Chapter CCCLXXXII: Section 7 (10)

The great confederation of the Franks became formidable on the
lower Rhine, and not less dangerous was that of the Allemanni
on the upper part of that river.

See FRANKS: A. D. 253.

The Carpians and Sarmatians laid Mœsia waste; while the
Persians plundered Syria, Cappadocia, and Cilicia. Gallienus,
the emperor's son, whom Valerian had chosen for his colleague,
and Aurelian, destined to succeed him in the empire, gained
several victories over the Germanic tribes; while Valerian
marched in person against the Scythians and Persians, who had
invaded Asia. He gained a victory over the former in Anatolia,
but, imprudently passing the Euphrates, he was surrounded by
Sapor's army near Edessa … and was forced to surrender at
discretion (A. D. 259).

See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.

During nine years Valerian languished in hopeless captivity,
the object of scorn and insult to his brutal conqueror, while
no effort was made for his liberation by his unnatural son.
Gallienus succeeded to the throne. … At the moment of his
accession, the barbarians, encouraged by the captivity of
Valerian, invaded the empire on all sides. Italy itself was
invaded by the Germans, who advanced to Ravenna, but they were
forced to retire by the emperor.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 259.

{2717}

Gallienus, after this exertion, sunk into complete inactivity:
his indolence roused a host of competitors for the empire in
the different provinces, commonly called 'the thirty tyrants,'
though the number of pretenders did not exceed 19. … Far the
most remarkable of them was Odenatus, who assumed the purple
at Palmyra, gained several great victories over the Persians,
and besieged Sapor in Ctesiphon. … But this great man was
murdered by some of his own family; he was succeeded by his
wife, the celebrated Zenobia, who took the title of Queen of
the East. Gallienus did not long survive him; he was murdered
while besieging Aureolus, one of his rivals, in Mediolanum
(Milan); but before his death he transmitted his rights to
Claudius, a general of great reputation (A. D. 268). Most of
the other tyrants had previously fallen in battle or by
assassination. Marcus Aurelius Claudius, having conquered his
only rival, Aureolus, marched against the Germans and Goths,
whom he routed with great slaughter

See GOTHS: A. D. 268-270.

He then prepared to march against Zenobia, who had conquered
Egypt; but a pestilence broke out in his army, and the emperor
himself was one of its victims (A. D. 270). … His brother was
elected emperor by acclamation; but in 17 days he so
displeased the army, by attempting to revive the ancient
discipline, that he was deposed and murdered. Aurelian, a
native of Sirmium in Pannonia, was chosen emperor by the army;
and the senate, well acquainted with his merits, joyfully
confirmed the election. He made peace with the Goths, and led
his army against the Germans, who had once more invaded Italy.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 270.

Aurelian was at first defeated; but he soon retrieved his
loss, and cut the whole of the barbarian army to pieces. His
next victory was obtained over the Vandals, a new horde that
had passed the Danube; and having thus secured the tranquility
of Europe, he marched to rescue the eastern provinces from
Zenobia," whom he vanquished and brought captive to Rome.

See PALMYRA.

This accomplished, the vigorous emperor proceeded to the
suppression of a formidable revolt in Egypt, and then to the
recovery of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, "which had now for
thirteen years been the prey of different tyrants. A single
campaign restored these provinces to the empire; and Aurelian,
returning to Rome, was honoured with the most magnificent
triumph that the city had ever beheld. … But he abandoned the
province of Dacia to the barbarians, withdrawing all the Roman
garrisons that had been stationed beyond the Danube.
Aurelian's virtues were sullied by the sternness and severity
that naturally belongs to a peasant and a soldier. His
officers dreaded his inflexibility," and he was murdered, A.
D. 275, by some of them who had been detected in peculations
and who dreaded his wrath. The senate elected as his successor
Marcus Claudius Tacitus, who died after a reign of seven
months. Florian, a brother of Tacitus, was then chosen by the
senate; but the Syrian army put forward a competitor in the
person of its commander, Marcus Aurelius Probus, and Florian
was presently slain by his own troops. "Probus, now undisputed
master of the Empire, led his troops from Asia to Gaul, which
was again devastated by the German tribes; he not only
defeated the barbarians, but pursued them into their own
country, where he gained greater advantages than any of his
predecessors.

See GAUL: A. D. 277
and GERMANY: A. D. 277.

Thence he passed into Thrace, where he humbled the Goths; and,
returning to Asia, he completely subdued the insurgent
Isaurians, whose lands he divided among his veterans," and
commanded peace on his own terms from the king of Persia. But
even the power with which Probus wielded his army could not
protect him from its licentiousness, and in a sudden mutiny
(A. D. 282) he was slain. Carus, captain of the prætorian
guards, was then raised to the throne by the army, the senate
assenting. He repelled the Sarmatians and defeated the
Persians, who had renewed hostilities; but he died, A. D. 283,
while besieging Ctesiphon. His son Numerianus was chosen his
successor; "but after a few months' reign, he was assassinated
by Aper, his father-in-law and captain of his guards. The
crime, however, was discovered, and the murderer put to death
by the army. Dioclesian, said to have been originally a slave,
was unanimously saluted Emperor by the army. He was proclaimed
at Chalcedon, on the 17th of December, A. D. 284; an epoch
that deserves to be remembered, as it marks the beginning of a
new era, called 'the Era of Dioclesian,' or 'the Era of
Martyrs,' which long prevailed in the church, and is still
used by the Copts, the Abyssinians, and other African
nations."

_W. C. Taylor,
Student's Manual of Ancient History,
chapter 17, sections 6-7._

ALSO IN:
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 5-12 (volume 1)._

ROME: A. D. 213.
First collision with the Alemanni.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 213.

ROME: A. D. 238.
Siege of Aquileia by Maximin.

