As a permanent memorial to their success the citizens of Orcistus had inscribed their petition and the letters from Constantine on a large pillar that may have served as the pedestal for a statue of the emperor. Initially this monument had been erected to announce the autonomy of the city, warn off neighboring cities, and publicize the generosity of Constantine. It also commemorated the city's surprising good fortune. At a time when it was difficult to expect even a reply from imperial magistrates who were overwhelmed with requests, somehow this small city had received not one, but two favorable responses directly from the emperor himself.

Then the pillar faded into obscurity for well over a millennium, until Richard Pococke stumbled upon it during a trip through central Asia Minor in the late winter and early spring of 1740. In a large plain “of a very barren white clay” he discovered some ruins and a few inscriptions, “one of them in Latin … of the time of Constantine.” Almost a century later William Hamilton returned to the site and found the pillar again, but this time being used as a cornerstone in a new dam for a watermill. Because it was upside-down and under the falling water, he could read only enough of the inscription to confirm it was the one published by Pococke.

After his victory in 312 constantine initiated construction of a series of churches and shrines at Rome. The most impressive was an enormous monumental complex on the Vatican Hill. The approach to this complex eventually included an expansive courtyard and a porch leading to a large church dedicated to St. Peter. Within the church a transept divided the long central nave and its side aisles from the apse. In front of the apse, at the center of the transept, was a shrine commemorating the tomb of St. Peter. This church quickly became a favorite recipient of imperial patronage. Later traditions claimed that Constantine endowed it with extensive properties, and that he and his mother, Helena, presented the shrine with a large cross of gold.

Although primarily a remembrance of St. Peter, this church also commemorated Constantine. On the arch that separated the nave from the transept an inscription recalled his success and generosity. “Under your leadership the world has raised itself triumphant to the stars. As a result, Constantine the victor has built this hall for you.” With a dedication that attributed the emperor's military victories to God's guidance this arch became the equivalent of a Christian response to the Arch of Constantine that stood in the symbolic heart of the city. On that triumphal arch the senate and people of Rome had interpreted the emperor's victory in a “Republican” context as the liberation of the capital.

Julian was one of the few roman emperors who had carefully studied Roman history. During the summer of 362 he arrived at Antioch to prepare for an invasion of the Persian empire. In December the city's residents enjoyed the Saturnalia, a lively festival celebrated with games, gambling, and an inversion of social standing as masters and slaves temporarily exchanged roles. Such a raucous festival might have reminded Julian that his own career had been a bit “Saturnalian” in its unforeseen trajectory. As a young man he had avidly studied classical culture, presumably with the hope of becoming a sophist or a philosopher. Instead, and quite unexpectedly, the bookworm had become an emperor. But now, rather than contemplating his own wry twist of fate, Julian decided to evaluate and rank his predecessors on the imperial throne. In the midst of a festival that celebrated role reversal the emperor returned to his original scholarly vocation by writing history.

One of those predecessors was Constantine. Julian's recollections of his uncle were scarred by a painfully personal resentment. After Constantine's death in May 337 troops had murdered several of his relatives, including a half-brother who was Julian's father. One tradition claimed that Constantine himself had already ordered these executions after discovering a plot; Julian would eventually blame Constantius, one of the three sons of Constantine who had succeeded as emperors. Still only a little boy, Julian had been spared and allowed to grow up under the implacable supervision of his cousin Constantius.

In september 324 constantine finally defeated licinius and acquired control over the provinces surrounding the eastern Mediterranean. With this victory he had eliminated his last imperial rival and reunited the Roman empire. Constantine had not been in the East for almost twenty years, ever since he had left Nicomedia in mid-305 to join his father in Gaul. Now he was back at Nicomedia to accept Licinius' surrender. He quickly initiated a whirlwind of activity to establish his authority as the emperor in the East and his reputation as a patron of Christianity. Only two months later he consecrated the site of Byzantium in preparation for its transformation into the new capital of Constantinople. During the winter or perhaps in the spring of 325, he traveled across central Asia Minor twice, to and from Antioch. In May and June he participated in the large council of bishops that met at Nicaea. He then remained in or near Constantinople and Nicomedia until the spring of 326, when he traveled to Italy.

During Constantine's journeys locals along the road in Asia Minor would have had firsthand opportunities to meet him and members of his entourage, or at least learn about his preferences. The accession of a new emperor offered a propitious opportunity for cities and individuals to present petitions and make requests for new honors, new titles, and new amenities.

