Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom (14 page)

A year before the battle of Milvian Bridge, the Eastern Augustus Galerius, wracked by his final illness and desperate for supernatural aid, ended the Eastern persecution, permitted Christians to worship, and asked the church to pray for him. Persecution had not worked, and Galerius concluded that it was "fit to extend our indulgence to those men, and to permit them again to be Christians, and to establish the places of their religious assemblies," so long as they "offend not against good order."'
It is one of the ironies of history that it was neither the Christian Constantine nor his erstwhile ally Licinius who ended Diocletian's persecution in the east but Constantine's nemesis, Galerius.

Galerius died shortly after, and within weeks the Caesar Daia, inspired and encouraged by Theotecnus, a city curator in Antioch, began rolling back Galerius's deathbed edict. He prevented Christians from assembling to honor martyrs at cemeteries2
and executed Bishop Peter of Alexandria. In Ancyra seven virgins were drowned, and when another Christian pro
tested, he was burned.3
Sword, fire and water were back. Knowing that he could not fight Christianity with nothing, Daia attempted to reform pagan devotion. He appointed high priests throughout the cities in his realm with cult responsibilities and the power to arrest Christians, compel sacrifice and hand those who refused to the magistrates.4
The Acts of Pilate became required reading in schools.

Daia issued no edict of persecution. For the first time in Roman history, an emperor governed by rescript, answering requests from civic and provincial officials begging him to deal with the dangerous infection.'
An appeal from Antioch stopped just short of asking for permission to expel all Christians from the city. A similar letter arose from Nicomedia. Eusebius did not think the requests were accidental. Daia, he said, arranged for the requests to come to him, so he could shrug and pretend he was only responding to popular outrage.6

At the same time, Daia saw that he was being isolated in the imperial system. Constantine and Licinius wedded east and west by virtue of Licinius's 313 marriage to Constantine's sister Constantia. But the crisis for Daia went deeper. Constantine and Licinius had adopted a common solution to the Christian problem, and it did not involve devotion to Jupiter and Heracles. After 313 Daia was alone, the only member of the imperial college still clinging to Jupiter and hoping for his aid.

"EDICT OF MILAN"

Every schoolchild knows that shortly after his victory over Maxentius, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, giving freedom to Christians to worship as they pleased. By the standard account, the edict was issued jointly from Milan by Constantine and Licinius in 313, when they were together to celebrate Lincinus's marriage. But the standard account is a
fiction.?
Constantine and Licinius issued no edict from Milan. What was issued was not an edict, it was neither issued from Milan nor applied to that city, and it did not legalize Christianity. There was no need, after all, in either east or west, to decree toleration for Christians. As soon as Constantine was acclaimed as Augustus of the West at York in 306, he ended the persecution of Christians. Maxentius granted freedom to Christians in Rome and Italy during his six years of rule there.

Constantine and Licinius did meet at Milan in 313, they did discuss the imperial policy toward Christianity and religion in general, and they did arrive at a common policy, which is expressed in two letters jointly signed by the two Augusti, one a Latin letter posted in Nicomedia in June 313 and the other a slightly different Greek version posted in Caesarea some time later.'
Lactantius preserved the first, a letter to the governor of Bithynia. Licinius and Constantine referred to their "interview at Milan," at which they "conferred together with respect to the good and security of the commonweal" and concluded that "reverence paid to the Divinity merited our first and chief attention" and that "it was proper that the Christians and all others should have liberty to follow that mode of religion which to each of them appeared best." Their intention was to ensure that "God, who is seated in heaven, might be benign and propitious to us, and to every one under our government," and that "the supreme Divinity, to whose worship we freely devote ourselves, might continue to vouchsafe His favour and beneficence to us." Considering it "highly consonant to right reason," they adopted the policy that "no man should be denied leave of attaching himself to the rites of the Christians, or to whatever other religion his might directed him." Thus all Christians "are to be permitted, freely and absolutely, to remain in it, and not to be disturbed in any ways, or molested." The letter made clear that this "indulgence which we have granted in matters of religion to the Christians is ample and unconditional" and intended to help the provincial officials to "perceive at the same time that the open and free exercise of their respective religions is granted to all others, as well as to the Christians." Given the "well-ordered state and the tranquility of our times," "each individual" should be permitted "according to his own choice, to worship the Divinity; and we mean not to derogate anything from the honor due to any religion or its votaries."