See ROME: A. D. 192-284.

ROME: A. D. 238-267.
Naval incursions and ravages of the Goths
in Greece and Asia Minor.

See GOTHS: A. D. 258-267.

ROME: A. D. 284-305.
Reconstitution of the Empire by Diocletian.
Its division and subdivision between
two Augusti and two Cæsars.
Abdication of Diocletian.

"The accession of Diocletian to power marks a new epoch in the
history of the Roman empire. From this time the old names of
the republic, the consuls, the tribunes, and the Senate
itself, cease, even if still existing, to have any political
significance. The government becomes avowedly a monarchical
autocracy, and the officers by whom it is administered are
simply the nominees of the despot on the throne. The empire of
Rome is henceforth an Oriental sovereignty. Aurelian had
already introduced the use of the Oriental diadem. The
nobility of the empire derive their positions from the favor
of the sovereign; the commons of the empire, who have long
lost their political power, cease to enjoy even the name of
citizens. The provinces are still administered under the
imperial prefects by the magistrates and the assemblies of an
earlier date, but the functions of both the one and the other
are confined more strictly than ever to matters of police and
finance. Hitherto, indeed, the Senate, however intrinsically
weak, had found opportunities for putting forth its claims to
authority. … The chosen of the legions had been for some time
past the commander of an army, rather than the sovereign of
the state. He had seldom quitted the camp, rarely or never
presented himself in the capital. … The whole realm might
split asunder at any moment into as many kingdoms as there
were armies, unless the chiefs of the legions felt themselves
controlled by the strength or genius of one more eminent than
the rest. …
{2718}
The danger of disruption, thus far averted mainly by the awe
which the name of Rome inspired, was becoming yearly more
imminent, when Diocletian arose to re-establish the organic
connection of the parts, and breathe a new life into the heart
of the body politic. The jealous edict of Gallienus … had
forbidden the senators to take service in the army, or to quit
the limits of Italy. The degradation of that once illustrious
order, which was thus rendered incapable of furnishing a
candidate for the diadem, was completed by its indolent
acquiescence in this disqualifying ordinance. The nobles of
Rome relinquished all interest in affairs which they could no
longer aspire to conduct. The emperors, on their part, ceased
to regard them as a substantive power in the state; and in
constructing his new imperial constitution Diocletian wholly
overlooked their existence. … While he disregarded the
possibility of opposition at Rome, he contrived a new check
upon the rivalry of his distant lieutenants, by associating
with himself three other chiefs, welded together by strict
alliance into one imperial family, each of whom should take up
his residence in a separate quarter of the empire, and combine
with all the others in maintaining their common interest. His
first step was to choose a single colleague in the person of a
brave soldier of obscure origin, an Illyrian peasant, by name
Maximianus, whom he invested with the title of Augustus in the
year 286. The associated rulers assumed at the same time the
fanciful epithets of Jovius and Herculius, auspicious names,
which made them perhaps popular in the camps, where the
commanding genius of the one and the laborious fortitude of
the other were fully recognized. Maximianus was deputed to
control the legions in Gaul, to make head against domestic
sedition, as well as against the revolt of Carausius, a
pretender to the purple in Britain, while Diocletian
encountered the enemies or rivals who were now rising up in
various quarters in the East.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 288-297.

His dangers still multiplied, and again the powers of the
state were subdivided to meet them. In the year 292 Diocletian
created two Cæsars; the one, Galerius, to act subordinately to
himself in the East; the other, Constantius Chlorus, to divide
the government of the western provinces with Maximian. The
Cæsars were bound more closely to the Augusti by receiving
their daughters in marriage; but though they acknowledged each
a superior in his own half of the empire, and admitted a
certain supremacy of Diocletian over all, yet each enjoyed
kingly rule in his own territories, and each established a
court and capital, as well as an army and a camp. Diocletian
retained the wealthiest and most tranquil portion of the
realm, and reigned in Nicomedia [see NICOMEDIA] over Asia
Minor, Syria, and Egypt; while he intrusted to the Cæsar
Galerius, established at Sirmium, the more exposed provinces
on the Danube. Maximian occupied Italy, the adjacent islands,
and Africa, stationing himself, however, not in Rome, but at
Milan. Constantius was required to defend the Rhenish
frontier; and the martial provinces of Gaul, Spain, and
Britain were given him to furnish the forces necessary for
maintaining that important trust. The capital of the Western
Cæsar was fixed at Treves. Inspired with a common interest,
and controlled by the ascendency of Diocletian himself, all
the emperors acted with vigor in their several provinces.
Diocletian recovered Alexandria and quieted the revolt of
Egypt.

See ALEXANDRIA: A. D. 296.

Maximian routed the unruly hordes of Maurentia, and overthrew
a pretender to sovereignty in that distant quarter.
Constantius discomfited an invading host of Alemanni, kept in
check Carausius, who for a moment had seized upon Britain, and
again wrested that province from Allectus, who had murdered
and succeeded to him. Galerius brought the legions of Illyria
to the defence of Syria against the Persians, and though once
defeated on the plains of Carrhæ, at last reduced the enemy to
submission.

See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627].

Thus victorious in every quarter, Diocletian celebrated the
commencement of his twentieth year of power with a triumph at
the ancient capital, and again taking leave of the imperial
city, returned to his customary residence at Nicomedia. The
illness with which he was attacked on his journey suggested or
fixed his resolution to relieve himself from his cares, and on
May 1, in the year 305, being then fifty-nine years of age, he
performed the solemn act of abdication at Morgus, in Mæsia,
the spot where he had first assumed the purple at the bidding
of his soldiers. Strange to say, he did not renounce the
object of his ambition alone. On the same day a similar scene
was enacted by his colleague Maximian at Milan; but the
abdication of Maximian was not, it is said, a spontaneous
sacrifice, but imposed upon him by the influence or authority
of his elder and greater colleague. Diocletian had established
the principle of succession by which the supreme power was to
descend. Having seen the completion of all his arrangements,
and congratulated himself on the success, thus far, of his
great political experiments, he crowned his career of
moderation and self-restraint by strictly confining himself
during the remainder of his life to the tranquil enjoyment of
a private station. Retiring to the residence he had prepared
for himself at Salona, he found occupation and amusement in
the cultivation of his garden."

