Constantine E-Book

Timothy Barnes

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Blackwell Ancient Lives
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 661

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Drawing on recent scholarly advances and new evidence, Timothy Barnes offers a fresh and exciting study of Constantine and his life. * First study of Constantine to make use of Kevin Wilkinson's re-dating of the poet Palladas to the reign of Constantine, disproving the predominant scholarly belief that Constantine remained tolerant in matters of religion to the end of his reign * Clearly sets out the problems associated with depictions of Constantine and answers them with great clarity * Includes Barnes' own research into the marriage of Constantine's parents, Constantine's status as a crown prince and his father's legitimate heir, and his dynastic plans * Honorable Mention for 2011 Classics & Ancient History PROSE award granted by the Association of American Publishers

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

PREFACE

ABBREVIATIONS

1 INTRODUCTION

OFFICIAL LIES AND THE ‘CONSTANTINIAN QUESTION’

THE PROGRESS OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON CONSTANTINE

COINS, INSCRIPTIONS AND MONUMENTS

2 THE SOLDIER AND THE STABLE-GIRL

THE SOCIAL STATUS OF HELENA

THE MARRIAGE OF CONSTANTINE’S PARENTS

CONSTANTIUS’ SECOND WIFE

THE LATER LIFE OF HELENA

3 CONSTANTINE, THE RUINS OF BABYLON AND THE COURT OF PHARAOH

THE DIOCLETIANIC TETRARCHY (293–305)

THE APPOINTMENT OF NEW EMPERORS

CONSTANTINE IN THE EAST (293–305)

THE DYNASTIC COUP OF 305

4 THE ROAD TO ROME

CONSTANTINE’S PROCLAMATION AND RECOGNITION AS EMPEROR

POLITICS AND WARFARE 306–310

THE VISION OF CONSTANTINE

THE INVASION OF ITALY

CONSTANTINE IN ROME AND CHRISTMAS 312

CONSTANTINIAN CHURCHES IN ROME

APPENDIX: THE STATUS OF CONSTANTINE 306–311

5 BROTHERS-IN-LAW

CONSTANTINE AND LICINIUS IN MILAN

WAS THERE AN ‘EDICT OF MILAN’?

TOWARDS WAR

FROM CIBALAE (316) TO CHRYSOPOLIS (324)

6 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE EAST

THE FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE

AN IMPERIAL SERMON

THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA

A CHRISTIAN CAPITAL FOR A CHRISTIAN ROMAN EMPIRE

PRO-CHRISTIAN LEGISLATION

CONSTANTINE AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICS

EAST AND WEST IN THE FOURTH CENTURY

7 DYNASTIC POLITICS AFTER THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA

THE DEATHS OF CRISPUS AND FAUSTA

A THIRD WIFE FOR CONSTANTINE?

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE EMPIRE

CONSTANTINE’S DYNASTIC PLANS

AN ASTROLOGER’S PRAISE OF CONSTANTINE

APPENDIX: THE DYNASTIC MARRIAGES OF 335 AND 336

TABLES: DYNASTIC ALLIANCES AND CHILDREN OF EMPERORS 285–337

8 EPILOGUE

APPENDIX A: THE CAREER OF LACTANTIUS

APPENDIX B: GALERIUS’ SARMATIAN VICTORIES

APPENDIX C: THE PANEGYRICI LATINI AND CONSTANTINE

APPENDIX D: EUSEBIUS, ON EASTER (DE SOLLEMNITATE PASCHALI)

APPENDIX E: NICAGORAS IN EGYPT

APPENDIX F: PRAXAGORAS OF ATHENS

APPENDIX G: AN ANONYMOUS PANEGYRIC OF CONSTANTINE

NOTES

1 INTRODUCTION

2 THE SOLDIER AND THE STABLE-GIRL

3 CONSTANTINE, THE RUINS OF BABYLON AND THE COURT OF PHARAOH

4 THE ROAD TO ROME

5 BROTHERS-IN-LAW

6 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE EAST

7 DYNASTIC POLITICS AFTER THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA

APPENDIX A: THE CAREER OF LACTANTIUS

APPENDIX B: GALERIUS’ SARMATIAN VICTORIES

APPENDIX C: THE PANEGYRICI LATINIAND CONSTANTINE

APPENDIX D: EUSEBIUS, ON EASTER (DE SOLLEMNITATE PASCHALI)

