Constantine

Aside from the ongoing establishment of Christianity as a favored religion in the empire, a process which had begun with an edict of restoration issued in 313 by Constantine and Licinius at their meeting in Milan, the most important development of the reign of Constantine was the foundation of a new imperial capital at the ancient site of Byzantium. This decision, taken very shortly after the defeat of Licinius, was one feature of a period of intense activity that included the integration of Licinius’ government within the structure of Constantine’s (the process is partially reflected in a series of legal texts) that may be seen as paralleling Constantine’s effort to integrate the eastern and western churches.

Constantine had reason to be worried about the unity of the church, and his first effort at resolving controversy within the church - connected with a serious division in the North African provinces - had not been a success (Elton, this volume). Nevertheless, he still seems to have believed that his preferred method of dealing with controversy through church councils was the right one (Drake 2000: 225-7). When one faction, taking its name from the schismatic bishop Donatus of Carthage, refused to accede to the orders of repeated councils, Constantine had briefly issued a persecution edict. He soon thought better of it, and abandoned direct intervention in North African affairs. In the east, he soon learned that there was a serious dispute about the nature of the Trinity. The essence of the dispute was whether the Son was a creation of the Father or not. The view that the Son was in some way subordinate seems to have been the majority view, and even seems to have been in accord with Constantine’s own thinking prior to the council that he summoned at Nicaea in 325. There, for reasons that will ever remain obscure, he brokered a deal by which the council agreed to a formulation, the famous Nicene Creed, which declared the equality of Father and Son (Kelly 1977: 231-7). Since Constantine seems at this point to have viewed the Christian God as a sort of divine equivalent of the Roman emperor, it is a remarkable development, and one at odds with the subordinationist theology he had previously espoused when he had claimed that Licinius was a disobedient junior Augustus who deserved to be chastised (Corcoran 1993: 99). In some sense Constantine’s change of heart may best be explained by the arrangements that he appears to have set in motion with respect to the succession, for he would place all the Caesars on an equal level with each other. Collegial government on earth was perhaps easier to envision if there was also to be collegial government in heaven.

The foundation of Constantinople, and the shift of the center of power from west to east, was complicated, and perhaps enhanced, by a domestic tragedy. In 326, Constantine suddenly ordered the execution of his eldest son, Crispus, who had been based at Trier for most of the preceding decade. Crispus had returned to the west after the victory, and we simply do not know what went wrong. A later account, deeply hostile to Constantine, reports that his wife, Fausta, claimed that Crispus had made sexual advances to her. When his mother, Helena, revealed Fausta’s deception, Constantine is then said to have ordered that Fausta be smothered in an overheated bathhouse (Zos. 2.29.1-3). There is no reason to believe any of this: other sources separate the demise ofCrispus from that ofFausta, and one tradition places the death ofFausta several years after that of Crispus (Jer. Chron. s. a. 328; Potter 2004: 380-1). In the wake of Crispus’ death and what is probably best seen as the enforced retirement ofFausta, there could now be only one center of power, and that would be wherever Constantine chose to reside (for details see Elton’s chapter in this volume).

In the end, Constantine’s dynastic policy, as we have seen, looks very much like a reprise of Diocletian’s model of succession. In terms of his administration of the

Empire, as Hugh Elton shows in his chapter, it is probably best to see the whole period from 285 to 337 as a unity, with one major change being the role of Christianity, although Constantine did not compel subjects who were disinclined to convert to do so. In terms of dealings with foreign peoples, the early fourth century offers a superficial parallel to the late second in that the empire was again able to dominate the frontiers. Events in the rest of the century would reveal that this was not really the case - both Diocletian and Constantine benefited from the temporary weakness of the Sasanian dynasty. What is perhaps most significant, broadly speaking, is that the aims of the Roman state remain very little changed at the end of the period in question. Beneath the surface, however, as would become clear in the course of the next hundred years, these aims became impossible to maintain.