_C. Merivale,
General History of Rome,
chapter 70._

ALSO IN:
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 13._

_W. T. Arnold,
The Roman System of Provincial Administration,
chapter 4._

See, also, DIOCLETIAN.

ROME: A. D. 287.
Insurrection of the Bagauds in Gaul.

See BAGAUDS;
also, DEDITITIUS.

ROME: A. D. 303-305.
The persecution of Christians under Diocletian.

"Dreams concerning the overthrow of the Empire had long been
cast into the forms of prophecies amongst the Christians. …
There were some to repeat the predictions and to count the
proofs of overthrow impending upon the Empire. But there were
more, far more, to desire its preservation. Many even laboured
for it. The number of those holding offices of distinction at
the courts and in the armies implies the activity of a still
larger number in inferior stations. … Never, on the other
hand, had the generality of Christians been the objects of
deeper or more bitter suspicions. … By the lower orders, they
would be hated as conspiring against the customs of their
province or the glories of their race. By men of position and
of education, they would be despised as opposing every
interest of learning, of property, and of rank. Darker still
were the sentiments of the sovereigns.
{2719}
By them the Christians were scorned as unruly subjects,
building temples without authority, appointing priests without
license, while they lived and died for principles the most
adverse to the laws and to the rulers of the Empire. …
Everywhere they were advancing. Everywhere they met with
reviving foes. At the head of these stood the Cæsar,
afterwards the Emperor Galerius. He who had been a herdsman of
Dacia was of the stamp to become a wanton ruler. He showed his
temper in his treatment of the Heathen. He showed it still
more clearly in his hostility towards the Christians. … He
turned to Diocletian. The elder Emperor was in the mood to
hear his vindictive son-in-law. Already had Diocletian
fulminated his edicts against the Christians. Once it was
because his priests declared them to be denounced in an oracle
from Apollo, as opposing the worship of that deity. At another
time, it was because his soothsayers complained of the
presence of his Christian attendants as interfering with the
omens on which the Heathen depended. Diocletian was
superstitious. But he yielded less to his superstition as a
man than to his imperiousness as a sovereign, when he ordered
that all employed in the imperial service should take part in
the public sacrifices under pain of scourging and dismissal. …
At this crisis he was accosted by Galerius. Imperious as he
was, Diocletian was still circumspect. … Galerius urged
instant suppression. 'The world,' replied his father-in-law,
'will be thrown into confusion, if we attack the Christians.'
But Galerius insisted. Not all the caution of the elder
Emperor was proof against the passions thus excited by his
son-in-law. The wives of Diocletian and Galerius, both said to
have been Christians, interceded in vain. Without consulting
the other sovereigns, it was determined between Diocletian and
Galerius to sound the alarum of persecution throughout their
realms. Never had persecution begun more fearfully. Without a
note of warning, the Christians of Nicomedia were startled,
one morning, by the sack and demolition of their church. … Not
until the next day, however, was there any formal declaration
of hostilities. An edict then appeared commanding instant and
terrible proceedings against the Christians. Their churches
were to be razed. Their Scriptures were to be destroyed. They
themselves were to be deprived of their estates and offices. …
Some days or weeks, crowded with resistance as well as
suffering, went by. Suddenly a fire broke out in the palace at
Nicomedia. It was of course laid at the charge of the
Christians. … Some movements occurring in the eastern
provinces were also ascribed to Christian machinations. … The
Empresses, suspected of sharing the faith of the sufferers,
were compelled to offer public sacrifice. Fiercer assaults
ensued. A second edict from the palace ordered the arrest of
the Christian priests. A third commanded that the prisoners
should be forced to sacrifice according to the Heathen ritual
under pain of torture. When the dungeons were filled, and the
racks within them were busy with their horrid work, a fourth
edict, more searching and more pitiless than any, was
published. By this the proper officers were directed to arrest
every Christian whom they could discover, and bring him to one
of the Heathen temples. … Letters were despatched to demand
the co-operation of the Emperor Maximian and the Cæsar
Constantius. The latter, it is said, refused; yet there were
no limits that could be set to the persecution by any one of
the sovereigns. … None suffered more than the Christians in
Britain. … The intensity of the persecution was in no degree
diminished by the extent over which it spread. … Some were
thrown into dungeons to renounce their faith or to die amidst
the agonies of which they had no fear. Long trains of those
who survived imprisonment were sent across the country or
beyond the sea to labour like brutes in the public mines. In
many cities the streets must have been literally blocked up
with the stakes and scaffolds where death was dealt alike to
men and women and little children. It mattered nothing of what
rank the victims were. The poorest slave and the first officer
of the imperial treasury were massacred with equal savageness.
… The memory of man embraces no such strife, if that can be
called a strife in which there was but one side armed, but one
side slain."

_S. Eliot,
History of the Early Christians,
book 3, chapter 10 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:
_A. Carr,
The Church and the Roman Empire,
chapter 2._

_G. Uhlhorn,
The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism,
book 3, chapter 1._

ROME: A. D. 305-323.
The wars of Constantine and his rivals.
His triumph.
His reunion of the Empire.

