Constantine I The Great 323AD Ancient Roman Coin Victory over Sarmatia i34561

Constantine I 'The Great'- Roman Emperor: 307-337 A.D. Victory over Sarmatia.  Bronze AE3 19mm (2.46 grams) Struck at the mint of Londinium 323-324 A.D.  Reference: RIC 289 (VII, London) CONSTANTINVSAVG - Laureate head right. SARMATIADEVICTA Exe: PLON - Victory advancing right, stepping on captive, holding trophy and palm.

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Constantine the Great (Latin: Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus ;  27 February c. 272 - 22 May 337), also known as Constantine I or Saint  Constantine , was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for  being the first Roman emperor to be converted to Christianity , Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed tolerance of all religions throughout the  empire.

Constantine defeated the emperors Maxentius and Licinius during civil wars. He also fought  successfully against the Franks , Alamanni , Visigoths , and Sarmatians during his reign - even resettling  parts of Dacia which had been abandoned during the  previous century. Constantine built a new imperial residence at Byzantium , naming it New Rome . However, in Constantine's honor,  people called it Constantinople , which would later be the  capital of what is now known as the Byzantine Empire for over one thousand years.  Because of this, he is thought of as the founder of the Byzantine Empire.

Flavius Valerius Constantinus, as he was originally named, was born in the  city of Naissus, Dardania province of Moesia , in present-day Niš, Serbia , on 27 February of an uncertain year,  probably near 272. His father was Flavius Constantius , a native of Dardania province of Moesia (later Dacia Ripensis ). Constantius was a tolerant and  politically skilled man. Constantine probably spent little time with his father.  Constantius was an officer in the Roman army, part of the Emperor Aurelian 's imperial bodyguard. Constantius  advanced through the ranks, earning the governorship of Dalmatia from Emperor Diocletian , another of Aurelian's companions  from Illyricum , in 284 or 285.Constantine's mother  was Helena , a Bithynian woman of low social standing.It is  uncertain whether she was legally married to Constantius or merely his concubine

Helena gave birth to the future emperor Constantine I on 27 February of an uncertain  year soon after 270 (probably around 272). At the time, she was in Naissus (Niš, Serbia ). In order to obtain a wife more  consonant with his rising status, Constantius divorced Helena some time before  289, when he married Theodora , Maximian's daughter.(The narrative  sources date the marriage to 293, but the Latin panegyric of 289 refers to the couple as  already married). Helena and her son were dispatched to the court of Diocletian at Nicomedia, where Constantine grew  to be a member of the inner circle. Helena never remarried and lived for a time  in obscurity, though close to her only son, who had a deep regard and affection  for her.

She received the title of Augusta in 325 and died in 330 with her son  at her side. She was buried in the Mausoleum of Helena , outside Rome on the Via Labicana . Her sarcophagus is on display in the Pio-Clementine Vatican Museum , although the  connection is often questioned, next to her is the sarcophagus of her  granddaughter Saint Constantina (Saint Constance). The elaborate reliefs contain  hunting scenes. During her life, she gave many presents to the poor, released  prisoners and mingled with the ordinary worshippers in modest attire.

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

On 1 May 305, Diocletian, as a result of a debilitating sickness taken in the  winter of 304-5, announced his resignation. In a parallel ceremony in Milan,  Maximian did the same. Lactantius states that Galerius manipulated the weakened  Diocletian into resigning, and forced him to accept Galerius' allies in the  imperial succession. According to Lactantius, the crowd listening to  Diocletian's resignation speech believed, until the very last moment, that  Diocletian would choose Constantine and Maxentius (Maximian's son) as his successors.  It was not to be: Constantius and Galerius were promoted to Augusti, while Severus and Maximin were appointed their Caesars  respectively. Constantine and Maxentius were ignored.

Constantine recognized the implicit danger in remaining at Galerius' court,  where he was held as a virtual hostage. His career depended on being rescued by  his father in the west. Constantius was quick to intervene. In the late spring  or early summer of 305, Constantius requested leave for his son, to help him  campaign in Britain. After a long evening of drinking, Galerius granted the  request. Constantine's later propaganda describes how he fled the court in the  night, before Galerius could change his mind. He rode from post-house to post-house at high speed, hamstringing every horse in his wake.By the  time Galerius awoke the following morning, Constantine had fled too far to be  caught. Constantine joined his father in Gaul , at Bononia (Boulogne)  before the summer of 305.

From Bononia they crossed the Channel to Britain and made their way to Eboracum (York),  capital of the province of Britannia Secunda and home to a large military  base. Constantine 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.  Constantius's campaign, like that of Septimius Severus before it, probably advanced  far into the north without achieving great success. Constantius had become  severely sick over the course of his reign, and died on 25 July 306 in Eboracum (York).  Before dying, he declared his support for raising Constantine to the rank of  full Augustus. The Alamannic king Chrocus , a barbarian taken into service under  Constantius, then proclaimed Constantine as Augustus. The troops loyal to  Constantius' memory followed him in acclamation. Gaul and Britain quickly  accepted his rule; Iberia, which had been in his father's domain for less than a  year, rejected it.

