18
August 328 A.D. Helena
Dies—English-born Mother of Constantine the Great
Butler, Alban. “St. Helen, Empress.” The
Lives of the Saints. 1866. Bartleby.com Great Books Online. N.d. http://www.bartleby.com/210/8/181.html. Accessed 17 May 2014.
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Rev.
Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume VIII: August.
The Lives of the Saints. 1866. |
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August
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St.
Helen, Empress
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A.D. 328.
WE are assured by the unanimous tradition of our English historians, that this holy empress was a native of our island. 1 William of Malmesbury, the principal historian of the ancient state of our country after Bede, 2 and before him, the Saxon author of the life of St. Helen, in 970, quoted by Usher, expressly say that Constantine was a Briton by birth; but an authority which is certainly decisive, is that of the anonymous, elegant, and learned panegyrist, who, haranguing Maximian and Constantine upon the marriage of the latter to Fausta, said to Constantine: “He (Constantius) had freed the provinces of Britain from slavery; you ennobled them by your origin. 3 Leland, the most diligent searcher of our antiquities, says, Helen was the only daughter of king Coilus, who lived in constant amity with the Romans, and held of them his sovereignty. The Glastenbury historian says the same. Henry of Huntington tells us, that this was the King Coël who first built walls round the city of Colchester, and beautified it so much, that it derives from him its name. That town has for several ages boasted that it gave birth to this great empress; and the inhabitants, to testify their veneration for her memory, take for the arms of the town, in remembrance of the cross which she discovered, a knotty cross between four crowns, as Camden takes notice. Though Mr. Drake will have it that she was rather born at York, as the English orators in the councils of Constance and Basil affirmed; to which opinion he thinks the anonymous panegyrist of Constantine evidently favourable. Constantius, at that time only a private officer in the army, had the happiness to make her his first wife, and had by her Constantine his eldest son, who, as all agree, had his first education under her watchful eye. |
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To understand the sequel of this history, it
is necessary to take a view of the state of the empire at that time. The two
brothers, Carinus in the West, and Numerianus in the East, the sons,
colleagues, and successors of Carus, being become detestable to all their
subjects by their infamous vices, the supreme dignity was devolved upon
Diocles, commonly called Dioclesian on the 17th of September, 284, whence the
epoch of his reign, or of the martyrs, as it is called, and which continued
long in use, was dated. He was a Dalmatian of very low birth, had been made
free by the senator Anullinus, and was at the head of an army in the East,
when Numerianus was slain by a conspiracy. To oppose Carinus in the West, he
declared Maximian (who took the surname of Herculeus) Cæsar, on the 20th of
November, in the same year, 284, and after the death of Carinus, who was cut
off by his own men in Upper Mysia, near the Danube, he saluted him emperor,
and his colleague, on the 1st of April, 286. Maximian was a native of
Sirmium, of the meanest parentage, savage in his manners, countenance, and
temper, but a bold and experienced officer. He brutally indulged all his
passions, was faithless, and so great a debauchee that he frequently offered
violence to ladies of the first quality, and so covetous that he put many
senators to death to seize their estates, and plundered all the West which he
governed. Dioclesian was a soldier and a politician, but oppressed the
provinces with most exorbitant taxes, maintained four times more soldiers
than any of his predecessors had done before him, and was passionately fond
of building; and when he had finished a palace at an expense which ruined a whole
province, he would find some fault with it, and pull it down to raise it
after a different manner; nor was the second building secured from a new
caprice, upon which it was sometimes again levelled with the ground. So madly
expensive was he, that he took it into his head to make Nicomedia, where he
usually resided, equal to Rome, and made it desolate of inhabitants to fill
it with magnificent palaces, hippodromes, arsenals, and what not. He was no
less foolishly vain in his dress, equipage, and furniture. Yet he was so
insatiably covetous, that he would always keep his exchequer full from the
spoils of families and all the provinces. 5 In this the two
emperors were not unlike, and they reigned together twenty years. The better
to secure themselves, and carry on their wars, they associated to themselves,
in 293, two other emperors of an inferior rank, under the name of Cæsars.
