Caesar's Lord, page 17
The greetings were polite as the guests bowed before Constantine and Crispus, both of whom were seated on ornate camp chairs beneath a shady awning. Obviously, the visitors had come to beg for mercy. The battle at Chrysopolis had been a total rout, with twenty-five thousand enemy soldiers slain after the surprise charge over the knoll broke their spirit. In the end, Licinius’s troops abandoned him, so he fled to Nicomedia. The Gothic mercenaries disappeared once they realized no loot was forthcoming. Now Licinius was holed up inside Nicomedia with a tiny garrison, surrounded by Constantine’s vast army. His defeat was certain. Victory was near.
“My husband is ready to acknowledge your sole reign over the empire,” Constantia declared after she greeted her brother with many compliments. “He is humbled and repentant for his odious misdeeds.”
“Mercy is the way of the Lord,” Eusebius added. He was a tall, skinny fellow with a beak-like nose and stringy white hair that draped to his shoulders. Constantine sensed in him the smooth aura of a political conniver. The two of them were distantly related, a connection the crafty bishop would no doubt exploit.
“Your words are true,” Constantine acknowledged to Eusebius, “but the Epistle to the Romans also grants the power of capital punishment to the governing authorities. It is how God executes judgment on wrongdoers. As a man of the scriptures, you surely know this.”
Before Eusebius could reply, Constantia turned and beckoned to her handmaids. They stepped aside and sent forth a short, thick-bodied person wearing a robe with a low-hanging hood. When the hood was pulled back, the person was revealed to be Licinius Junior. “Have mercy on your little nephew!” Constantia cried. “He needs a father!”
Constantine grimaced at what felt like an emotional ploy from his sister. Nevertheless, he agreed with the basic premise that Jesus Christ asked his followers to demonstrate extravagant mercy. “Take heart,” he said in a kindly voice. “If Licinius the Elder will lie prostrate before me and swear loyalty, his life and that of his son will be spared. You shall live sequestered lives at Thessalonica, adequately cared for, though restricted to your dwelling. This I swear before God.”
The sound that escaped Constantia’s lips was a spontaneous squeal of relief. “Oh! Bless you, kind brother!”
“Go in peace,” the emperor said.
As the emissaries from the city prepared to return, Crispus stopped Eusebius with a sharp command. “Wait, bishop!” Eusebius reluctantly turned back toward the stern-faced caesar. “Why did you support Licinius in this great war?”
“Your Majesty, he was the emperor of my territory. What else was I to do?”
“Licinius was a persecutor of your flock! A shedder of Christian blood! A man of obscene morals! What do you mean, ‘What else was I to do?’ You should have resisted this pagan persecutor like bishops have been doing for centuries! The blood of the martyrs cries out against you. When the hired hand sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and the wolf pounces. But the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
“I was hoping . . . that is, I asked God to let me keep my friendship with Licinius so I could—”
“So you could what? Face no danger? Shed no blood yourself? Keep your riches?”
“It was a strategy, Your Highness! When the persecution passed, I would be able to—”
“Be quiet!” Crispus ordered with his palm outstretched. “The prophet Jeremiah proclaims this word against you: ‘Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!’ Because of your dereliction of duty, Eusebius, you shall not preside at the thanksgiving service one week hence.”
A red flush rose to the clergyman’s face, suggesting both anger and shame. “Then who will lead it?”
“Bishop Ossius of Corduba, a man of true piety and wisdom, will celebrate the Eucharist. Now be gone from us, sir, before you are stripped of your clerical office altogether.”
As the humiliated bishop turned to go, Constantine observed, “That was a stern rebuke, my son.”
“Yet it was warranted, I believe. The blood of the martyrs is nothing to treat lightly.”
Constantine nodded at this but said nothing. Privately, though, he marveled at his son’s knack for discerning the spiritual ramifications of things that he himself often missed. What a fine Christian augustus this young man is going to be! I will be honored to turn things over to him on my deathbed.
