100 Facts About Constantine I

Constantine I, known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, and the first to convert to Christianity.

Constantine I's mother, Helena, was a Greek and a Christian, and of low birth.

Constantine I served with distinction under the Roman emperors Diocletian and Galerius.

Constantine I began his career by campaigning in the eastern provinces before being recalled in the west to fight alongside his father in Britain.

Constantine I was acclaimed by his army at Eboracum, and eventually emerged victorious in the civil wars against emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire by 324.

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Constantine I restructured the government, separating civil and military authorities.

Constantine I pursued successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers—such as the Franks, the Alemanni, the Goths and the Sarmatians—and resettled territories abandoned by his predecessors during the Crisis of the Third Century with citizens of Roman culture.

Constantine I played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which declared tolerance for Christianity in the Roman Empire.

Constantine I convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 which produced the statement of Christian belief known as the Nicene Creed.

Constantine I has historically been referred to as the "First Christian Emperor" and he did favor the Christian Church.

Age of Constantine I marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire and a pivotal moment in the transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages.

Constantine I built a new imperial residence at the city of Byzantium and renamed it Constantinople after himself.

Constantine I's reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and for centuries after his reign.

Constantine I was a ruler of major importance and has always been a controversial figure.

Constantine I's father was Flavius Constantius who was born in the same region and a native of the province of Moesia.

Constantine I's praenomen is variously given as Lucius, Marcus and Gaius.

Constantine I adopted the name "Valerius", the nomen of emperor Diocletian, following his father's ascension as caesar.

Constantine I probably spent little time with his father who was an officer in the Roman army, part of Emperor Aurelian's imperial bodyguard.

Constantine I's mother was Helena, a Greek woman of low social standing from Helenopolis of Bithynia.

In spite of meritocratic overtones, the Tetrarchy retained vestiges of hereditary privilege, and Constantine I became the prime candidate for future appointment as caesar as soon as his father took the position.

Constantine I went to the court of Diocletian, where he lived as his father's heir presumptive.

Constantine I received a formal education at Diocletian's court, where he learned Latin literature, Greek, and philosophy.

Constantine I had returned to Nicomedia from the eastern front by the spring of 303, in time to witness the beginnings of Diocletian's "Great Persecution", the most severe persecution of Christians in Roman history.

Constantine I could recall his presence at the palace when the messenger returned, when Diocletian accepted his court's demands for universal persecution.

Constantine I recognized the implicit danger in remaining at Galerius' court, where he was held as a virtual hostage.

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Constantine I's career depended on being rescued by his father in the West.

Constantine I rode from post-house to post-house at high speed, hamstringing every horse in his wake.

Constantine I joined his father in Gaul, at Bononia before the summer of 305.

Constantine I was able to spend a year in northern Britain at his father's side, campaigning against the Picts beyond Hadrian's Wall in the summer and autumn.

Constantine I sent Galerius an official notice of Constantius' death and his own acclamation.

Constantine I requested recognition as heir to his father's throne and passed off responsibility for his unlawful ascension on his army, claiming they had "forced it upon him".

Constantine I's advisers calmed him and argued that outright denial of Constantine's claims would mean certain war.

Constantine I accepted the decision, knowing that it would remove doubts as to his legitimacy.

Constantine I remained in Britain after his promotion to emperor, driving back the tribes of the Picts and securing his control in the northwestern dioceses.

Constantine I completed the reconstruction of military bases begun under his father's rule, and he ordered the repair of the region's roadways.

Constantine I drove them back beyond the Rhine and captured kings Ascaric and Merogais; the kings and their soldiers were fed to the beasts of Trier's amphitheatre in the adventus celebrations which followed.

Constantine I strengthened the circuit wall around the city with military towers and fortified gates, and he began building a palace complex in the northeastern part of the city.

Constantine I probably judged it a more sensible policy than open persecution and a way to distinguish himself from the "great persecutor" Galerius.

Constantine I decreed a formal end to persecution and returned to Christians all that they had lost during them.

Constantine I was largely untried and had a hint of illegitimacy about him; he relied on his father's reputation in his early propaganda, which gave as much coverage to his father's deeds as to his.

Constantine I's military skill and building projects soon gave the panegyrist the opportunity to comment favourably on the similarities between father and son, and Eusebius remarked that Constantine was a "renewal, as it were, in his own person, of his father's life and reign".

Constantine I minted a coin issue after his victory over the Alemanni which depicts weeping and begging Alemannic tribesmen, "the Alemanni conquered" beneath the phrase "Romans' rejoicing".

Constantine I accepted and married Fausta in Trier in late summer 307.

Constantine I gave Maxentius his meagre support, offering Maxentius political recognition.

Constantine I announced that Constantine was dead and took up the imperial purple.

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In spite of a large donative pledge to any who would support him as emperor, most of Constantine I's army remained loyal to their emperor, and Maximian was compelled to leave.

Constantine I began minting coins with his father's deified image, proclaiming his desire to avenge Maximian's death.

Constantine I fortified northern Italy and strengthened his support in the Christian community by allowing it to elect Eusebius as bishop of Rome,.

Constantine I declared war on Constantine, vowing to avenge his father's "murder".

Constantine I ordered his men to set fire to its gates and scale its walls.

Constantine I ordered his troops not to loot the town and advanced into northern Italy.

Constantine I moved on to Milan, where he was met with open gates and jubilant rejoicing.

Constantine I rested his army in Milan until mid-summer 312, when he moved on to Brixia .

Constantine I sent a small force north of the town in an attempt to cross the river unnoticed.

Constantine I refused to let up on the siege and sent only a small force to oppose him.

Constantine I still controlled Rome's Praetorian Guard, was well-stocked with African grain, and was surrounded on all sides by the seemingly impregnable Aurelian Walls.