Constantine sent Galerius an official notice of Constantius's death and his  own acclamation. Along with the notice, he included a portrait of himself in the  robes of an Augustus. The portrait was wreathed in bay . He 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".Galerius was put into a fury by the  message; he almost set the portrait on fire. His advisers calmed him, and argued  that outright denial of Constantine's claims would mean certain war.Galerius was  compelled to compromise: he granted Constantine the title "Caesar" rather than  "Augustus" (the latter office went to Severus instead). Wishing to make it clear  that he alone gave Constantine legitimacy, Galerius personally sent Constantine  the emperor's traditional purple robes . Constantine accepted the  decision. Constantine's share of the Empire consisted of Britain, Gaul, and  Spain.

Because Constantine was still largely untried and had a hint of illegitimacy  about him, he relied on his father's reputation in his early propaganda: the  earliest panegyrics to Constantine give as much coverage to his father's deeds  as to those of Constantine himself. Constantine's military skill and building projects soon gave  the panegyrist the opportunity to comment favorably 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". Constantinian coinage,  sculpture and oratory also shows a new tendency for disdain towards the  "barbarians" beyond the frontiers. After Constantine's victory over the  Alemanni, he minted a coin issue depicting weeping and begging Alemannic  tribesmen-"The Alemanni conquered"-beneath the phrase "Romans' rejoicing".There  was little sympathy for these enemies. As his panegyrist declared: "It is a  stupid clemency that spares the conquered foe."

In 310, a dispossessed and power-hungry Maximian rebelled against Constantine  while Constantine was away campaigning against the Franks. Maximian had been  sent south to Arles with a contingent of Constantine's army, in preparation for  any attacks by Maxentius in southern Gaul. He announced that Constantine was  dead, and took up the imperial purple. In spite of a large donative pledge to  any who would support him as emperor, most of Constantine's army remained loyal  to their emperor, and Maximian was soon compelled to leave. Constantine soon  heard of the rebellion, abandoned his campaign against the Franks, and marched  his army up the Rhine. At Cabillunum (Chalon-sur-Saône),  he moved his troops onto waiting boats to row down the slow waters of the Saône to the quicker waters of the Rhone . He disembarked at Lugdunum (Lyon).Maximian  fled to Massilia (Marseille),  a town better able to withstand a long siege than Arles. It made little  difference, however, as loyal citizens opened the rear gates to Constantine.  Maximian was captured and reproved for his crimes. Constantine granted some  clemency, but strongly encouraged his suicide. In July 310, Maximian hanged  himself.

The death of Maximian required a shift in Constantine's public image. He  could no longer rely on his connection to the elder emperor Maximian, and needed  a new source of legitimacy.In a speech delivered in Gaul on 25 July 310, the  anonymous orator reveals a previously unknown dynastic connection to Claudius II , a third-century emperor famed for  defeating the Goths and restoring order to the empire. Breaking away from  tetrarchic models, the speech emphasizes Constantine's ancestral prerogative to  rule, rather than principles of imperial equality. The new ideology expressed in  the speech made Galerius and Maximian irrelevant to Constantine's right to rule.  Indeed, the orator emphasizes ancestry to the exclusion of all other factors:  "No chance agreement of men, nor some unexpected consequence of favor, made you  emperor," the orator declares to Constantine.

The oration also moves away from the religious ideology of the Tetrarchy,  with its focus on twin dynasties of Jupiter and Hercules . Instead, the orator proclaims that  Constantine experienced a divine vision of Apollo and Victory granting him laurel wreaths of health and a long reign. In  the likeness of Apollo Constantine recognized himself as the saving figure to  whom would be granted "rule of the whole world", as the poet Virgil had once  foretold. The oration's religious shift is paralleled by a similar shift in  Constantine's coinage. In his early reign, the coinage of Constantine advertised Mars as his patron. From 310 on, Mars was  replaced by Sol Invictus , a god conventionally identified  with Apollo.

By the middle of 310, Galerius had become too ill to involve himself in  imperial politics. His final act survives: a letter to the provincials posted in  Nicomedia on 30 April 311, proclaiming an end to the persecutions, and the  resumption of religious toleration. He died soon after the edict's proclamation,  destroying what little remained of the tetrarchy. Maximin mobilized against  Licinius, and seized Asia Minor. A hasty peace was signed on a boat in the  middle of the Bosphorus. While Constantine toured Britain and Gaul, Maxentius  prepared for war.He fortified northern Italy, and strengthened his support in  the Christian community by allowing it to elect a new Bishop of Rome , Eusebius .

Constantine's advisers and generals cautioned against preemptive attack on  Maxentius; even his soothsayers recommended against it, stating that the  sacrifices had produced unfavorable omens. Constantine, with a spirit that left  a deep impression on his followers, inspiring some to believe that he had some  form of supernatural guidance, ignored all these cautions. Early in the spring  of 312,Constantine crossed the Cottian Alps with a quarter of his army, a  force numbering about 40,000.The first town his army encountered was Segusium (Susa, Italy ), a heavily fortified town that shut its  gates to him. Constantine ordered his men to set fire to its gates and scale its  walls. He took the town quickly. Constantine ordered his troops not to loot the  town, and advanced with them into northern Italy.