Dioclesian chose Galerius Maximian, surnamed Armentarius, a native of Dacia,
one of the most furious and profligate of men; him he compelled to divorce
his wife, and marry his daughter, Valeria. Maximian Herculeus pitched upon
Constantius Chlorus, a prince never charged with any vice, a good soldier,
and nobly born, being descended from the emperor Claudius II. and from
Vespasian, from whom his family bore the prænomen Flavius. Herculeus reserved
to himself the rich provinces of Italy, Spain, and Africa; Constantius had
the countries on this side the Alps, namely Gaul and Britain; Galerius had
Illyricum and the places adjacent to the Euxine sea, and Dioclesian the East.
Constantius, by the articles of this association, was obliged to divorce
Helen, and to marry Theodora, the daughter-in-law of Maximian. The Christians
enjoyed a kind of peace, except that in the West some martyrs suffered,
chiefly in the army, or by the natural cruelty of Maximian, who delighted in
blood; but in the beginning of the year 302, Galerius at Nicomedia prevailed
upon Dioclesian to form a project utterly to extirpate the Christian name. 6
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Constantine, from his first accession to the
throne, by his edicts, forbade the Christians to be molested on account of
their religion. Fluctuating what deity to invoke before his battle with
Maxentius, he was at length inspired to address himself to the true God, and
encouraged by miraculous visions. From that time he published frequent edicts
in favour of the Christian faith, built stately churches, munificently
adorned altars, and delighted much in the conversation of bishops, whom he
often admitted to his table, notwithstanding the meanness of their outward
appearance. Baronius says, that the same year in which he vanquished
Maxentius, he gave to the bishop of Rome the imperial Lateran palace. In the
following year, 313, Pope Melchiades held in it a synod, in the apartment of
Fausta, the wife of Constantine; and accordingly we find the popes in
possession of it in the fourth century. We may judge of this emperor’s
liberality to the bishops for the use of the church and poor, from his letter
to Cæcilian, bishop of Carthage, in which he sent him an order to receive
from his chief treasurer of Africa three thousand purses, 7 which amounted
to above twenty thousand pounds sterling; adding, that if he found any thing
more wanting, he should without difficulty demand it of his treasurer, who
had from him an order to give him without delay whatever sum he should
require. He distributed alms abundantly among the poor of all kinds, even
among the Pagans. Those who were fallen from a better condition he assisted
after a more generous manner, giving land to some, and places to others; he
was particularly careful of orphans and widows; and gave portions to virgins.
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It appears from Eusebius, that St. Helen was
not converted to the faith with her son, till after his miraculous victory;
but so perfect was her conversion, that she embraced all the heroic practices
of Christian perfection, especially the virtues of piety and almsdeeds, in
which she doubtless was a great spur to the emperor. Her dutiful son always
honoured and respected her, forgetting in her regard that he was emperor of
the world, unless to employ his power in serving her. He caused her to be
proclaimed Augusta or empress in his armies, and through all the provinces of
his empire; and medals to be struck in her honour, in which she is called
Flavia Julia Helena. She was advanced in years before she knew Christ; but
her fervour and zeal were such as to make her retrieve the time lost in
ignorance; and God prolonged her life yet many years to edify, by her
example, the church which her son laboured to exalt by his authority. Rufinus
calls her faith and holy zeal incomparable; and she kindled the same fire in
the hearts of the Romans, as St. Gregory the Great assures us. 8 Forgetting her
dignity, she assisted in the churches amidst the people in modest and plain
attire; and to attend at the divine office was her greatest delight. Though
mistress of the treasures of the empire, she only made use of them in
liberalities and alms; she distributed her charities with profusion wherever
she came, and was the common mother of the indigent and distressed. She built
churches, and enriched them with precious vessels and ornaments.