Constantine I ordered all bridges across the Tiber cut, reportedly on the counsel of the gods, and left the rest of central Italy undefended; Constantine secured that region's support without challenge.

Constantine I progressed slowly along the Via Flaminia, allowing the weakness of Maxentius to draw his regime further into turmoil.

Constantine I's army arrived on the field bearing unfamiliar symbols on their standards and their shields.

Constantine I did as he had been commanded, and he marked on their shields the letter ?, with a perpendicular line drawn through it and turned round thus at the top, being the cipher of Christ.

In Eusebius's account, Constantine I had a dream the following night in which Christ appeared with the same heavenly sign and told him to make an army standard in the form of the labarum.

Constantine I deployed his own forces along the whole length of Maxentius' line.

Constantine I ordered his cavalry to charge, and they broke Maxentius' cavalry.

Constantine I then sent his infantry against Maxentius' infantry, pushing many into the Tiber where they were slaughtered and drowned.

Unlike his predecessors, Constantine I neglected to make the trip to the Capitoline Hill and perform customary sacrifices at the Temple of Jupiter.

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Constantine I issued decrees returning property that was lost under Maxentius, recalling political exiles, and releasing Maxentius' imprisoned opponents.

Constantine I was written up as a "tyrant" and set against an idealized image of Constantine the "liberator".

Constantine I attempted to remove Maxentius' influence on Rome's urban landscape.

All structures built by him were rededicated to Constantine I, including the Temple of Romulus and the Basilica of Maxentius.

Relations between the two remaining emperors deteriorated, as Constantine I suffered an assassination attempt at the hands of a character that Licinius wanted elevated to the rank of Caesar; Licinius, for his part, had Constantine I's statues in Emona destroyed.

Outnumbered but fired by their zeal, Constantine I's army emerged victorious in the Battle of Adrianople.

Constantine I had recognized the shift of the empire from the remote and depopulated West to the richer cities of the East, and the military strategic importance of protecting the Danube from barbarian excursions and Asia from a hostile Persia in choosing his new capital as well as being able to monitor shipping traffic between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.

Constantine I built the new Church of the Holy Apostles on the site of a temple to Aphrodite.

Scholars debate whether Constantine I adopted his mother Helena's Christianity in his youth or whether he adopted it gradually over the course of his life.

Constantine I possibly retained the title of pontifex maximus which emperors bore as heads of the ancient Roman religion until Gratian renounced the title.

Constantine I supported the Church financially, built basilicas, granted privileges to clergy, promoted Christians to high office, and returned property confiscated during the long period of persecution.

In constructing the Old St Peter's Basilica, Constantine I went to great lengths to erect the basilica on top of St Peter's resting place, so much so that it even affected the design of the basilica, including the challenge of erecting it on the hill where St Peter rested, making its complete construction time over 30 years from the date Constantine I ordered it to be built.

The reign of Constantine I established a precedent for the emperor to have great influence and authority in the early Christian councils, most notably the dispute over Arianism.

Constantine I disliked the risks to societal stability that religious disputes and controversies brought with them, preferring to establish an orthodoxy.

Three regional Church councils and another trial before Constantine I all ruled against Donatus and the Donatism movement in North Africa.

Constantine I enforced the council's prohibition against celebrating the Lord's Supper on the day before the Jewish Passover, which marked a definite break of Christianity from the Judaic tradition.

Constantine I made some new laws regarding the Jews; some of them were unfavorable towards Jews, although they were not harsher than those of his predecessors.

In 326, Constantine I reversed this pro-equestrian trend, raising many administrative positions to senatorial rank and thus opening these offices to the old aristocracy; at the same time, he elevated the rank of existing equestrian office-holders to senator, degrading the equestrian order in the process .

Constantine I gained the support of the old nobility with this, as the Senate was allowed to elect praetors and quaestors in place of the usual practice of the emperors directly creating magistrates .

An inscription in honor of city prefect Ceionius Rufus Albinus states that Constantine I had restored the Senate "the auctoritas it had lost at Caesar's time".

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Constantine I's reforms had to do only with the civilian administration.

Constantine I stopped minting the Diocletianic "pure" silver argenteus soon after 305, while the billon currency continued to be used until the 360s.

Constantine I won a victory in the war and extended his control over the region, as remains of camps and fortifications in the region indicate.

Constantine I resettled some Sarmatian exiles as farmers in Illyrian and Roman districts and conscripted the rest into the army.

Constantine I treated the war as a Christian crusade, calling for bishops to accompany the army and commissioning a tent in the shape of a church to follow him everywhere.

Constantine I planned to be baptized in the Jordan River before crossing into Persia.

Constantine I summoned the bishops and told them of his hope to be baptized in the River Jordan, where Christ was written to have been baptized.

Constantine I requested the baptism right away, promising to live a more Christian life should he live through his illness.

Constantine I chose the Arianizing bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, bishop of the city where he lay dying, as his baptizer.

Constantine I's body survived the plundering of the city during the Fourth Crusade in 1204 but was destroyed at some point afterwards.

Constantine I acquired a mythic role as a warrior against heathens.

The name "Constantine I" enjoyed renewed popularity in western France in the 111th and 12th centuries.

Barnes' Constantine I experienced a radical conversion which drove him on a personal crusade to convert his empire.

Latin Rite Catholics considered it inappropriate that Constantine I was baptized only on his death bed by an unorthodox bishop, and a legend emerged by the early 4th century that Pope Sylvester I had cured the pagan emperor from leprosy.

The Donation of Constantine I appeared in the 8th century, most likely during the pontificate of Pope Stephen II, in which the freshly converted Constantine I gives "the city of Rome and all the provinces, districts, and cities of Italy and the Western regions" to Sylvester and his successors.