At the approach to the west of the important city of Augusta Taurinorum (Turin,  Italy), Constantine met a large force of heavily armed Maxentian cavalry. In the  ensuing battle Constantine's army encircled Maxentius'  cavalry, flanked them with his own cavalry, and dismounted them with blows from  his soldiers' iron-tipped clubs. Constantine's armies emerged victorious. Turin  refused to give refuge to Maxentius' retreating forces, opening its gates to  Constantine instead. Other cities of the north Italian plain sent Constantine  embassies of congratulation for his victory. He moved on to Milan, where he was  met with open gates and jubilant rejoicing. Constantine rested his army in Milan  until mid-summer 312, when he moved on to Brixia (Brescia).

Brescia's army was easily dispersed, and Constantine quickly advanced to Verona , where a large Maxentian force was  camped. Ruricius Pompeianus, general of the Veronese forces and Maxentius'  praetorian prefect, was in a strong defensive position, since the town was  surrounded on three sides by the Adige . Constantine sent a small force north of  the town in an attempt to cross the river unnoticed. Ruricius sent a large  detachment to counter Constantine's expeditionary force, but was defeated.  Constantine's forces successfully surrounded the town and laid siege. Ruricius  gave Constantine the slip and returned with a larger force to oppose  Constantine. Constantine refused to let up on the siege, and sent only a small  force to oppose him. In the desperately fought encounter that followed, Ruricius was killed  and his army destroyed.Verona surrendered soon afterwards, followed by Aquileia , Mutina (Modena), and Ravenna . The road to Rome was now wide open to  Constantine.

Maxentius prepared for the same type of war he had waged against Severus and  Galerius: he sat in Rome and prepared for a siege. He still controlled Rome's  praetorian guards, was well-stocked with African grain, and was surrounded on  all sides by the seemingly impregnable Aurelian Walls . He 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 progressed slowly along the Via Flaminia , allowing the weakness of  Maxentius to draw his regime further into turmoil. Maxentius' support continued  to weaken: at chariot races on 27 October, the crowd openly taunted Maxentius,  shouting that Constantine was invincible. Maxentius, no longer certain that he  would emerge from a siege victorious, built a temporary boat bridge across the  Tiber in preparation for a field battle against Constantine. On 28 October 312,  the sixth anniversary of his reign, he approached the keepers of the Sibylline Books for guidance. The keepers  prophesied that, on that very day, "the enemy of the Romans" would die.  Maxentius advanced north to meet Constantine in battle.

Maxentius organized his forces-still twice the size of Constantine's-in long  lines facing the battle plain, with their backs to the river. Constantine's army  arrived at the field bearing unfamiliar symbols on either its standards or its  soldiers' shields.  Constantine was visited by a dream the night before the  battle, wherein he was advised "to mark the heavenly sign of God on the shields  of his soldiers...by means of a slanted letter X with the top of its head bent  round, he marked Christ on their shields." Eusebius describes the sign as Chi (Χ) traversed by Rho (Ρ): ☧, a symbol representing the first two  letters of the Greek spelling of the word Christos or Christ.

Constantine deployed his own forces along the whole length of Maxentius'  line. He ordered his cavalry to charge, and they broke Maxentius' cavalry. He  then sent his infantry against Maxentius' infantry, pushing many into the Tiber  where they were slaughtered and drowned. The battle was brief: Maxentius' troops  were broken before the first charge. Maxentius' horse guards and praetorians  initially held their position, but broke under the force of a Constantinian  cavalry charge; they also broke ranks and fled to the river. Maxentius rode with  them, and attempted to cross the bridge of boats, but he was pushed by the mass  of his fleeing soldiers into the Tiber, and drowned.

In Rome

Constantine entered Rome on 29 October.He staged a grand adventus in the city, and was met with  popular jubilation. Maxentius' body was fished out of the Tiber and decapitated.  His head was paraded through the streets for all to see. Unlike his  predecessors, Constantine neglected to make the trip to the Capitoline Hill and perform customary  sacrifices at the Temple of Jupiter . He did, however, choose to  honor the Senatorial Curia with a visit, where he promised to  restore its ancestral privileges and give it a secure role in his reformed  government: there would be no revenge against Maxentius' supporters.In response,  the Senate decreed him "title of the first name", which meant his name would be  listed first in all official documents, and acclaimed him as "the greatest  Augustus". He issued decrees returning property lost under Maxentius, recalling  political exiles, and releasing Maxentius' imprisoned opponents.

In the following years, Constantine gradually consolidated his military  superiority over his rivals in the crumbling Tetrarchy. In 313, he met Licinius in Milan to secure their alliance by the marriage  of Licinius and Constantine's half-sister Constantia . During this meeting, the emperors  agreed on the so-called Edict of Milan ,officially granting full  tolerance to Christianity and all religions in the Empire.The document had  special benefits for Christians, legalizing their religion and granting them  restoration for all property seized during Diocletian's persecution.