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Licinius in the East became jealous of
Constantine’s prosperity, and attacked him by various hostilities. The
Christian emperor defeated him in battle near Cibalis in Pannonia, in 314,
and generously granted him peace. His restless ambition could not lie long
dormant; he repeated new injuries, and out of aversion to Constantine, began
to persecute the Christians in 316, whom he had till then protected; and he
put to death many bishops, the Forty Martyrs, and others. He also instigated
the Sarmatians to invade the Roman territories; and made himself odious by
his covetousness, licentiousness, and cruelty to his own subjects.
Constantine, at length, finding all other means ineffectual declared war; and
vast preparations were made on both sides. The armies of Licinius were more
numerous, and he threatened that if his gods gave him victory, as his
soothsayers and magicians pretended unanimously to foretell him, he would
exterminate their enemies. Constantine prepared himself before the days of
each battle by prayer, fasting, and retirement; and caused the ensign called
the imperial Labarum, in which was the effigy of the cross, to be carried
before his army. In battle, victory every where followed this chief standard
so visibly, that Licinius, making a second stand near Chalcedon, ordered his
soldiers to make no attacks on the side where the great standard of the cross
was, nor to look towards it, confessing that it was fatal to him. 9
He was first vanquished near Adrianople, where he left almost thirty-four
thousand dead upon the spot, in July, 324; and in a second battle near
Chalcedon, in which, out of one hundred and thirty thousand men, scarcely
three thousand escaped. Licinius fell into the hands of the conqueror, who
spared his life, and sent him to Thessalonica, where, upon information that
he was attempting to raise new disturbances, he ordered him to be strangled
the year following.
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Constantine being, by this victory, become
master of the East, concurred in assembling the council of Nice, in 325; and,
in 326, wrote to Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, concerning the building of a
most magnificent church upon Mount Calvary. St. Helen, though then four score
years of age, took the charge on herself to see this pious work executed,
desiring at the same time, to discover the sacred cross on which our Redeemer
died. Eusebius, in his life of Constantine, 10 mentions no
other motive of her journey but her desire of adorning the churches and
oratories in the holy places, and of relieving the poor in those parts,
doubtless out of devotion to the mysteries of our divine Redeemer’s
sufferings; but Rufin 11 attributes it
to visions; Socrates 12 to
admonitions in her sleep; Theophanes to divine warnings; 13 St. Paulinus 14 to her piety;
saying that she undertook this journey to find the cross amongst other
motives of devotion. And Constantine, in his letter to Macarius the bishop of
Jerusalem, commissioned him to make search for it on Mount Golgotha of
Calvary. 15 The heap of earth
which had been thrown by the Pagans on the spot was removed, and the statue
of Venus cast down, as St. Paulinus and St. Ambrose relate.
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Another perplexing difficulty occurred in
distinguishing the cross of Christ amongst the three that were found; for the
nails found with it were no sufficient proof. The title which lay near it,
and doubtless the marks of the nails which had fixed it, furnished an
indication, as St. Chrysostom 16 and St.
Ambrose 17 mention. Yet
some doubt remained, to remove which, the most wise and divine Bishop
Macarius, as he is called by Theodoret, who was one of the prelates who had
condemned the impiety of Arius at Nice the year before, suggested that a
miraculous proof should be asked of God. The pious empress therefore went,
attended by the bishop and others, to the house of a lady of quality who lay
very sick in the city. The empress having made a prayer aloud, recorded by
Rufin, 18 the bishop
applied the crosses, and the sick person was restored instantly at the touch
of the true cross, as all these historians relate. Sozomen, St. Paulinus, and
Sulpicius Severus 19 add, that a
person dead was by the like touch raised to life; but this deserves little
notice, being only related upon report, as Sozomen expresses it. St. Helen,
when she had discovered the holy cross, “adored not the wood, but the King,
Him who hung on the wood. She burned with an earnest desire of touching the
remedy of immortality.” These are the words of St. Ambrose. Part of the cross
she recommended to the care of the Bishop Macarius, and covered it with a
rich silver case, of which the Bishop of Jerusalem was the guardian, and
which he every year exposed to the adoration of the people, says St.
