Constantine... the man

The Rise of Emperors trilogy tells the story of the Roman Emperors Constantine the Great and his bitter rival, Maxentius. I'll leave the books to recount the epic tale of their struggle, but in this blog I wanted to look at the life and legacy of the first of those characters - to understand not Constantine the Great, but Constantine the man. His nuances and quirks, his values and beliefs, his weaknesses and strengths.


Let's just quickly summarise what history tells us at a glance: Constantine united a crumbling Roman Empire, fighting a legendary battle at the Milvian Bridge along the way - before which he was inspired by a sign from God in the sky, and after which he ended the oppression of the Christians. Right? Well, sort of. That is the distilled version of Constantine that comes down to us from the ancient texts. Many of these were penned by Christian authors writing about him after his wars and even long after his life. They absolutely venerated him. Some talked of him as a saint,  the bringer of Christianity, even the Thirteenth Apostle.  But these writings do not tell the whole story, for they largely obscured other writers (notably by Zosimus & Eunapius) who cast Constantine as a bit of a monster - politically ambitious, ruthless and manipulative. Such extremes!

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine's most famous moment. But it was just one moment. What do we really know about the man who rose to legendary status that day?

When reading into any part of history and the associated debate, I always seek some level of plausibility and balance - I like to finish my studying sessions feeling that I have understood the past as it might have been. So the commonly polarised caricatures of Constantine - which remain with us to this day - always leave me feeling dissatisfied, incomplete.
 
So take away the tug-of-war panegyrics and invectives, the grand orations and the legends. How much do we really know about the man?

The answer is short: very little. But here are a few scraps of information and anecdotes that may colour in the grey areas and raise an eyebrow or two...
 

Childhood

• Constanine was born in 272 AD in the town of Naissus, Illyricum - a gateway between the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire.
• A few years later, when his father, Constantius, was offered the governorship of Salona in the neighbouring region of Dalmatia, he and his family moved there.
• His father - an erstwhile imperial guardsman - worshipped Mars and his mother, Helen, was a Christian. Alas, their marriage was not to last: Constantius was offered the hand of an imperial daughter and with it the chance to marry into the bloodline of emperors. Thus, he divorced Helena, estranging her and Constantine. Some claimed that Helena was only ever a Concubine, and others dismissed her as a prostitute. Regardless, a family had been broken apart. What scars must this have left on their young son? For any child, the dissolution of family can be potently formative.
• Constantine's loyalties were clear, however, as we know that throughout his life he remained devoted to his mother.

The Roman ruins of Salona, by modern-day Split, Croatia. Here, Constantine's father served as governor.

Adolescence

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• Galerius, the Caesar of the East, (who went by the nickname 'the Herdsman' thanks to his rustic roots), spotted Constantine's potential, took him under his wing and furnished him with a home in the eastern city of Nicomedia, one of the four imperial capitals in the recently-established Tetrarchic system of rule.
• ​There, he was assigned to the tutelage of Lactantius, a rhetorician who would later emerge as one of the foremost Christian writers. Lactantius taught Constantine Greek, Latin and Philosophy, and remained by his side throughout all that was to come.
• Constantine was taught to follow the example of the great philosopher-emperor, Marcus Aurelius. i.e. to dress plainly and to live simply, to avoid all softness and luxury. His body was trained to hardihood by wrestling, hunting and outdoor games.
• Although he and his father were estranged, in their time together he did pick up his sire's ‘keep your enemies close’ mantra, learnt during the latter's days of service under Emperor Aurelian.
• It seems that he had a fiery temper, like the emperors of his day. But - perhaps thanks to having the luxury of being present in the Nicomedian court to witness those rulers' failings in this respect - learned the benefits of being able to back down.

Galerius, Caesar then later Augustus of the East in the Tetrarchic system.

Nicomedia, Galerius' Tetrarchic capital, where Constantine was educated.

This statue - currently resident in Venice - was crafted around 300 AD, to commemorate Emperor Diocletian's new Tetrarchic system of four emperors.

