Transcription
If I was to ask you who was the most polarizing character of the later Roman Empire, you might be able to think of a few names, but probably the most polarizing of them all is Constantine the Great. With Constantine, it's either you love him or you hate him, and there's not much in between.
In this video, I want to revisit this possibly most polarizing figure of late Roman history. And we shall look at some of the good things that he did and of course also at the bad things that he did and how those things shaped Roman history. And we will come to a conclusion which I can already see will be quite polarizing in its own right. namely that Constantine the Great would be the one that would bring doom to not only the city of Rome itself but to the whole Roman Empire.
The 4th century AD was probably the greatest transitioning period of the Roman Empire. If you could time travel to the year 300 AD and you could visit different cities of the Roman Empire, things would still feel very Roman. People would still worship the traditional gods of the Romans. The Roman cities would still boast a huge amount of temples and in general the cities would still look architecturally very similar to how they had looked centuries earlier. They would be full of temples of fura. There would be impressive theaters and gladiatorial arenas which would be full. You would see gladiatorial games. There would be circuses for chariot racing and many impressive statues.
But if you would travel to the late 4th century, the cities would have a quite different feel to them. You would see the first abandoned or closed Roman temples. And in some cities, you would already see numerous churches standing. Also, the architecture would change. You would now see what we could call protoyzantine architecture. In that century as well, the Roman coins would change dramatically. The art style of the coins and the quality. Then the Roman clothing would start to have a more medieval look to it. And even the Roman army itself would look by the end of the 4th century surprisingly similar to a Germanic army. Not so much resembling the earlier Roman infantry men anymore. The statues by the late 300s would also look surprisingly different, much more simplistic, not as elaborate and artistically detailed anymore as just a century prior.
Meanwhile, by the late 300s, there would be a new capital city of the Romans in the east, Constantinople, which would be a far larger city than it had been in the early 300s when it was still called Byzantium. Meanwhile, the old city of Rome would look virtually unchanged from the early 4th century, as if everything had come to a complete standstill. it would just look a bit older and more weathered than it had in the early 300s. Somehow as if its zenith was already behind it. And the reason why these changes had taken place was this man here, Constantine, whom many call the great. But how great was he really?
Let us quickly recap his life. He was born in the year 272 at the city of Naisus, modern-day Nish in Serbia. He grew up in the later decades of the chaotic crisis of the 3rd century, a time of great upheaval, plagues, civil wars, and massive Germanic invasions. His father, Flavius Constantius, was a Roman officer and his mother Helena was a lowborn Christian or a later convert, very likely exposing the young Constantine already to Christianity, even though publicly he pretended to be pagan in his earlier years. Raised in the Eastern Roman court under the emperor Diolesian who established the tetrarchy in 284 AD. Constantine served as a junior officer and was de facto a hostage at Diolesian's court at Nikomedia to ensure the loyalty of his father.
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When Dialesian and Maxmian abdicated in 305 AD, Constantius became the Agustous of the West, his father, and Constantine joined him in Britain, fighting picss and gaining battlefield experience. After Constantius died in 306 AD at Ibarakum, which is modern-day York, his troops proclaimed Constantine Agustous, defying the tetrarchy succession and sparking tension with the senior emperor Gallerius. From 306 to 312, Constantine ruled the West, Britain, Gaul, and Hispania, focusing on stabilizing Gaul and fortifying the Rine frontier. He married Fousta, daughter of Maxmian, to secure political alliances, all the while showing tolerance towards Christianity, though publicly still remained pagan. So far so good.
Constantine would have stayed a quite unremarkable emperor if things would have stayed like this. But of course, he had far greater ambitions. At some point he had a fallout with the previous senior emperor Maxmian who tried to usurp him and thus forced Maxmian to commit suicide. Of course, this led to tensions with the other junior emperor of that time, Maxentius, son of Maxmian. And then Constantine decided to march on Italy itself and on Rome. And this would be a gigantic turning point for the Roman Empire because systematically one after the other he would defeat all the other co-emperors from 312 to 324 AD, defeating all of them. and he would again become the sole ruler of the entire Roman Empire.
