustus had conceived it, could not stand the strain. The defensive system fixed by Hadrian and his successors was broken down. Small wonder that when the central government failed them provincial armies should seek to defend the land from which they had been recruited—that Postumus should found an empire of the Gauls, that Rome’s ally the prince of Palmyra should seize the opportunity of the Empire’s weakness to establish an independent kingdom, that on every hand generals made a bid for the purple and still further disorganized the Roman defence. It looked as though the unification of the Mediterranean world was at an end.

The third century is thus a period of crisis, of experiment and of transition. The military crisis brought economic chaos in its train. Every new emperor was forced to purchase the loyalty of his army; the world had, indeed, learned the art of spending, but not of saving. Any great emergency found little in the imperial treasury but hope, and the coming of the Golden Age of prosperity, so often proclaimed, was as often delayed, for the needs of the State had grown greatly and the power to meet them by ordinary taxation had declined. In both the military and economic spheres emperors tried expedient after expedient: in the army they resorted to special formations of picked troops, or to the introduction of new weapons or of defensive armour borrowed from their enemies: to meet growing expenditure they raised extraordinary contributions in kind from the provinces through which the armies marched, and debasement of the coinage was continuously carried to greater lengths. All, it seemed, to little effect.

Yet the threatened dissolution of the world which Rome had unified was in fact averted; and the restoration of the closing decades of the third century was essentially the work of the Balkan soldiery and of the Illyrian emperors. Here in the Balkan peninsula pagan Rome had found her last great mission field and her converts were enthusiastic in defence of the Roman tradition as they conceived it. The history of the third century is for us a thing of shreds and patches; we can best understand it through studying the solutions which the emperors of the restoration brought to the problems that were its legacy. One of the most pressing of those problems was the safeguarding of the emperor’s authority, for though there had been an increase in autocratic power there had also been an increase in the emperor’s dependence upon his troops: by their will he was made and as readily unmade.

During the three centuries since Romanism had triumphed with the victory of Augustus at Actium the West of Europe had been romanized, but in the third century the pendulum was swinging back once more towards the East. In economics, in warfare, in religion and in literature the centre of gravity had shifted from Italy and the West. Diocletian fixing his capital at Nicomedia was in a Greek land, and for the folk of the Near East the absolutism of the successors of Alexander the Great had become second nature. Here the citizen Principate of Augustus had never been understood: from the first the emperor had been king, and consequently Lord and God. In the third century this conception had gained ground; the imperial house had become the domus divina: the emperor enjoyed the favour of the God who was his companion on the throne. Yet that favour was readily transferable and conferred no fixity of tenure: it might be a sail, but it was not an anchor. The Unconquered Sun had been unable to save Aurelian from assassination. Diocletian, by admitting and regularizing at his court a ceremonial which was appropriate to Greek conceptions of the imperial authority, was seeking to free the emperor from subjection to the passions of his soldiery. Here is the beginning of that ‘imperial liturgy,’ the strange mixture of civil and religious rites which was preserved with scrupulous care at the court of the Byzantine Caesars.

This instance is typical of Diocletian’s work of restoration: it was based throughout upon previous experiment or contemporary practice. In finance the former extraordinary contributions in kind now formed, the permanent basis of the Empire’s system of taxation; the third century had already seen emperors ruling as colleagues, one in the East, the other in the West: of this the Tetrarchy of two Augusti and two Caesars is but an extension. By putting the undivided imperial office into commission Diocletian sought, as it were, to outnumber any usurper. Emperors had attempted to make good in some measure the lack of a mobile expeditionary force; in the comitatenses the Diocletio-Constantinian restoration created such an army. Diocletian’s use of the equites as provincial governors, his separation of civil and military careers did but generalize previous usage. The Emperor’s innovations are essentially a consistent adoption and elaboration of the tentative expedients through which his predecessors had sought escape from the crisis of the third century. Here and there the issue falsified his hopes—the Tetrarchy, for instance, broke down before rival ambitions—but, for good or evil, he set the Empire on its feet. It was given a new lease of life, though the Empire’s subjects paid a high price for its survival.