During the third and early fourth centuries emperors may not have resided long or often in Rome, but they did not entirely neglect it either. The city and its empire were thought to have been synonymous from the beginning, and in the later fourth century one historian would credit Romulus, the mythical first king, as the founder of both Rome and the Roman empire. In this perspective the empire was as old as the city, and to rule one implied accepting responsibility for the other.

Despite their frequent military campaigns on the frontiers, during the later third century most emperors still acknowledged the prestige of Rome and patronized its inhabitants. When Maximian arrived in the late 290s, the “Roman people” mobbed him already outside the city's walls. When Diocletian visited in 303, he brought along spoils from the East, including thirteen elephants that had most likely been captured from the Persians. The culmination of this beneficial relationship was the announcement of the completion of the gigantic Baths of Diocletian in the north of the city, which Diocletian, Maximian, and the successor Tetrarchs dedicated to “their Romans.” These most recent emperors were now competing with the achievements of their predecessors in the one city with a long enough history of aristocratic munificence and imperial patronage to keep a scorecard. According to one retrospective survey, “each emperor, past and present, wanted to build something in Rome, and each of them constructed some sort of monument in his own name.”

Diocletian was yet another in the long line of usurpers during the third century who became emperors through military coups. After the mysterious death of the emperor Numerianus in Bithynia, military commanders selected Diocletian, a fellow officer, as emperor in the East in late 284. By the next spring he and his troops were poised for a battle with the emperor Carinus, Numerianus' brother, near the middle Danube. After his victory Diocletian had to face occasional rival usurpers and barbarian unrest on the frontiers. He responded by selecting fellow emperors to share his rule. Already later in 285 he appointed Maximian as a junior emperor, and in the next year he promoted him as a co-emperor who shared his title of Augustus. In 293 these two senior emperors appointed two junior emperors, Constantius and Galerius, each with the title of Caesar. Diocletian's reign was known for his ruthless suppression of challengers and his generous promotion of co-emperors into a Tetrarchy, a college of four emperors. This odd combination of repression and collegiality was successful, and Diocletian's long reign of more than twenty years restored stability to imperial rule.

It is doubtful whether Diocletian had a plan for a Tetrarchy from the beginning, either in its institutional details or as a derivative from earlier examples of shared emperorship. His immediate objectives were deeply practical: survival as an emperor, legitimation of his authority, effective administration of a vast state, reform of the system of taxation, and protection of the beleaguered frontiers.

an early interest in classical studies led me instead to late antiquity. As an undergraduate I was fortunate to study with a classics professor who enjoyed reading patristics texts; as a graduate student I wrote my doctoral dissertation under the supervision of a distinguished historian of the later Roman empire. Their direction expanded my sense of antiquity to include early Christianity and early medieval and early Byzantine history. Now their influence lives on in my own teaching and research. As a teacher I assign my students to read books and articles by Dick Whittaker, my dissertation supervisor. As a researcher I consult volumes of church fathers from the library of Bob Otten, my undergraduate classics professor. At Caesarea in Palestine scholars such as Jerome studied in the great library founded by Origen and augmented by bishop Eusebius. Among the books they read were the writings of Origen and Eusebius. All of us who work as professors deeply appreciate this fulfilling sense of intellectual continuity from our teachers to our students.

Courses on the Roman empire, late antiquity, early Christianity, medieval history, and Byzantine history without fail include Constantine. Since one delight of teaching such courses is the anticipation of the inevitable arguments, over the decades the best critics of my ideas about Constantine and his age have been students, both undergraduates and graduates. During the past several years it has been my privilege to enjoy the company of a remarkable group of graduate students here at the University of Michigan.

Eusebius completed his life of constantine after the emperor's funeral in 337 and near the end of his own long life. By then of course he had a longstanding reputation as a historian, the author of Chronicle and Ecclesiastical History. But the primary composition of those historical works had been decades in the past, and even the most recent revisions were by now quite dated. The final entry in his revised Chronicle had mentioned the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Constantine's reign in 325–326, and the final revisions to History had perhaps included the deletion of references to Crispus, Constantine's oldest son, after his execution in 326. For the narrative of Constantine's early years in Life, Eusebius of course used his History as a source and often simply repeated his earlier account with a few alterations. But by the time he compiled his Life of Constantine, writing history was not his most pressing concern.

Instead, Eusebius spent his final years defending himself and his non-Nicene doctrines. By then one primary opponent was Marcellus, the bishop of Ancyra who was a devoted champion of Nicene theology. Eusebius composed both a merciless critique of Marcellus' doctrines and an extended treatise, entitled Ecclesiastical Theology, that presented his own theology. At about the same time that he was writing these theological treatises, he was composing Life. This context suggests that Eusebius was writing Life with theology, not history, predominantly on his mind.