Paulinus; and oftener according to the devotion of pilgrims. 20 She built a
most sumptuous church on the spot to receive this precious relic. The other
part of the cross she sent to her son the emperor at Constantinople, where it
was covered and exposed to the veneration of the people with the greatest
solemnity. Of the nails, one she put in a bridle, another in a diadem for her
son, says St. Ambrose. A third she threw into the Adriatic gulf in a storm;
on which account the sailors entered on that sea as sanctified, with
fastings, prayer, and singing hymns to this day, says St. Gregory of Tours. 21 Eusebius,
intent on the actions of the son Constantine in his life, speaks not directly
of the discovery of the cross, yet mentions it indirectly in the letter of
Constantine to Macarius about building the church, 22 and describes
the two magnificent churches which the empress built, one on Mount Calvary,
the other on Mount Olivet. 23 The same
historian says: 24 “In the sight
of all she continually resorted to the church, adorned the sacred buildings
with the richest ornaments and embellishments, not passing by the chapels of
the meanest towns, appearing amidst the women at prayer in a most humble
garment.” Suidas adds: “She was affable, kind, and charitable to all ranks,
but especially to religious persons.” To these, says Rufin, 25 she showed
such respect as to serve them at table as if she had been a servant, set the
dishes before them, pour them out drink, hold them water to wash their hands;
“though empress of the world and mistress of the empire, she looked upon
herself as servant of the hand-maids of Christ.” She built a convent for holy
virgins at Jerusalem, mentioned by Suidas. Eusebius adds, that whilst she
travelled over all the East with royal pomp and magnificence, she heaped all
kind of favours both on cities and private persons, particularly on soldiers,
the poor, the naked, and those who were condemned to the mines; distributing
money, garments, &c.; freeing many from oppression, chains, banishment,
&c. 26 She
beautified and adorned the city of Drepanum, in Bithynia, in honour of St.
Lucian, martyr, so that Constantine caused that city to be called from her
Helenopolis. At last, this pious princess returned to Rome, 27 and
perceiving her last hour to approach, gave her son excellent instructions how
to govern his empire according to the holy law of God. Then bidding him and
her grandchildren a moving farewell, she expired in their presence in the
month of August, 328, or, according to some, in 326, which year was the
twentieth of her son’s reign, who on that occasion gave magnificent feasts at
Rome during three months. Constantine ordered her to be interred with the
utmost pomp with a stately mausoleum, and a porphyry urn, the largest and
richest in the world, which is now shown in a gallery belonging to the
cloister of the Lateran basilic. 28 He erected a
statue to her memory, together with his own, and a large cross, in the middle
of a great square in Constantinople; he also erected her statue at Daphne,
near Antioch. Her name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 18th of August,
the day of her death.
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Notker, abbot of Hautvilliers, in the diocess
of Rheims, in 1095, wrote a history of the translation of the relics of St.
Helen from Rome to that abbey, which was performed with pomp in 849. The
author gives an authentic account of several miracles wrought through the
intercession of this saint. He testifies that he had been eyewitness to many
of them, and had learned the rest from the very persons on whom they had been
performed. Part of this work, which is well written, was published by the
Messieurs of Ste-Marthe, 29 and by
Mabillon, 30 and almost
the whole is inserted by the Bollandists, 31 in their
great work. The entire manuscript is preserved at Hautvilliers, with an
appendix written by the same author, containing an account of two other
miracles performed by the relics of this saint. 32
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This holy empress, and the great prince her
son, paid all possible honour to bishops and pastors of the church. He who
truly loves and honours God and religion, has a great esteem for whatever
belongs to it; consequently respects its ministers. The first zealous
Christian princes were thoroughly sensible that it is impossible to inspire
the people with a just value and awful reverence for religion itself, and its
immediate object, without a reasonable respect for its sacred ministers. Upon
this principle were immunities granted to the church. Even Numa, and other
heathen legislators, observe this maxim, to impress upon men’s minds
religious sentiments, though towards a false worship. Scandals in pastors,
when notorious, are most execrable sacrileges; and circumspection is
necessary, that we be not drawn aside or imposed upon by any, because, like
Alcimus, they are of the seed of Aaron; but a propensity to censure rashly,
and detract from those persons who are invested with a sacred character, is
inconsistent with a religious mind, and leads to a revolt. True pastors
indeed, in the spirit of the apostles, far from ever resenting, or so much as
thinking of any slights that may be put upon their persons, or desiring, much
less seeking, any kind of respect, rejoice and please themselves rather in
contempt, which in their hearts they sincerely acknowledge to be only their
due. Humility is the ornament and the ensign of the sacred order which they
hold in the Church of Christ.