APPENDIX E: NICAGORAS IN EGYPT

APPENDIX F: PRAXAGORAS OF ATHENS

APPENDIX G: AN ANONYMOUS PANEGYRIC OF CONSTANTINE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. ANCIENT SOURCES

B. MODERN WORKS OTHER THAN EDITIONS, TRANSLATIONS AND COMMENTARIES LISTED UNDER A

SUPPLEMENTAL IMAGES

INDEX

Blackwell Ancient Lives

At a time when much scholarly writing on the ancient world is abstract and ­analytical, this series presents engaging, accessible accounts of the most influential figures of antiquity. It re-peoples the ancient landscape; and while never losing sight of the vast gulf that separates antiquity from our own world, it seeks to communicate the delight of reading historical narratives to discover “what happened next.”

Published

Cleopatra and EgyptSally-Ann AshtonAlexander the Great in his WorldCarol G. ThomasNeroJürgen MalitzTiberiusRobin SeagerKing Hammurabi of BabylonMarc Van De MieroopPompey the GreatRobin SeagerThe Age of Augustus, second editionWerner EckHannibalSerge LancelConstantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman EmpireTimothy Barnes

This paperback edition first published 2014© 2014 Timothy Barnes

Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd (hardback, 2011)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barnes, Timothy David.   Constantine : dynasty, religion, and power in the later Roman Empire / Timothy Barnes.       p. cm. – (Blackwell ancient lives)   Includes bibliographical references and index.

   ISBN 978-1-4051-1727-2 (hbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-118-78275-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)1. Constantine I, Emperor of Rome, d. 337. 2. Constantine I, Emperor of Rome, d. 337–Political and social views. 3. Constantine I, Emperor of Rome, d. 337–Religion. 4. Emperors–Rome–Biography. 5. Rome–Kings and rulers–Biography. 6. Rome–History–Constantine I, the Great, 306-337. 7. Royal houses–Rome–History. 8. Christianity and politics–Rome–History. 9. Church history–Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600. 10. Power (Social sciences)–Rome–History. I. Title.   DG315.B36 2011   937′.08092–dc22   [B]

2010047212

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Bust of Constantine. Photo © Paolo Gaetano Rocco / iStockphoto.Cover design by Richard Boxhall Designs Associates

του̑δὴσυγγραφέωςἔργονἕν,ὡς’επράχθη εἰπει̑ν

The sole task of the historian is to say how it happened

Lucian,On how history should be written 39

ILLUSTRATIONS

(Between pages 146 and 147)

Plate 1

Imperial bust of the tetrarchic period from Nicomedia; probably DiocletianSource: The Art Archive/Alamy

Plate 2

Constantius liberating London as the ‘Restorer of Eternal Light’ (Arras Medallion)Source: © Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Arras, inv. 927.6.1

Plate 3

Head of Constantine from early in his reign; found in the Stonegate, YorkSource: Angelo Hornak/Alamy

Plate 4

Constantine in front of the Roman monument commemorating the vicennalia of Diocletian and Maximian and the decennalia of Constantius and Galerius in 303 (Arch of Constantine)Source: Alinari/Topfoto

Plate 5

Fragments of the colossal statue of Constantine in the Capitoline Museums in RomeSource: Russell Kord/Alamy

Plate 6

The ‘Great Cameo’ showing a Victory crowning ConstantineSource: Photo and collection Geldmuseum (Money Museum), Utrecht

Plate 7

The Ada-Cameo from TrierSource: Stadtbibliothek Trier, book cover of the Ada-gospels, Ms 22

Plate 8

Coin of Constantinople c. 327: obverse Constantine; reverse labarum with medallions of three emperors (British Museum: RIC 7.572 no. 19)Source: © The Trustees of the British Museum

Plate 9A

The city of Constantinople and surrounding areas as depicted on the Tabula PeutingerianaSource: Photo: akg-images

Plate 9B

Detail of 9A: the porphyry column with the statue of Constantine and the Tyche of ConstantinopleSource: Photo: akg-images

