Constantine the Great (285–337). The Roman emperor since 306 consistently centralized the state apparatus, supported the Christian church, while also preserving pagan cults. In 324-330. he founded the new capital Constantinople on the site of the city of Byzantium.
Constantine was the eldest son of Constance Chlorus and Helena, the daughter of an innkeeper. When Constantine was 20 years old, his father was declared a Caesar and, according to the existing rules, he had a chance to divorce Elena. Constantius Chlorus married Theodora, stepdaughter of Augustus Maximianus Herculius; as a result of such a marriage, Constantine had three half-brothers (Dalmatian the Elder, Julius Constantius, Annibalian) and three half-sisters (Anastasia, Constantius I, Eutropia II).
Already in his youth, he showed himself to be a courageous, judicious warrior and commander, which earned him popularity among the troops commanded by his father.
After the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian, Constantine was at the mercy of Galerius, who detained him in Nicomedia as a hostage. Not wanting to put up with this, Konstantin decided to escape.
Lactantius told about his escape: “Constantin Chlorus, since he was seriously ill, wrote a letter to Galerius asking him to send his son Constantine, whom he wanted to see, which he had long sought in vain. Galerius did not want this. Often he built secret intrigues against the young man, since he did not dare to do something explicitly, so as not to incur the anger of citizens and what he especially feared - the hatred of the soldiers. Once Galerius, under the guise of a joke and as if to test the strength and dexterity of Constantine, pushed him into a cage with animals. But all is in vain …
Since Galerius could no longer refuse Constantine Chlorus in his request, one evening he gave Constantine permission to leave and ordered him to set off on the road the next morning … Galerius intended in the morning to either detain him under some pretext, or send him urgently a letter to Italy to be detained on the way by Flavius Sever. Foreseeing this, Constantine hastened to leave, when the emperor retired after supper. Konstantin raced off, crippling all the state horses on the way at numerous road posts. The next day, the emperor, deliberately sleeping until noon, orders to call Constantine to him. He was told that he went on the road right after dinner.
Galerius was furious. He demanded that the state horses be saddled in order to return him. He was told that there were no horses. Galerius could hardly hold back his tears. And Constantine came with incredible speed to his father, who was already dying, who introduced him to the soldiers and transferred power from hand to hand. Constantius Chlorus found on his bed rest from the affairs of the world, as he desired."
After the early death of Constantine Chlorus in 306, British legionnaires proclaimed Constantine Caesar, and Augustus Galerius, fearing the discontent of a strong Western army, was forced to recognize this proclamation.
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After Maxentius seized power in Rome and his father Maximian Herculius came to him, Constantine willingly agreed to an agreement with them. 307 - Maximian Herculius granted him the title of August and married his daughter Fausta to him.
In the subsequent struggle for power over the entire Empire between Galerius and Maximian and his son Maxentius, who returned to rule the state, Constantine showed enviable caution, waiting for the exhaustion of the belligerent parties, gradually increasing his strength and political influence. After the death of Galerius in 311, when Licinius Licinian became the eldest Augustus, Constantine made an alliance with him against Maxentius, who ruled the central region of the Empire - Italy and the African provinces.
The reign of Maxentius resulted in outright tyranny. Constantine did not remain deaf to the secret proposals that began to come to him from the oppressed Romans.
Waiting for the right moment, he sent his Gallic troops into Italy. The decisive battle with Maxentius took place near Rome near the town of Krasnye Rocks in 312.
According to Christian legend, at the decisive moment of the battle over the legionary badge under which Constantine fought, a Christian cross appeared with the inscription "With this you will conquer." The army of Maxentius was defeated, and he himself drowned in the Tiber.
Constantine became the ruler of the western half of the Empire, and his ally Licinius, defeating his rivals in the East, became Augustus of its eastern half. After the defeat and death of Maxentius on October 28, 312, Constantine entered Rome as a victor and tried to show generosity: he limited himself to giving the order to kill only two sons of the deposed tyrant. And when some Romans demanded the execution of all adherents of Maxentius and the informers had already begun to develop activity, Constantine resolutely suppressed their activities by announcing a general amnesty.
His behavior astonished the Romans and drew their hearts to him. The victor visited the Senate and announced that he intended to return him to his former greatness and importance. For this, the moved Senate proclaimed Constantine the main Augustus of the Roman Empire (the other two Augustus at that time were Licinius and Maximinus Daza).
In honor of the victory of Constantine over Maxentius in Rome, a magnificent triumphal arch was erected, which now stands not far from the Roman Colosseum; it reads: “To Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine the Greatest, Pious, Happy Augustus, the Senate and the people of Rome dedicated a wonderful arch in honor of his triumph for the fact that he, with his army, by inspiration from above and thanks to the greatness of his mind with the help of righteous weapons, liberated the state at the same time and from the tyrant and from all his clique."
This is one triumphal arch in Rome, which was built not for victory over an external enemy, but for victory in an internecine war.
