Flavius Valerius Constantius, the senior reigning emperor since Diocletian and Maximian had abdicated on 1 May 305, died at Eburacum on 25 July 306. At once his entourage and army proclaimed Augustus the son who stood beside his death-bed, and invested him with the purple. Constantine, however, with a subtlety beyond his years, contented himself with obtaining recognition as a Caesar from Galerius, who now, as the senior emperor, possessed the right of appointing new imperial colleagues. Constantine’s modesty or foresight was soon repaid. On 28 October 306 the praetorian guard and people of Rome raised to power Maxentius, the son of Maximian. Severus, Augustus in the west since Constantius’ death, marched on Rome to suppress the insurrection, but was forced to retreat by the desertion of his troops, besieged in Ravenna and inveigled into surrender by Maximian, who had emerged from retirement to aid his son.
Such was the opening campaign (late winter or spring 307) in a series of civil wars during which Constantine became, by the end of 324, the sole ruler of a re-united Roman Empire. Hence a familiar historiographical problem, aggravated by a paucity of evidence for the nearly two decades which intervene between Constantine’s first proclamation as emperor and his final victory. After this success, few who had witnessed what went before would wish or dare to publish an impartial narration. Stereotyped history better answered the needs and desires of contemporaries: the virtuous emperor triumphed over his wicked adversaries, he made war on his rivals in order to rescue their subjects from savage misrule.Who could dispute or ask for further explanation? There was, moreover, an ideological issue which tended to dissuade later historians from rejecting this comfortable interpretation. Constantine viewed himself as God’s champion, victorious by God’s grace: therefore, his enemies were also the foes of God. At least one contemporary historian duly responded by rewriting his work to remove inconvenient facts. When Licinius was an ally of Constantine, he was a paragon of virtue and piety. But when he turned against Constantine and his divine protector, his good deeds were excised from the historical record and he became a monster of depravity and lust.
When truth has been distorted or concealed in this fashion, especially close attention must be paid to the genuinely contemporary evidence for the rise of Constantine. Official documents of all kinds (most notably coins,5 inscriptions, calendars, and imperial laws and letters) have afforded invaluable aid in dispelling the cloud of uncertainty and falsehood. But to understand the moods and emotions of the time, and even to establish a reliable factual narrative, the more articulate testimony of the contemporary literary productions still extant is needed: principally five panegyrics delivered before Constantine (in the years 307, 310, 311 or 312, 313, 321),6 and the subject of the present investigation. If Lactantius’ De Mortibus Persecutorum can be dated accurately and precisely, it will serve as irrefragable evidence of attitudes voiced in a particular historical context, and perhaps also of facts later suppressed or embellished.

Lactantius and Constantine
Author(s): T. D. Barnes
Source: The Journal of Roman Studies,
Vol. 63 (1973), pp. 29-46
Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Lactantius and Constantine Author(s): T. D. Barnes Source: The Journal by jkdavis09

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