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Constantine the Great ((ラテン語:Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus);〔In Classical Latin, Constantine's official imperial title was IMPERATOR CAESAR FLAVIVS CONSTANTINVS PIVS FELIX INVICTVS AVGVSTVS, ''Imperator Caesar Flavius Constantine Augustus, the pious, the fortunate, the undefeated''. After 312, he added MAXIMVS ("the greatest"), and after 325 replaced ("undefeated") with VICTOR, as ''invictus'' reminded many of Sol Invictus, the Sun God.〕 Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος ὁ Μέγας; 27 February 272 AD〔Birth dates vary but most modern historians use 272". Lenski, "Reign of Constantine" (CC), 59.〕 – 22 May 337 AD), also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine (in the Orthodox Church as Saint Constantine the Great, Equal-to-the-Apostles),〔Among Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Christians. The Byzantine liturgical calendar, observed by the Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches of Byzantine rite, lists both Constantine and his mother Helena as saints. Although he is not included in the Latin Church's list of saints, which does recognise several other Constantines as saints, he is revered under the title "The Great" for his contributions to Christianity.〕 was a Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD. Constantine was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman army officer, and his consort Helena. His father became ''Caesar'', the deputy emperor in the west in 293 AD. Constantine was sent east, where he rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under the emperors Diocletian and Galerius. In 305, Constantius was raised to the rank of ''Augustus'', senior western emperor, and Constantine was recalled west to campaign under his father in Britannia (Britain). Acclaimed as emperor by the army at Eboracum (Modern-day York) after his father's death in 306 AD, Constantine emerged victorious in a series of civil wars against the emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become sole ruler of both west and east by 324 AD. As emperor, Constantine enacted many administrative, financial, social, and military reforms to strengthen the empire. The government was restructured and civil and military authority separated. A new gold coin, the solidus, was introduced to combat inflation. It would become the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. The first Roman emperor to claim conversion to Christianity, Constantine played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which decreed tolerance for Christianity in the empire. He called the First Council of Nicaea in 325, at which the Nicene Creed was professed by Christians. In military matters, the Roman army was reorganised to consist of mobile field units and garrison soldiers capable of countering internal threats and barbarian invasions. Constantine pursued successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers—the Franks, the Alamanni, the Goths, and the Sarmatians—even resettling territories abandoned by his predecessors during the turmoil of the previous century. The age of Constantine marked a distinct epoch in the history of the Roman Empire.〔Gregory, ''A History of Byzantium'', 49.〕 He built a new imperial residence at Byzantium and renamed the city Constantinople after himself (the laudatory epithet of "New Rome" came later, and was never an official title). It would later become the capital of the Empire for over one thousand years; for which reason the later Eastern Empire would come to be known as the Byzantine Empire. His more immediate political legacy was that, in leaving the empire to his sons, he replaced Diocletian's tetrarchy with the principle of dynastic succession. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and centuries after his reign. The medieval church upheld him as a paragon of virtue while secular rulers invoked him as a prototype, a point of reference, and the symbol of imperial legitimacy and identity.〔Van Dam, ''Remembering Constantine at the Milvian Bridge'', 30.〕 Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his reign due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. Critics portrayed him as a tyrant. Trends in modern and recent scholarship attempted to balance the extremes of previous scholarship. Constantine—as possibly the first Christian emperor (although that title could possibly go to Philip the Arab)—is a significant figure in the history of Christianity. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on his orders at the purported site of Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem, became the holiest place in Christendom. The Papal claim to temporal power was based on the supposed Donation of Constantine. He is venerated as a saint by Eastern Orthodox Christians, Byzantine Catholics, and Anglicans. ==Sources== Constantine was a ruler of major historical importance, and he has always been a controversial figure.〔Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 272.〕 The fluctuations in Constantine's reputation reflect the nature of the ancient sources for his reign. These are abundant and detailed,〔Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 14; Cameron, 90–91; Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 2–3.〕 but have been strongly influenced by the official propaganda of the period,〔Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 23–25; Cameron, 90–91; Southern, 169.〕 and are often one-sided.〔Cameron, 90; Southern, 169.〕 There are no surviving histories or biographies dealing with Constantine's life and rule.〔Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 14; Corcoran, ''Empire of the Tetrarchs'', 1; Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 2–3.〕 The nearest replacement is Eusebius of Caesarea's ''Vita Constantini'', a work that is a mixture of eulogy and hagiography.〔Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 265–68.〕 Written between 335 AD and circa 339 AD,〔Drake, "What Eusebius Knew," 21.〕 the ''Vita'' extols Constantine's moral and religious virtues.〔Eusebius, ''Vita Constantini'' 1.11; Odahl, 3.〕 The ''Vita'' creates a contentiously positive image of Constantine,〔Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 5; Storch, 145–55.〕 and modern historians have frequently challenged its reliability.〔Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 265–71; Cameron, 90–92; Cameron and Hall, 4–6; Elliott, "Eusebian Frauds in the "Vita Constantini"", 162–71.〕 The fullest secular life of Constantine is the anonymous ''Origo Constantini''.〔Lieu and Montserrat, 39; Odahl, 3.〕 A work of uncertain date,〔Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 26; Lieu and Montserrat, 40; Odahl, 3.〕 the ''Origo'' focuses on military and political events, to the neglect of cultural and religious matters.〔Lieu and Montserrat, 40; Odahl, 3.〕 Lactantius' ''De Mortibus Persecutorum'', a political Christian pamphlet on the reigns of Diocletian and the Tetrarchy, provides valuable but tendentious detail on Constantine's predecessors and early life.〔Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 12–14; Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 24; Mackay, 207; Odahl, 9–10.〕 The ecclesiastical histories of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret describe the ecclesiastic disputes of Constantine's later reign.〔Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 225; Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 28–29; Odahl, 4–6.〕 Written during the reign of Theodosius II (408–50 AD), a century after Constantine's reign, these ecclesiastic historians obscure the events and theologies of the Constantinian period through misdirection, misrepresentation and deliberate obscurity.〔Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 225; Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 26–29; Odahl, 5–6.〕 The contemporary writings of the orthodox Christian Athanasius and the ecclesiastical history of the Arian Philostorgius also survive, though their biases are no less firm.〔Odahl, 6, 10.〕 The epitomes of Aurelius Victor (''De Caesaribus''), Eutropius (''Breviarium''), Festus (''Breviarium''), and the anonymous author of the ''Epitome de Caesaribus'' offer compressed secular political and military histories of the period. Although not Christian, the epitomes paint a favorable image of Constantine, but omit reference to Constantine's religious policies.〔Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 27–28; Lieu and Montserrat, 2–6; Odahl, 6–7; Warmington, 166–67.〕 The ''Panegyrici Latini'', a collection of panegyrics from the late third and early fourth centuries, provide valuable information on the politics and ideology of the tetrarchic period and the early life of Constantine.〔Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 24; Odahl, 8; Wienand, ''Kaiser als Sieger'', 26–43.〕 Contemporary architecture, such as the Arch of Constantine in Rome and palaces in Gamzigrad and Córdoba,〔Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 20–21; Johnson, "Architecture of Empire" (CC), 288–91; Odahl, 11–12.〕 epigraphic remains, and the coinage of the era complement the literary sources.〔Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 17–21; Odahl, 11–14; Wienand, ''Kaiser als Sieger'', 43–86.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Constantine the Great」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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