On the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian, Constantius and
Galerius, who had previously held the subordinate rank of
Cæsars, succeeded to the superior throne, as Augusti. A nephew
of Galerius, named Maximin, and one Severus, who was his
favorite, were then appointed Cæsars, to the exclusion of
Constantine, son of Constantius, and Maxentius, son of
Maximian, who might have naturally expected the elevation.
Little more than a year afterwards, Constantius died, in
Britain, and Constantine was proclaimed Augustus and Emperor,
in his place, by the armies of the West. Galerius had not
courage to oppose this military election, except so far as to
withhold from Constantine the supreme rank of Augustus, which
he conferred on his creature, Severus. Constantine acquiesced,
for the moment, and contented himself with the name of Cæsar,
while events and his own prudence were preparing for him a far
greater elevation. In October, 306, there was a successful
rising at Rome against Severus, Maxentius was raised to the
throne by the voice of the feeble senate and the people, and
his father, Maximian, the abdicated monarch, came out of his
retirement to resume the purple, in association at first, but
afterwards in rivalry with his son. Severus was besieged at
Ravenna and, having surrendered, was condemned to death.
Galerius undertook to avenge his death by invading Italy, but
retreated ignominiously. Thereupon he invested his friend
Licinius with the emblems and the rank of the deceased
Severus. The Roman world had then six emperors—each claiming
the great title of "Augustus": Galerius, Licinius, and Maximin
in the East (including Africa), making common cause against
Maximian, Maxentius and Constantine in the West. The first, in
these combinations, to fall out, were the father and son,
Maximian and Maxentius, both claiming authority in Italy. The
old emperor appealed to his former army and it declared
against him.
{2720}
He fled, taking shelter, first, with his enemy Galerius, but
soon repairing to the court of Constantine, who had married
his daughter Fausta. A little later, the dissatisfied and
restless old man conspired to dethrone his son-in-law and was
put to death. The next year (May, A. D. 311) Galerius died at
Nicomedia, and his dominions were divided between Licinius and
Maximin. The combinations were now changed, and Constantine
and Licinius entered into an alliance against Maxentius and
Maximin. Rome and Italy had wearied by this time of Maxentius,
who was both vicious and tyrannical, and invited Constantine
to deliver them. He responded by a bold invasion of Italy,
with a small army of but 40,000 men; defeated the greater army
of Maxentius at Turin; occupied the imperial city of Milan;
took Verona, after a siege and a desperate battle fought
outside its walls, and finished his antagonist in a third
encounter (October 28, A. D. 312), at Saxa Rubra, within nine
miles of Rome. Maxentius perished in the flight from this
decisive field and Constantine possessed his dominions. In the
next year, Maximin, rashly venturing to attack Licinius, was
defeated near Heraclea, on the Propontis, and died soon
afterwards. The six emperors of the year 308 were now (A. D.
313) reduced to two, and the friendship between them was
ostentatious. But it endured little longer than a single year.
Licinius was accused of conspiring against Constantine, and
the latter declared war. The first battle was fought near
Cibalis, in Pannonia, the second on the plain of Mardia, in
Thrace, and Constantine was the victor in both. Licinius sued
for peace and obtained it (December, A. D. 315) by the cession
of all his dominion in Europe, except Thrace. For eight years,
Constantine was contented with the great empire he then
possessed. In 323 he determined to grasp the entire Roman
world. Licinius opposed him with a vigor unexpected and the
war was prepared for on a mighty scale. It was practically
decided by the first great battle, at Hadrianople, on the 3d
of July, 323. Licinius, defeated, took refuge in Byzantium,
which Constantine besieged. Escaping from Byzantium into Asia,
Licinius fought once more at Chrysopolis and then yielded to
his fate. He died soon after. The Roman empire was again
united and Constantine was its single lord.

_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 14._

ALSO IN:
_E. L. Cutts,
Constantine the Great,
chapters 7-22._

ROME: A. D. 306.
Constantine's defeat of the Franks.

See FRANKS: A. D. 306.

ROME: A. D. 313.
Constantine's Edict of Milan.
Declared toleration of Christianity.

After the extension of the sovereignty of Constantine over the
Italian provinces as well as Gaul and the West, he went, in
January, A. D. 313, to Milan, and there held a conference with
Licinius, his eastern colleague in the empire. One of the
results of that conference was the famous Edict of Milan,
which recognized Christianity and admitted it to a footing of
equal toleration with the paganisms of the empire—in terms as
follows: "Wherefore, as I, Constantine Augustus, and I,
Licinius Augustus, came under favourable auspices to Milan,
and took under consideration all affairs that pertained to the
public benefit and welfare, these things among the rest
appeared to us to be most advantageous and profitable to all.
We have resolved among the first things to ordain, those
matters by which reverence and worship to the Deity might be
exhibited. That is, how we may grant likewise to the
Christians, and to all, the free choice to follow that mode of
worship which they may wish. That whatsoever divinity and
celestial power may exist may be propitious to us, and to all
that live under our government. Therefore, we have decreed the
following ordinance as our will, with a salutary and most
correct intention, that no freedom at all shall be refused to
Christians, to follow or to keep their observances or worship.
But that to each one power be granted to devote his mind to
that worship which he may think adapted to himself. That the
Deity may in all things exhibit to us His accustomed favour
and kindness. … And this we further decree, with respect to
the Christians, that the places in which they were formerly
accustomed to assemble, concerning which also we formerly
wrote to your fidelity, in a different form, that if any
persons have purchased these, either from our treasurer, or
from any other one, these shall restore them to the
Christians, without money and without demanding any price. …
They who as we have said restore them without valuation and
price may expect their indemnity from our munificence and
liberality."

_Eusebius,
Ecclesiastical History,
book 10, chapter 5._

ALSO IN:
_P. Schaff,
Progress of Religious Freedom,
chapter 2._

ROME: A. D. 318-325.
The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicæa.

See ARIANISM;
and NICÆA: A. D. 325.