A busy week passed during which Constantine entered Nicomedia and took up residence in the lavish palace of Diocletian. It was Emperor Diocletian who, forty years ago, had organized the fourfold system for governing the empire. But now that Imperial College was gone. Once again, Rome’s vast domains had only one emperor ruling over them. And Constantine intended to let everyone know that the single emperor of the single empire had a single God. Christian monotheism, not pagan polytheism, was the future of Rome.
On the day of the thanksgiving service, Constantine and Crispus greeted Bishop Ossius in the reception hall at the palace. He was a distinguished Spaniard with silver locks and a debonair quality about him. Yet he was no superficial dandy. Everyone acknowledged the man’s profound intellect and mature Christian piety. Crispus’s former tutor, Lactantius, accompanied the Spanish bishop.
“Step out here to the balcony,” Constantine invited his guests. “You must see the view.”
As the four men went outside, they were met with a glorious vista of Nicomedia and the sea called the Propontis. But even more glorious was the view of the Christian basilica that had recently been rebuilt atop a nearby hill. Lactantius, in particular, seemed moved by the sight. “It’s beautiful!” he exclaimed. “How well I remember when the great persecution started. What a terrible day that was, my brethren! The church that stood there was torn down by the Praetorian Guard with sledgehammers and axes. Everything was ransacked. The scriptures were burned. And then the blood of the martyrs began to flow across the empire.”1
Constantine shook his head and smiled broadly, gesturing with both of his palms lifted to heaven. “No more! From now on, everything shall be just the opposite. The church is standing strong, martyrdom has ended, and the Christians who were banished to the mines or stripped of their properties are being restored. It is a day for celebration!”
“Glory to God in the highest,” Ossius said. The foursome nodded reverently, then went back inside and prepared to head over to the church.
When they arrived, the basilica was decorated with elegant tapestries and golden lampstands. Constantine did not assume the central seat in the apse, for that chair was reserved for a man of the clergy. Instead, he and Crispus remained standing like the rest of the congregation. They took up places near the rail where the congregants came to receive the bread and wine from the hands of the deacons, or even from Ossius himself.
The Spanish bishop gave a brief yet eloquent sermon on the theme of thanksgiving. The Greek verb eucharisteo, he said, was uttered at the Last Supper when Jesus “gave thanks” as he broke the bread and distributed the cup. The Holy Eucharist was named for, and pointed toward, this supreme reason for Christian thanksgiving.
After the scripture readings and homily were finished, the service moved into the Eucharistic liturgy itself. In solemn procession, the faithful came forward to receive the bread and wine. Constantine watched the service unfold without moving. Since he had not yet been baptized, he could not partake. Yet as he considered the beautiful surroundings, he decided it might be nice—at some distant point in the future—to be baptized in this magnificent church at Nicomedia. He wasn’t sure, though, who could perform the ceremony now that the local bishop had been shamed. It was a question for another day.
A man who looked vaguely familiar came forward to meet Ossius and receive the communion bread. His wife was beside him, holding his hand. Constantine scrutinized the fellow for a moment, trying to place him. And then he remembered: the furniture maker from Thessalonica! The last time Constantine had seen this man, he was bedraggled from hard travel and his tortured hand was sorely infected. Now he was here at Nicomedia, working for the furniture guild and passing on his lore. He was clean, healed, and happy again.
“This is the body of Christ for you,” Ossius intoned, offering the fragment.
“Thanks be to God,” replied the furniture maker as he took the bread into his fingerless palm and passed it to his mouth. “The pagans who assaulted us are defeated. The empire is ruled by a Christian. I never thought I would see such a day as this!”
1. Lactantius recorded this story in his book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, ch. 12. A translation of his Latin text appears in my book Early Christian Martyr Stories: An Evangelical Introduction with New Translations (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014), 142.
5
NOVEMBER 324
The four oxen chosen for the holy duties today were completely white, symbolizing their purity and perfection. But Constantine didn’t intend to shed their blood like was done in so many pagan rituals, or even like the Jews when their temple still stood in Hierusalem. Instead, the four oxen, yoked in pairs, were about to do their normal work: plow a straight line through the earth.
