Birth of a Christian Empire

c.300 - 410 A.D.

Constantine the Great

Division of the Empire

The Adoption of Christianity

Constantinople

End of a United Empire

Julian the Apostate

The Empire at Bay

The Endangered Frontiers

The Sack of Rome

Rise of the Church

As the Crisis of the Third Century came to an end, the Empire settled into a tenuous unity, followed by its division into more manageable western and eastern halves, as well as the dawn of the era of Roman emperors known as the Dominate. It likewise saw the rise of one of the most influential people in history: Constantine the Great.

The crisis of the third century had ended with the ascension of the Emperor Diocletian, who c.286 A.D. divided the Empire into two halves (east and west). Each was to be ruled by its own Emperor, but for legal purposes the Empire remained a single state. Later still it was further divided, into 4 parts, with two senior Emperors (Augusti) and two junior (Caesars). It was hoped that this would allow for each Emperor to focus on their own region, and prevent the phenomena of ambitious generals attempting to usurp the throne (as had been the case when a single Emperor had to delegate power to others across their vast domain).

It was into this environment that the young Constantine emerged, rising to the position of Caesar when his father (who had previously held the title) died while putting down a rebellion in Britain. The political situation in the Empire remained precarious however, as the various Emperors (both seniors and juniors) saw one another more as rivals as opposed to partners.

In the summer of 312 A.D. Constantine marched south from his domains in Britain and Gaul to combat the usurper Maxentius. At the Battle of the Milvian Bridge Constantine crushed Maxentius and became the sole ruler of the Western Empire.

It was before this battle that he had a vision or dream, which directed him to fight under the symbol of the cross (or a similar emblem), and stated that under that sign he would conquer. This is the earliest indication of Constantine's later predilection for Christianity. After this success the squabbling between Emperors continued, with Constantine tuning east. After additional successes Constantine effectively became sole ruler of the Empire by the early 320's.

While Constantine does not seem to have outright endorsed Christianity (perhaps feeling that as a universal ruler he had to be above the divisions of various sects and creeds) legislation was passed that favoured them, repealing persecution and legalizing it across the Empire, while similarly passing laws that coincided with Christian values (forbidding the murder of slaves, the abuse of prisoners, making Sunday a day of rest). Likewise, while paganism in its various forms was tolerated, special efforts were undertaken to prevent the emergence of 'heresy' inside the Christian church.

One of the most serious of these was known as Arianism, which in essence questioned the divinity of Christ. To keep the peace inside this large and fast growing religion, Constantine organized the first universal council of the church (the Council of Nicaea), in order to come to a mutual consensus on the nature of the faith.

Arianism was essentially condemned (though it continued to have a powerful influence for years afterwards), and various other issues were addressed. After this was completed Constantine returned to Rome, but the inhabitants and Constantine harboured a strong mutual dislike of one another, and he soon left to oversee the construction of a new capital for the Eastern Empire.

The site chosen for this new capital was the thousand year old Greek city of Byzantium. This was a logical decision, as the location was highly defensible, while it brought the Empire's centre of command and control closer to its primary areas of concern (the Sassanid Empire of the Persians as well as the various barbarian peoples of the east).

Construction commenced at a frantic pace and the city, renamed New Rome but popularly known as Constantinople, was consecrated on 11 May 330 A.D. (which later came to be considered the first day in the history of the Byzantine Empire). This would serve as capital of the Empire for more than a thousand years to come, and helped to ensure this survival of Byzantium from antiquity right up until the dawn of the modern era.

Not all of Constantine's endeavours were to prove as successful: he failed to bring religious harmony to Christianity (though he would be the first among many in this case), with Arianism continuing to be a thorny issue. In May of 337 A.D. Constantine fell ill, and was baptised on his deathbed: the reasons for his delay in this regard have never been fully explained, and remains a point of contention even today.

Ultimately however, Constantine is remembered for two major undertakings, those being his creation of Constantinople as the Eastern Empire's capital, and his adoption of Christianity for himself and for the Empire. In this regard, at least one prominent historian has declared him to be the most influential man of the last two thousand years with the exceptions only of Jesus Christ and Mohammed. With the passing of Constantine the Great, the era of Byzantium had begun.

With the death of Constantine the Empire fell into the hands of no less than 5 Caesars, including his three sons. The coming decades would see ever more conflict both within the Empire and beyond, with the ongoing death spiral of civil war and invasions (as well as the final sundering of the bonds of leadership) culminating in the reign of the last sole Emperor of the Roman Empire.

Constantine's death precipitated a bloodbath inside the Imperial family. After a series of assassinations and civil wars, his son Constantius emerged as the victor. However, beset by the Persian Empire in the east and the Germanic Confederations in the west, he found himself in need of a Caesar, and appointed his cousin Julian (known to posterity as Julian the Apostate) in 355 A.D.

Though a young man who had spent his life as a scholar (and secretly adopted the old Pagan faith), he proved an able ruler and successfully campaigned in Gaul for the first several years of his reign. While loyal to his cousin, when Constantius demanded that Julian send half his army to the east he demurred (while the troops feared they'd never see home again), and was subsequently acclaimed as Emperor by his soldiers.

