Constantine kept his
Vicennalia
at Rome in the summer of 326.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
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 baptised 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
## p. 9 (#39) ###############################################
323–337]
Policy of Constantine
9
genuine humanity as well as by his shrewd statesmanship. Their lofty
monotheism and austere morals attracted the man, their strong organi-
sation 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
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.
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 worship-
pers 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 depart-
ment 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.
CH. I.
## p. 10 (#40) ##############################################
10
Religious Policy of Constantine
[315–337
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 morrow 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 323.
Coins of Iuppiter 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; but they show 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.
## p. 11 (#41) ##############################################
319–337]
Religious Policy of Constantine
11
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 “unspeak-
able 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 labour,
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 realise 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 labours 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 perse-
cutions, though possibly on a smaller scale. To put it shortly, the
Christians had a conscience in matters of religion, and sometimes mis-
took self-will for conscience.
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
a
CH. I.
## p. 12 (#42) ##############################################
12
The Donatists
[311-321
66
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 (cursus
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 favour 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.
nise 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.
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
We can recog-
## p. 13 (#43) ##############################################
325]
The Council of Nicaea
13
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 recognise 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 oecumenical
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 invita-
tions 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 centre of the Empire was settling down
somewhere near the Bosphorus.
We need not closely analyse 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 (Tin) 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 Bosporus, John the Persian,
and Restaces 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
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.
CB. I.
## p. 14 (#44) ##############################################
14
The Council of Nicaea
[325
а
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
a
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 worth while 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
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 organise 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 recognised 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
success.
## p. 15 (#45) ##############################################
315–326]
Crispus and Fausta
15
surely something was lost in freedom and spirituality, and therefore also
in practical morality.
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 (see p. 8), 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 inystery. 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.
Constantine kept his Vicennalia at Rome in the summer of 326. 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 scandalised her with
1
.
重
1
H
CH. I,
## p. 16 (#46) ##############################################
16
The site of Constantinople
[326
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 for ever.
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 Dio-
cletian gradually shifted his chief resort eastward from Sirmium to
Nicomedia. There were many signs now that the seat of empire ought
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 pre-
cisely 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
## p. 17 (#47) ##############################################
B. C. 674-A. D. 323]
Byzantium
17
a
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. More-
over, 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
colonised Chalcedon (B. C. 674) 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 B. c. 657. 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
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
(A. D. 73) 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 Ilyrian 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 destruc-
tion of his fleet in the Hellespont had not driven him from Byzantium.
2
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. I.
## p. 18 (#48) ##############################################
18
Constantinople
[ 330-1204
The lesson was not lost on Constantine. He began the work some
time 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
flavour 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 amphitheatre 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 recognised 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
It was often enough taken in civil war by help from within ;
but no foreign enemy ever stormed its walls till the Fourth Crusade
(A. D. 1204). 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
1 The city will be described in Vol. iv. Ch. xx.
once.
## p. 19 (#49) ##############################################
331–1281]
The Gothic War
19
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. Theo-
dosius was the first emperor who made it his usual residence. But the
commercial supremacy of Constantinople was assured from the outset.
The centre 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 con-
verged 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 civilisation 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.
On
broad view, the legions of the Danube faced the Germans in
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
position as servants and allies of Rome. But when the Sarmatians
themselves made inroads on Roman territory, Constantine left them to
They were soon in difficulties with Geberic the new Gothic
a
its
upper
old
their fate.
CH, I.
242
## p. 20 (#50) ##############################################
20
The last years of Constantine
[284–988
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
which Constantine received from Cherson, the last of the Greek re-
publics. 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 skilful
policy of Constantine had formed its chief barbarian enemies into a
covering ring of friendly client states.
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
## p. 21 (#51) ##############################################
325–337]
The later years of Constantine
21
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 splendour and a vast establish-
ment 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 great
army of officials was all-powerful for oppression, and very little con-
trolled 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 land-
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 amphitheatre. 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 favourites,
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
owners.
CH. I.
## p. 22 (#52) ##############################################
22 Constantine's disposition of the Empire [217–380
best emperors in the early part of his reign, and at its end no more than
average.
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 honourable provision for his half-brothers Del-
matius 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 dis-
paragement. 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 recog-
nised 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.
## p. 23 (#53) ##############################################
337]
Death of Constantine
23
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. Con-
stantine fell sick soon after Easter, and when the sickness grew upon
him, he took up his abode at Ancyrona, a suburb of Nicomedia.