ROME: A. D. 323.
The conversion of Constantine.
His Christianity.
His character.

"The alleged supernatural conversion of Constantine has
afforded a subject of doubt and debate from that age to the
present. Up to the date of his war against Maxentius, the
Emperor believed, like his father, in one god, whom he
represented to himself, not with the attributes of Jupiter,
best and greatest, father of gods and men, but under the form
of Apollo, with the attributes of the glorified youth of
manhood, the god of light and life. … His conversion to
Christianity took place at the period of the war with
Maxentius. The chief contemporary authorities on the subject
are Lactantius and Eusebius. Lactantius, an African by birth,
was a rhetorician (or, as we should call him, professor) at
Nicomedia, of such eminence that Constantine entrusted to him
the education of his eldest son, Crispus. Writing before the
death of Licinius, i. e. before the year 314 A. D., or within
two, or at most three, years of the event, Lactantius says,
'Constantine was admonished in his sleep to mark the celestial
sign of God on the shields, and so to engage in the battle. He
did as he was commanded and marked the name of Christ on the
shields by the letter X drawn across them, with the top
circumflexed. Armed with this sign his troops proceed,' etc.
Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, the historian of the early
Church, the most learned Christian of his time, was, after
Constantine's conquest of the East, much about the court, in
the confidence of the Emperor, and one of his chief advisers
in ecclesiastical matters. In his 'Life of Constantine',
published twenty-six years after the Emperor's death, he gives
us an interesting account of the moral process of the
Emperor's conversion.
{2721}
Reflecting on the approaching contest with Maxentius, and
hearing of the extraordinary rites by which he was
endeavouring to win the favour of the gods, 'being convinced
that he needed some more powerful aid than his military forces
could afford him, on account of the wicked and magical
enchantments which were so diligently practised by the tyrant,
he began to seek for divine assistance. … And while he was
thus praying with fervent entreaty, a most marvellous sign
appeared to him from heaven, the account of which it might
have been difficult to receive with credit, had it been
related by any other person. But since the victorious emperor
himself long afterwards declared it to the writer of this
history, when he was honoured with his acquaintance and
society, and confirmed his statement by an oath, who could
hesitate to credit the relation, especially since the
testimony of after time has established its truth? He said
that at mid-day, when the sun was beginning to decline, he
saw, with his own eyes, the trophy of a cross of light in the
heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, "Conquer
by this." At this sight he himself was struck with amazement,
and his whole army also, which happened to be following him on
some expedition, and witnessed the miracle. He said, moreover,
that he doubted within himself what the import of this
apparition could be. And while he continued to ponder and
reason on its meaning, night imperceptibly drew on; and in his
sleep the Christ of God appeared to him with the same sign
which he had seen in the heavens, and commanded him to procure
a standard made in the likeness of that sign, and to use it as
a safeguard in all engagements with his enemies.'" The
standard which is said to have had this origin was the famous
Labarum.

_E. L. Cutts,
Constantine the Great,
chapter 11._

"He [Constantine] was not lacking in susceptibility to certain
religious impressions; he acknowledged the peculiar providence
of God in the manner in which he had been delivered from
dangers, made victorious over all his pagan adversaries, and
finally rendered master of the Roman world. It flattered his
vanity to be considered the favourite of God, and his destined
instrument to destroy the empire of the evil spirits (the
heathen deities). The Christians belonging to court were
certainly not wanting on their part to confirm him in this
persuasion. … Constantine must indeed have been conscious that
he was striving not so much for the cause of God as for the
gratification of his own ambition and love of power; and that
such acts of perfidy, mean revenge, or despotic jealousy, as
occurred in his political course, did not well befit an
instrument and servant of God, such as he claimed to be
considered. … Even Eusebius, one of the best among the bishops
at his court, is so dazzled by what the emperor had achieved
for the outward extension and splendour of the church, as to
be capable of tracing to the purest motives of a servant of
God all the acts which a love of power that would not brook a
rival had, at the expense of truth and humanity, put into the
heart of the emperor in the war against Licinius. … Bishops in
immediate attendance on the emperor so far forgot indeed to
what master they belonged, that, at the celebration of the
third decennium of his reign (the tricennalia), one of them
congratulated him as constituted by God the ruler over all in
the present world, and destined to reign with the Son of God
in the world to come, The feelings of Constantine himself were
shocked at such a parallel."

_A. Neander,
General History of the Christian Religion and Church,
period 2, section. 1, A._

"As he approached the East, he [Constantine] adopted oriental
manners; he affected the gorgeous purple of the monarchs of
Persia; he decorated his head with false hair of different
colours, and with a diadem covered with pearls and gems. He
substituted flowing silken robes, embroidered with flowers,
for the austere garb of Rome, or the unadorned purple of the
first Roman emperors. He filled his palace with eunuchs, and
lent an ear to their perfidious calumnies; he became the
instrument of their base intrigues, their cupidity, and their
jealousy. He multiplied spies, and subjected the palace and
the empire, alike, to a suspicious police. He lavished the
wealth of Rome on the sterile pomp of stately buildings. … He
poured out the best and noblest blood in torrents, more
especially of those nearly connected with himself. The most
illustrious victim of his tyranny was Crispus, his son by his
first wife, whom he had made the partner of his empire, and
the commander of his armies. … In a palace which he had made a
desert, the murderer of his father-in-law, his
brothers-in-law, his sister, his wife, his son, and his
nephew, must have felt the stings of remorse, if hypocritical
priests and courtier bishops had not lulled his conscience to
rest. We still possess the panegyric in which they represent
him as a favourite of Heaven, a saint worthy of our highest
veneration; we have also several laws by which Constantine
atoned for all his crimes, in the eyes of the priests, by
heaping boundless favours on the church. The gifts he bestowed
on it, the immunities he granted to persons and to property
connected with it, soon directed ambition entirely to
ecclesiastical dignities. The men who had so lately been
candidates for the honours of martyrdom, now found themselves
depositaries of the greatest wealth and the highest power. How
was it possible that their characters should not undergo a
total change?"