The whole imperial family stood before the main gate on Byzantium’s landward side. Unlike when Constantine was here last—encamped on a knoll while attacking the massive walls in a siege—the gate now stood open to its rightful ruler. The road that emerged from the gate was the beginning of the great highway called the Egnatian Way. Constantine gazed down its length toward the west, marveling that it ran all the way to the coast of the Adriatic Sea. From there, it was but a short sail to the boot heel of Italy, then up the Appian Way to Rome. In a very real sense, the rising city of Byzantium was linked to the old capital by the paving stones beneath the emperor’s feet.
Shaking away his musings about symbolic geography, Constantine returned his attention to the matter at hand. The ancient ceremony planned for the day was called a “delineation,” the marking of sacred lines where new city walls would rise. It was time to expand the size of Byzantium. The crowd of onlookers, well-wishers, and imperial functionaries all wanted to know how far out from the old walls Constantine would draw the new line.
“Shall we be going?” Empress Helena asked. It was a chilly day, and she was shivering in her fur-lined shawl. “The carriage awaits. And truth be told, I’m freezing.”
“You should ride in the coach with Fausta and the boys, Mother. Crispus and I shall ride in the saddle like generals.”
The imperial procession set out with the royal carriage leading the way. Behind them was Constantine on an Arabian stallion whose tack was tasseled and gilded. He rode side by side with his son, who was on a Spanish mare in similar array. Then came the various palace bureaucrats, bodyguards, and civic leaders of Byzantium. Behind them walked the two pair of oxen with their handlers. A crowd of curious commoners brought up the rear.
When they reached the first milestone on the Egnatian Way, everyone expected the procession to stop. This was already much farther out than anyone had guessed the line would be drawn. The peninsula on whose tip Byzantium had been founded grew wider as a traveler moved inland. So with each passing footstep toward the west, the city grew bigger, not only along its east-west axis but also north to south as the peninsula widened. A massive new territory was being incorporated into ancient Byzantium—and that was just what Constantine wanted. He signaled for the journey to continue past the first milestone.
At a mile and a half, Crispus turned to his father as they rode through the suburban countryside. “This is quite a new city you’re making here,” he observed. “The newcomers will have plenty of room to build their houses. How far out do you plan to go?”
Constantine smiled and indicated the carriage ahead of him. “That’s your fussy grandmother riding up there. She’ll want to stretch her legs at some point. I’ll just keep going until she who goes before me decides to stop—and we shall call that God’s will!”
The emperor’s prediction proved true at just past the two-mile mark. The coach halted and Helena alighted from it, followed by Fausta and her two eldest sons. Everyone called eight-year-old Constantine II “Secundus” to differentiate him from his father. The other boy had the similar-sounding name of Constantius. Fortunately, another family namesake wasn’t present today to add to the confusion: Constantine’s fourth son, Constans, was still just a toddler.
“How much farther must we go?” Helena asked as she smoothed her rumpled gown. “The road is rather bumpy out here.”
Constantine glanced around at the beautiful countryside, then looked back at the thin line of the city walls two miles behind him. “This is the spot!” he proclaimed as he leapt down from the saddle with a spear in his hand. “Here the new walls of Byzantium shall rise!”
Bending to the earth, Constantine used his spear to carve a long line in the soil. Its northern end pointed to the coastline that met the estuary called the Golden Horn. The southern end of the line pointed toward the waters of the Propontis. To the east, the existing city faced the Bosporous Strait and the continent of Asia. And to the west, the Egnatian Way continued on to Rome.
After drawing a short intersecting line, Constantine planted his spear at the center of the cross. “My new Christian capital shall be a crossroads,” he declared to those who had crowded around him. “By land, Europe is joined here to Asia. By sea, the Mediterranean is joined to the Euxine. And while the landscape you see all around is rural, it won’t be for long! I am decreeing that a new senate shall be formed in this city. Any aristocrat from Italy who wishes to move here will be granted free land. Soon, people will be flocking here from afar. Byzantium will become the jewel of the world, a city with a glorious future!”