In the year 320, Licinius reneged on the religious freedom  promised by the Edict of Milan in 313 and began to oppress  Christians anew, generally without bloodshed, but resorting to confiscations and  sacking of Christian office-holders.That became a challenge to Constantine in  the West, climaxing in the great civil war of 324. Licinius, aided by Goth mercenaries , represented the past and the  ancient Pagan faiths. Constantine and his Franks marched under the standard of the labarum , and both sides saw the battle in  religious terms. Outnumbered, but fired by their zeal, Constantine's army  emerged victorious in the Battle of Adrianople . Licinius fled across the  Bosphorus and appointed Martius Martinianus , the commander of his  bodyguard, as Caesar, but Constantine next won the Battle of the Hellespont , and finally the Battle of Chrysopolis on 18 September  324.Licinius and Martinianus surrendered to Constantine at Nicomedia on the  promise their lives would be spared: they were sent to live as private citizens  in Thessalonica and Cappadocia respectively, but in 325 Constantine accused  Licinius of plotting against him and had them both arrested and hanged;  Licinius's son (the son of Constantine's half-sister) was also killed. Thus  Constantine became the sole emperor of the Roman Empire.

Foundation of  Constantinople

Licinius' defeat came to represent the defeat of a rival center of Pagan and  Greek-speaking political activity in the East, as opposed to the Christian and  Latin-speaking Rome, and it was proposed that a new Eastern capital should  represent the integration of the East into the Roman Empire as a whole, as a  center of learning, prosperity, and cultural preservation for the whole of the Eastern Roman Empire . Among the various  locations proposed for this alternative capital, Constantine appears to have  toyed earlier with Serdica (present-day Sofia ), as he was reported saying that "Serdica  is my Rome ". Sirmium and Thessalonica were also considered. Eventually,  however, Constantine decided to work on the Greek city of Byzantium , which offered the advantage of  having already been extensively rebuilt on Roman patterns of urbanism, during  the preceding century, by Septimius Severus and Caracalla , who had already acknowledged its  strategic importance. The city was then renamed Constantinopolis   ("Constantine's City" or Constantinople in English), and issued special  commemorative coins in 330 to honor the event. The new city was protected by the  relics of the True Cross , the Rod of Moses and other holy relics , though a cameo now at the Hermitage Museum also represented Constantine  crowned by the tyche of the new city. The figures of old gods  were either replaced or assimilated into a framework of Christian symbolism . Constantine built the new Church of the Holy Apostles on the site of a  temple to Aphrodite . Generations later there was the  story that a divine vision led Constantine to this spot, and  an angel no one else could see, led him on a  circuit of the new walls. The capital would often be compared to the 'old' Rome  as Nova Roma Constantinopolitana , the "New Rome of Constantinople".

  Constantine the Great , mosaic in Hagia Sophia , c. 1000

 

Religious policy

Constantine is perhaps best known for being the first "Christian" Roman  emperor. Scholars debate whether Constantine adopted his mother St. Helena 's  Christianity in his youth, or whether he adopted it gradually over the course of  his life. Constantine was over 40 when he finally declared himself a Christian, writing to  Christians to make clear that he believed he owed his successes to the  protection of the Christian High God alone.Throughout his rule, Constantine  supported the Church financially, built basilicas, granted privileges to clergy  (e.g. exemption from certain taxes), promoted Christians to high office, and  returned property confiscated during the Diocletianic persecution.His most  famous building projects include the Church of the Holy Sepulchre , and Old Saint Peter's Basilica .

However, Constantine certainly did not patronize Christianity alone. After  gaining victory in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (312), a triumphal arch-the Arch of Constantine -was built (315) to  celebrate his triumph. The arch is most notably decorated with images of the  goddess Victoria and, at the time of its dedication,  sacrifices to gods like Apollo , Diana , and Hercules were made. Most notably absent from  the Arch are any depictions whatsoever regarding Christian symbolism.

Later in 321, Constantine instructed that Christians and non-Christians  should be united in observing the venerable day of the sun , referencing  the sun-worship that Aurelian had established as an official cult.  Furthermore, and long after his oft alleged "conversion" to Christianity,  Constantine's coinage continued to carry the symbols of the sun. Even after the  pagan gods had disappeared from the coinage, Christian symbols appeared only as  Constantine's personal attributes: the chi rho between his hands or on his labarum , but never on the coin itself. Even  when Constantine dedicated the new capital of Constantinople, which became the  seat of Byzantine Christianity for a millennium, he did so wearing the Apollonian sun-rayed Diadem ; no Christian symbols were present at  this dedication.

Constantine made new laws regarding the Jews. They were forbidden to own Christian slaves or to circumcise their slaves.

Administrative reforms

Beginning in the mid-3rd century the emperors began to favor members of the equestrian order over senators, who had had a  monopoly on the most important offices of state. Senators were stripped of the  command of legions and most provincial governorships (as it was felt that they  lacked the specialized military upbringing needed in an age of acute defense  needs), such posts being given to equestrians by Diocletian and his  colleagues-following a practice enforced piecemeal by their predecessors. The  emperors however, still needed the talents and the help of the very rich, who  were relied on to maintain social order and cohesion by means of a web of  powerful influence and contacts at all levels. Exclusion of the old senatorial  aristocracy threatened this arrangement.