He then set out to confront his cousin, only to learn that Constantius had died while preparing for this latest civil war, and that he had now inherited sole leadership of the Empire. While Julian ruled conscientiously, he wished to see Christianity replaced by the older Pagan religions, and while not resorting to outright persecution he did establish laws aimed at those ends.

When his hopes of displacing Christianity did not come to fruition, he began to exert more pressure on it, but before any major efforts could get underway he departed to lead an invasion of the Persian Empire.

It was here that, despite his skillful command of the army, he was struck down and died in 363 A.D. It has been speculated that had he lived he might have taken a place amongst the great emperors of Roman history, but alas that will never be known.

Julian's immediate successor Jovian accepted the humiliating peace terms of the Persian King Shapur II, and himself died shortly thereafter. His successor proved a much more capable ruler: Valentinian I.

Valentinian was astute and intelligent, and appointed his brother Valens (who was neither) as co-Emperor, with Valentinian ruling in the west and Valens in the east. Both spent the following years contending with their respective enemies, until the death of Valentinian in 375 A.D. from a fit of apoplexy (cause by sheer outrage at a barbarian incursion into the Empire).

This left his two young sons (Gratian and Valentinian II) along with his inept brother to rule the Empire, and at the worst possible time. The Goths, a people who had fled into the Eastern Empire as refugees from the depredations of the Huns, revolted against unjust treatment from the Romans and precipitated a major crisis.

Valens was himself killed at the Battle of Adrianople in August 378 A.D. and was subsequently replaced by a new ruler who would come to be known as Theodosius the Great.

Theodosius brought the war to a conclusion and succeeded in turning the Goths into a loyal force of autonomous allies inside the Empire. The Western Empire was less fortunate, in that Gratian was assassinated and young Valentinian II fled east to enlist the aid of Theodosius. While Theodosius managed to restore Valentinian II to his throne, the young Emperor was himself disposed of, and when his usurpers were defeated by Theodosius, he found himself the sole ruler of the entire Empire. While his reign as sole Emperor was only a few years, the achievements of his career were great. He had saved the Eastern Empire, and had he lived longer may yet have saved the Western Empire.

Likewise, he set a new precedent when he submitted to the judgement of the Christian Bishop (and later Saint) Ambrose of Milan after committing an uncharacteristic act of brutality in order to receive forgiveness.

This was the first case of a spiritual leader having a temporal ruler submit to the judgement and punishment from a power they acknowledged to be higher than their own in Christianity. This would however certainly not be the last time such a clash between secular and religious authority would occur.

With the death of Theodosius

in 395 A.D. the Roman Empire was forever split between east and west, never to reunite under a single ruler.

By the later fourth century the Roman Empire faced the prospect of declining military strength coupled with ever increasing numbers of enemies. The high culture and standard of living within the Empire attracted jealous gazes from those without.

Barbarians were nothing new to the Roman Empire. For centuries various emperors had settled barbarian peoples on the frontiers of the empire to till unpopulated land and to provide defence. It was this close contact over the centuries that had imparted much in the way of civilization to those living across the frontiers, and given them an appreciation for Roman culture (not unlike the manner in which the Romans of the Republic had admired the civilization of the Greeks).

The problem became not so much the presence of barbarians so much as the scale of their settlement. For centuries the military power of Rome had dissuaded barbarian interlopers, but as Rome grew weak, a new power rose in the east.

The genesis of the great migrations to come were a people known as the Huns. As they moved west, they pushed other peoples yet further west, setting off a chain reaction which led directly into the Empire.

Towards the end of the fourth century the population of Italy probably accounted for less than 10% of the Empire’s total. Gaul by contrast likely boasted three times that number, while the Eastern Empire was by far the more wealthy and populous. Corruption, insecurity, and poverty led to a state with under-populated, untilled countryside dotted with rich cities, a tempting target to any barbarian.

At the same time, the rapid expansion of the new religion of Christianity ran up against the long established Pagan faiths. Despite the attempts of the old religion’s adherents to hold back the advance of Christianity, the Senate was compelled to decree an end to Paganism by the emperor Theodosius. As such the Romans were divided not only by class but by faith when the barbarians came.

Britain under the Romans had grown in material prosperity, and was peaceable enough that a mere three legions were sufficient to guarantee domestic peace and external security.

Throughout the fourth century Roman Britain had been subjected to raids from every direction: Picts in the north, Celts and Scots from the west, and Saxon & Norse from the south and east.

Worse, the state of the Empire meant that troops in Britain were being recalled into the Empire proper (to defend against barbarian incursions and as fodder for the civil wars).

Around 410 a request for aid from the Emperor Honorius was met with the response that the Romano-Britons must look to their own defence. As he could not even prevent the sack of Rome in that year, it was obviously impossible to aid a distant backwater province. In this year Roman rule in Britain effectively ended.

While Britain suffered the collapse of imperial authority piecemeal, the remaining provinces of the Western Empire would face a far more precipitous collapse in the coming century. The Roman teacher Ausonius (c.310-c.395 A.D.) lived and wrote in fourth century Gaul, and described a thriving and genial country. He was fortunate that he did not outlive his century.