Thus far, the decision merely confirmed the status quo determined by the decree of Galerius and Constantine's own earlier cessation of persecution. The legal substance of the letter was to order the return of church property that had been seized during the persecution: "Now we will that all persons who have purchased such places, either from our exchequer or from any one else, do restore them to the Christians, without money demanded or price claimed, and that this be performed peremptorily and unambiguously." Even those who had received church properties as gifts from another party must return them to the Christians. In short, "all those places are, by your intervention, to be immediately restored to the Christians," not only "places appropriated to religious worship" but also other property that belonged to "their society in general, that is, to their churches." The emperors promised that "the persons making restitution without a price paid shall be at liberty to seek indemnification from our bounty." By diligently carrying out these orders, Licinius and Constantine declared, the local and provincial officials of the East will secure "public tranquility" and guarantee "that divine favor which, in affairs of the mightiest importance, we have already experienced, continue to give success to us, and in our successes make the commonweal happy."9

Liberis mentibus-"with free minds"-all are to worship their gods. It is a remarkable policy, an unexpected one, since "it would have been natural for a ruler after his conversion to Christianity to shift all the previous relations."
10 Was this a concession to the pagan majority? A sign of Con stantine's syncretic monotheism? A principled decision?

Beyond the policy, Daia could see that Constantine and Licinius had differing degrees of personal commitment to the faith. Constantine was already publicly identified with Christianity, while Licinius' attachment to the church was looser and more indirect. Licinius's wife was a devout Christian, and Licinius was close enough to the new faith to replace the traditional prebattle sacrifice with a monotheistic, though not explicitly Christian, prayer."
These differences might, Daia thought, be exploited for his benefit, if he could find some way to use them as a wedge to drive the two Augusti apart. Militarily, Daia knew he had to act. Eventually, Daia thought, the Augusti would strike, and Daia decided to preempt that attack by striking first. He began to prepare for war, and in the meantime, to gain support of the Christians in his realm, he issued two decrees of toleration at the end of 312 and again in 313. His heart was not in it. Prior to the battle with Licinius, he "vowed to Jupiter that if he gained the victory, he would utterly extinguish Christianity."
12

Jupiter did not come through. When on April 30, 313, Daia's army faced Licinius's across a "bare and desolate plain" near Campus Ergenus, Licinius's soldiers put aside their shields and helmets, knelt to pray Licinius's prayer three times, and then stood up and proceeded to win a thoroughgoing victory. Daia fled to Nicomedia, gathered his family, and sped on to Tarsus, where he may have hoped to wait out a siege. He did not have the patience. When Licinius marched on the city, Daia committed suicide and his family was slaughtered.13

Licinius continued to Antioch, where he secured his power by wiping out all he could find of the family of Galerius. Galerius's wife, Diocletian's daughter Valeria, and her mother, Diocletian's widow Prisca, fled, and lived in hiding and wore disguises until Licinius's agents tracked them down and beheaded them. Two years before, six men had claimed the purple. By the end of 313, Diocletian and Galerius had died of natural causes, Maxentius and Daia had fallen in battle. Constantine and Licinius were the only Augusti left standing, and they had jointly agreed to a policy of toleration of Christianity.

EMPEROR OF THE EAST

Marriage alliances rarely work, and the marriage alliance of Constantine and Licinius did not work for long.14
Political and dynastic issues initially raised tensions and led to war in 316-317. Tensions were exacerbated because Licinius did not keep the commitment made at Milan and expressed in the letters that confirmed the policy of religious toleration. But the decisive factor was Constantine himself, perhaps beginning to wonder if a tetrarchy could function in a world ruled by one God, gripped with a sense of divine mission, annoyed with the limits of shared power, and hugely ambitious.