In 326, Constantine reversed this pro-equestrian trend, raising many  administrative positions to senatorial rank and thus opening these offices to  the old aristocracy, and at the same time elevating the rank of already existing  equestrians office-holders to senator, eventually wiping out the equestrian  order-at least as a bureaucratic rank-in the process. One could become a  senator, either by being elected praetor or (in most cases) by fulfilling a  function of senatorial rank: from then on, holding of actual power and social  status were melded together into a joint imperial hierarchy. At the same time,  Constantine gained with this the support of the old nobility, as the Senate was  allowed itself to elect praetors and quaestors , in place of the usual practice of  the emperors directly creating new magistrates (adlectio ).

The Senate as a body remained devoid of any significant power; nevertheless,  the senators, who had been marginalized as potential holders of imperial  functions during the 3rd century, could now dispute such positions alongside  more upstart bureaucrats. Some modern historians see in those administrative  reforms an attempt by Constantine at reintegrating the senatorial order into the  imperial administrative elite to counter the possibility of alienating pagan  senators from a Christianized imperial rule.

Constantine's reforms had to do only with the civilian administration: the  military chiefs, who since the Crisis of the Third Century had risen from the  ranks, remained outside the senate, in which they were included only by  Constantine's children.

Monetary reforms

After the runaway inflation of the third century ,  associated with the production of fiat money to pay for public expenses,  Diocletian had tried unsuccessfully to reestablish trustworthy minting of silver  and billon coins. The failure of the various  Diocletianic attempts at the restoration of a functioning silver coin resided in  the fact that the silver currency was overvalued in terms of its actual metal  content, and therefore could only circulate at much discounted rates. Minting of  the Diocletianic "pure" silver argenteus ceased, therefore, soon after  305, while the billon currency continued to be used until the 360s. From the  early 300s on, Constantine forsook any attempts at restoring the silver  currency, preferring instead to concentrate on minting large quantities of good  standard gold pieces-the solidus , 72 of which made a pound of gold. New  (and highly debased) silver pieces would continue to be issued during  Constantine's later reign and after his death, in a continuous process of  retariffing, until this billon minting eventually ceased, de jure , in  367, with the silver piece being de facto continued by various  denominations of bronze coins, the most important being the centenionalis . Later emperors like Julian the Apostate tried to present themselves  as advocates of the humiles by insisting on trustworthy mintings of the  bronze currency.

Constantine's monetary policy were closely associated with his religious  ones, in that increased minting was associated with measures of  confiscation-taken since 331 and closed in 336-of all gold, silver and bronze  statues from pagan temples, who were declared as imperial property and, as such,  as monetary assets. Two imperial commissioners for each province had the task of  getting hold of the statues and having them melded for immediate minting-with  the exception of a number of bronze statues who were used as public monuments  for the beautification of the new capital in Constantinople.

Later campaigns

Constantine considered Constantinople as his capital and permanent residence.  He lived there for a good portion of his later life. He rebuilt Trajan's bridge  across the Danube, in hopes of reconquering Dacia , a province that had been abandoned under  Aurelian. In the late winter of 332, Constantine campaigned with the Sarmatians against the Goths . The weather and lack of food cost the  Goths dearly: reportedly, nearly one hundred thousand died before they submitted  to Rome. In 334, after Sarmatian commoners had overthrown their leaders,  Constantine led a campaign against the tribe. He won a victory in the war and  extended his control over the region, as remains of camps and fortifications in  the region indicate.Constantine resettled some Sarmatian exiles as farmers in  Illyrian and Roman districts, and conscripted the rest into the army.  Constantine took the title Dacicus maximus in 336.

Sickness and death

Constantine had known death would soon come. Within the Church of the Holy  Apostles, Constantine had secretly prepared a final resting-place for himself.It  came sooner than he had expected. Soon after the Feast of Easter 337,  Constantine fell seriously ill. He left Constantinople for the hot baths near  his mother's city of Helenopolis (Altinova), on the southern shores of the Gulf  of İzmit. There, in a church his mother built in honor of Lucian the Apostle, he  prayed, and there he realized that he was dying. Seeking purification, he became  a catechumen , and attempted a return to  Constantinople, making it only as far as a suburb of Nicomedia. He summoned the  bishops, and told them of his hope to be baptized in the River Jordan , where Christ was written to have  been baptized. He requested the baptism right away. The bishops, Eusebius  records, "performed the sacred ceremonies according to custom". He chose the  Arianizing bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia , bishop of the city where he lay dying, as his baptizer. In  postponing his baptism, he followed one custom at the time which postponed  baptism until after infancy. Constantine died soon after at a suburban villa  called Achyron, on the last day of the fifty-day festival of Pentecost directly  following Pascha (or Easter), on 22 May 337.

Following his death, his body was transferred to Constantinople and buried in  the  <="" font="" color="#000000"> <="" font="" color="#000000"> there. He was  succeeded by his three sons born of Fausta, Constantine II , Constantius II and Constans . A number of relatives were killed by  followers of Constantius, notably Constantine's nephews Dalmatius (who held the rank of Caesar) and Hannibalianus , presumably to eliminate possible  contenders to an already complicated succession. He also had two daughters, Constantina and  Helena , wife of Emperor Julian .