So let us talk about the positive things that Constantine did for the Roman Empire because indeed he of course also did some quite positive things which is naturally why some people love him.
One, he did win decisive victories against the barbarians. He won victories against the PS in 306, managing to stabilize Hadrien's wall and therefore to strengthen this constantly shaky province of Rome. In 306 and 307, he defeated the Franks and he did so again in 310. He also repelled Almani incursions. Later in 322, he defeated the Sarmatian tribe called the Yaziges. Even later in 332, he defeated the Goths beyond the Danube River in the province of Dhakia, which had been abandoned by the Romans in the 270s, restoring parts of that province to the Roman Empire for a while. He even planned a campaign against Persia, but in the midst of the preparations, he became sick and died in 337 AD. So Constantine really did quite a lot to defend the Roman Empire from external enemies and he certainly deserves quite a lot of credit for that.
The second good thing he did, he abolished gladiatorial games. One of the most gruesome practices of the Roman Empire were without a doubt the gladiatorial games. For hundreds of years, countless gladiators had died for the amusement of the Roman masses. In the great amphitheaters, people cheered on while other people were fighting for their lives in these monstrous arenas all across the Roman Empire. Constantine was really the first one to really systematically crack down on this barbaric practice and issue multiple laws prohibiting gladiatorial games. After the time of Constantine, not a single new gladiatorial arena is known to have been constructed. And in the following decades after Constantine's reign, this practice became less and less common because the successors of Constantine continued to crack down on that brutal ancient custom of Rome. I think we can all agree that this was indeed a very good thing that Constantine did here.
Three, Constantine ended the Ptorian Guard. For three centuries, the Pritorians were often ruthlessly killing emperors and proclaiming new ones, often reigning over the population in a reign of terror. One could even describe them at times as a military dictatorship. Constantine ended them after the battle of the Milvian Bridge once and for all. their reign of terror would never return again.
Four, he reformed the Roman currency and introduced the gold solidus. The gold solidus replaced the old debased aurus and was minted with very high purity of 95 to 99% gold. Therefore, restoring trust into the Roman currency. He introduced a solidusbased taxation requiring certain taxes from higher ranking officials to be paid in gold which was of course an economically sound policy.
Five, he established Constantinople. If you love Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire more than the Western Roman Empire, then chances are very high that you will also like Constantine very much. After all, he established the Eastern Roman Empire as a strong foundational political entity which would last for an entire millennium. This would be the foundation of an entire culture, the remnants of which such as the Orthodox Church still influence culture even today. This civilization was truly impressive and it would help to spark the Renaissance itself. Therefore, we can still feel the impact of the Eastern Roman Empire. So, we can see that Constantine really did some impressive things which makes it absolutely understandable that some people really like him.
As so often with history though, it really depends on our unique points of view and what we find more important in how we assess certain characters. But why then are there people that don't like Constantine at all? Well, because he also did some things that weren't really great. See, while some things he did were great for some, many times exactly those same things were really not so great for others, and some would have a huge impact that would only later become visible.