Orcistus used yet another shrewd tactic in its petition. This tactic was unstated but readily apparent: the petition was in Latin. In its petition Orcistus described itself as located on the frontier between eastern Phrygia and western Galatia. In this borderland several languages were common. The native language of Phrygian remained in use well into the Roman empire. Not only were some dedications inscribed in Phrygian, but in the later fourth century a bishop whose mother was from the region was still able to preach in Phrygian. Latin was the language of Roman imperial administration. Some local inscriptions were in Latin, primarily milestones and some of the dedications to emperors. The imperial slaves and freedmen who settled in Nacolea presumably used Latin in their official communications, and one freedman inscribed some of the provisions of his will in Latin. But “in Phrygia Latin never became a popular language.” Greek culture trumped imperial administration, even Roman administration. The common spoken language, certainly for local notables and probably for most ordinary people too, was now Greek, and most municipal and private inscriptions in the region were in Greek.

LANGUAGE OF CULTURE AND LANGUAGE OF POWER

Since languages were such pointed indicators of essential ideas about power, administration, culture, and religion, their imposition and interaction were always contested. As in other empires, the use of a new, unfamiliar language was a sign of cultural and political domination, as the conquerors insisted that the conquered conform to their preferences, or as new subjects decided it was to their advantage to follow the lead of their rulers.

Within classical greek culture perhaps no poems were more venerated than the Iliad and the Odyssey. Because of their prestige, these Homeric epics soon became revered texts for religious mythologies and political ideologies. In the Roman empire the citation of a single verse from the Iliad still offered an opportunity both to comment on political affairs and to shape them. The Iliad had once described a challenge to king Agamemnon's leadership over the Greek coalition that was resolved with the assertion that he had received his scepter directly from Zeus. In the early first century the emperor Gaius alluded to this dispute when he announced that “there should be one ruler and one basileus.” In its immediate context, a quarrel among bickering client kings, this citation seemed quite relevant, since the emperor was clearly establishing his priority as the dominant basileus, “king.” Yet in a larger context Gaius' citation of this Homeric verse was also quite disconcerting, because the legitimating ideology of the newly established emperors had emphasized their restoration of the old Roman Republic, whose own political ideology had always opposed the revival of a kingship. Gaius' use of this quotation was hence openly supportive of his imperial authority and implicitly subversive to the prevailing Republican political ideology.

Eventually basileus became the standard Greek term for “emperor” in the eastern provinces, and people could cite this verse without concern for its overtones about kingship. Yet this Homeric verse retained its potentially challenging implications.

Eusebius of caesarea refused to concede any continuity between Constantine, the first Christian emperor, and the Tetrarchs, his pagan predecessors who had initiated persecutions of the Christians. In his biography of the emperor he instead preferred comparisons with a biblical hero. As a model for the experiences of the young Constantine he highlighted the early life of the Old Testament lawgiver Moses, a foundling who had grown up among foreign “tyrants” before abruptly fleeing their plots. Constantine's conversion to Christianity was supposedly just as sudden, the consequence of a stunning vision before his battle outside Rome in 312. Eusebius' punctuation of the emperor's early reign with a sharp, discontinuous moment retains its powerful influence on modern interpretations, and not only of Constantine. This fascination with the novelty of Constantine's support for Christianity affects our evaluation of the antecedents of his reign too. In terms of structural features, such as the imperial administration, its offices, and its magistrates, Diocletian and Constantine can be said to have shared a “new empire.” In terms of personal religious beliefs, however, only Constantine was new. The conventional emphasis on the abruptness of his conversion and the fundamental differences between his religious policies and those of his Tetrarchic predecessors highlights the impression of significant contrast, sudden change, even bold disjunction at the beginning of his reign.

During the early fourth century the teachings of Arius and like-minded theologians offered many attractive qualities. These theologians were careful interpreters of Scripture, and they respectfully used numerous biblical citations and allusions to support their doctrines about the essential subordination of Jesus Christ the Son to God the Father. They argued that God's preexistent Logos and Sophia, “Word” and “Wisdom,” were not merely divine attributes but had been embodied as a distinct divine entity, the Son. They invoked the authority of earlier distinguished theologians. They engaged with the concepts of classical philosophers. They were concerned about the practical concerns of ordinary believers and defined appropriate doctrines of soteriology and ecclesiology. With its appeals to the Bible, tradition, reason, and discipleship, Arian theology would have made a perfectly respectable orthodox Christianity. In retrospect, modern historians of doctrine would have seen its enshrinement as orthodoxy as a logical, even necessary, outcome of the theological trends of early Christianity.