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Legacy

The Byzantine Empire considered Constantine its founder and the Holy Roman Empire reckoned him among the  venerable figures of its tradition. In the later Byzantine state, it had become  a great honor for an emperor to be hailed as a "new Constantine". Ten emperors,  including the last emperor of Byzantium, carried the name. Most Eastern  Christian churches consider Constantine a saint (Άγιος Κωνσταντίνος, Saint  Constantine). In the Byzantine Church he was called isapostolos   (Ισαπόστολος Κωνσταντίνος) -an equal of the Apostles . Niš airport is named Constantine the Great in  honor of his birth in Naissus.

 

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The Iron Age Sarmatians (Latin Sarmatæ   or Sauromatæ , Sanskrit Sakas Greek Σαρμάται,  Σαυρομάται) were an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity , flourishing from about the  5th century BC to the 4th century AD.

Their territory was known as Sarmatia to Greco-Roman ethnographers , corresponding to the  western part of greater Scythia (modern Southern Russia , Ukraine , and the eastern Balkans ). At their greatest reported extent,  around 100 BC, these tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga , bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south.

The Sarmatians declined in the 4th century with the incursions connected to  the Migration period (Huns, Goths ). The descendants of the Sarmatians  became known as the Alans during the Early Middle Ages, and  ultimately gave rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group.

Name

Sarmatae is in origin probably just one of several tribal names of the  Sarmatians which came to be applied to the entire group as an exonym in Greco-Roman ethnography . Strabo in the 1st century names as the main  tribes of the Sarmatians the Iazyges , the Roxolani , the Aorsi and the Siraces .

The Greek name Sarmatai derives from the shortening of Sauromatai   apparently by association with lizards (sauros ). Suggestions for the  reason the Sarmatians were associated with lizards include their reptile-like  scale armour and their dragon standards.[5]

Both Pliny the Elder ( book ivNatural  History ) and Jordanes are aware that the names in Sar-   and in Sauro- are interchangeable variants, referring to the same people.

Greek authors of the 4th century (Pseudo-Scylax, Eudoxus of Cnidus ) mention Syrmatae as  the name of a people living at the Don, perhaps reflecting the ethnonym as it  was pronounced in the final phase of Sarmatian culture. The Avesta mentions Sairima as a region "in  the west".

Origins

The Sarmatians emerged in the 7th century BC in a region of the steppe to the  east of the Don River and south of the Ural Mountains in Eastern Europe. For centuries  they lived in relatively peaceful co-existence with their western neighbours the Scythians . Then in the 3rd century BC they  spilled over the Don to attack the Scythians on the Pontic steppe to the north of the Black Sea . The Sarmatians were to dominate  these territories over the next five centuries.[6]

Archaeology Great steppe of Kazakhstan in early  spring. A Sarmatian diadem , found at the Khokhlach kurgan near Novocherkassk (1st century AD, Hermitage Museum ). Sarmatian cataphracts during Dacian Wars as depicted on Trajan's Column . Sarmatia Europea in map of Scythia , 1697. "Sarmatia Europæa " separated from "Sarmatia Asiatica "  by the Tanais (the River Don ), based on Greek literary  sources, in a map printed in London, ca 1770.

Soviet archaeologist Boris Grakov in 1947[citation  needed ] defined a culture flourishing from the 6th  century BC to the 4th century AD, apparent in late Kurgan graves, sometimes reusing part of much  older Kurgans. It is a nomadic steppe culture ranging from the Black Sea to beyond the Volga , and is especially evident at two of the  major sites at Kardaielova and Chernaya in the trans-Uralic steppe. Grekov  defined four phases:

1. Sauromatian, 6th-5th centuries BC
2. Early Sarmatian, 4th-2nd centuries BC
3. Middle Sarmatian, late 2nd century BC to late 2nd century AD
4. Late Sarmatian: late 2nd century AD to 4th century AD

It is important to note that while "Sarmatian" and "Sauromatian" are  synonymous as ethnonyms, they are given different meanings purely by convention  as archaeological technical terms.

In Hungary , a great Late Sarmatian pottery center  was reportedly unearthed between 2001-2006 near Budapest , in Üllő5 archaeological site. Typical gray,  granular Üllő5 ceramics forms a distinct group of Sarmatian pottery found  everywhere in the northcentral part of the Great Hungarian Plain region, indicating a  lively trading activity. A 1998 paper on the study of glass beads found in  Sarmatian graves suggests wide cultural and trade links.[7]

Archaeological evidence suggests that Scythian-Sarmatian cultures may have  given rise to the myth of Amazons . Graves of armed females have been  found in southern Ukraine and Russia. David Anthony notes, "About 20% of Scythian -Sarmatian  "warrior graves" on the lower Don and lower Volga contained females dressed for battle as  if they were men, a phenomenon that probably inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons ."[8]

Language

The numerous Iranian personal names in the Greek inscriptions from the Black Sea Coast indicate that the Sarmatians  spoke a North-Eastern Iranian dialect ancestral to Ossetic (see Scytho-Sarmatian ).[9]

Appearance

Like the Scythians, Sarmatians were of a Caucasoid appearance, and before the arrival of  the Huns (4th century AD) it is thought that few  had Asiatic or turco -Mongol  features. Sarmatian noblemen often reached 1.70-1.80m (5ft 7ins-5ft 10ins) as  measured from skeletons , and they had sturdy bones, they wore  long hair and beards.