The first issue to crack the alliance had to do with children and the future shape of the imperial college. Licinius and Constantia had their first child in the middle of 315, and Constantine and Fausta followed with a child of their own, named for Constantine's father, in August 316. Sensing rising tensions between Licinius and himself, Constantine sent his half-brother Constantius to Sirmium in the late summer of 316 with a proposal. Constantine suggested that the two Augusti appoint Bassianus, Constantine's brother-in-law by marriage to Anastasia his half-sister, as Caesar of Italy, thereby eliminating Italy as a possible bone of contention between them. Bassianus was a shrewd choice, related to both Augusti. According to the official story, Licinius refused the offer and also persuaded Bassianus's brother Senecio to turn Bassianus against the Western emperor. When the plot was discovered, Constantine condemned and executed Bassianus and then demanded that Licinius turn over his coconspirator Senecio.15
Licinius refused and toppled statues of Constantine at the border between their territories. By Roman reckoning, it was an act of war.

Constantine attacked and won a battle near Cibalae on October 8, 316, more than two hundred miles into Licinius's territory and well on the way to Licinius's central city of Sirmium. Constantine won again at Adrianople and pressed on toward Byzantium. Licinius was able to cut his lines of communication and force Constantine into negotiations. They signed a peace treaty at Serdica in spring 317, entirely to Constantine's advantage. Licinius acknowledged Constantine as senior Augustus, gave up all his claims to the Western empire except Thrace, and deposed and executed Valens, whom he had appointed as Caesar in the lead-up to the war. They agreed to a revived Tetrarchy of sorts, Constantine and Licinius serving as Augusti, assisted by three Caesars: Crispus, the infant Constantius, and Licinius's son, also an infant. Crispus, Constantine's son from his first marriage, was the only one who could exercise any real power. He was able, well-liked, a rising commander in Constantine's army destined, as we will see, to play a decisive role in his father's conquest of the Eastern empire.16

The arrangement lasted six years, and then, by Eusebius's account, Licinius went mad. He abandoned the policy of mutual toleration agreed to at Milan17
and revived persecution, mild by fourth-century standards. After application of the sacrifice test, Christians were expelled from the imperial court and army. Licinius prohibited church councils, forced Christian assemblies to take place outside the city walls, prevented men and women from worshiping together, and revoked some of the tax privileges granted to churches and clergy.18
In the provinces, officials realized that they could use the mechanisms of Roman law to attack Christians. Magistrates treated Christians as criminals, punished them when they confessed Christ, and released apostates immediately.'9
During the celebra
tion of the fifteenth year of his rule (quindecennalia) in 323, Licinius's officials threatened Christians with death or exile if they refused to sacrifice, which elicited a stinging rebuke from Constantine.20
Despite agreeing to liberate the Christians and despite the early respect granted to him by Eusebius, Licinius had remained a pagan. Political and religious concerns overlapped. The older Licinius, envious of Constantine's evident successes, plausibly suspected that the Christians of the East would prefer to have Constantine as their emperor, though Christians assured him that they prayed for both emperors equally.21

The alliance between Constantine and Licinius frayed further when Constantine fought back against the Sarmatians along the Danube in 323, intruding deep into Licinius's eastern territories.22
Both Augusti felt they had reason for war-Licinius because Constantine had trampled the boundary between them, Constantine because his colleague was apparently incapable of protecting the frontier.23

Over time, other reasons were presented. Praxagoras of Athens, a pagan historian writing in the late 320s, said that Constantine went to war to deliver Licinius's subjects, who were being treated "in a cruel and inhuman manner." Constantine hoped to "change him from a tyrant into a kingly ruler." The later Origo charged Licinius with "a frenzy of wickedness, cruelty, avarice, lust" in putting "many men to death for the sake of their riches" and violating their wives.24

According to the Christian historians, the aim of Constantine's war against Licinius was liberation of persecuted Christians. The Western Augustus, "perceiving the evils of which he had heard to be no longer
tolerable, took wise counsel, and tempering the natural clemency of his character with a certain measure of severity, hastened to succor those who were thus grievously oppressed." Constantine considered it a "pious and holy task to secure, by the removal of an individual, the safety of the greater part of the human race" and worried that "if he listened to the dictates of clemency only, and bestowed his pity on one utterly unworthy of it, this would, on the one hand, confer no real benefit on a man whom nothing would induce to abandon his evil practices, and whose fury against his subjects would only be likely to increase." Meanwhile, "those who suffered from his oppression would thus be forever deprived of all hope of deliverance."25