Rise to Military Prominence

• Once his education was complete, Galerius called Constantine into his legionary retinue to serve as an officer. Under Galerius' banner, he campaigned all across the ancient world, fighting against the empire's enemies in Sassanid Persia, in Egypt and in the Gothic northlands, taking in wondrous cities such as Babylon and Memphis along the way. He quickly gained a reputation as an excellent soldier and leader of men.
• Galerius now recognised that Constantine was bound for greatness, and - perhaps motivated by jealousy - sought to make him a firm (and obedient!) ally. While Constantine was still just an officer, he tendered the hand of his daughter, Valeria. Accepting this marriage would have instantly propelled Constantine into the imperial line as a son-in law of a Caesar and prime candidate to one day succeed him. It was a golden ticket up the ladder of power - just like the one his father had taken, except this time without the cost of breaking apart an existing family.
  He surely accepted it, didn't he? Well, no. He rejected the offer and instead married a relatively low-born Syrian Christian woman named Minervina. This was the age of the Great Persecution - an era of public burnings and peelings of Christians, of riots and butchery across the Eastern Empire's cities… and Galerius was the figurehead for some of these atrocities. Only a brave - or foolhardy - man would spurn the Herdsman's daughter, and to do so in favour of a Christian (shock, horror!) must have put Constantine in a very precarious situation indeed.
• Interestingly, Valeria then went on to wed Maxentius, Constantine's rival! What kind of dynamic of power must this have introduced between the two men?
• Sensing Galerius' mood turning against him, Constantine realised that Nicomedia was no longer safe. He fled northwest to the opposite corner of the empire, to Britannia where his estranged father now lived. Father and Son were reunited and made peace. Constantius had by now attained the rank of Augustus of the West, ruling Britannia, Gaul and Hispania. More, he had opted not to enforce the Great Persecution in his lands - and thus it was a relatively peaceful realm. It must have been an eye-opener for Constantine given the horrors he had witnessed in the East.
• It is little wonder that when Constantine succeeded his father in 306, that he continued that policy. Perhaps this was because he had sympathy for the Christians, or maybe he believed in open religious worship, or perhaps simply because he had no wish to replicate the bloody chaos he had witnessed in the East.​ 

 

The Roman legions in battle against the mighty Sassanid Persian army.

The Goths attack the Roman lines!

Constantine's flight from the court of Galerius, all the way to his father's land.

Battle for the Empire and Beyond

 
As soon as Constantine became emperor in his father's place, the cracks began to appear in the Tetrarchic system. Galerius raged against his accession, and jealousies began to arise elsewhere. His opponents questioned him at every turn: was he a senior Augustus or merely a junior Caesar? Emperor of all the West or just the northern part? Who ruled Italy and Africa? More importantly, who ruled the ancient capital of Rome - currently occupied by Maxentius? Tensions rose and rose and eventually boiled over.

What followed was an epic cycle of battles against Maxentius for complete control of the Western Roman Empire - a struggle that changed the course of European and world history. 
 

The Rise of Emperors trilogy tells the story of Constantine's famous war with Maxentius. Book 1 'Sons of Rome' is available in all good stores now!

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Later years

• Constantine came out of the war with Maxentius firmly certain of the benefits of religious tolerance. In February 313 AD, he formalised the ethos of tolerance with the Edict of Milan. This stated that devotees of all religions should be allowed to follow their faith without oppression. The Christians - given the scale of the Great Persecution - were always going to benefit most from this.
• He banned certain works of anti-Christian literature, such as the rather literally-titled 'Against the Christians', by Porphyry of Tyre. Was this because he was personally offended by the content… or because it flew in the face of the Edict of Milan?
• There is a terrible episode of history during Constantine's later years in which his second wife, Fausta, is said to have had an affair with the son of his first, Crispus. Constantine is said to have ordered his son's execution and condemned his wife to death by boiling in her bath. This seems apocraphyl, as this was not a normal method of Roman execution, and Constantine had no reputation for torture - but one wonders what state of emotional madness the affair might have driven him to. Evagrius of Constantinople insists that the said executions simply never happened. One shudders to think that maybe he protests too much!
• Some people argue that, because Constantine was not baptised until he was on his death bed, he could not have been a sincere Christian. However, in Constantine's age, the concept of original sin and baptism at birth had not yet materialised. Commonly, Christians were baptised in later life or near death, in order to cleanse them of life's sins prior to the journey to heaven. In this respect, we can infer that his baptism was not cynical or 'last-minute'.

His legacy

• Constantine founded the 'New Rome' at Byzantium, renaming the city 'Constantinople'. This would be the main seat of the empire in its various guises for the next 1200 years.
• Many people today think Constantine 'made the Roman Empire Christian'. But that was not the case. After the Edict of Milan, all faiths were allowed to flourish. It was only some 40 years after his death that Theodosius I decreed Christianity as the official religion of the empire. Theodosius also started a new round of persecutions - this time against the pagans!

Constantinople: The New Rome

Conclusion

Considering the guiding figures in his life - his mother Helena, his first wife Minervina, his tutor Lactantius - Constantine must have been intimately familiar with Christianity. Perhaps he was spiritually open to it also. Or was he only interested in creating a religious harmony through which he could further his ambitions? As the historian David Potter muses: "Constantine didn’t mind if his subjects were not Christian. More important that they were his subjects." However, particularly because of his telling decision to spurn Galerius' daughter in favour of Minervina - a choice that both forewent personal gain and invited danger - I suspect there was more than naked ambition behind his bond with the religion.

Conversely, given his years of warmaking and the blood-curdling rumours of his second wife's demise, it is hard to uphold any view of him as a gentle, tolerant figure. Tens of thousands of men must have died on the ends of his legions' swords. Thus I suspect that - like most people - he found his way to his faith gradually, perhaps guided there by some of the terrible events he witnessed… and some that he created.

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References

• Constantine The Emperor, David Potter
• Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
• Ecclesiastical History, Evagrius Scholasticus
• New History, Zosimus
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon
• Constantine, Unconquered Emperor, Paul Stephenson
• Roman Legionary in the time of Diocletian and Constantine, Ross Cowan