One, he weakened the Western Roman Empire and was responsible for the decline of the city of Rome. Now, if you like the Eastern Roman Empire more than the Western one, as we said before, then you will probably like Constantine more. But if you are a Westerner, well, then chances are Constantine won't be your favorite emperor, to put it mildly. After all, he abandoned the old capital that had been the center of Roman civilization for over a thousand years at that point. By shifting the economic, cultural, and political power base to the east to his new capital of Constantinople, he weakened the western half of the empire politically as well as economically and reduced its ancient prestige. But he went even further. He plundered the old capital, berefted of many ancient works of art and statues, and carried them far away to Constantinople, taking with him many artisans, senators, and other skilled people. Indeed, we could even say that the first sack of Rome was not in 410, but in 326 and carried out by Constantine. This weakened the prestige of the ancient capital. And it is no coincidence that the zenith of Rome was reached in the early 300s just at the time when Constantine would rise to power and as a consequence Rome would already start declining in the later part of the 300s. But more, the Western Empire was beerefted by Constantine of its two Pritorian fleets, completely robbing the Western Roman Empire of its ancient naval power, leaving it defenseless, which would come to cost it very dearly later on. Yes, the East was strengthened, but it was done so by weakening the West. It might have been for strategically sound reasons. However, this weakening would be fatal for the West, which would not even 70 years after Constantine's death, as a consequence, be overrun by Germanic invaders. And it is not a coincidence that this happened so soon after Constantine's death. This invasion of 46 would lead to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. And without the West, the East could never survive. The Roman Empire was never intended to be only one half. As soon as the west fell, it was only a matter of time until the east two would fall.
Two, he appointed only one powerful general for the entire west. Constantine's eastern focus made him, of course, neglect the western half of the Roman Empire. And so he thought that one supreme general for the entire west would be enough. This position was the magista milit. But so much military power for only one person would later lead to huge problems when this position would increasingly be filled by people with their own ambitions. While sometimes this could be good if a noble and capable person like Flavio Stelico would be supreme general of the West, it could also prove absolutely catastrophic if a selfish psychopath like Rickima would have that position. Indeed, it would be in the end this system that would lead to huge tensions between the Western emperors and the Magistrium, leading them to often times kill each other. Steelu and Aayatius, two very capable Magistum were killed by the emperors. In turn, the murder of Argentinian III was carried out to avenge the murder of Aitius. And this would greatly destabilize the Western Roman Empire. And this would directly allow Rickimmer to rise to that position and allow all the damage that he inflicted onto the Western Empire. And the damage that Rickimmer inflicted on the west was so severe that the west would never recover.
Three, Constantine's military reforms. Constantine introduced quite a few far-reaching military reforms. He divided the Roman army into two groups. One, the mobile field army, the Kisatenzes, and two, the border troops, the Limitan. While this seemed like an awesome idea on paper, in reality, this led effectively to a dualclass system with superior mobile forces and inferior limit infantry on the frontier that were often times, if not always, much worse equipped than the superior Kitatenis. This collection of a large number of mobile troops well-paid and supplied made it of course easier for future generals to rebel. Meanwhile, the much weaker border troops would of course make it far easier for enemies to invade the empire. The weak limit would lead to huge problems later, making barbarian invasions much more likely. But it was also Constantine who was the one who started recruiting large amounts of barbarian fiderati federate soldiers Germanics into the army and often allowing them to bring in their own leaders as well thereby weakening the command structure with fatal consequences. Indeed, already 50 years after Constantine's death, a Frankish magista militum called Arbogast would become so powerful that he would decide over the life and death of the Western Roman Emperor, which would not have happened had Constantine not allowed such high numbers of Germanics with their leaders to become part of the Roman army.
Four, he abandoned the tetrarchic system and replaced it with a dynastic rule. Upon his death, Constantine split the empire among his three sons, Constance, Constantius II, and Constantine II. Krispus, his eldest son, he ordered to be executed in 326. And he also had his wife Foua executed as well. truly barbaric behavior for a supposedly pious Christian emperor. In any case, replacing the tetrarchy with a dynastic system would not prove superior. In fact, Constantine's sons were quick to revert to good old civil wars, and soon thereafter, only Constantius II remained. The empire really hadn't gained anything from that dynastic rule and this would lead to continued chaos and rebellions later on and as so often to civil wars.