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Note 1. Several
modern French historians pretend she was an inn-holder (Stabularia) in
Bithynia when Constantius married her. Their mistake is founded on Procopius
and Julius Firmicus. This latter, who is an unknown Christian writer, who
lived soon after the death of Constantius, in his book On the Error of
profane Religions, says Constantine was born and received his first education
under his mother at Tarsus, some others say at Naissus, near the Dardanelles;
but this, as Camden shows, is spoken of Constantius. Procopius (l. 5, De
ædific. Justiniani) affirms that Constantine beautified and fortified
Drepanum in Bithynia, and gave it the name of Helenopolis, because his mother
was born there; but that this circumstance is a mistake is clear from the
acts of St. Lucian, by which we are informed that St. Helen had a particular
regard for that city, and adorned it for the sake of that martyr. This then
was the reason why it was called by her name. Sozomen informs us, that
Constantine, to honour her, gave the name of Helenopolis also to a city in
Palestine. Zosimus and Julian the Apostate call her Constantius’s concubine,
but mean a wife of inferior rank to the daughter of Maximian; for it is
certain she was married to him. The Jews and Pagans called her, out of
contempt, Stabularia, as appears from St. Ambrose. Baronius thinks she was so
called, because Constantius lodged at the house of her father in Britain.
Camden imagines the only reason to have been, because she founded a church
where the stable stood in which Christ was born; which the enemies of the
Christian name turned into ridicule. St. Ambrose writes thus of her, (Or. de
obitu Theodos.) “They say she was first a Stabularia, or one who entertained
strangers, and so became known to Constantius, who afterwards arrived at the
empire. A good Stabularia, who sought so diligently the crib of the Lord; who
chose to be reputed as dung, that she might gain Christ.” [back]
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Note 3. “Nobiles
illic oriendo fecisti.” (Incerti Paneg. 5, c. 4, p. 208.) This passage cannot
be understood with Livineius and Lipsius, of his being first created Cæsar,
but of his birth in Britain, as Pignarol observes with the general opinion of
commentators on the ancient panegyrists; and as the learned Mr. Drake
demonstrates from other passages and allusions. (Antiquities of York, p. 46.)
Eumenius, the favourite orator of Constantius and Constantine, speaks of his
assumption to the imperial dignity, when, in his panegyric to Constantine, he
says, (l. 9, p. 330,) “O fortunate Britain, now more happy than all other
countries of the earth, in having first beheld Constantine Cæsar! Justly hath
nature enriched thee with all the blessings of the heavenly climate and of
the soil; in which neither are the heats of summer, nor the cold of winter
painful to bear; in which so abundant is the produce of corn, that it
suffices for all the uses both of food and drink; the forests are free from
furious wild beasts, and the earth from poisonous serpents; the ground, on
the contrary, is filled with a numberless multitude of tame cattle abounding
in milk, and sheep loaded with rich fleeces, &c. [back]
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Note 6. The
bloody edicts were sent from the East to Maximian, and Constantius in the
West. The former willingly obeyed them; but Constantius put no man to death
himself on that account, though some suffered in Britain by the
obsequiousness of governors, till he put a check to their fury. He indeed suffered
the churches to be pulled down. He had many Christians among his officers,
and in his household. Having received the edicts of Dioclesian, he told them,
that he gave them their choice either to sacrifice, or to lose their posts
and his favour. Many preferred their temporal interest to their religion, and
offered sacrifice. These apostates Constantius from that moment despised, and
discharged from his service, saying, that persons so self-interested and
treacherous to their God would never be faithful to him. On the contrary,
those who continued steadfast in their faith, he kept near his person,
declaring them worthy to be intrusted with the care of his person and empire.
