Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/330

Rh 300 C O N S T A N T 1 N E measures against the barbarians of the north marking the policy of the one, and caprice, indolence, and cruelty being the most conspicuous features in the conduct of the other. When the inevitable struggle for the supremacy came, though the army of Licinius was the larger, the issue was scarcely doubtful. The origin of the war which broke out in 323 is, like that of the previous one in 314, not quite clear ; but it is probable that Constantine, having deter mined to make himself the sole master of the world, did not think it necessary to wait for provocation. The campaign was short but decisive. Licinius was totally defeated in a battle fought at Adrianople on the 3d July 323, This was followed by the siege of Byzantium, in which Crispus, Constantine s eldest son, who was in com mand of the fleet, co-operated with his father by entering the Hellespont and defeating Amandus, the admiral of Licinius, after a two days engagement. In a final battle foughb at Chrysopolis (now Scutari) Licinius was totally routed, and he fled to Nicomedia. On the intercession of his wife Constantia, the sister of Constantine, the emperor promised to spare his life ; but the promise was not kept. In 324 the defeated monarch was put to death by Con stantine s orders at Thessalonica, which had been fixed as the place of his exile. A treasonable conspiracy was alleged against him, but there is no evidence in support of the charge ; and possible danger in the future rather than any plot actually discovered seems to have prompted Con stantine to a deed which cannot escape the censure of bad faith, if not of wanton cruelty. With the war against Licinius the military career of Constantine may be said to have closed. He was now the sole emperor of both East and West. His enlightened policy had made his power throughout the empire so secure that any attempt to usurp it would have been utterly vain. Accordingly the remainder of his reign was passed in undisturbed tranquillity. The period of peace was not inglorious, including among lesser events the convocation of the Council of Niczea (325) and the foundation of Constantinople (328). But unfortunately it was disgraced by a series of bloody deeds that have left an indelible stain on the emperor s memory. In 326 Constantine visited Rome to celebrate the twentieth anniversary (vicennalia) of his accession. During the festivities his eldest son Crispus was accused of treason by Fausta, and banished to Pola, in Istria, where he was put to death. Licinius, the emperor s nephew, being included in the same charge, likewise fell a victim, and a number of the courtiers also suffered. According to another version of the story Fausta accused her step-son of attempting incestuous intercourse, and Constantine, discovering when it was too late that t;he accusation was false, caused her to be suffocated in her bath. The whole circumstances of Fausta s death, how ever, arc involved in uncertainty owing to the contradic tions of the different narratives. The bloody tragedy struck horror into the minds of the citizens, and it was amid ominous indications of unpopularity that Constantine quitted Koine for the last time. It had probably been for some time clear to his mind that the empire required in its new circumstances a new political centre. A Nova Roma would mark in a visible and concrete form the new departure in imperial policy which it had been the main object of the emperor s life to initiate. At least two other places Sardica in Mcesia, and Troy had been thought of ere his choice was fixed upon Byzantium. No happier selection has ever been made. The natural advantages of the site are probably unsurpassed by those of any capital either in the Old or in the New World, and its political importance is evidenced by the frequency with which it has been the key to the situation in European diplomacy. The new capital, the building of which had been commenced in 328, was solemnly inaugurated on the llth May 330, being dedi cated to the Virgin Mary. The fact that the ceremonial was performed exclusively by Christian ecclesiastics, and that no pagan temple was permitted to be erected in the new city, marks in an emphatic way the establishment of Christianity as the state religion. The closing years of Constantine s life were uneventful. One of his last schemes was that for the partition of the empire after his death among his three sons by Fausta, Constantine, Constantius, and Constans ; but it proved even less stable than the analogous scheme of Diocletian. In 337 fSapor II. of Persia asserted by force his claim to the provinces that had been taken from him by Galerius. Constantine was preparing to meet him at the head of an army, when he was taken ill, and after a brief and vain trial of the baths of Helenopolis retired to Nicomedia. Here he died on the 22d May 337. The significance of his baptism on .his deathbed by the Arian bishop, Eusebius of Nicomedia, will be indicated afterwards. His body was taken to Constantinople, and buried according to his own instructions in the Church of the Apostles with imposing ceremony. The most interesting and the most disputed subject in connection with the life of Constantine is the nature of his relation to Christianity. The facts bearing upon it are clear enough, and the controversy must therefore be entirely attributed to the manipulation and distortion of partisans. A brief statement of these facts will suffice to show how far his acceptance of Christianity was a matter of personal conviction, and how far, on the other hand, it was a matter of statesmanship. The generous conduct of Constantius towards the Christians betokens a certain measure of sympathy, and the term Xpicmavo^puv (Christian-minded) applied to him by Theophanes gives some ground for supposing that the paternal influence may have acted as a sort of prceparatio evangelica in the mind of Constantine. But whatever may have been due to this, it did not bring him over to the new faith. His own narrative to Eusebius attributed his conversion to the miraculous appearance of a flaming cross in the sky at noon-day under the circum stances already indicated. The story has met with nearly every degree of acceptance from the unquestioning faith of Eusebius himself to the incredulity of Gibbon, who treats it as a fable, while not denying the sincerity of the conver sion. On the supposition that Constantine narrated the incident in good faith, the amount of objective reality that it possesses is a question of altogether secondary importance. There is nothing improbable in the theory that accounts for the appearance of the cross by the not infrequent natural phenomenon of a parhelion. It seems likelier, however, that Constantine gave external reality to what was nothing more than an optical delusion or a dream. Eusebius, it is true, narrates both the appearance at noon-day and a dream on the following night, in which the appearance was in terpreted ; but the very strength of the impression made on Constantine s mind may have led him to magnify the incident without conscious misrepresentation. Wliatever the nature of the appearance may have been, its effect upon the emperor, to judge from his subsequent conduct, fell far short of a true or thorough conversion ; it probably did not amount to more than the creation of a superstitious belief in the symbol of the cross. This is sufficient to account for the edict of toleration and for all his legislation that seems to be based upon sympathy with Christian ideas. On the other hand, the notion of conversion in the sense of a real acceptance of the new religion, and a thorough rejec tion of the old, is inconsistent with the hesitating attitude in which he stood towards both. Much of this may indeed be due to motives of political expediency, but there is a