Five, economic policies. We previously said that his introduction of the solidus was in many ways a very sensible policy. However, what I didn't mention is that while he was very sensible with gold coins with the Solidus, regarding the smaller silver and bronze coins, he was not. He reverted back to the minting of abundant smaller bronze coins, the Numi, and reduced the silver content of the silver coins further. This led to decades of high inflation from the 360s to the 360s. Tax- wise, he was super unfair as well because he had Christians tax exempted. That is correct. Imagine you tax exempt a religious group of people. Imagine how that makes the other people feel which comprised at this point at least 75 if not 85% of the entire Roman Empire. This of course led to huge tensions and it would of course also reduce the tax income. But he made up for that by pushing a very high tax on merchants which of course as you can imagine was not really good for trade. As if all that wasn't bad enough, he was the one who came up with the brilliant idea to tie peasants to their soil. Yes, they would become the colony. and he issued further laws forcing children to follow into the footsteps of their fathers. This would basically be the precursor of the medieval feudal system. It would create a whole large group of people that would be extremely disillusioned with the Roman Empire because as you can imagine being forced to be tied to your land is basically like slavery. So these colon would of course later be very quick to rebel. This would lead to the Bakodai rebellions where they would rise up and form marauding gangs and these coloni would later even willingly join the Germanic invaders in the early 400s and they would often see them as liberators. All in all, I think we can say that Constantine's economic policies apart from the introduction of the gold solidus were a giant disaster.
And six, it was him who laid the foundation for the religious intolerance of Christianity by actively favoring that group. While outwardly pretending to be religiously tolerant in his earlier years, as time went by, he became increasingly intolerant of the old traditional religion of the empire, doing basically everything to favor Christianity. We already mentioned previously that he exempted Christians from taxation which in itself would already be enough to create huge tensions within Roman society. But this also alienated him from the old elites and the senators of Rome which is of course why he chose to create his new capital in the east which not by chance he wanted to be a Christian capital. He meddled strongly in religious matters wherever he could, setting a dangerous precedent which would later be taken to more extreme levels by his successors. And while not yet openly cracking down on paganism and the old Greco Roman faith, he did set the legal precedents for the later emperors to become ever more intolerant, which would lead to even stronger social polarization and tensions that would erupt in many violent clashes between pagans and Christians. The disillusioned pagans would later then watch smilingly as their intolerant empire disintegrated because why should they help an empire that had treated them so unfairly?
Let me read a passage from one of my favorite books about Roman history, The Decline of the Roman Empire by James W. Heringer. I know not the most innovative title I admit because there probably are 200 other books with the same title. But James W. Herminger writes a very interesting passage that I would like to read to you. In returning to the analogy of an elderly patient who has died of a stroke and about whom a life history has been completed, there are similarities between his fate and that of the Roman Empire. Like the patient who has smoked and abused alcohol, Rome too suffered from abuses, some self-inflicted, religious disputes, social changes, and economic problems, while others were external. Like the patient suffering stress or illnesses, Rome had belligerent neighbors and diseases. Constantine can be likened to Rome's first cigarette or first night of drunken carousing. Although the consequences of Constantine's actions were not immediate, he nevertheless sewed the seeds of Rome's destruction.
As so often with historical characters, we really would wish that there was a truly good person free from flaws, a truly great character. But often times the greats who certainly did some great things really had a lot of flaws. And depending on how you see them, from which angle, suddenly they don't seem so great anymore. In fact, they suddenly might show themselves from a side that you wish you hadn't known. I know many won't agree with this video, and that's fine. I might be biased because I personally think that the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a huge tragedy. I personally am saddened by the decline of the city of Rome itself. That magnificent spectacle of a city, grandest and most magnificent of cities. I'm saddened by the dissolution and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. But if you however love the Eastern Roman Empire more than the West, then I can also understand that you like Constantine quite a lot. The beauty of Roman history is that multiple angles and interpretations are possible to coexist at the same time.
Thank you so much for watching, dear friends of Roman history. A special thanks to our Patreons and YouTube members because it is thanks to you, dear friends, that I still continue making videos on this channel. Thank you so much. And if you want to learn more about Constantinople before Constantine, you can watch this video in the upper right corner. But if you want to learn more about a Roman emperor that I'm even less fond of, you can watch the other video in the lower right corner. I say thanks again to all friends of Roman history, Graatias Tibiago and Benalete.