CONSTANTINE

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Term Paper Title	CONSTANTINE
# of Words	3052
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	12.21

CONSTANTINE
THE GREAT

Flavius Valerius Constantinus, better known as Constantine the Great, was born on February 27, 273 or 274. His father was Constantius Chlorus, afterwards Caesar and Augustus, but at the time of Constantine's birth merely a promising officer in the Roman Army. Constantius belonged to one of the leading families of Moesia and his mother was a niece of the capable and soldierly Claudius, the conqueror of the Goths. Helena is said to have been the daughter of an innkeeper of Drepanum, and Constantine's enemies lost no opportunity of dwelling upon the obscurity of his ancestry upon mother's side. But that he was born in wedlock is beyond question. Helena, who later became St. Helena, is still remembered as the Christian Empress. There is, however, nothing to support the assertion sometimes made, that she was already baptized before Constantine's birth and her early influence ultimately brought him to Christianity. Such facts about her life as are known would suggest the contrary - Eusebius of Caecarea declares that Constantine in fact converted his mother. There are, however, other indications that Helena was not a Christian during her son's early years. At what date Helena did embrace Christianity remains a mystery. Nor can anyone say with certainly what gods she worshipped during her son's childhood.
The uncertainty attaching to the year of Constantine's birth attaches even more to its place. Where he was born is almost not known. The name of the places have been proposed: Colchester in Britain, Drepanum, a city on the shores of the Gulf of Nicomedia on the southern coast of the Bosphorus, and the town of Naissus, now Nish, in the province of Dacia in the Balkans. None of them can certainly be excluded, but Colchester is the least likely of the three. No one now believes that he was born in Britain - a pleasing fiction which was invented by English monks, who delighted to represent his mother Helena as the daughter of a British King, though they were quite at a loss where to locate his kingdom. The only foundation for this was a passage in one of the Panegyrists, who said that Constantine had bestowed luster upon Britain. There is no evidence that Constantius visited Britain before he became Praetorian Prefect to Maximian in 286 or 287. The evidence for Constantine's birth at Drepanum in northern Asia Minor is not much convincing. It stands mainly on the facts that he renamed the city Helenopolis and its province Helenopont...

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