After these rousing words were met with approval from the onlookers, the two teams of oxen were brought to the cross in the earth. They were hitched to plows, facing opposite directions. Then at Constantine’s command, one team began to cut a furrow to the north while the other proceeded south.
“Do not stop until you reach water,” he ordered the plowmen as the oxen moved away. Then he added, “Let the masons start building the wall tomorrow.”
“I’m freezing,” Helena complained. “It’s so cold today.”
Constantine gave his mother his own cape in addition to hers. “Let’s get you home,” he said kindly, then the procession turned around and headed back into the city that was about to quadruple in size.
Two days later, the weather was much warmer when chariot races were scheduled for Byzantium’s impressive hippodrome. Originally built by Septimius Severus to placate the citizens after he besieged their city during a rebellion, the giant racetrack was able to seat almost as many spectators as the Circus Maximus in Rome. Unfortunately, it was now 120 years old and showing signs of decay. As Constantine surveyed the massive edifice, he decided it could use an overhaul. If properly refurbished, the place could be truly magnificent.
Constantine turned to his wife as they sat in the imperial box and watched the chariots circle the spine in the track. “What do you think?” he asked. “Should I make this place my first priority?”
“It must be second after the walls,” Fausta replied. “A city needs stout walls, or the next warlord to come along will ruin all the work you’ve done.”
Crispus leaned over and joined the conversation. “Put the walls second and the hippodrome third. Make the Church of Holy Peace your first priority. Then everything else will fall into place.”
Although Fausta rolled her eyes at this pious advice, Constantine thought it had merit. “So many competing priorities! But yes, God must come first.”
When all the chariot races were finished, the Greens had won the day over the Blues, Whites, and Reds. The drivers were awarded trophies and rewards, while up in the stands, the spectators exchanged the money they had won or lost in their betting. But the day’s festivities weren’t over yet. Constantine had three great surprises in store for the people who had assembled.
A trumpet fanfare rang out, signaling to the crowd that all talking should cease. In the hush that followed, Constantine stepped to the front of the imperial box and began to speak in a loud voice. The acoustics of the hippodrome were such that his voice carried for a long distance, allowing thousands of people to hear him. And he knew that whatever he said would be passed along to those in the farthest seats, like sparks borne along by the wind.
After a warm greeting that expressed his paternal affection for the populace, Constantine began to make the announcements he had planned for the day. “For many centuries, everyone in Rome has received a daily ration of grain so that no man has to work for his daily bread. The people here deserve the same. Therefore I proclaim to you that from now on, the citizens of Byzantium shall receive a grain dole just like the Romans!”
The cheer that erupted at this amazing announcement went on for a very long time. Constantine took the opportunity to have Crispus and Secundus come and stand on either side of him. When the trumpets had finally quieted the crowd again, he proceeded to the second of his three announcements. “Behold!” he cried. “Your two caesars stand to the right and left of your augustus. But did not the great Diocletian devise a college of four? It must be so again! Today I elevate Constantius to the rank of caesar as well. And to commemorate this moment, every person in this hippodrome will receive a silver coin bearing his image!”
Once again, the cheering was almost unstoppable. Little Constantius, only seven years old and wide-eyed with wonder, came and stood in front of his father and two brothers at the railing of the imperial box. The exuberant spectators waved at him, and he waved back with boyish enthusiasm. Constantine beamed at the joyful proceedings, rejoicing in the knowledge that the people would forever associate his third son with a silver coin that had brought something nice into their homes.
The trumpets blared repeatedly, until a hush returned to the expectant crowd. Now Constantine was ready for his third and final announcement. “A thousand years ago, the great sailor Byzas came to this region from faraway Graecia, looking for a place to settle. He could see that this spot could command two seas and two continents. Since that day, the city of Byzantium has borne his name. But my people, listen to me! Today it is time to set aside the old and embrace the new. It is time for the west to give way to the east. And so, as your father of the fatherland, I proclaim that henceforth this city shall be the empire’s new capital. From now on, it shall be called New Rome!”