_J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 4 (volume 1)._

See, also,
CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 312-337.

ROME: A. D. 330.
Transference of the capital of the Empire to
Byzantium (Constantinople).

See CONSTANTINOPLE A. D. 330.

ROME: A. D. 337-361.
Redivision of the Empire.
Civil wars between the sons of Constantine
and their successors.
Elevation of Julian to the throne.

Before the death of Constantine, "his three sons, Constantine,
Constantius, and Constans, had already been successively
raised to the rank of Cæsar about the tenth, twentieth, and
thirtieth years of his reign. The royal family contained also
two other young princes, sons of Dalmatius, one of the
half-brothers of Constantine; the elder of these nephews of
the Emperor was called Dalmatius, after his father, the other
Hanniballianus. … Constantine shared—not the Empire, but—the
imperial power among his three sons. The eldest, Constantine,
was to hold the first rank among the three Augusti, and to
take the western Gallic provinces under his especial
administration; Constantius was to take the east, viz., Asia,
Syria, and Egypt; Constans was to take the central portion of
the Empire, Italy, Africa, and Western Illyricum."

_E. L. Cutts,
Constantine the Great,
chapter 33._

{2722}

The father of these three princes was no sooner dead (A. D.
337) than they made haste to rid themselves of all the
possible rivals in a family which seemed too numerous for
peace. Two uncles and seven cousins—including Dalmatius and
Hannibalianus—with other connections by marriage and
otherwise, were quickly put out of the way under one and
another pretence and with more or less mockery of legal forms.
The three brothers then divided the provinces between them on
much the same plan as before; but Constantine, the eldest, now
reigned in the new capital of his father, which bore his name.
There was peace between them for three years. It was broken by
Constantine, who demanded the surrender to him of a part of
the dominions of Constans. War ensued and Constantine was
killed in one of the earliest engagements of it. Constans took
possession of his dominions, refusing any share of them to
Constantius, and reigned ten years longer, when he was
destroyed, A. D. 350, by a conspiracy in Gaul, which raised to
his throne one Magnentius, a soldier of barbarian extraction.
Magnentius was acknowledged in Gaul and Italy; but the troops
in Illyricum invested their own general, Vetranio, with the
purple. Constantius, in the East, now roused himself to oppose
these rebellions, and did so with success. Vetranio, an aged
man, was intimidated by artful measures and driven to
surrender his unfamiliar crown. Magnentius advanced boldly to
meet an enemy whom he despised, and was defeated in a great
battle fought September 21, A. D. 351, at Mursa (Essek, in
modern Hungary, on the Drave). Retreating to Italy, and from
Italy to Gaul, he maintained the war for another year, but
slew himself finally in despair and the empire had a single
ruler, once more. The sole emperor, Constantius, now found his
burden of power too great, and sought to share it. Two young
nephews had been permitted to live, when the massacre of the
house of Constantine occurred, and he turned to these. He
raised the elder, Gallus, to the rank of Cæsar, and gave him
the government of the præfecture of the East. But Gallus
conducted himself like a Nero and was disgraced and executed
in little more than three years. The younger nephew, Julian,
escaped his brother's fate by great prudence of behavior and
by the friendship of the Empress Eusebia. In 355, he, in turn,
was made Cæsar and sent into Gaul. Distinguishing himself
there in several campaigns against the Germans (see GAUL: A.
D. 355-361), he provoked the jealousy of Constantius and of
the eunuchs who ruled the imperial court. To strip him of
troops, four Gallic legions were ordered to the East, for the
Persian war. They rose in revolt, at Paris, proclaimed Julian
emperor and forced him to assume the dangerous title. He
promptly sent an embassy to Constantius asking the recognition
and confirmation of this procedure; but his overtures were
rejected with disdain. He then declared war, and conducted an
extraordinary expedition into Illyricum, through the Black
Forest and down the Danube, occupying Sirmium and seizing the
Balkan passes before he was known to have left Gaul. But the
civil war so vigorously opened was suddenly arrested at this
stage by the death of Constantius (A. D. 361), and Julian
became sole emperor without more dispute. He renounced
Christianity and is known in history as Julian the Apostate.

_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 18-22._

ROME: A. D. 338-359.
Wars of Constantius with the Persians.

See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.

ROME: A. D. 350-361.
Extensive abandonment of Gaul to the Germans.
Its recovery by Julian.

See GAUL: A. D. 355-361.

ROME: A. D. 361-363.
Julian and the Pagan revival.

