Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 1 1911.djvu/30

2 begun. Choose where we will, medieval elements are traceable before it, ancient elements after it. Thus Theodoric’s government of Italy is on the old lines, while the Frankish invasion of Gaul belongs to the new order. If in the present work we begin with Constantine, we do not mean that there is any break in history at this point, though we see important changes in the adoption of Christianity and the fixing of the government in the form it retained for centuries. The chief advantage of choosing this epoch is that as the medieval elements were not strong before the fourth century, we shall be able to trace nearly the whole of their growth without encroaching too much on Ancient History. At the same time, we shall hold ourselves free to trace them back as far as may be needful, and to point out the ancient elements as late as they may appear.

We begin with an outline of Constantine’s life. Its significance we can discuss later.

Flavius Valerius Constantinus was born at Naissus in Dacia, about the year 274. His father Constantius was already a man of some mark, though still in the lower stages of the career which brought him to the purple. On his father’s side Constantius belonged to the great families of Dardania, the hilly province north of Macedonia, while his mother was a niece of the emperor Claudius Gothicus. But Constantine’s own mother Helena was a woman of low rank from Drepanum in Bithynia, though there is no reason to doubt that she held the legal (and quite moral) position of ccmcubina or morganatic wife to Constantius.

Of Constantine’s early years we know only that he had no learned education; and we may presume from his hesitating Greek that he was brought up in Latin lands, perhaps partly in Dalmatia, where his father was at one time governor. In 293 Constantius was made Caesar, and practically master of Gaul, with the task assigned him of recovering Britain from Carausius. But as a condition of his elevation he was required to divorce Helena and marry Theodora, a stepdaughter of Maximian. Constantine was taken to the court of Diocletian, partly as a hostage for his father, and partly with a view to a future place for him in the college of emperors. So he went with Diocletian to Egypt in 296, and made acquaintance on the way with Eusebius, the future historian and bishop of Caesarea. Next year he seems to have seen service with Galerius against the Persians. About this time he must have taken Minervina (most likely as a concubina), for her son Crispus was already a young man in 317. Early in 303 the Great Persecution was begun with the demolition of the church at Nicomedia: and there was a tall young officer looking on with thoughts of his own, like Napoleon watching the riot of June 1792.

When Diocletian and Maximian abdicated (1 May 305) it was generally believed that Constantine would be one of the new Caesars. There was reason for this belief. He had been betrothed to Fausta the