CLAS/HIST 4091/5091: The Roman Empire

Reading (13) for Friday Nov. 18, 2011. Life of Constantine: Biography or Propaganda?

Reading

Eusebius Life of Constantine

Bk. I.1-3; 14-40; 49-55

Bk. II.1-21; 44-53; 61-8

Bk. III.6-14; 25-33; 54-6

Bk. IV.1-28; 56-75

You must scroll to “next” for each section beginning at

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2502.htm

Constantine I (“The Great”) was born into an imperial family. His father, Constantius Chlorus, had been one of the tetrarchs and ruled as Augustus in the early 4th C west. On his father’s death in 306, Constantine had himself proclaimed Caesar in the west and, after a series of tussles with the other ruling tetrarchs, Augustus. By 311, relations between Constantine and his fellow western tetrarch Maxentius had reached a low point. Constantine (in Germany) prepared an expeditionary force which he used to march against Maxentius (in Rome) and defeat him at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (AD 312). Before the battle, Constantine claimed to have seen a vision of a “Chi” and “Rho” (the first two letters of “Christ” in Greek) with God telling him: “In this sign you will conquer.” Because of this vision, Constantine converted to Christianity and had his soldiers do the same; it was this, he claimed, that helped him defeat Maxentius. The following year, Constantine joined the eastern emperor Licinius in Milan for the proclamation of an edict granting religious freedom to Christians. Once again, however, relations went sour between Constantine and his co-emperor. Constantine returned to Christianity as the rallying point against the pagan Licinius, marched on him and defeated him near Byzantium. Now ruler of the entire Roman world, Constantine refounded Byzantium under his own name (Constantinople = City of Constantine) and retired there to a life of relative leisure after years of struggle against both barbarians and fellow Romans. His death fell in 337 while he was preparing a final expedition against Persia, again motivated by a claim to be defending Christianity.

We have already encountered Eusebius of Caesarea, a contemporary of Constantine’s, through his History of the Church. This week we are reading a biography Eusebius wrote of Constantine’s life. You will instantly see that this biography differs considerably from those we read by Suetonius and even the author of the Historia Augusta. Perhaps in part because Eusebius wrote his biography while Constantine was still alive, he was much more inclined to fawning praise and entirely avoided criticism. Moreover, because he wrote as a devout Christian about the first Christian emperor, Eusebius never questioned the level of Constantine’s faith even from the years before Constantine converted. Both of these facts should raise suspicions about the credibility of Eusebius as a source. Even so, his remains the best biography we have for a crucially important emperor. Enjoy his quirky style, appreciate his providential simplicity, but use caution about his biases and assumptions!

Questions

1. What kind of text is Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, biography or panegyric (panegyric = a speech in praise of emperors)? How has the genre of imperial biography changed since the days of Suetonius?

2. How has the style of rulership changed between Constantine and the emperors of the 1st and 2nd C (think especially of the emperors whose lives we read: Augustus and Nero)?

3. What are the priorities of a 4th C ruler like Constantine? What are his modes of dealing with barbarians, with internal enemies, with religion, with his subjects?

4. Can we believe Eusebius about Constantine’s pull toward Christianity prior to his conversion in 311? How might we construct a more “evolutionary” picture of Constantine’s conversion? What might have motivated that conversion?

5. If we acknowledge that Eusebius is in some ways disseminating propaganda in favor of Constantine, how does this shed light on his descriptions of Constantine’s rivals Maxentius, Licinius, the Persian Shah Shapur, etc...? How did Constantine himself use his conversion and his Christian faith as a propaganda tool to achieve political ends?

6. How did Constantine’s conversion and conquest of the empire affect the status of Christianity in Roman society? How did it affect the status of paganism? How did it affect the religious culture of those outside the empire? Were the effects seen immediately or did they take time?