"Heathenism still possessed a latent power greater than those
supposed who persuaded the Emperors that now it could be
easily extirpated. The state of affairs in the West differed
from that in the East. In the West it was principally the
Roman aristocracy, who with few exceptions still adhered to
their ancient religion, and with them the great mass of the
people. In the East, on the contrary, Christianity had made
much more progress among the masses, and a real aristocracy
could scarcely be said to exist. In its stead there was an
aristocracy of learning, whose hostility was far more
dangerous to Christianity than the aversion of the Roman
nobility. The youth still thronged to the ancient and
illustrious schools of Miletus, Ephesus, Nicomedia, Antioch,
and above all Athens, and the teachers in these schools were
almost without exception heathen. … There the ancient heathen
spirit was imbibed, and with it a contempt for barbarian
Christianity. The doctrinal strife in the Christian Church was
held up to ridicule, and, alas! with too much reason. For,
according to the Emperor's favor and caprice, one doctrine
stood for orthodoxy to-day and another to-morrow. To-day it
was decreed that Christ was of the same essence with the
Father, and all who refused to acknowledge this were deposed
and exiled. Tomorrow the court theology had swung round, it
was decreed that Christ was a created being, and now it was
the turn of the other party to go into banishment. The
educated heathen thought themselves elevated far above all
this in their classic culture. With what secret anger they
beheld the way in which the temples were laid waste, the works
of art broken to pieces, the memorials of an age of greatness
destroyed, and all in favor of a barbarian religion destitute
of culture. The old rude forms of Heathenism, indeed, they
themselves did not desire, but the refined Heathenism of the
Neoplatonic school seemed to them not merely the equal but the
superior of Christianity. … These were the sources of the
re-action against Christianity. Their spirit was embodied in
Julian. In him it ascended for the last time the imperial
throne, and made the final attempt to stop the triumphal
progress of Christianity. But it succeeded only in giving to
the world irresistible evidence that the sceptre of the spirit
of Antiquity was forever broken. … What influenced Julian was
chiefly enthusiasm for Greek culture. Even in a religious
aspect Polytheism seemed to him superior to Monotheism,
because more philosophic. Neoplatonism filled the whole soul
of the young enthusiast, and seemed to him to comprehend all
the culture of the ancient world in a unified system. But of
course his vanity had a great share in the matter, for he
naturally received the most devoted homage among the
Hellenists, and his rhetorical friends did not stint their
flattery. … He made his entry … [into Constantinople) as a
declared heathen. Although at the beginning of his campaign he
had secretly sacrificed to Bellona, yet he had attended the
church in Vienne.
{2723}
But on the march he put an end to all ambiguity, and publicly
offered sacrifices to the ancient gods. The Roman Empire once
more had a heathen Emperor. At first all was joy; for as
universally as Constantius was hated, Julian was welcomed as a
deliverer. Even the Christians joined in this rejoicing. They
too had found the arbitrary government of the last few years
hard enough to bear. And if some who looked deeper began to
feel anxiety, they consoled themselves by the reflection that
even a heathen Emperor could not injure the Church so much as
a Christian Emperor who used his power in promoting whatever
seemed to him at the time to be orthodoxy in the dogmatic
controversies of the age. And Julian proclaimed, not the
suppression of Christianity, but only complete religious
liberty. He himself intended to be a heathen, but no Christian
should be disturbed in his faith. Julian was certainly
thoroughly in earnest in this. To be a persecutor of the
Church, was the last thing he would have thought of. Besides,
he was much too fully persuaded of the untruth of Christianity
and the truth of Heathenism to persecute. Julian was an
enthusiast, like all the rhetoricians and philosophers who
surrounded him. He regarded himself as called by a divine
voice to the great work of restoring Heathenism, and this was
from the beginning avowedly his object. And he was no less
firmly convinced that this restoration would work itself out
without any use of force; as soon as free scope was given to
Heathenism it would, by its own powers, overcome Christianity.
… The Emperor himself was evidently in all respects a heathen
from sincere conviction. In this regard at least he was honest
and no hypocrite. The flagrant voluptuousness, which had
corrupted the court, was banished, and a large number of
useless officials dismissed. The life of the court was to be
simple, austere, and pure. Men had never before seen an
Emperor who conducted himself with such simplicity, whose
table was so economically supplied, and who knew no other
employments than hard work, and devoted worship of the gods. A
temple was built in the palace, and there Julian offered a
daily sacrifice. Often he might be seen serving at the
sacrifice himself, carrying the wood and plunging the knife
into the victim with his own hand. He remembered every
festival which should be celebrated, and knew how to observe
the whole half-forgotten ritual most punctiliously. He was
equally zealous in performing the duties of his office as
Pontifex Maximus. Everywhere he revived the ancient worship
which had fallen into neglect. Here a closed temple was
re-opened, there a ruined shrine restored, images of the gods
were set up again, and festivals which had ceased to be
celebrated, were restored. … Soon conversions became
plentiful; governors, officials, soldiers, made themselves
proficient in the ancient cultus; and even a bishop, Pegasius
of New Ilium, whom Julian had previously learned to know as a
secret friend of the gods, when he had heen the Emperor's
guide to the classic sites of Troy, changed his religion, and
from a Christian bishop became a heathen high-priest. … The
dream of a restoration of Heathenism nevertheless soon began
to prove itself a dream. Though now surrounded by heathen
only, Julian could not help feeling that he was really
isolated in their midst. He himself was naturally a mystic,
and lived in his ideals. His Heathenism was one purified by
poetic feeling. But there was little or nothing of this to be
found actually existing. His heathen friends were courtiers,
who agreed with him without inward conviction. … He was far
too serious and severely moral for their tastes. They
preferred the theatre to the temple, they liked amusement
best, and found the daily attendance at worship and the
monotonous ceremonies and sacrifices very dull. A measurably
tolerant Christian Emperor would doubtless have suited them
better than this enthusiastically pious heathen. Blinded as
Julian was by his ideal views, he soon could not escape the
knowledge that things were not going well. If Heathenism was
to revive, it must receive new life within. The restoration
must be also a reformation. Strangely enough Julian felt
compelled to borrow from Christianity the ways and means for
such a reformation. The heathen priests, like the Christian,
were to instruct the people, and exhort them to holy living.
The heathen, like the Christians, were to care for the poor. …
While new strength was thus to be infused into Heathenism,
other measures were adopted to weaken Christianity. An
imperial edict, June 17, A. D. 362, forbade the Christians to
act as teachers of the national literature, the ancient
classics. It was, the Emperor explained, a contradiction for
Christians to expound Homer, Thucydides, or Demosthenes, when
they regarded them as godless men and aliens. He would not
compel them to change their convictions, but also he could not
permit the ancient writers to be expounded by those who took
them to task for impiety. … This, of course, was not a
persecution, if the use of force alone makes a persecution,
yet it was a persecution, and in a sense a worse one than any
which went before. Julian tried to deprive the Christians of
that which should be common to all men,—education. …
Nevertheless he had to confess to himself that the restoration
of Heathenism was making no progress worth speaking of. … He
spent his whole strength, he sacrificed himself, he lived only
for the Empire over which Providence had made him lord, and
yet found himself alone in his endeavor. Even his heathen
friends, the philosophers and rhetoricians, kept at a
distance. … With such thoughts as these, Julian journeyed to
Antioch, in Syria, in order to make preparations there for the
great campaign he purposed to make against the Persians. There
new disappointments awaited him. He found the shrines of his
gods forsaken and desolate. … The temple of Apollo was
restored with the greatest splendor. Julian went there to
offer a sacrifice to the god. He expected to find a multitude
of worshippers, but no one even brought oil for a lamp or
incense to burn in honor of the deity. Only an old man
approached to sacrifice a goose. … Shortly afterwards, the
newly restored temple burned down in the night. Now the
Emperor's wrath knew no bounds. He ascribed the guilt to the
Christians; and although the temple, as is probable, caught
fire through the fault of a heathen philosopher, who carried a
dedicatory lamp about in it without due precautions, many
Christians were arrested and tortured. The Church had its
martyrs once more; and Julian, discontented with himself and
the whole world besides, advanced to new measures.
{2724}
The cathedral of Antioch was closed and its property
confiscated. Julian decreed that the Christians, whose God had
forbidden them to kill, should not be intrusted with any
office with which judicial functions were connected. … Julian
himself became more and more restless. He hurried from temple
to temple, brought sacrifice after sacrifice; he knelt for
hours before his gods and covered their statues with kisses.
Then at night he sat in the silence at his writing-table, and
gave vent to his bitterness and disgust with every thing. Then
he wrote his works full of brilliant wit, thought out and
expressed with Greek refinement, but full of bitterest hatred
especially against the Galileans and their Carpenter's Son. …
Finally, his immense preparations for the campaign against the
Persians were finished. Julian started, after finally setting
over the Antiochians a wretch as governor, with the remark
that the man did not deserve to be a governor, but they
deserved to be governed by such a one."