Instead, Arianism ended up reviled as thoroughly heterodox, “the prince of heresies.” The council of Nicaea in 325 accepted the fundamental coordination of God and Jesus Christ; it also set the tone of vicious antagonism by supplementing its creed with anathemas that pointedly detonated Arius' teachings. Despite this hostility, Arian and neo-Arian doctrines nevertheless survived and even flourished. During the mid-fourth century Arianizing bishops were more successful at acquiring imperial patronage, including the support of Constantine, Constantius, and Valens, and for a time Arianizing theology (in the guise of Homoian Arian doctrines) seemed on the verge of success.

The best complete edition of the petition from orcistus and Constantine's responses is by W. M. Calder in MAMA 7:69–72, no. 305, with rather murky photographs in Plate 20. The English translation in Johnson, Coleman-Norton and Bourne (1961) 240–1, no. 304, is based on Calder's text. Chastagnol (1981a) 384–91, essentially reprints Calder's text and provides a French translation; Feissel (1999) 256–57, likewise reprints Calder's text, but also provides an improved edition of Document 1. The text printed and translated here combines Feissel's edition of Document 1 with Calder's edition of the other documents.

Earlier editions include Th. Mommsen, in CIL 3.1 (1873) 63–66, no. 352, and again (with O. Hirschfeld and A. Domaszewski) in CIL 3, Supplementum 1 (1902) 1266–68, no. 7000; Mommsen (1887) 316–18; H. Dessau, in ILS 2.1:526–27, no. 6091 (only Constantine's two letters); Abbott and Johnson (1926) 491–93, no. 154; and Riccobono (1941) 462–64, no. 95.

The dating of these documents covers the spectrum from exact to a bit speculative. The date for the first petition (Document 3) at the beginning of the process can be narrowed to sometime within a period of about eighteen months. The salutation of the petition addressed Constantine as “Maximus [‘the Greatest’], Victor, always Augustus.” According to Eusebius, after his victory over Licinius in September 324 Constantine took this commemorative title of Victor “as the most appropriate name for himself because of the victory that God had given him over all his opponents and enemies.”

In order to differentiate itself from nacolea, one argument that Orcistus used in this petition was an appeal to religious affiliation. Constantine himself noted that this plea was the climax of the petition, and he seems to have been quoting or paraphrasing when he stated in his letter “that all are said to reside there as supporters of the most holy religion.” This description was obviously rather vague. In fact, if somehow the inscribed version of this dossier had been mutilated so that the salutations were lost and the letters and petition were anonymous, it would be quite possible to interpret this description of the people of Orcistus in terms of a general affiliation to some pagan cult, certainly something other than Christianity. Perhaps the people of Orcistus were unsure about how to approach Constantine.

TOLERATION AND PERSECUTION

Recent history would have made them wary. In the eastern empire Diocletian, his fellow Tetrarch Galerius, and their successors had been quite inconsistent in their pronouncements about religions. Not only had they promoted pagan cults and ordered the persecution of Christians, but they had also flip-flopped repeatedly in their religious policies. Even when Constantine's immediate predecessors had articulated and tried to enforce clear religious preferences, none of their policies had lasted long without further modifications.

Although he had a reputation for his scrupulous preservation of “the most traditional of religions,” for most of his reign Diocletian had apparently been prepared to tolerate Christianity: “persecution was not part of Diocletian's grand design for the Roman Empire.”

After his execution john the baptist had been buried, according to legend, in Sebaste (formerly Samaria), on the west bank of the Jordan River. During the reign of Julian opponents of Christianity desecrated his tomb and scattered his bones. According to the historian Rufinus, monks from Jerusalem were able to collect John's venerable relics and bring them back to their monastery. They then sent the relics for safekeeping to Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria. According to the historian Sozomen, monks from Jerusalem who had migrated to Cilicia eventually found John's head. The emperor Valens ordered it to be brought to Constantinople, but it was moved only as far as a village near Chalcedon. Toward the end of his reign the emperor Theodosius visited this village and took the head to Constantinople. By then John the Baptist was being hailed as a revered founder of monasticism and the ascetic lifestyle. Now a disheveled prophet who had once lived on locusts and wild honey in the wilderness was honored in a new church at the eastern capital.

Eusebius had concluded the final edition of his Ecclesiastical History with Constantine's victory over his last imperial rival. Once it became apparent in subsequent years that Christianity would continue to enjoy imperial support, much of his history of the early church had to be reconsidered. That reevaluation included the significance of Constantine. Eusebius himself, in his Life of the emperor and his panegyrics, acknowledged the need for reassessment by essentially equating Constantine with Jesus Christ.