Constantine the Great

Constantine I ( la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor reigning from 306 to 337. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea (now Niš,

Serbia

), he was the son of Flavius Constantius (a Roman army officer born in Dacia Ripensis who had been one of the four emperors of the Tetrarchy). His mother, Helena, was

Greek

and of low birth. Constantine served with distinction under the Roman emperors Diocletian and

Galerius

. He began by campaigning in the eastern provinces (against

barbarians

, and the

Persians

) before he was recalled in the west (in 305 AD) to fight along side his father in

Britain

. After his father's death in 306, Constantine became emperor; he was acclaimed by his army at Eboracum (

York

,

England

). He emerged victorious in the civil wars against emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become the sole ruler of the

Roman Empire

by 324.

Upon his ascension to emperor, Constantine enacted numerous reforms to strengthen the empire. He restructured the government, separating civil and military authorities. To combat inflation he introduced the solidus, a new gold coin that became the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. The

Roman army

was reorganised to consist of mobile units (comitatenses), and garrison troops (

limitanei

) capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. Constantine pursued successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers—such as the

Franks

, the Alamanni, the Goths and the Sarmatians—even resettling territories abandoned by his predecessors during the Crisis of the Third Century with citizens of Roman culture once more.

Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to

Christianity

. Although he lived much of his life as a pagan, and later as a catechumen, he began to favor Christianity beginning in 312, finally becoming a Christian and being baptised by either Eusebius of Nicomedia, an Arian

bishop

, as attested by many notable Arian historical figures, or

Pope Sylvester I

, which is maintained by the

Catholic Church

and the

Coptic Orthodox Church

. He played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which declared tolerance for Christianity in the Roman Empire. He convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325, which produced the statement of Christian belief known as the Nicene Creed. The

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

was built on his orders at the purported site of

Jesus

'

tomb

in

Jerusalem

and was deemed the holiest place in all of Christendom. The papal claim to temporal power in the High Middle Ages was based on the fabricated Donation of Constantine. He has historically been referred to as the "First Christian Emperor" and he did favour the Christian Church. While some modern scholars debate his beliefs and even his comprehension of Christianity, he is venerated as a

saint

in Eastern Christianity, and did much for pushing Christianity towards the mainstream of Roman culture.

The age of Constantine 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. He built a new imperial residence at

the city of Byzantium

and renamed it

Constantinople

(now

Istanbul

) after himself. It subsequently became the capital of the empire for more than a thousand years, the later Eastern Roman Empire being referred to as the ''

Byzantine Empire

'' by modern historians. His more immediate political legacy was that he replaced Diocletian's Tetrarchy with the ''de facto'' principle of dynastic succession, by leaving the empire to his sons and other members of the Constantinian dynasty. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and for centuries after his reign. The medieval church held him up as a paragon of virtue, while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference and the symbol of

imperial

legitimacy and identity. Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his reign, due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Trends in modern and recent scholarship have attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship.

Sources

Constantine was a ruler of major importance, and has always been a controversial figure. The fluctuations in his reputation reflect the nature of the ancient sources for his reign. These are abundant and detailed, but they have been strongly influenced by the official propaganda of the period and are often one-sided; no contemporaneous histories or biographies dealing with his life and rule have survived. The nearest replacement is

Eusebius

's ''

Vita Constantini

''—a mixture of eulogy and hagiography written between AD 335 and circa AD 339—that extols Constantine's moral and religious virtues. The ''Vita'' creates a contentiously positive image of Constantine, and modern historians have frequently challenged its reliability. The fullest secular life of Constantine is the anonymous '' Origo Constantini'', a work of uncertain date, which focuses on military and political events to the neglect of cultural and religious matters.

Lactantius

' '' De mortibus persecutorum'', a political Christian pamphlet on the reigns of Diocletian and the Tetrarchy, provides valuable but tendentious detail on Constantine's predecessors and early life. The ecclesiastical

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