The Alans who were a group of Sarmatian tribes  according to the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus "Nearly all the Alani are  men of great stature and beauty , their hair is somewhat yellow , their eyes are frighteningly fierce".[6]

Greco-Roman  ethnography

Herodotus (Histories  4.21) in the 5th century BC placed the land of the Sarmatians east of the Tanais , beginning at the corner of the Maeotian Lake , stretching northwards for  fifteen days' journey, adjacent to the forested land of the Budinoi . Herodotus describes the Sarmatians'  physical appearance as blond, stout and tanned, in short, pretty much as the Scythians and Thracians were seen by the other classical  authors.[who? ]

As seen in Roman depictions of Sarmatians they are of caucasian types[10]

Herodotus (4.110-117) gives a story of the Sauromatians' origin from an  unfortunate marriage of a band of young Scythian men and a group of Amazons . In the story, some Amazons were captured in battle by Greeks in Pontus (northern Turkey ) near the river Thermodon , and the captives were loaded into  three boats. They overcame their captors while at sea, but were not able  sailors. Their ships were blown north to the Maeotian Lake (the Sea of Azov ) onto the shore of Scythia near the cliff region (today's  southeastern Crimea ). After encountering the Scythians and  learning the Scythian language, they agreed to marry Scythian men, but only on  the condition that they move away and not be required to follow the customs of  Scythian women. According to Herodotus, the descendants of this band settled  toward the northeast beyond the Tanais (Don) river and became the Sauromatians.  Herodotus' account explains the origins of the Sarmatians' language as an  "impure" form of Scythian and credits the unusual freedoms of Sauromatae women,  including participation in warfare, as an inheritance from their supposed Amazon  ancestors. Later writers[who? ]  refer to the "woman-ruled Sarmatae" (γυναικοκρατούμενοι). However, Herodotus'  belief that the Sarmatians were descendants of mythological Amazons is very  likely a fictional invention designed to explain certain idiosyncrasies of  Sarmatian culture.

Hippocrates [11] explicitly classes them as Scythian  and describes their warlike women and their customs:

Their women, so long as they are virgins, ride, shoot, throw the javelin  while mounted, and fight with their enemies. They do not lay aside their  virginity until they have killed three of their enemies, and they do not  marry before they have performed the traditional sacred rites. A woman who  takes to herself a husband no longer rides, unless she is compelled to do so  by a general expedition. They have no right breast; for while they are yet  babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for this  very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterize it, so that its  growth is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right  shoulder and right arm.

Strabo [citation  needed ] mentions the Sarmatians in a number of  places, never saying very much about them. He uses both Sarmatai and Sauromatai,  but never together, and never suggesting that they are different peoples. He  often pairs Sarmatians and Scythians in reference to a series of ethnic  names, never stating which is which, as though Sarmatian or Scythian could apply  equally to them all.

In Strabo, the Sarmatians extend from above the Danube eastward to the Volga,  and from north of the Dnepr into the Caucasus , where, he says, they are called  Caucasii like everyone else there. This statement indicates that the Alans already had a home in the Caucasus,  without waiting for the Huns to push them there.

Even more significantly, he points to a Celtic admixture in the region of the Basternae , who, he says, are of Germanic origin. The Celtic Boii, Scordisci and Taurisci are there. A fourth ethnic element  being melted in are the Thracians (7.3.2). Moreover, the peoples toward  the north are Keltoskythai, "Celtic Scythians" (11.6.2).

Strabo also portrays the peoples of the region as being nomadic, or  Hamaksoikoi, "wagon-dwellers" and Galaktophagoi, "milk-eaters" referring, no  doubt, to the universal koumiss eaten in historical times. The wagons  were used for porting tents made of felt, which must have been the yurts used universally by Asian nomads.

Pliny the Elder writes (4.12.79-81):

From this point (the mouth of the Danube ) all the races in general are  Scythian, though various sections have occupied the lands adjacent to the  coast, in one place the Getae ... at another the Sarmatae ... Agrippa  describes the whole of this area from the Danube to the sea ... as far as the  river Vistula in the direction of the Sarmatian desert ... The name of the  Scythians has spread in every direction, as far as the Sarmatae and the  Germans, but this old designation has not continued for any except the most  outlying sections ....

According to Pliny, Scythian rule once extended as far as Germany. Jordanes supports this hypothesis by telling us  on the one hand that he was familiar with the Geography of Ptolemy , which includes the entire Balto-Slavic  territory in Sarmatia[citation  needed ], and on the other that this same region was  Scythia. By "Sarmatia", Jordanes means only the Aryan territory. The Sarmatians  therefore did come from the Scythians.

Tacitus ' De Origine et situ Germanorum speaks of  "mutual fear" between Germanic peoples and Sarmatians:

All Germania is divided from Gaul, Raetia, and Pannonia by the Rhine and  Danube rivers; from the Sarmatians and the Dacians by shared fear and mountains. The  Ocean laps the rest, embracing wide bays and enormous stretches of islands.  Just recently, we learned about certain tribes and kings, whom war brought  to light.[12]

According to Tacitus, like the Persians , the Sarmatians wore long, flowing  robes (ch 17). Moreover, the Sarmatians exacted tribute from the Cotini and Osi , and iron from the Cotini (ch. 43), "to  their shame" (presumably because they could have used the iron to arm themselves  and resist).