The very fact of erecting such an arch suggests that the Romans have largely lost their understanding of the public good and began to view the state as the personal property of the monarch, existing for his pleasure; over the long centuries of the empire, the Romans finally mastered the ideology of slavish submission to the ruler, for which the barbarians - the inhabitants of the East - were previously despised.
The barbarism of the Romans in the construction of this arch was also manifested in the fact that for its decoration a sculpture was removed from one of Trajan's triumphal arches. Unlike Diocletian, Constantine appreciated the strength of church organization and the authority of Christianity among the most diverse strata of the population and the army. He realized that Christianity and its powerful ecclesiastical organization could be a solid pillar of absolute power. Therefore, Constantine made an important decision about reconciliation with the Christian Church and about her resolute support.
Back in 311 August, Galerius abolished the persecution of Christians. 313 - after victories over their political rivals, Constantine and Licinius in the city of Mediolana issued their famous edict, which is known in historical literature as Mediolan, or Milan. Therefore, the edict declared the Christian religion equal with all other religious systems. The confiscated or looted property of the church had to be returned or compensation paid for it.
Constantine himself remained a pagan. Pagan and Christian holidays were celebrated in his palace. He venerated the Invincible Sun, Apollo - Helios, Christ and other gods, but he closed some of the pagan temples and abolished priestly offices with them. I confiscated some of the temple treasures.
At the behest of Constantine, the construction of the basilica, begun by Maxentius, was completed in Rome. In this gigantic, luxuriously decorated building, a colossal marble statue of Constantine was erected (its fragments can now be seen in Rome in the courtyard of the Palace of the Conservatives, which is part of the Capitoline Museums).
Constantine, becoming lord of Italy, forever dismissed the Praetorian Guard, rightly seeing in it the source of internal turmoil. Instead of praetorian cohorts, detachments of palace guards were created, and the praetorian camp in Rome was destroyed.
The Romans did not like Maxentius very much because he demanded voluntary donations from the senators for the benefit of the state. Constantine far surpassed Maxentius and imposed a firm tax on the senators.
All of them were divided into categories on the basis of property; the richest were from now on every year to contribute 8 pounds of gold to the treasury, others - 4 and 2 pounds, and the most bankrupt - 7 gold coins.
The senatorial estate lost all real significance in the Roman state, and the title of senator became burdensome. That is why Constantine was very concerned about increasing the number of the Roman Senate and eagerly made rich provincial senators.
Constantine by all means worked his way to power, acting not only by force, but also in other ways. In the struggle for power, he was able to rely on Christianity. He took into account that this religion was already widespread among the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, and preferred to have in Christians not enemies, but allies. Therefore, he always behaved like a supporter of religious tolerance, although he was not a Christian. Without rejecting the old Roman gods, he allowed a new god to be among them. Constantine himself was baptized only before his death.
The Christian Church has always considered Constantine its benefactor, sacredly honored his memory and did not destroy his statues (the bronze equestrian statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius survived only because ignorant medieval Romans took it for the image of Constantine the Great).
The New Augustans hated and feared each other. At first, the object of their sharp disagreement was the question of who should govern the provinces of the Balkan Peninsula. As a result of the war of 314-316, Constantine was able to achieve the transition of the Balkan Peninsula, except Thrace, under his rule, and peace was concluded between him and Licinius. Constantine began to claim the position of the elder August, with which Licinius was forced to put up.
Taking advantage of the latter's predicament during the attack of the Goths on Thrace in 323, Constantine, under the pretext of fighting the Goths, captured Thrace, and when Licinius tried to oust his treacherous ally from this area, this led to a war in which Licinius was defeated, deposed from the throne and was soon killed.
324 - Constantine becomes the sole ruler of the entire Roman Empire. They treated him with servile reverence, which can be clearly seen from the text of the inscription found in Rome at the Trajan forum: “To our lord, who restored the human race, expanded the empire and Roman power, and also laid the foundations of tranquility forever, Flavius Valery Constantine the Happy, the Great, To the pious, Constant Augustus, the son of the divine Constantius, always and everywhere revered, Gaius Caesonius Rufius Volusian, the most luminous man, the consul of the first months of the year, the mayor of Rome, who has an imperial judicial power, most loyal to his will and greatness."
Constantine the Great turned out to be the winner in a harsh struggle against numerous contenders for supreme power, because he favorably distinguished himself from them in many respects. He was a very brave, energetic and at the same time careful person. He did not receive a good education, but he treated education with respect. In comparison with the beast-like Maxentius and Licinius, he had great personal advantages.
He had a good appearance, was tall, strong build, distinguished by physical strength and agility. He led a temperate lifestyle, was remarkably self-controlled, polite, sociable and even inclined towards humor. The defining quality of the character of Constantine the Great was inordinate lust for power. Having become emperor, he threw off the mask of courtesy and justice and began to show frank cruelty and despotism. His greed and extravagance laid a heavy burden on the people, since only by mercilessly plundering the inhabitants of the empire, it was possible to obtain those colossal sums that were spent on the splendor of the emperor's court, on grandiose construction and on the maintenance of a bulky military-bureaucratic apparatus.
