page_title: Classical Anatolia
section_title: Constantine I 324–337
hierarchical_section_title: Classical Anatolia / Roman period / The Empire: The Dominate 284 – 4th century / Constantinian dynasty 324–363 / Constantine I 324–337
caption_attribution_description: Saint Helena of Constantinople: this image is of a panel now in the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC, United States).
context_page_description: Anatolia in Classical Antiquity was first divided into several Iron Age kingdom, most notably Lydia in the west, Phrygia in the center and Urartu in the east. Anatolia fell under Achaemenid Persian rule c. 550 BC. In the aftermath of the Greco-Persian Wars, all of Anatolia remained under Persian control except for the Aegean coast, which was incorporated in the Delian League in the 470s BC. Alexander the Great finally wrested control of the whole region from Persia in the 330s BC. After Alexander's death, his conquests were split amongst several of his trusted generals, but were under constant threat of invasion from both the Gauls and other powerful rulers in Pergamon, Pontus, and Egypt.
  The Seleucid Empire, the largest of Alexander's territories, and which included Anatolia, became involved in a disastrous war with Rome culminating in the battles of Thermopylae and Magnesia. The resulting Treaty of Apamea in saw the Seleucids retreat from Anatolia. The Kingdom of Pergamum and the Republic of Rhodes, Rome's allies in the war, were granted the former Seleucid lands in Anatolia.
context_section_description: Constantine I, later referred to as Constantine the Great, ruled from 324 to 337 and his career was dominated by two considerations, the role of religion in the empire and the need for an Eastern capital. Because his reign coincided with the spread of Christianity his life has been obscured by legend as the first Christian emperor. In Diocletian's reign, Constantine was a regular visitor to the court at Nicomedia, and again under Galerius. At the end of the civil wars in 324 he once again found himself in Bithynia. Successive Roman emperors were becoming dissatisfied with Rome as an administrative centre, with its traditions which were at odds with their new more Eastern ways, and far from the theatres of war that consumed them. Many of them had spent little time in Rome and had created centres for themselves elsewhere. 
  Constantine considered a number of candidate cities as a new eastern capital, before deciding on Byzantium in 330, initially designated Nova Roma (New Rome), but then Constantinopolis in Constantine's honour (although its official title remained Nova Roma Constantinopolitana). Byzantium had long been considered of strategic importance, guarding the access from the Black Sea to the Aegean. Various emperors had either fortified or dismantled its fortifications depending on which power was using it and for what. Byzantium featured in Constantine's last war against Licinius in which Constantine had besieged the city, and after the war was over he further investigated its potential. He set about renewing the city almost immediately, inaugurating it in 330. This is a year sometimes picked as the beginning of the Byzantine Empire. The new capital was to be distinguished from the old by being simultaneously Christian and Greek (although was initially mainly Latin speaking like its Balkan hinterland) and a centre of culture.
  Constantine's major contribution to religion in the empire was to summon the elders of the Christian world to the great Council of Nicaea in 325 to resolve differences and establish orthodoxy, such as the date of Easter. The other great influence was his mother, Helena who set about re-establishing the sacred sites of Palestine.
  Constantine's administrative reforms included restructuring of the Praetorian prefectures. Under Diocletian, there were two prefectures, one per Augustus, as their Grand Vizier, or Chief of Staff. In the civil wars that followed with multiple competing emperors, they proliferated. Constantine divided the civil duties of the prefect from the military, by creating separate offices of magister peditum and magister equitum as well as magister officiorum. The prefect was now purely a civil administrator. By 332 there were five prefectures, anticipating he division of the empire after his death. Some provincial boundaries were changed. In c. 330 Cappadocia lost its eastern portions which became two components of Lesser Armenia, namely Armenia prima and Armenia secunda.
  During his reign, conflict with the Persians over Armenia persisted and he was planning a major campaign at the time of his death. 
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caption: Helena of Constantinople by Cima da Conegliano
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