Constantine did not spend much time in his new capital, partly because of his wars on the confines of the empire, but mainly because of his deep interest in making his government stable, his people happier, and to prevent by his presence the abuses which had been so common during the preceding century. Many of his laws show the influence of Christianity. He was the first to prohibit stringently the abduc tion of girls, to encourage the emancipation of slaves, and he enacted that manumission in the Church should have the same force as before state officials or by will. Constantine was ex tremely generous in almsgiving and for the adornment of Christian churches. He had a private chapel in his palace in which as Eusebius, a contemporary, tells us, "every day at a fixed hour, he shut himself up as if to assist God the sacred mysteries and commune with God alone, ardently beseeching Him on bended knees for his necessities." He did not become a Christian until the end of his life, remaining a catechumen himself, although he brought up his children as Christians. This de lay in baptism was not an unusual thing among adults, and Constantine retained something of the earlier Roman spirit exemplified so strongly in Diocletian that the emperor should be looked up to almost with worship, and seems to have hesitated about permitting himself• to be seen worshipping with others. At the end of his life, however, Constantine, feeling the approach of death, asked for baptism, declaring that fol lowing Christ's example, he had desired to receive that sacrament in the waters of the Jordan, but that God had ordained otherwise, and he would no longer delay. In the true spirit of Christian humility, he laid aside the imperial purple to await in the white robe of a neophyte peacefully for the end. The story of Constantine's life is the best contradiction of the assertion that he became a Christian from political motives.
Constantine made it a favorite task to build handsome Christian churches and no less than three in Rome come from him. These are the magnificent basilica of Constantine in the Forum which was to influence so deeply Chris tian architecture just then coming into prominence, Saint John Lateran and Saint Peter's. The Lateran was for many centuries the home of the Popes until they moved out to the Vatican. This latter was built in connec tion with the great church of Saint Peter on the site of Nero's Forum where, according to tradi tion, Saint Peter was put to death. Santa Maria Maggiore, or in English the Church of Saint Mary Major, was built shortly after Con stantine's time and is still nearly in the same condition so far as to columns and walls as it was some fifteen hundred years ago in the time of Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine. The ceiling is Renaissance but the church itself gives an excellent idea of how from the time of Constantine magnificent church edifices were erected.
In spite of the unfortunate results which had followed the custom established by Dio cletian of nominating a number of rulers, Con stantine partitioned the empire among his three sons. Constantinus ruled the West; Con stantius the East with Thrace in Europe, and Constans Italy, Africa and Western Illyria. As might have been expected hostilities broke out, in the midst of which two of the brothers perished, and in 353 Constantius was the sole ruling emperor. Attacked by the Persians in the East and the Allemani and the Franks in the West, he led the eastern army himself, but without success; while Julian, his cousin, who had married Helena, the daughter of Constantine the Great, defeated the German tribes in the West. Jealous of this success, the emperor ordered most of Julian's troops to join him in the East against the Persians, but they re fused, and proclaimed Julian emperor. Con
stantius at once set out to put an end to this encroachment upon his• power, but died at Tarsus in Silesia.
Julian succeeded to the empire as sole ruler, and felt that the only hope of securing the allegiance of his people was to put an end to Christianity, to reintroduce the old religion, and above all, reinstate the worship of the emperor as divine. Proclaiming himself Pontifex Maximus, he set himself up as supreme in religion as well as the State. Hence his title in history of Julian the Apostate. He did not directly persecute the Christians, though in the course of restoring pagan temples, he injured many churchs. He met at once with firm op position in Antioch when he attempted to bring back the worship of Apollo to the Laurel Grove of Daphne, turning out of it the buried bones of Christian martyrs. He felt that it was only by grafting on the old Paganism many of the main features of Christianity to which people had grown used, that there could be any success for his campaign. Above all, he saw very clearly that unless the poor were cared for as heartily as by the Christians, and unless pagan sensualism could be repressed and Christian self-control secured, his proposed change of religion would be helpless. Humility and poverty were two Christian virtues that he despised. He said bitter, scornful things of the Galilean and the 12 poor fishermen whom He had selected to convert the world. Julian's anti-Christian program was interrupted by death after only two years of ruling. The Persians, encouraged by their defeat of Con stantius, threatened his Eastern frontiers. He led an army against them as far as Ctesiphon, but was forced to retreat and was pursued by mounted enemies with the Parthian habit of attacking the rear guard but retreating as soon as it turned to face them. Julian fought bravely, but having laid aside his breastplate one day because of the heat of the country, an arrow pierced his breast. Realizing that his wound was fatal, he gathered some of the blood in his hand, it is told, and threw it toward heaven with the words: °Thou bast conquered, Galilean' His successor, Jovian, who reigned less than a year, restored Christianity to its former position in the empire. He preferred to make peace with the Persians,•giving them the whole of Mesopotamia as a peace offering. Jovian was succeeded by Valentinian after Sallustius had refused to accept the perilous post. Valentinian was a rough soldier but of sound practical wisdom, who associated with him in the empire Valens, to whom he en trusted the rule of the East, fixing his own capital at Milan. Valens became an Arian, that is a Christian who refused to recognize Christ as God. He persecuted the Christians, and especially Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, numbered among the Fathers of the Church, who had to flee from his diocese. Gratian, the son of Valentinian, had the good sense to call Theodosius, the son of a great general of the same name who had well defended the empire in Britain, to be commander-in-chief of the army, and made him Augustus. The empire was gradually being shaken to pieces by bar barian invaders. The Goths had defeated Valens near Adrianople and internal dissensions made it impossible to resist properly. Pre tenders to the empire, governors of provinces, set themselves up as tyrants, especially in Gaul and Britain, but under Theodosius, a stable government was secured once more. He well deserves the name of Great accorded him. He was the last emperor who reigned over the whole empire. He left two sons of whom Honorius reigned in the West and Arcadius in the East, after their father's death in 395.