At the same time its rites were allowed to subsist except where they were held to be subversive of morality, and even in the closing years of Constantine’s reign we find legislation in favour of the municipal flamines and collegia. In 333, or later, a cult of the Gens Flavia, as the Imperial family was called, was established at Hispellum (Spello); the offering of sacrifices in the new temple was, however, strictly prohibited. Nor was it until after Constantine’s final triumph over Licinius that pagan symbols disappeared from the coinage and the Christian monogram (which had already been used as a mint mark) became a prominent device. From this time forward the Arian controversy demanded the emperor’s constant attention, and by his action in presiding at the council of Nicaea and afterwards pronouncing sentence of banishment against Athanasius he not only identified himself more openly than ever with Christianity, but showed a determination to assert his supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, holding no doubt that, as the office of pontifex maximus gave him the supreme control of religious matters throughout the empire, the regulation of Christianity fell within his province. In this matter his discernment failed him. It had been comparatively easy to apply coercion to the Donatists, whose resistance to the temporal power was not wholly due to spiritual considerations,[1] but was largely the result of less pure motives; but the Arian controversy raised fundamental issues, which to the mind of Constantine appeared capable of compromise, but in reality, as Athanasius rightly discerned, disclosed vital differences of doctrine. The result foreshadowed the process by which the church which Constantine hoped to mould into an instrument of absolutism became its most determined opponent. It is unnecessary to give more than a passing mention to the legend according to which Constantine, smitten with leprosy after the execution of Crispus and Fausta, received absolution and baptism from Silvester I. and by his Donation to the bishop of Rome laid the foundation of the temporal power of the papacy (see Donation of Constantine).
The political system of Constantine was the final result of a process which, though it had lasted as long as the empire, had assumed a marked form under Aurelian. It was Aurelian who surrounded the imperial person with oriental pomp, wearing the diadem and the jewelled robe, and assuming the style of dominus and even deus, who assimilated Italy to the condition of the provinces and gave official furtherance to the economic process by which a régime of status replaced a régime of contract. Diocletian endeavoured to secure the new despotism against military usurpation by an elaborate system of co-regency with two lines of succession, bearing the names of Jovii and Herculii, but maintained by adoption and not by hereditary succession. This artificial system was destroyed by Constantine, who established dynastic absolutism in favour of his own family, the gens Flavia, evidence of whose cult is found both in Italy and in Africa. To form a court he created a new official aristocracy to replace the senatorial order, which the military emperors of the 3rd century A.D. had reduced to practical insignificance. Upon this aristocracy he showered titles and distinctions, such as the revised patriciate, which carried with them the coveted immunity from fiscal burdens.[2] As the senate was now a quantité négligeable, Constantine could afford to readmit its members freely to the career of provincial administration, which had been almost closed to them since the reign of Gallienus, and to accord to it certain empty privileges such as the free election of quaestors and praetors, while on the other hand the right of the senator to be tried by his peers was taken away and he was placed under the jurisdiction of the provincial governor. In the administration of the empire Constantine completed the work of Diocletian by effecting the separation of civil from military functions. Under him the praefecti praetorio cease entirely to perform military duties and become the heads of the civil administration, more especially in the matter of jurisdiction: in 331 their decisions were made final and no appeal to the emperor was permitted. The civil governors of the provinces (vicarii and praesides) had no control of the military forces, which were commanded by duces; and not content with the security against usurpation which was afforded by this division of power, Constantine employed the comites who formed a large element in the official aristocracy to supervise and report upon their conduct of affairs (see Count), as well as an army of so-called agentes in rebus who, under colour of inspecting the Imperial posting service, carried on a wholesale system of espionage. In the organization of the army the creation of a field force (comitatenses) beside the permanent frontier-garrisons (limitanei) was probably the work of Diocletian; to Constantine is due the creation of the great commands under the magistri peditum and equitum. He also introduced the practice, afterwards increasingly common, of placing barbarians, especially Germans, in posts of high responsibility.
The organization of society in strictly hereditary corporations or professions was no doubt partly completed before the accession of Constantine; but his legislation contributed to rivet the fetters which bound each individual to the caste from which he sprang. Such originales are mentioned in Constantine’s earliest laws, and in 332 the hereditary status of the agricultural colonus was recognized and enforced. Above all, the municipal decuriones on whom the responsibility for raising taxation rested saw every avenue of escape closed against them. In 326 they were forbidden to acquire immunity by joining the ranks of the Christian clergy. It was the interest of the government by such means to secure the regular payment of the heavy fiscal burdens both in money and in kind which had been laid on the subjects of the empire by Diocletian and were certainly not diminished by Constantine. One of our ancient authorities speaks of him as having been for ten years an excellent ruler, for twelve a robber and for ten a spendthrift, and he was constantly forced to have recourse to fresh exactions in order to enrich his favourites and to carry out such extravagant projects as the building of a new capital. To him are due the taxes known as collatio glebalis, levied on the estates of senators, and collatio lustralis, levied on the profits of trade.
In general legislation the reign of Constantine was a time of feverish activity. Nearly three hundred of his enactments are preserved to us in the Codes, especially that of Theodosius. They display a genuine desire for reform and distinct traces of Christian influence, e.g. in their humane provisions as to the treatment of prisoners and slaves and the penalties imposed on offences against morality. Nevertheless they are in many instances singularly crude in conception as well as turgid in style, and were manifestly drafted by official rhetoricians rather than by trained legists. Like Diocletian, Constantine believed that the time had come for society to be remodelled by the fiat of despotic authority, and it is significant that from henceforth we meet with the undisguised assertion that the will of the emperor, in whatever form expressed, is the sole fountain of law. Constantine, in fact, embodies the spirit of absolute authority which, both in church and state, was to prevail for many centuries.
Authorities.—The principal ancient sources for the life of Constantine are the biography of Eusebius, which is, however, partial and untrustworthy owing to the ecclesiastical bias of its author (whose Ecclesiastical History is also of importance), the tract de mortibus persecutorum ascribed to Lactantius, the orations of the Panegyrici, Nos. vi.-x., the second book of the history of Zosimus (which is written from the pagan standpoint), the so-called Excerpta Valesiana and the writings of Aurelius Victor and Eutropius. The laws of Constantine contained in the Codex Theodosianus have been treated chronologically by Otto K. Seeck, Zeitschrift der Savigny- Stiftung (Romanische Abteilung), x. p. i. ff. and 177 ff. Amongst modern books may be named J. C. F. Manso, Das Leben Constantins des Grossen (1817), Jacob Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen (2nd ed., 1880), H. Schiller, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, ii. 2, 164 ff. (1887), and above all Seeck, Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, vol. i.(2nd ed., 1897). For a short account in English C. H. Firth’s Constantine the Great (1905) may be consulted. (H. S. J.)