Outwardly, Constantine assimilated the splendor and bliss of oriental luxury. Even as a middle-aged man, he dressed up in colorful silks embroidered with golden flowers, wore false hair and crowns of exquisite styles with many precious stones and pearls, his powerful neck was hung with necklaces, and his powerful hands were entwined with bracelets.
The state activities of Constantine the Great continued the main directions of Diocletian's policy and resulted in the gradual attachment of a significant mass of free people to their place of residence, to land or craft, thus ensuring regular collection of taxes from the population. If in the old days Rome lived at the expense of plundering other peoples, now it began to plunder itself; The Roman state embarked on the path of self-consumption by collecting taxes, the rulers did not think about where the taxpayers would get the required amounts from, and the stricter the taxes were collected, the more the population's funds were depleted.
In agriculture, the labor of slaves and small free owners gradually began to be squeezed out by the labor of the colonies (they were formally free people who rented land from private individuals and were actually deprived of the right to leave it). The columns not only cultivated the land, but also paid taxes, so the state was very interested in their enslavement.
332, October 30 - Constantine the Great issued a formidable decree against the flight of the colonies: “Anyone who has found someone else's column will not only have to return it to its place of origin, but also pay a poll tax for the time that the column has and the colonists themselves, who decided to flee, should be shackled as if they were in a slave position, so that they would be compelled, as punishment, to fulfill in a slave way the duties befitting free ones."
For the reason that citizens gradually began to turn into enslaved taxpayers, Constantine was forced to take more and more barbarians into the army. In the Roman army there were many Scythians, Goths and Germans, and at the court of Constantine, the Franks enjoyed special influence, he was the first emperor who began to make barbarians consuls. Thus, the barbarians embarked on the path that led them in the end to the conquest of Rome.
Constantine was absolutely indifferent to the city of Rome. He stayed there after the victory over Maxentius for no more than three months, and subsequently visited him only twice, when he entered the tenth and twentieth years of his reign. Constantine's temporary residences were Trier in Germany, Mediolan (modern Milan), Aquileia in Northern Italy, Sirmium in Pannonia, Thessaloniki (modern Thessaloniki in Northern Greece) and Ness (modern Nis in Serbia), the latter was his homeland Constantine founded a new capital Roman Empire, calling it the Second, or New, Rome (these names quickly fell out of use, and the city began to be called the City of Constantine - Constantinople, present-day Istanbul).
The new capital was built on the site of the ancient Greek city, which was called Byzantium and was located on the border of Europe and Asia on the coast of the Bosphorus. Colossal funds were spent on its construction, 60,000 pounds of gold were spent only on the construction of city walls, covered colonnades and water pipes. In the city of Constantine, temples to the old gods and churches to the Christian god were built.
To make the new capital shine, they robbed the old one: many statues were taken from Rome. Almost all major cities of the empire were forced to donate most of their statues for Constantinople. Part of the Roman nobility moved to the new capital.
Having finally achieved his cherished goal and becoming the ruler of the world, Constantine surrounded himself with Asiatic splendor and disgraced his old age with insane and unheard-of extravagance. If before Constantine did not tolerate slanderers and informers, now he became so suspicious that in a special edict he encouraged them with the promise of awards and distinctions.
The eldest son Crisp, noted for many virtues and very popular among the people, soon began to cause a feeling of fear in the emperor, which grew into secret hatred. 326 - Constantine the Great ordered the capture of Crispus and, after a quick trial, executed. Immediately after that, he ordered the death of Licinius's nephew.
Many attributed the death of Crisp to the deceit of his stepmother Fausta, who allegedly accused her stepson of an attempt on her honor and chastity.
It is not known whether Konstantin later repented of his misdemeanor or revealed the intrigues of his wife, but he punished her as severely as his son: according to one version, the empress suffocated in the bath, specially melted to such an extent that it was impossible to breathe in it, and another - the emperor himself pushed her into a bath of boiling water.
Shortly before his death, Constantine waged a successful war against the Goths and Sarmatians. At the beginning of 337, the sick emperor went to Helenopolis to use the baths. But feeling worse, he ordered to transfer himself to Nicomedia and here he was baptized on his deathbed. Before his death, having gathered the bishops, he confessed that he dreamed of being baptized in the waters of the Jordan, but by the will of God he accepts it here.
Constantine the Great died on May 22, 337 in the Aquirion Palace on the outskirts of Nicomedia. He considered his three sons (Caesars Constantine II, Constantius II, Constants) and two nephews (Caesar of Dalmatia the Younger and Annibalian, married to Constantine Augusta, daughter of Constantine) as his heirs.
S. Mussky