Upon the death of Theodosius the Empire passed into the hands of his two sons, Honorius (in the west) and Arcadius (in the east). The young Emperors almost immediately had their hands full, as the Goths rose in revolt under their new king Alaric.

Though the Goths ravaged much of the Eastern Empire, their invasion/migration into Italy during 401-402 A.D. was successfully repulsed by the half-barbarian general Stilicho, who was the regent of Honorius and most powerful man in the Western Empire.

For a time this held off the threat of barbarian invasion, but some grew jealous of Stilicho's position of power and resentful of the number of barbarians in Roman service. In 408 A.D. Stilicho was murdered along with his family, and across the Empire Roman legionnaires slaughtered their Gothic, Vandal, and Hunnish auxiliaries along with their families. The enraged survivors flocked to Alaric's banner, and with this swollen army he once more invaded Italy, and placed Rome itself under siege.

He exacted a huge ransom in exchange for withdrawing, and despite his very reasonable demands for peace Honorius refused. When Alaric placed Rome under siege again the population went over to him and declared Honorius deposed, and for a time it looked as if the young Emperor was doomed.

However, the last minute arrival of Eastern (Byzantine) troops and the loyalty of the governor of Africa (which supplied Rome's food) helped save his throne. When Alaric's puppet Emperor refused to retake Africa by force, he grew impatient and besieged Rome a third time, on this occasion taking the city and sacking it for the first time in 800 years.

While Alaric died shortly thereafter, the Sack of Rome was a major step on the path to the Western Empire's fall.

As the authority of the emperors declined and the lustre of their office faded, an increasing number of people looked away from an ever darker world and towards the solace of the Church.

Born in the 340’s, Jerome was a passionate student of classical literature, to the point that he feared loving them more greatly than the Christian texts, and so swore them off for much of his life. He preached an ascetic form of Christianity, had little tolerance for human failings, and often condemned those not deserving of it. One scholar has said he could more accurately be called great rather than good.

Nonetheless, Jerome was a pious Christian and a scholar second only in activity to Saint Augustine. His greatest achievement (and arguably one of if not the greatest in the history of scholarship) was the translation of the Bible into Latin. This work (known as the Vulgate) became THE Bible insofar as Western Europe was concerned, and is still the essential basis of the Catholic Bible today.

Saint Augustine was born in Roman North Africa in 354 A.D. A pagan for much of his early life, he received a good education (though he neglected his Greek) and moved to Italy that he might teach there. Under his mother’s (St. Monica) encouragement, he listened to and was converted by Ambrose of Milan, and thence returned to Africa to live a life of piety.

Eventually Augustine was convinced to enter the clergy, and despite his protests was elected the bishop of the city of Hippo.

During his long tenure he

spoke eloquently in defence of the Catholic faith, and wrestled with such theological issues as free will and the nature of the Holy Trinity.

One of his more lamentable actions was the constant persecution of the British theologian Pelagius, who argued against original sin and that people could be saved through their own good works. Despite a number of arguments for and against his position, St. Augustine was arguably central to having Pelagius branded as a heretic.

Augustine did however see ahead of his time when he taught that the Bible need not be taken literally. Given that it was structured in such a way as to appeal and be understood by a broad range of intellects, often the language had to be geared to a less literate audience, and as such could be interpreted variously.

Amongst his more philosophical works were the famous ‘Confessions’, where Augustine laid out his earlier life of sin, his conversion, and the profound peace he now felt. The depth and frankness of his thought make this a compelling account of someone who has made their peace with the world and with God.

With the sack of Rome in 410, many Romans drew the conclusion that the blame for this catastrophe lay with the abandonment of the old Pagan Gods and the adoption of Christianity. Augustine realized that this line of thought posed a direct threat to the Church, and set out to explain the fate of Rome from a philosophical perspective.

Augustine set out his point of view in what is arguably his greatest work (and indeed one of the highlights of world literature) ‘The City of God’. In it he pointed out that the barbarian invaders had spared the churches and those who fled to them, but had no such consideration for the Pagan temples. It was because Rome had worshipped the Pagan deities, not their increasing abandonment of them, which led to the fall of Rome.

It is likewise in this work that Augustine laid out his understanding of the world, with a division between the temporal City of Man, and the spiritual City of God. While he did not draw entirely hard and fast distinctions, later thinkers would see the Church itself as encompassing the City of God, and drew the conclusions on the relations of temporal from spiritual power to lay the groundwork for theocracy.

In 430 A.D. Saint Augustine died during the Vandal siege of Hippo. His writings went on to serve as the primary basis of the Catholic Church and its thought until the late Middle Ages. With his embrace of emotion and faith over the intellect and reason, his writings mark the end of the classical literature, and the beginning of that which is termed Medieval. After a thousand years of classical learning (which the modern age is generally more sympathetic towards), the search for an earthly paradise had given way to a yearning for a spiritual one amongst the demoralized peoples of the world in general, and the Roman Empire in particular.