PREFACE

In the ‘few bibliographical notes’ (amounting in fact to more than seventy pages) which Norman Baynes added to the published version of the paper on Constantine which he delivered before the British Academy on 12 March 1930 as the Raleigh Lecture on History for 1929, he severely castigated Eduard Schwartz for his second thoughts on Constantine. Baynes contrasted Schwartz’s article in the first volume of Meister der Politik, edited by Erich Marcks and Karl Alexander von Müller (Stuttgart & Berlin, 1922: 171–223) with his earlier book Kaiser Constantin und die christliche Kirche (Leipzig, 1913). In the later essay, Baynes complained, Schwartz not only ‘carries to yet further lengths the views expressed in the book,’ but ‘this harsher restatement reads as a gage of challenge flung down before the critics.’ The present book bears a similar relationship to my Constantine and Eusebius, though its distance in time from a book published in 1981 is much closer to the interval between the two editions of Jacob Burckhardt’s classic Die Zeit Constantin’s des Grossen, which was first published in his native Switzerland in 1853 and issued in a revised edi­tion in Germany twenty-seven years later (Leipzig, 1880). There is, however, a ­fundamental scholarly difference between my second thoughts and those of both Burckhardt and Schwartz, neither of whom was able to use significant new ­evidence that had come to light in the intervening period. Since 1981 there have been advances in our understanding of Constantine and the age in which he lived on many fronts, and an unexpected and startling increment in our evidence.

In December 2008 a young Canadian scholar working in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University contacted me out of the blue and asked if I would look at the draft of a monograph on the Late Greek epigrammatist Palladas. Until then, since I had read Palladas’ anti-Christian poems before I ever began to think seriously about Constantine, I had accepted the prevailing view of enlightened Anglo-Saxon scholarship that the anti-Christian epigrams of Palladas preserved in the Greek Anthology were written decades after the death of Constantine, during the reign of the emperor Theodosius (379–395). But as soon as I read what Kevin Wilkinson had sent me and tested his arguments, I saw that he had proved beyond any serious possibility of doubt that Palladas was in fact writing during the reign of Constantine – a redating very relevant to my interpretation of Constantine’s religious policies. Kevin’s chronological arguments appeared in the Journal of Roman Studies in November 2009, and he has most generously allowed me to read and use in advance of their publication both two more articles on Palladas and his edition of and commentary on PCtYBR 4000. I have thus been able to reflect upon Kevin’s discoveries before their entry into the public domain, so that he is in a very real sense the ‘onlie begetter’ of this book.

My researches into the Constantinian period have been assisted over the last three decades by so many others who have shared information with me or engaged with me in constructive discussion of matters of interpretation that it seems invidious to single out a few by name. But I must make three specific acknowledgments. Since 1990, when I first met him, I have received very considerable help from Simon Corcoran, whose expertise in analyzing legal texts far surpasses my own. During the actual composition of the book, which began in earnest in October 2009, I learned much from Paul Stephenson’s recently published study of Constantine, which proposes some important, original and (to my mind) convincing ideas on central problems of interpretation. My final text owes much to my wife Janet, who read a full draft of the completed work and has improved both the logic and phrasing of many passages.

The errors and misjudgments that remain are my own, as are all translations from Greek and Latin except where I have explicitly attributed them to an earlier translator. I have of course usually consulted existing English versions when preparing mine, but I believe that, except where I make a specific acknowledgment, I have so modified and adapted earlier translations as to have earned the right to call what I have produced my own. I must also apologize for the frequent repetitions which may sometimes seem otiose or inelegant: they are there because I have often deemed it necessary to repeat the same facts in several different contexts.

Timothy BarnesEdinburgh, 21 August 2010

The passage from Lucian which I have used as an epigraph will probably be more familiar to most readers in the reformulation which Leopold Ranke gave it in the programmatic preface to his first published work. Rejecting the notion that the function of a historian might be to pass judgment on the past or to provide guidance for the future, the young Ranke declared of his own work that ‘er will bloß sagen, wie es eigentlich gewesen’ (Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1535 [Leipzig & Berlin, 1824], v), where the German sagen is a straight translation of Lucian’s εἰπει̑ν. Fifty years later, in a second edition of his first book, the mature Ranke changed the wording to ‘er will bloß zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen’ (Sämmtliche Werke 33 [Leipzig, 1874], vii) – where the change of verb from ‘say’ to ‘show’ considerably diminishes the similarity of his formulation to that of Lucian.

ABBREVIATIONS

AE

L’année épigraphique

Anth. Pal. / Plan.

