Constantine ------------Roma-Antica !

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“Constantine restored to the Senate the authority it had lost during the time of Caesar.”

Roman Emperor Constantine’s administrative reforms returned the obsolete Senate to levels of power it had not enjoyed since the Principate. Diocletian’s Dominate had seen Senators and Patricians stripped of high offices, provincial commands and military postings, with the pressing defence needs of the Third Century necessitating strong military leadership for the legions. Constantine reversed this trend of favouring the Equestrian (middle) class over the Patricians, while simultaneously elevating existing Equestrian post holders to the ranks of the Patricians. The Senate could now elect Praetors and Quaestors, restoring the support of the old aristocracy to Constantine. His attempt to better integrate the Imperial Court with the Senate may have been a ploy to ensure their loyalty at a time of religious upheaval, ensuring the Conservative oligarchs did not opposed him as he phased out the old Roman pantheon and slowly turned the empire towards Christ.

Another challenge Constantine faced was one of economic inflation, a problem that had plagued the empire for over a century. One of the causes of the Crisis of the Third Century was runaway inflation, with debasement of coinage failing to arrest the slide. Diocletian tried to establish trustworthy minting of silver coins, as corruption at the mints reducing the silver content caused people to lose trust in currency. While new coins were issued, Diocletian did not go far enough in removing old coins from circulation, and thus the empire was left with a confusing mix of coins, all ostensibly worth the same, though varying wildly in metal composition and thus actual value. Constantine disbanded Diocletian’s new silver coinage, and instead invested in pure gold coinage, the solidus, of which 72 made a pound of gold. The silver coins were instead replaced by various denominations of lesser value bronze coins, though this still failed to address the issue. A new problem was the rising class inequality, with poorer classes paid with lower value coins at face value, while merchants refused to accept them at the same value due to the reduced silver content, while the rich could instead invest in the stability of gold coinage. While inflation ran rampant in the later empire and the value of lower coinage fluctuated wildly, it was gold coinage that offered stability and held its value. Constantine’s monetary reforms were enabled by his confiscation of precious metals from pagan temples, turning the statues, gifts and donations that had remained in these temples for generations into new currency.

Militarily, Constantine spent much of his tenure campaigning against Germanic tribes beyond the Danube. In 328, Constantine’s Bridge at Sucidave (Celei, Romania) was erected to help reconquer Dacia, captured at great endeavour by Trajan in the early Second Century only to be abandoned by Aurelian 150 years later, owing to being too difficult to defend being north of the Danube. 332 was spent campaigning against the Sarmatians and the Goths, with a lack of food for the latter seeing them lose 100,000 men. Camps and fortifications in the region show how Constantine’s influence was extended north of the Danube, and defeated Sarmatians were resettled as farmers in the depopulated Illyria.

Following his successes against the Germanic tribes, Constantine began preparing for a grand campaign against the Sassanid Empire. He wrote to Shapur asserting his patronage over all of Persia’s Christians, urging good treatment of them. He sent his son Constantius to defend against border raids in 335, and in 336 Prince Naresh invaded Armenia, which had become the world’s first Christian kingdom in 301, installing a Persian client king. Constantine treated the looming war as a religious crusade, with bishops accompanying the legions and a tent following the army acting as a church. Constantine himself planned to be baptised in the Jordan, as Christ had, and Sassanid diplomats arriving at Constantinople in 336 were dismissed. The campaign was called off however when Constantine’s health began to deteriorate in early 337. Now was the time for the emperor to get his affairs in order, and to seek forgiveness for his many sins – including the killing of members of his own family.