_G. Uhlhorn,
The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism,
book 3, chapter 3._

ALSO IN:
_G. H. Rendall.
Julian the Emperor._

_B. L. Gildersleeve,
The Emperor Julian
(Essays and Studies, pages 355-400)._

_Gregory Nazianzen,
Invectives against Julian, and Libanius,
Funeral Oration upon Julian,
translated by C. W. King._

ROME: A. D. 363.
The Persian expedition of Julian.
His death.
Jovian made Emperor by the retreating army.

See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.

ROME: A. D. 363-379.
Christianity reascendant.
Secret hostility of Paganism.
Reign of Valentinian and Valens.
Approach of the Huns.
The struggle with the Goths.
Elevation of Theodosius to the throne.

When Julian's successor, Jovian, "who did not reign long
enough to lead back to Constantinople the army which he had
marched from the banks of the Tigris, made public profession
of Christianity, he, at the same time, displaced a great
number of brave officers and able functionaries, whom Julian
had promoted in proportion to their zeal for paganism. From
that period, up to the fall of the empire, a hostile sect,
which regarded itself as unjustly stripped of its ancient
honours, invoked the vengeance of the gods on the heads of the
government, exulted in the public calamities, and probably
hastened them by its intrigues, though inextricably involved
in the common ruin. The pagan faith, which was not attached to
a body of doctrine, nor supported by a corporation of priests,
nor heightened by the fervour of novelty, scarcely ever
displayed itself in open revolt, or dared the perils of
martyrdom; but pagans still occupied the foremost rank in
letters:—the orators, the philosophers (or, as they were
otherwise called, sophists), the historians, belonged, almost
without an exception, to the ancient religion. It still kept
possession of the most illustrious schools, especially those
of Athens and Alexandria; the majority of the Roman senate
were still attached to it; and in the breasts of the common
people, particularly the rural population, it maintained its
power for several centuries, branded, however, with the name
of magic. … Less than eight months after his elevation to the
throne, on the 17th of February, 364, Jovian died in a small
town of Galatia. After the expiration of ten days, the army
which he was leading home from Persia, at a solemn assembly
held at Nice, in Bithynia, chose as his successor the son of a
captain from a little village of Pannonia, the count
Valentinian, whom his valour and bodily prowess had raised to
one of the highest posts of the army. … Spite of his savage
rudeness, and the furious violence of his temper, the Roman
empire found in him an able chief at the moment of its
greatest need. Unhappily, the extent of the empire required,
at least, two rulers. The army felt this, and demanded a
second. … Valentinian … chose his brother. Valens, with whom
he shared his power, had the weak, timid, and cruel character
which ordinarily distinguishes cowards. Valentinian, born in
the West, … reserved the government of it to himself. He ceded
to his brother a part of Illyricum on the Danube, and the
whole of the East. He established universal toleration by law,
and took no part in the sectarian controversies which divided
Christendom. Valens adopted the Arian faith, and persecuted
the orthodox party. The finances of the empire demanded a
reform, which neither of the emperors was in a condition to
undertake. They wanted money, and they were ignorant where to
seek the long exhausted sources of public wealth. … Vast
provinces in the interior were deserted; enlistments daily
became more scanty and difficult; the magistrates of the
'curiæ' or municipalities, who were responsible both for the
contributions and the levies of their respective towns, sought
by a thousand subterfuges to escape the perilous honour of the
magistrature. …

See CURIA, MUNICIPAL, OF THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE.

During the twelve years that Valentinian reigned over the West
(A. D. 364-376), he redeemed his cruelties by several
brilliant victories. …

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 365-367.