Constantine the Great Video Lecture

Hello, I'm here to present my presentation topic on Constantine the Great. He was born between 272 and 285 CE, although because it wasn't properly recorded, a lot of historians disagree on when he was actually born. More tend to favor 272, but there is an age range that he could have been born. His full name is Gaius Flavius Valerius Constantius, and that's named after his father, who is Flavius Valerius Constantius, and his mother, Saint Helena, who became a saint from a later pilgrimage to the Holy Land in about 326. He was raised in Emperor Diocletian's imperial court, so he was exposed to the language of Latin, and he also learned from a previous ruler that it was a ruler's job to defend the empire from any external force and create a just and ordered society, so he was very taught that emperors had to be strict and their job is unity over anything else. So for his military experience, he fought alongside his father towards like his later teenage, early 20s years throughout Europe and Asia, and he built a and being able to act without mercy and being very brutal if necessary to get the job done. And because of this, the army that he was with claimed him as emperor after his father had died, so he became kind of emperor of the western half of the Roman Empire. Like I said before, the multitude of military victories that he had accomplished really set him up for success because he won against a lot of enemies that were very difficult to defeat at the time, like the Franks, the Samaritans, the Goths, and society viewed him as someone who could unite the fractured Roman Empire because this gave him political strength due to his military strength. Because like I said previously, the Roman Empire was split into two, so people really wanted a strong leader to unite those fractured parts. The Battle of Milovan in 312 CE was won against Maxentius who, like I said previously, was the emperor of the eastern half because Constantine was emperor of the western half, so Maxentius was viewed as a threat to Constantine and he basically just had to battle so he could be the overarching ruler. And he does win this battle of Constantine, so he becomes the sole ruler of the Roman Empire, and he attributes this success in military to his conversion to Christianity and the support of the Christian God, which was not the most popular at the time, but he really believed that because of his Christian faith, that is one of the reasons that they were so powerful in battle. So relating back to that last winning from the Battle of Milovan, Constantine received basically a sign from God on the battlefield, so basically he saw a vision of a cross in the light and this message of, in this sign you will conquer, so he put this Cairo emblem, which is supposed to mean Christ, and kind of signified as a cross on a lot of their shields and banners to kind of represent Christianity and Christians fighting for God. There's this thing called Nicaea Conference at 325 CE, and basically the point of that was to assemble a bunch of Christian bishops to be a council and discuss in detail and try to establish a consensus on the church and what all of Christendom should be, so to kind of create a sense of unity because there were many different factions and in the time of, they had previously been persecuted by Emperor Nero, so having a strong front and being unified was really important to not only these bishops and leaders of the church, but also Constantine himself because he was ruling over all these lands at the time. And through this conference they reached the Nacene Creed, which is basically some of the simple principles of Christianity that became accepted by all the different churches within the Christian realm. Towards the end of his life he was baptized and the reason that he waited until he was on his deathbed in 337 CE was it was less danger of polluting his soul with sin because as emperor he has to make tough choices that are not considered very Christian ideals and by waiting till the end of his life he has better chances of getting into heaven. As an emperor, he was a Roman emperor between 306 and 337 CE. This makes him the second longest serving emperor of the empire after Emperor Nero. One major move he did is he moved the capital and renamed it as Constantinople and the whole vision was to make it a second Rome because Rome at the time was not serving the purposes of being the center of government and he chose Constantinople as a strategic location because it's the natural harbor between Europe and Asia which made it like a really good port and wealthy city. He demonstrated religious tolerance throughout his military times but also once he became emperor he signed the Edict of Milan which proclaimed religious liberty throughout the empire and although that's very broad it basically was meant to protect Christians in a way because he believed with free minds all are to worship their gods so giving Christians this protection that they had previously not had before and just religious tolerance at this time was very important because you are in Rome and you're encompassing a lot of land and area that all these people different peoples might not have the same beliefs so do have their freedom to worship as they choose is really important. He maintained a role as active military commander by you know keeping up that prestige of a Christian army and fighting and really beating other peoples at the time and one of the ways he did this is he kept politicians and senators separate from the military because in previous emperor times a lot of emperors died from military coups because politicians became involved with the and then they became a little too powerful and found the emperors as threats so to kind of tame both the military and the senators and keep people in line he kind of kept them separate which was keeping state and like conquering a little separate which is really good. He also enforced religious harmony to achieve social harmony and one of the reasons he did that is because it is easier to rule people who get along and do not fight each other through a bunch of civil wars through kind of having people be able to practice their own personal beliefs and not feel threatened or scared that they are going to get attacked basically. Part of his lasting impact is he reunited the western and eastern halves of the empire because before during his time this shows a map of he slowly goes from west to east and gains all that territory and reunites this large empire that was previously divided. Really important for a little bit until the empire basically dissolves but at that time it was really important. Constantinople is a big one of became the core of the Byzantine empire. Basically it serves as this shield from Europe or it's this European shield that protects from later Muslim conquests and basically slows down the spread of Islam and eastern influences and lets Europe basically recover after the plague that is going to happen. He is remembered as the great because he was the first emperor to convert and adhere to Christianity and he practiced and basically served as tolerance and protection for Christians because having someone in such a high place of power really looking out for the best interests of people who were previously persecuted was really important and that pretty much helped spread Christianity from this point because it's really uncertain whether Christianity would be as big as it is now and as big as it was in the past if there was not a strong emperor in charge that really supported them and believed their same beliefs. Some discussion questions to think about are how do you believe Christianity affected Constantine's policies because it is kind of important to reflect that he was the first Christian emperor and probably was heavily affected or not affected like how do you think his faith affected his choices as an emperor and political leader and at the end was Constantine deserving of the title the great why or why not some people argue about it but although he is called the great you know we don't always we can have our own opinions and change our minds if it's through healthy debate. Here's my resources and I hope you guys enjoyed learning about Constantine the Great. Really cool guy.