Constantine I

Obverse image of a coin of Constantine I

Member of the House of Constantine dynasty.

Coins for this issuer were issued from 306 until 337.

Gaius Flavius Valerius Constantinus was born in 272 or 273 at Naissus to Helena and Constantius I. He was named Caesar of the west in 306, and gradually consolidated power by marching on Maxentius and conquering Rome, then marching on his co-emperor Licinius and eventually ousting him as well.

Constantine became Augustus in 313, shortly after his defeat of Maxentius. He struggled with Licinius I over the naming of their respective sons as caesars, and only in 317 after a number of battles did they compromise and name Constantine’s two sons as well as Licinius the Younger as caesars.

Constantine converted to Christianity and made it legal in the Roman empire; historians like Eusebius glorify his deeds but in reality he was a tricky military commander and ruthless leader. He was responsible for the deaths of his son Crispus and second wife Fausta, and appears to have practiced both Christianity and worship of the sun-god until at least 312.

He also instituted a number of new measures, including a severe tax on city residents every four years. The Christian minority generally liked the emperor, though they too complained of his taxes. His lasting legacy is probably the demotion of Rome as Constantine founded a new capital at Byzantium. He had rarely lived in Rome anyway, and disbanded the Praetorian Guard—one of the city’s status-markers as the imperial capital.

Constantine was baptized as he lay dying, by Eusebius. He was on campaign against the Persians at the time, and his body was buried in Constantinople.

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Broadperiod: ROMAN
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Information from Wikipedia

  • Preferred label: Constantine the Great
  • Full names:
    • Constantine the Great
  • Title: Roman consul V–VI, Roman consul VII, Roman consul VIII, Roman consul II–III, Roman consul IV
  • Predecessor: Constantius Chlorus
  • Successor:
  • Definition: Constantine I (Latin: Flavius Valerius Constantinus; Ancient Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος, romanized: Konstantinos; 27 February c. 272 – 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, and the first to convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea (now Niš, Serbia), he was the son of Flavius Constantius, a Roman army officer of Illyrian origin who had been one of the four rulers of the Tetrarchy. His mother, Helena, was a Greek Christian of low birth. Constantine served with distinction under the Roman emperors Diocletian and Galerius. He began his career by campaigning in the eastern provinces (against the Persians) before being recalled in the west (in AD 305) to fight alongside his father in Britain. After his father's death in 306, Constantine became emperor. He was acclaimed by his army at Eboracum (York, England), and eventually 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 reorganized to consist of mobile units (comitatenses) and garrison troops (limitanei) which were capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. Constantine 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. 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 favor 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 he 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 with the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Trends in modern and recent scholarship have attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship.
  • Parents:
  • Birth place: Moesia, Naissus, Roman Empire
  • Death place:
  • Spouse:
    • Other title(s):
      • Roman consul V–VI
      • Roman consul VII
      • List of Roman emperors
      • Roman consul VIII
      • List of Roman consuls
      • Roman consul II–III
      • Roman consul IV
    • Came After:
      • Constantine II (emperor)
      • Galerius
      • Diocletian
      • Flavius Constantius
      • Constantine II
      • Vettius Rufinus
      • Crispus
      • Gaius Ceionius Rufius Volusianus
      • Constans
      • Constantius II
      • Aurelius Valerius Symmachus Tullianus
      • Valerius Maximus (praetorian prefect)
      • Gallicanus (consul 330)
      • Antonius Caecina Sabinus
      • Petronius Annianus
    • Came before:
      • Januarinus
      • Gaius Ceionius Rufius Volusianus
      • Sextus Anicius Paulinus
      • Crispus
      • Constantius Chlorus
      • Petronius Annianus
      • Maximinus
      • Vettius Iustus
      • Julius Julianus
      • Licinius
      • Galerius
      • Galerius
    • Subjects on wikipedia:

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