Constantine the Great: An In-Depth Analysis of The Life Legend And Religious Aspects of The Late Roman Empire

Introduction

Constantine, was a Roman Emperor who ruled between AD 306 and 337.  He was Born in Naissus, the place now known as Nis, he was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman Army officer of Illyrian origins. His mother, Helena, was Greek. His father took the position of Caesar, the deputy emperor in the west, in AD 293. Constantine went to east, where he rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under Emperors Diocletian and Galerius. In the year 305, Constantias was elevated to the position of Augustus, and Constantine was recollected west to campaign under his father in Britain. Constantine was much-admired as emperor by the army at Eboracum after his father's death in AD 306. He arose triumphant in the civil wars against Emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become sole ruler of the western and eastern empires by AD 324. As an emperor, Constantine endorsed social, administrative, military, and financial reforms to strengthen the kingdom. He reorganized the government, separating civil and military establishments. To fight inflation he introduced the solidus, a new gold coin that became the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. The Roman army was restructured to include mobile units and garrison troops capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. Constantine undertook very successful campaigns against the tribal society on the Roman the Alamanni, borders the Franks, the Goths and the Sarmatians. Campaigns of Constantine: The Sarmatian and German campaigns of the emperor Constantine were fought by the Emperor Constantine I and the neighbouring Germanic peoples the, to protect the empire's borders, from 306 to 336. After the death of his father Constantius Chlorus in 306, Constantine became controller of the western provinces along the Rhine limes. He concentrated his forces on protecting this area of the boundary against the Franks and Alemanni, making Augusta Treverorum his first capital for this purpose. After defeating the usurper Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, all Italia passed under Constantine's control and he thus became the sole Augustus of the West. During February 313, Constantine formed an alliance with the Emperor of the East, Licinius, reinforced by Licinius' marriage to Constantine's sister, Flavia Julia Constantia. However, this relationship survived for only a few years, before the two Augusti came into conflict during 316. Licinius  was defeated by Constantine. Constantine extended further east with his territorial acquisitions, now having to protect the important strategic region of the limes sarmaticus. In the subsequent years, Constantine most of the times occupied himself in the central section of the Danubian Limes, most of the times fighting against the Sarmatians in Pannonia, residing at Sirmium almost continuously till 324 making it his capital along with Serdica. During this time Constantine performed a very active military bent, travelling along the whole of the limites of his newly acquired territory. From 320 he appointed his eldest son, Crispus, Praetorian prefect, with military command of Gaul. When he learnt that an army of Goths had crossed the Danube to raid Roman territory in Moesia Inferior and Thrace, which belonged to Emperor Licinius, he left his general headquarters in Thessalonica and marched against them. The fact that he had invaded into a part of the kingdom which was not under his control released the final phase of the Civil wars of the Tetrarchy, which ended with the full defeat of Licinius and the consecration of Constantine as the sole Roman Emperor. The last period of Constantine's rule, till his death, saw the Christian Emperor combine the complete protective system on the Rhine and Danube, conquering important military successes and reiterating control over a huge part of the territory that the Romans had uncontrolled under Gallienus and Aurelian: the Agri Decumates from the Alemanni, the area south of the Tisza