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 baptised 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
## p. 9 (#39) ###############################################
323–337]
Policy of Constantine
9
genuine humanity as well as by his shrewd statesmanship. Their lofty
monotheism and austere morals attracted the man, their strong organi-
sation 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
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.
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 worship-
pers 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 depart-
ment 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.
CH. I.
## p. 10 (#40) ##############################################
10
Religious Policy of Constantine
[315–337
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 morrow 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 323.
Coins of Iuppiter 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; but they show 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.
## p. 11 (#41) ##############################################
319–337]
Religious Policy of Constantine
11
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 “unspeak-
able 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 labour,
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 realise 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 labours 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 perse-
cutions, though possibly on a smaller scale. To put it shortly, the
Christians had a conscience in matters of religion, and sometimes mis-
took self-will for conscience.
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
a
CH. I.
## p. 12 (#42) ##############################################
12
The Donatists
[311-321
66
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 (cursus
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 favour 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.
nise 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.
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
We can recog-
## p. 13 (#43) ##############################################
325]
The Council of Nicaea
13
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 recognise 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 oecumenical
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 invita-
tions 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 centre of the Empire was settling down
somewhere near the Bosphorus.
We need not closely analyse 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 (Tin) 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 Bosporus, John the Persian,
and Restaces 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
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.
CB. I.
## p. 14 (#44) ##############################################
14
The Council of Nicaea
[325
а
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
a
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 worth while 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
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 organise 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 recognised 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
success.
## p. 15 (#45) ##############################################
315–326]
Crispus and Fausta
15
surely something was lost in freedom and spirituality, and therefore also
in practical morality.
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 (see p. 8), 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 inystery. 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.
Constantine kept his Vicennalia at Rome in the summer of 326. 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 scandalised her with
1
.
重
1
H
CH. I,
## p. 16 (#46) ##############################################
16
The site of Constantinople
[326
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 for ever.
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 Dio-
cletian gradually shifted his chief resort eastward from Sirmium to
Nicomedia. There were many signs now that the seat of empire ought
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 pre-
cisely 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
## p. 17 (#47) ##############################################
B. C. 674-A. D. 323]
Byzantium
17
a
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. More-
over, 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
colonised Chalcedon (B. C. 674) 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 B. c. 657. 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
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
(A. D. 73) 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 Ilyrian 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 destruc-
tion of his fleet in the Hellespont had not driven him from Byzantium.
2
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. I.
## p. 18 (#48) ##############################################
18
Constantinople
[ 330-1204
The lesson was not lost on Constantine. He began the work some
time 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
flavour 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 amphitheatre 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 recognised 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
It was often enough taken in civil war by help from within ;
but no foreign enemy ever stormed its walls till the Fourth Crusade
(A. D. 1204). 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
1 The city will be described in Vol. iv. Ch. xx.
once.
## p. 19 (#49) ##############################################
331–1281]
The Gothic War
19
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. Theo-
dosius was the first emperor who made it his usual residence. But the
commercial supremacy of Constantinople was assured from the outset.
The centre 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 con-
verged 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 civilisation 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.
On
broad view, the legions of the Danube faced the Germans in
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
position as servants and allies of Rome. But when the Sarmatians
themselves made inroads on Roman territory, Constantine left them to
They were soon in difficulties with Geberic the new Gothic
a
its
upper
old
their fate.
CH, I.
242
## p. 20 (#50) ##############################################
20
The last years of Constantine
[284–988
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
which Constantine received from Cherson, the last of the Greek re-
publics. 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 skilful
policy of Constantine had formed its chief barbarian enemies into a
covering ring of friendly client states.
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
## p. 21 (#51) ##############################################
325–337]
The later years of Constantine
21
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 splendour and a vast establish-
ment 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 great
army of officials was all-powerful for oppression, and very little con-
trolled 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 land-
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 amphitheatre. 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 favourites,
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
owners.
CH. I.
## p. 22 (#52) ##############################################
22 Constantine's disposition of the Empire [217–380
best emperors in the early part of his reign, and at its end no more than
average.
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 honourable provision for his half-brothers Del-
matius 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 dis-
paragement. 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 recog-
nised 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.
## p. 23 (#53) ##############################################
337]
Death of Constantine
23
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. Con-
stantine fell sick soon after Easter, and when the sickness grew upon
him, he took up his abode at Ancyrona, a suburb of Nicomedia.