By the 3rd century BC, the Sarmatian name appears to have supplanted the  Scythian in the plains of what is now south Ukraine . The geographer, Ptolemy ,[citation  needed ] reports them at what must be their maximum  extent, divided into adjoining European and central Asian sections. Considering  the overlap of tribal names between the Scythians and the Sarmatians, no new  displacements probably took place. The people were the same Indo-Europeans they  used to be, but now under yet another name.

Later, Pausanias , viewing votive offerings near the Athenian Acropolis in  the 2nd century AD,[13]  found among them a Sauromic breastplate.

On seeing this a man will say that no less than Greeks are foreigners  skilled in the arts: for the Sauromatae have no iron, neither mined by  themselves nor yet imported. They have, in fact, no dealings at all with the  foreigners around them. To meet this deficiency they have contrived  inventions. In place of iron they use bone for their spear-blades, and corneal-wood for their bows and arrows,  with bone points for the arrows. They throw a lasso round any enemy they  meet, and then turning round their horses upset the enemy caught in the  lasso. Their breastplates they make in the following fashion. Each man keeps  many mares, since the land is not divided into private allotments, nor does  it bear any thing except wild trees, as the people are nomads. These mares  they not only use for war, but also sacrifice them to the local gods and eat  them for food. Their hoofs they collect, clean, split, and make from them as  it were python scales. Whoever has never seen a python must at least have  seen a pine-cone still green. He will not be mistaken if he liken the  product from the hoof to the segments that are seen on the pine-cone. These  pieces they bore and stitch together with the sinews of horses and oxen, and  then use them as breastplates that are as handsome and strong as those of  the Greeks. For they can withstand blows of missiles and those struck in  close combat.

Pausanias' description is well borne out in a relief from Tanais.[citation  needed ] These facts are not necessarily incompatible  with Tacitus, as the western Sarmatians might have kept their iron to  themselves, it having been a scarce commodity on the plains.

In the late 4th century, Ammianus Marcellinus [14]  describes a severe defeat which Sarmatian raiders inflicted upon Roman forces in  the province of Valeria in Pannonia in late 374 AD. The Sarmatians almost  destroyed 2 legions: one recruited from Moesia and one legion from Pannonia. The last  had been sent to intercept a party of Sarmatians which had been in pursuit of a  senior Roman officer named Aequitius. The two legions failed to coordinate,  allowing the Sarmatians to catch them unprepared.

Decline in the 4th  century

The Sarmatians remained dominant until the Gothic ascendancy in the Black Sea area. Goths attacked Sarmatian tribes on the north of the  Danube in Dacia , what is today Romania . The Roman Emperor Constantine called Constantine II up from Galia to run a campaign  north of the Danube. In very cold weather, the Romans were victorious, killing  100,000 Goths and capturing Ariaricus the son of the Goth king.[15][16][17]

In their efforts to halt the Gothic expansion and replace it with their own  on the north of Lower Danube (present-day Romania), the Sarmatians armed their  captives. After the Roman victory, however, the local population revolted  against their Sarmatian masters, pushing them beyond the Roman border.  Constantine, on whom the Sarmatians had called for help, defeated Limigantes , the leader of the revolt, and moved  the Sarmatian population back in. In the Roman provinces, Sarmatian combatants  were enlisted in the Roman army, whilst the rest of the population was  distributed throughout Thrace , Macedonia and Italy. Origo Constantini mentions 300,000 refugees  resulting from this conflict. The emperor Constantine was subsequently  attributed the title of Sarmaticus Maximus .

In the 4th and 5th centuries, the Huns expanded and conquered both the Sarmatians and the Germanic  Tribes living between the Black Sea and the borders of the Roman Empire. From  bases in modern day Hungary, the Huns ruled the entire former Sarmatian  territory. Their various constituents enjoyed a floruit under Hunnish rule, fought for the Huns  against a combination of Roman and Germanic troops, and went their own ways  after the Battle of Chalons , the death of Attila and the disappearance of the Chuvash ruling elements west of the Volga.

In Roman mythology , Victoria was the personification/Goddess of victory.  She is the Roman version of the Greek goddess Nike , and was associated with Bellona . She was adapted from the Sabine agricultural goddess Vacuna and had  a temple on the Palatine Hill . Her name (in Latin) means victory. Unlike the Greek Nike, Victoria (Latin  for "victory") was a major part of Roman society. Multiple temples were erected  in her honour. When her statue was removed in 382 AD by emperor Gratianus there was much anger in Rome. She was normally worshipped by triumphant generals returning from war. Also unlike the Greek Nike, who was known for success in athletic games such  as chariot races, Victoria was a symbol of victory over death and determined who  would be successful during war. Appearing on Roman coins, jewelry, architecture, and other arts, Victoria is  often seen with or in a chariot . An  example of this is her place upon the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany.

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