Constantine the Great

Constantine was the son of Constantius Chlorus and Helena and he was born in February 27, 272 AD. His father became Caesar, the deputy emperor in the west in 293 AD. “Constantine was sent east, where he rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under the emperor Diocletian and Galerius. In 305, Constantine was raised to the rank of Augustus, senior western emperor of Rome and he was recalled west to campaign under his father in Britannia (Britain). Acclaimed as emperor by the army at Eboracum (modern day York) after his father’s death in 306 AD, Constantine emerged victorious in a series of civil wars against the emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become sole ruler”(1) of both west and east and the final battle was the battle of Milvian Bridge and it was unique because before the battle Constantine had a vision, he saw a huge bright cross in the sky and below it fiery letters formed, they said “by this sign you will be victor”. Then Constantine ordered that every man in his army paint the cross on to their shield and the Greek letters standing for Christ’s name.  The next day he marched into battle with a large banner with Christ’s name on it and on that day Constantine won the battle of Milvian Bridge and became the ruler over the entire Roman Empire.

After the battle, Constantine became a Christian and he was the first Roman emperor to ever become a Christian. Constantine made Sunday a holiday all over Rome, and he enforced the edict of Milan in 313 AD that made it illegal to persecute the Christians. “As emperor Constantine enacted many administrative, financial, social, and military reforms to strengthen his empire. The government was restructured and civil and military authority separated. A new gold coin, the solidus, was introduced to combat inflation. It would become the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years.”(2)

“He called the first Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, at which the Nicene Creed was professed by Christians. In military matters, the Roman army was reorganized to consist of mobile field units and garrison solders capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. Constantine pursued successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers-the Franks, the Alamanni, the Goths, and the Sarmatians-even resettling territories abandoned by his predecessors during the Crisis of the third Century.’(3)

“The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire. He built a new imperial residence at Byzantium and renamed the city Constantinople after himself (the laudatory epithet of “New Rome” came later and was never an official title). It would later become the capital of the Empire for over one thousand years; for which reason the later Eastern empire would come to be known as the Byzantine Empire. His more immediate political legacy was that in leaving the empire to his sons, he replaced Diocletian’s tetrarchy with the principles of dynastic succession. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and centuries after his reign. The medieval church upheld him as a paragon of virtue while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference, and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity. Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his reign due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Critics portrayed him as a tyrant. Trends in modern and recent scholarship attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship.”(4)

Constantine is a significant figure in history of Christianity.  Constantine died in May22 337 AD and he reigned as the 57^th emperor of Rome from July 25 206 AD to May 22 337 AD.

Bibliography :

1 – 4: Wikipedia: Constantine the Great