Anthologia Palatina / Planudea

Barrington Atlas

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, ed. R. J. A. Talbert (Princeton & Oxford, 2000)

BEFAR

Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome

BHG

Bibliotheca hagiographica graeca, 3rd edition. Subsidia Hagiographica 8a (Brussels, 1967)

CCSL

Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout, 1954–)

Chr. Min. 1, 2

T. Mommsen, Chronica Minora Saec. IV.V.VI.VII 1, 2. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 9, 11 (Berlin, 1892; 1894)

CIL

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin, 1863–)

CLRE

Consuls of the Later Roman Empire, ed. R. S. Bagnall, Alan Cameron, S. Schwartz & K. A. Worp (Atlanta, 1987)

CPG

M. Geerard, Clavis Patrum Graecorum 1–5 (Turnhout, 1974–1987); M. Geerard & J. Noret, Supplementum (Turnhout, 1998); J. Noret, Clavis Patrum Graecorum 3A: Addenda volumini III (Turnhout, 2003)

CPL

E. Dekkers & E. Gaar, Clavis Patrum Latinorum, 3rd ­edition (Steenbrugge, 1995)

CSEL

Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna, 1866–)

CJ

Codex Justinianus

CTh, CThBarnes,

CThSeeck

Codex Theodosianus: CTh without superscript indicates that I accept the transmitted date, CThBarnes or CThSeeck that the date stated is the date as emended in Barnes 1982 or Seeck 1919

Dokument(e)

Athanasius Werke 3.1.3. Dokumente zur Geschichte des ­arianischen Streites, ed. H. C. Brennecke, U. Heil, A. von Stockhausen & A. Wintjes (Berlin & New York, 2007)

EOMIA

C. H. Turner and others, Ecclesiae Occidentalis Monumenta Iuris Antiquissima (Oxford, 1899–1939)

FGrH

F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin & Leiden, 1923–)

FIRA

S. Riccobono (& others), Fontes Iuris Romani Anteiustinianei, 2nd ­edition (Bologna, 1940–1943)

GCS

Die Griechischen Christlichen Scriftsteller der ersten (drei) Jahrhunderte (Leipzig, 1897–1918; Berlin, 1954–)

ICUR

J. B. Rossi and others, Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae (Rome, then Vatican City, 1861–1992)

IG

Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin, 1878–)

ILCV

H. Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (Berlin, 1925–1931; 2nd edition with supplementary volume ed. J. Moreau & H.-I. Marrou, Berlin, 1961–1967)

ILS

H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (Berlin, 1892–1916)

Lampe

G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1968)

LP

Liber Pontificalis

LSJ9

H. Liddell, R. Scott & H. Stuart Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th edition with a supplement (Oxford, 1968)

OLD

Oxford Latin Dictionary, ed. P. W. G. Glare (Oxford, 1968–1982)

PG

Migne, Patrologia Graeca (Paris, 1857–1894)

PL

Migne, Patrologia Latina (Paris, 1844–1974)

PLRE 1

A. H. M. Jones, J. Martindale & J. Morris, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire 1: A.D. 260–395 (Cambridge, 1971)

PLRE 2

J. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire 2: A.D. 395–527 (Cambridge, 1980)

RE

Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. G. Wissowa and others (Stuttgart, 1893–1980)

RIC 6

C. H. V. Sutherland, The Roman Imperial Coinage 6: Diocletian to Maximinus A.D. 294–313 (London, 1967)

RIC 7

P. Bruun, The Roman Imperial Coinage 7: Constantine and Licinius A.D. 312/3–337 (London, 1966)

RIC 8

J. P. C. Kent, The Roman Imperial Coinage 8: The Family of Constantine I A.D. 337–364 (London, 1981)

SEG

Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (Amsterdam, 1923–)

Urkunde(n)

H.-G. Opitz, Urkunden zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites. Athanasius Werke 3.1.1-2 (Berlin & Leipzig, 1934–1941)

1

INTRODUCTION

In the preface to his novel about Helena, the mother of Constantine, Evelyn Waugh proclaimed that ‘the Age of Constantine is strangely obscure’ and that ‘most of the dates and hard facts, confidently given in the encyclopedias, soften and dissolve on examination.’ Similarly, Michael Grant began the preface to his book on Constantine by observing that ‘the problem of finding out about Constantine is an acute one’, then quoted these words of Evelyn Waugh before characterizing his own work as ‘another endeavor to walk over the same treacherous quicksands’ (Grant 1998: xi). In their assessment of the ancient evidence for Constantine, which Grant pronounced ‘wholly inadequate’ (Grant 1998: 13), both Waugh and Grant showed far superior judgement to professional historians of the Later Roman Empire who have recently written about the emperor and his place in history.