(Eus. Vit. Constant. l. 1, c. 16.) Dioclesian complained to him by his ambassadors,
that he neglected to amass a public treasure to serve in time of need.
Constantius promised the ambassadors, if they allowed him a little time, to
show them a great treasure. He immediately made known his present necessity
to his friends and the people, and desired to borrow what they could lend him
for a few days. Immediately his apartments began to be filled with gold,
silver, and jewels to an immense value. He then introduced the ambassadors,
and seeing them astonished at what they saw, told them, that they might bear
him witness that the love and riches of the people are a prince’s best
treasure. He was remarkably indulgent to the poor Christians. He had by
Theodora two sons, Constantius Dalmatius and Annibalius, and two daughters,
Constantia and Eutropia. Constantine, his eldest son, he was obliged to send
to the court of Dioclesian, where he was kept as a hostage for his father’s
fidelity. Thus was that prince, like another Moses, brought up amidst the
enemies of truth, whom he was one day to extirpate.
Dioclesian was sick all the year 304, and spent the summer at Ravenna; then went to Nicomedia before winter, where Galerius came to him, making proposals, that he and his colleague should resign the purple, which he claimed as his due, complaining that he had sustained the weight of the wars against the Persians, and on the banks of the Danube eighteen years. Dioclesian, with many tears, pressed to retain the purple, though he readily consented to give him the title of Augustus; but Galerius insisted upon his abdication, and that he should appoint two new Cæsars, Severus and Daia or Daza. This latter was Galerius’s nephew, his sister’s son, little better than a barbarian, to whom his uncle had given the name of Maximian, though he is oftener called Maximin. Severus was a dancer and a drunkard, who turned day into night. Thus Maxentius, the son of Maximian Herculeus, and Constantine were excluded. This latter was a prince of untainted morals, and well formed in mind and body; he had a genius for war, and was much beloved by the soldiers, and desired for emperor by the people. Dioclesian pleaded that he should be pitched upon, but Galerius dreaded his reputation and virtue, and feared to have such a colleague. Dioclesian said of the new Cæsars, sighing, “These are not fit persons to support the state; but being compelled to acquiesce, on the 1st of May, in 305, on an eminence three miles from Nicomedia, in the presence of his officers, soldiers, and a crowd of people, he put off the purple, and said, weeping, that he was infirm, and required rest. He then declared Galerius and Constantius emperors, and Severus and Maximian Cæsars. The former was sent into the West to Maximian Herculeus, who had agreed to make the like resignation. Dioclesian then retired to Dioclea, in Dalmatia, his own country. Constantius had by the partition, Gaul, Britain, Spain, and Africa; but Galerius withheld the two latter, and expecting he would die soon, had in his eye Licinius, an officer with whom he had contracted an intimacy from his first coming to the army; and him he intended to associate to the empire. Constantine he kept with him under a strict eye, and not daring to cut him off yet, for fear of a civil war, he exposed him to combats with wild beasts, and to other dangerous enterprises. The young prince, after many refusals, at length extorted his leave for setting out the next day to go to see his father in Britain, who had so often written to Galerius on that subject, that he could no longer resist without a rupture. Galerius intended still to stop his journey the next day, or to have him intercepted by Severus in Italy; and was enraged to hear that he was gone the night before, and had taken up the horses at all the stages, that he might not be pursued. Constantine made incredible haste, and found his father lying on his death-bed at York. Constantius recommended him to his soldiers, and appointed him his successor in the empire, and soon after died, on the 25th of July, in 306, having reigned thirteen years as Cæsar, and near fifteen months as emperor. Eusebius tells us, that before his death he professed the belief of one only God. Constantine was saluted emperor by the army; nor durst Galerius himself refuse to receive his image when it was sent to him, crowned with laurel, according to custom; but only acknowledged him Cæsar. The same year Maxentius, the son of the late Emperor Maximian Herculeus, assumed the title of Cæsar in Italy, and soon after, that of emperor. His father