But it is as a period of transition that the third century will always claim the interest of the student. The ancient magistracies, the constitutional executive which the Principate had inherited from the Republic, no longer play any part in the Empire’s government, though they still carry with them high social distinction; the Senate as a body has similarly ceased to control policy of State. The emperor and the emperor’s service alone remain. Thus Diocletian’s restoration is itself part of the transition from the ancient world to the Middle Ages, for it is on the ruins of the Roman State as Diocletian planned it that the Teutonic kingdoms were built: its laws were taken up into their codes and so far as the invaders could they copied its administrative system. Neoplatonism is part also of that transition, for Neoplatonism, a philosophy which was also a religion, reinforced the faith of pagan thinkers, and it was Neoplatonism and not Mithraism which inspired the pagan leaders in their last attacks upon the ‘Galileans,’ while for many it may have proved to be, as it was for Augustine, but a stage on the road which led to Christianity.

In this period Italy steadily declines in importance: in literature the Italian peninsula is strangely unproductive. Gaul boasts her schools whence come the Latin panegyrists, while Africa leads the Latin West. It is once more a sign of the transition that literature, whether in Africa or the Near East, is, in large measure, the work of Christian writers. Men were being prepared for the culture of the Christian Empire: even the long lines of single uniform figures on the Arch of Constantine point forward to the art of Ravenna.

The universalism of the Empire—the desire for imperial unity —had sought expression through a religious cult, but neither Sol Invictus of Aurelian’s worship nor Juppiter Optimus Maximus of Diocletian’s allegiance could secure lasting unity. There was one element, indeed, that actively opposed any such pagan universalism. The Christian Church was now a community as wide as the Empire itself; its church order had given it the fixity of a State, and it had survived the persecution under Decius and Valerian with principles unprejudiced or modified only by a timely concession that enabled it to reassemble its forces for another trial of strength. Pagan and Christian were learning to live together: the issue now lay between the State and the Church rather than between Christian and pagan. If it is true that the Great Persecution under Diocletian was forced upon the Emperor by Galerius, it would then appear rather an episode than the expression of an irreconcilable antithesis.

It is worthy of note that in the last great attack upon the Church the initiative has in general passed wholly into the hands of the State. It is only in exceptional cases that popular hostility is actively engaged. This fact serves to explain the unforced association of pagan and Christian in the fourth century: the martyrs and confessors after the middle of the third century had suffered primarily from the intransigence of the Roman State, and not from the animosity of their pagan fellow-citizens. But beyond this striking conciliation in social life there is a further third-century movement which bore its full fruit only in the later years of the fourth century—the conciliation between the Christian Church and the culture of the ancient world. The tradition initiated in the school of Alexandria by Clement and Origen did not die with them: even in prison during the persecution Pamphilus, the master of Eusebius, continued his work of scholarship. Here Lactantius is a significant figure, writing his Divine Institutes especially for the cultured pagans of his day. Before the persecution many from the educated and professional classes were joining the Church. It was becoming possible to separate pagan literature from the pagan faith with which it had always been so intimately associated. For Julian the Apostate such a separation was intolerable: one was not dealing merely with a literature, but with sacred books—with scriptures. He who would expound the scriptures must believe in their message. It is precisely Julian’s banishment of Christian teachers from the schools which arouses furious exasperation in S. Gregory of Nazianzus: the master­pieces of the ancient world are a common possession to be shared by pagan and by Christian. There were, indeed, those who, like Chrysostom, found it difficult to overcome inherited scruples; in unguarded moments they might condemn the whole of pagan literature, but the Greek Fathers of the later fourth century had been educated in the same school as their pagan contemporaries. Yet though in speech and writing both employ the same rhetorical style, there is yet a difference: the Christian has a vital message to proclaim, and from the pulpit he still addresses not only the scholar but also the simple believers—the throng of common folk. The pagan writer of the period is concerned not so much with the subject-matter of his oration, but rather with the form of its presentation and his audience is in general a narrow and highly cultured circle. To read a speech of Libanius and then to turn to a homily of Chrysostom is an instructive experience. A fact that is not always remembered is that it was this separation of the classical literature from the pagan faith which rendered it easy for the Church to appropriate the culture of the fourth-century world, and which among pagans opened the way for the victorious expansion of the Church.

When once the failure of the persecution had been avowed, a toleration granted by express enactment was the natural result of the situation thus created: what could not have been expected was the profession by a Roman emperor of the Christian faith. It was Constantine’s action coming precisely when it did which led the Church to raise no questions, to accept without hesitation the gifts of imperial favour—the unilateral offer of an alliance. Had the conversion of the first Christian emperor come a century later, a far more powerful and more numerous Christian society might have imposed its own terms upon imperial authority: it might not, for instance, have so readily admitted the emperor’s right to summon the Councils of the Church or to sanction by his approval the conciliar decisions: it might have insisted on a far-reaching revision of Roman Law. It is not merely the fact of Constantine’s conversion, but that it took place immediately after the dark hour of the Great Persecution that gives it so permanent a significance in the history of the Church.