One such historian goes so far as to make the palpably false claim that ‘Constantine is one of the best documented of the Roman emperors, and a political narrative of his life and reign is straightforward enough’ (Van Dam 2007: 15), while another asserts that, if Constantine remains a problematical figure, it is not ‘because the events of his reign are obscured by a lack of relevant material’ (Lenski 2006b: 2). But the last period of Constantine’s reign from the surrender of the defeated Licinius on 19 September 324 to his own death on 22 May 337 is a truly dark period, in which the course of events is often obscure, except for the emperor’s movements, which can be reconstructed in detail (Barnes 1982: 76–80), and certain aspects of ecclesiastical politics, for which many original documents are preserved (Barnes 1981: 208–244; 1993a: 1–33). For the last third of Constantine’s reign, therefore, it is simply impossible to construct any sort of detailed military or political narrative. Nevertheless, it is possible to write a coherent and connected political and military narrative of the first third of Constantine’s reign (Chapters 4 and 5). Moreover, even if we know far less about Constantine than we do about other periods of Roman history such as the last decades of the Roman Republic, we can understand the basic outlines of his life and career before he became emperor, his political and military achievements as emperor, and his religious policies and attitudes – provided that we allow ourselves to be guided by the ancient evidence and do not seek to impose our own antecedent assumptions on its interpretation.

OFFICIAL LIES AND THE ‘CONSTANTINIAN QUESTION’

Constantine himself is in no small way responsible for creating many of the uncertainties about his religious convictions and religious policies which have been the subject of scholarly controversy since the sixteenth century. He was a highly skilful politician who, like all others of his breed, appreciated the necessity of using deceit in achieving his aims, and he had no compunction about eliminating those who obstructed his dynastic plans (Chapter 5). Moreover, he consistently employed propaganda in order to perpetuate deliberate falsehoods about both himself and important political and dynastic matters. Constantine’s subjects perforce accepted official falsehoods and reiterated them in public – and many no doubt genuinely believed them, as so often happens even in our modern world. Gross falsehoods put out by what may aptly be described as Constantine’s propaganda machine for contemporary consumption have also deceived many recent historians of Constantine and the Later Roman Empire – even those who prided themselves most on their critical acumen.

The prime (and most important) example of modern willingness to acquiesce in Constantine’s misrepresentation of basic facts without proper critical scrutiny is what ought to be the uncontroversial matter of his date of birth. Without exception, ancient authors who offer a figure state that Constantine was in his sixties when he died: according to Eusebius, for example, Constantine began to reign at the age when Alexander the Great died, lived twice as long as Alexander lived and twice as long as he himself reigned ( 1.8, 4.53). The explicit ancient evidence, therefore, unanimously and unambiguously places Constantine’s birth in the early 270s (Barnes 1982: 39–40), and the indirect evidence indicates that he was in fact born on 27 February 273 (Chapter 2). Otto Seeck, however, rejected this date and contended that 288 was almost certainly (‘ziemlich sicher’) the year of Constantine’s birth (1895: 407; 1922: 435–436), adducing five specific items of ­evidence, namely (i) the mosaic in the palace of Aquileia invoked in the Gallic panegyric of 307 (. 7[6].6.2i5); (ii) Eusebius’ report that he saw Constantine accompanying Diocletian in 301 or 302 when he was an adolescent ( 1.19, cf. Chapter 3); (iii) Constantine’s own statement that he was a mere boy in 303 (Eusebius, 2.51); and retrospective statements that the emperor was young when he came to power in 306, especially those of (iv) Nazarius in 321 (. 4[10].16.4: ) and (v) Firmicus Maternus in 337 ( 1.10.16). But the mosaic at Aquileia (i) probably depicted Constantine as a young man in 293, which is perfectly compatible with his being twenty at the time (Chapter 3), while Nazarius (iv), Firmicus Maternus (v) and Eusebius (ii) are merely repeating Constantine’s own deliberate misrepresentation for political reasons of how old he was in 303 and 306. In other words, it cannot be denied that contemporary writers presented Constantine in the last two decades of his life as being younger than he really was. Why? It is naive and simple-minded in the extreme to argue that ‘his precise age was apparently unknown,’ then to deduce from what Eusebius says that Constantine was ‘about thirteen or fourteen’ in 296 or 297 Jones in Jones & Skeat 1954: 196–197, slavishly repeated by Winkelmann 1962b: 203). That is not only to date the occasion when Eusebius saw Constantine at the side of Diocletian five years too early (Chapter 3), but to allow undue ­credence to an official untruth. Constantine himself deliberately lied about his age for political reasons.