Kinlight · The Roman Emperors

Constantine the Great

272 – 337 · Generation XVI · Roman emperor (r. AD 306–337) · Constantinian

Portrait of Constantine the Great

Constantine was born at Naissus, the modern Niš in Serbia, on 27 February, probably in the year 272. His father, Flavius Constantius, was an army officer who rose to become one of the four rulers of Diocletian’s Tetrarchy. His mother, Helena, was a Greek woman of humble birth, probably from Bithynia, and it is uncertain whether she was ever Constantius’s lawful wife. When Constantius was made Caesar in the West in 293, the young Constantine was kept at Diocletian’s court at Nicomedia, part heir in waiting and part hostage. There he was educated, served as an officer on the Danube and against the Persians, and in 303 saw the start of the Great Persecution of the Christians. His eldest son, Crispus, was born to Minervina, who may have been his wife or his concubine.

Passed over when Diocletian and Maximian abdicated in 305, Constantine left the court of Galerius and joined his father in Gaul, and the two crossed to Britain to campaign against the Picts. Constantius died at York on 25 July 306, and the army there proclaimed Constantine emperor. Galerius grudgingly recognised him, though only as Caesar. Ruling Britain, Gaul and Spain from Trier, Constantine fought the Franks on the Rhine, built on a grand scale, and stood aside while rivals fought over Italy. In 307 he married Fausta, daughter of the old emperor Maximian, who in return acknowledged him as Augustus. Three years later Maximian rebelled against him, was captured at Marseille, and hanged himself.

In 312 Constantine crossed the Alps against Maximian’s son Maxentius, who held Rome. The armies met on 28 October at the Milvian Bridge, north of the city. According to Lactantius, Constantine had been told in a dream to mark his soldiers’ shields with the sign of Christ. Eusebius, writing later, tells of a cross of light seen in the sky with the words “In this sign, conquer”. Maxentius was driven into the Tiber and drowned, and Constantine entered Rome as master of the West. In 313 he met the eastern emperor Licinius at Milan, where they agreed the policy known as the Edict of Milan, granting Christians and all others freedom of worship and restoring confiscated church property.

The partnership with Licinius, who married Constantine’s half-sister Constantia, did not last. Constantine defeated him at Cibalae, in 314 or 316, and gained territory in the Balkans, then went to war again in 324, winning at Adrianople and finally at Chrysopolis on 18 September. Licinius surrendered on a promise of his life and was executed the following year. Constantine was now sole ruler of the Roman world. In 326, for reasons the surviving sources do not make clear, he had Crispus put to death, and soon afterwards Fausta as well.

As sole emperor he reshaped the state. He separated civil from military authority, disbanded the Praetorian Guard that had fought for Maxentius, and organised the army into mobile field forces and frontier garrisons. His gold coin, the solidus, struck at seventy-two to the pound, remained a standard of Byzantine and European money for more than a thousand years. He campaigned against the Goths and Sarmatians on the Danube. On the site of the Greek city of Byzantium he built a new imperial capital, dedicated on 11 May 330 and soon known as Constantinople, which remained the seat of the eastern empire for over a millennium.

His support for the Church went far beyond toleration. He gave clergy privileges, funded great basilicas including Old St Peter’s in Rome and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, made Sunday a day of rest in 321, and involved himself in the Church’s disputes. In 325 he summoned the bishops to Nicaea, the council that produced the Nicene Creed. Some modern scholars debate what he himself believed and how well he understood the faith he favoured, and he put off baptism until he was dying. Falling ill after Easter 337, he was baptised near Nicomedia by its bishop, Eusebius, and died on 22 May. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles, which he had built in Constantinople.

Constantine left the empire to his three surviving sons by Fausta, Constantine II, Constantius II and Constans, replacing Diocletian’s system of chosen colleagues with dynastic succession. The Eastern churches venerate him as a saint. His reign is remembered as the turning point in the Christianisation of the Roman Empire.

Place in the family

  • The archive records 7 of his descendants, across 2 generations.

Images

One of 10 people of Constantinian (246–363) in this archive. Constantine’s house — the first Christian emperors, and a new capital in the east.

Read more on Wikipedia

Parents

Siblings

Partners

Children

Life

  • 272 — Born
  • 303 — Married Minervina
  • 307 — Parted from Minervina
  • 307 — Married Fausta
  • 337 — Died

Sources

  1. Constantine the Great · Wikipedia
  2. Constantine I · World History Encyclopedia
  3. Constantine the Great · Livius.org

Open Constantine the Great in the interactive tree