Of great importance in the Empire’s history is the effect of Constantine’s whole personality: here was the man chosen by the will of God to fulfil His purpose. This belief he impressed so deeply upon his contemporaries that it became an integral part of the political theology of the later Roman Empire. The emperor’s title to rule comes to him from God, and human electors do but ratify the judgment of Heaven. And similarly Constantine repeatedly asserted his conviction that the unity of the Church was the condition and guarantee of the prosperity of the Empire. It may well seem that for this principle of a united Church the Empire suffered and sacrificed much, but in the end the dream of Constantine was realized, and a common religious belief became the cement which bound together the folk of East Rome. To the unquestioned acceptance of such beliefs as these the personal experience and the personality of Constantine must have contributed not a little.

The Near East had remained a Greek world: when Diocletian sought to encourage the spread of Latin in the Asiatic provinces, it proved to be too late in the day to inaugurate such a change, and the effort failed. But throughout the Empire Latin remained the language of Roman law, and Latin was in consequence studied in the Roman law schools, as at Berytus. Not only were both Diocletian and Constantine very active as legislators, but at this time a first beginning was made with the codification of the law of the Empire. There were two collections of the constitutions of the emperors, the Codex Gregorianus and the Codex Hermogenianus, the latter containing only constitutions issued during the reign of Diocletian. Both, however, were the work of private citizens and unofficial. It was long before the example thus set was followed by the State and imperial authority issued the codifications of Theodosius and Justinian. In the sphere of law, as elsewhere, Constantine was an innovator and it was he who first conferred upon the bishops judicial powers. The original extent of that grant has been disputed, but during the fourth century more and more of a bishop’s time was occupied by what were really affairs of State. The Emperor had given his support to the Christian Church: the Church should in turn provide the State with a less corrupt administration of justice than that of its own lay judges. And because the Church had not remodelled the law of pagan Rome, it was forced to supplement imperial legislation; it had standards of conduct unrecognized by the law of the State and these it sought to enforce through ecclesiastical ordinance. The Church began in its Councils to fashion its own canon law.

The fourth century learned from the experiments of the third and systematized the latter’s tentative solutions. Among the expedients to which the third century had had recourse were two convenient, but perilous principles—those of corporate liability and hereditary obligation. To these the fourth-century State resorted when, faced with the burden of the added pomp of the court and of the upkeep of an enlarged civil service and an increased army, it was compelled to secure its revenues. The result was that the initiative of the subject was stifled, that the aristocracy of the towns was ruined, and that in province after province the free peasants were successively reduced to the position of coloni tied to the soil. The subject existed for the State, and the State was a ruthless taskmaster. Where powerful landed proprietors asserted themselves against the imperial claim it was at the expense of the common good and in selfish isolation. Under the strain of a burden unevenly borne the West of the Empire foundered in bankruptcy; the Eastern provinces, it was true, kept the barbarians at bay, but in the task of conciliating their own subjects the emperors of Constantinople failed. The Syrian and the Egyptian resented exploitation at the hands of ‘the King’s men,’ and disaffection was ended only by the Arab Conquest.

But elsewhere the third century pointed the way to a master­stroke.' The wars on the Eastern frontier had summoned em­perors time and again to Antioch; Diocletian had fixed his court at Nicomedia. At first Sardica had been for Constantine his Rome, and before he finally chose Byzantium for his capital he had begun building on the site of Troy. The city to which Constantine gave his own name solved the third century’s search for an Eastern capital: for a thousand years it stood as the fortress which guarded civilization, as the power-house of the Empire. With the sea at its gates, with the majestic harbour of the Golden Horn to shelter the imperial fleet, with its landward and seaward fortifications, it was indeed a peerless stronghold. Never until the fatal day when in 1204 the Crusaders captured the city did foreign arms break down the bulwark of the walls of New Rome. No small part of the significance of Constantine’s foundation lay in the fact that Constantinople was from the first a Christian city and that its choice was directed by God. The God of the Christians, the Mother of God whose robe was later to be the city’s Palladium—these would surely defend their own. Until 1204 that confidence was never disappointed. The foundation of New Rome, the Christian capital in-partibus Orientis, may well be regarded as the symbolic act which brings to a close the history of the ancient world.