Emperor Constantine - Rome's First Christian Emperor

Of all the notable Roman Emperors, Constantine stands out because he changed the face of Christianity forever. Born about February 27, AD 285, Constantine inherited his father's position as Caesar upon his death in AD 306. During this time, the Roman Empire was in turmoil and split into eastern and western partitions, each governed by a Caesar. When Constantine's father died, he began a political crusade to unite the Empire and systematically worked his way to a position where he battled with his main enemy, Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. When the bridge collapsed, Maxentius and his army were killed, leaving Constantine the ruling Caesar of a larger territory.

In his continued efforts to unify the split empire, he declared that persecution of Christians was forbidden and he declared himself the emperor of the Christian people. Whether or not he truly believed in Christianity is up for debate, since he wasn't baptized until he was about to die, but he realized the strength behind the Christians and knew that to bring the people together, they needed a central religion. Even though he now protected and accepted the Christians, he remained a worshipper of the sun god and even noted this fact on his triumphant arch in Rome.

A symbol chosen by Constantine to represent his newly empirical religion was the chi-rho. This is a representation of the first two letters in Greek of the word 'christ'. The chi is Greek for ch and rho is r. The symbol itself looks like an 'x' superimposed over a 'p'. This was the new state symbol for Christianity, but clever Constantine knew his subjects may not readily accept a completely foreign religion, so he maintained tolerance of pagan practices and tied in rituals and ceremonies to Christianity, to make acceptance more palatable.

His work hadn't ended with the declaration of Christianity as state religion, because there was a schism between the church itself, most prominently in Africa. The separation was driving the belief, and his empire, apart, so he decided which branch of Christianity was the 'correct' one and then went about enforcing it, sometimes brutally. Even with his new tolerance of Christians, he still punished the 'wrong' Christians so that his preferred branch would be victorious.

Christianity still had problems, because the various consuls and other politicians who vied for power refused to accept the religion. The continued persecution and intolerance in some of the territories caused Constantine to declare three of his own sons as Caesars in separate areas of the empire. Unfortunately, war was declared in the spring of AD 324 by his last remaining enemy Licinius and ended with his defeat in July of the same year. With this victory leaving him the one true emperor, Constantine felt more secure in his position and made pagan sacrifices illegal. He seized the treasuries of the pagan temples and used the money to build Christian churches. He also forbade gladiator games and created laws against sexual impropriety.

During his rule, Constantine also changed the praetorian guard into a mounted force composed mostly of Germans, who were introduced into the empire by Diocletian years before. The main problems of Constantine's rule started when his edicts and laws became too restrictive and harsh. He made laws that stated that sons had to follow their father's professions, whether they wanted to or not, and military men's sons were forced to enlist. As if this wasn't bad enough, his taxation programs were terrible and created hardship due to the expense required. Anyone living in the city was required to pay a tax in gold or silver and they were tortured or beaten if they couldn't pay. Some families sold their daughters into prostitution to get the money for the tax.

Women were harshly treated by Constantine, even if they were raped. The rapists themselves were burned to death, but their female victims were also punished because Constantine thought they had no right to be away from their family home in the first place. Another punishment was decreed for women who ran away from their husbands. They were burned alive and if anyone helped them escape, they had molten lead poured into their mouths.

Although his rule was far from perfect and peaceful, he did build the fabulous city of Constantinople. He moved away from Rome, but still set up a senate, with less power than the Roman senate, and maintained Roman ideals. He retained the program of doling out an amount of corn to all citizens.

As a hard and harsh ruler, Constantine even had his eldest son Crispus executed for adultery. It had only been a month prior to the incident that he passed a strict law about adultery, so he most likely felt like he had no choice but to condemn his own son. Once he'd successfully conquered everyone vying for the Roman throne, he began to branch out to the Goths and Persians. It was while on his way to the river Jordan to get baptized before invading Persia that he became ill and requested to be baptized immediately. He knew he was dying and on May 22, AD 337, he did just that, and was deified by the Roman senate, making him a Christian emperor raised to the status of a pagan god.