Herculeus also resumed the purple which he had quitted only by compulsion; Severus was discomfited by him, abandoned by his own men, and having surrendered himself to Herculeus at Ravenna, was put to death by the opening of his veins. Hereupon Galerius declared Licinius his colleague and emperor, and, marching into Italy, intended to cut off Maxentius; but was obliged to return, seeing his own troops inclined to forsake him. Herculeus acknowledged Constantine emperor, but obliged him to divorce his first wife Minervina, and to marry his daughter Fausta, who proved a firebrand in his family. Maximinus Cæsar persecuted the Christians in the East with no less fury than Galerius, was extremely addicted to superstition and art magic; and, being vexed to see Licinius preferred to the title of Augustus before him, assumed it himself, and Galerius was obliged to ratify what he had done. In the West, Maximian Herculeus, conceiving a base jealousy against his own son, sought to depose him, but did not succeed; then coming into Gaul, he endeavoured several ways to surprise Constantine, his son-in-law, but being forsaken by his own soldiers in Belgium, fled to Arles, whither Constantine pursued him, and having taken him prisoner, spared his life; but he made new attempts upon the life of Constantine, and stabbed a eunuch, thinking to kill him. Whereupon Constantine caused him to be strangled in 308. The persecutor, Galerius, consumed by worms and putrefaction, acknowledged the hand of God, and published an edict at Sardis in favour of the Christians, in 311; and died miserably in exquisite torment. Then were the prisons opened, and the confessors released, and, among others, Donatus, to whom Lactantius dedicated his book, On the Death of the Persecutors. Maximinus carried on the persecution in Syria and Egypt, where he commanded; and after the death of Galerius, over all Asia. Licinius obtained for his share only Illyricum, Greece, and Thrace, and forebore all persecution, as did also Maxentius in Italy, though, in other respects, no less impious, tyrannical, and debauched in his manners than Maximin Daia. He declared war against Constantine, under pretence of revenging the death of his father. Constantine marched against him, and encamped over against the bridge Milvius, now called Ponte Mole, two miles from Rome. His army was inferior in number; but Constantine earnestly implored the protection of the one supreme God. After his prayer, a little after noon, as he was traversing the country with part of his forces, he saw in the sky a cross of light, with this inscription, “In this shalt thou conquer.” The night following he was favoured with a vision, in which Christ ordered him to make a representation of that cross which he had seen, and use it for an ensign in battle. The emperor did so; and this was the famous banner called the Labarum. Maxentius was defeated, and by the breaking of a bridge of boats which he had caused to be thrown over the Tiber, was drowned in his flight. The senate caused a triumphal arch to be built in honour of Constantine, which is still to be seen at Rome. A statue was also erected to him in one of the public places of the city, where he appeared holding a long cross in his hand instead of a lance; and he caused this inscription to be made on the pedestal,—“By this salutary sign, the true mark of courage, I have delivered your city from the yoke of tyranny, and restored the senate and people of Rome to their ancient glory.” (Eus. in Vit Constant. Codinus, Gillius, Du Cange, et Ball.) Constantine went to Milan the January following, in 313, and was there met by Licinius, to whom he gave his sister Constantia in marriage. Maximin in the East, who had made an alliance with Maxentius, was jealous of the success of Constantine, and invaded Thrace, but was vanquished by Licinius near Byzantium. He fled into Asia, and being pursued, retired into the straits of Mount Taurus, where he drank poison, but survived the dose four days, and expired in excessive pain, rage, and despair, in 313. Thus died the most cruel of all the persecutors. Licinius extirpated his whole family, and caused Valeria, the widow of Galerius, and daughter of Dioclesian, to be beheaded with her mother Octavia, at Thessalonica, and their bodies to be thrown into the sea. Dioclesian had abdicated the empire in the seventy-first year of his age, and from that time languished rather than lived in continual alarms and anguish of mind during seven years; and hearing that Constantine had thrown down his statues at Rome, together with those of Maximian and Maxentius, died in rage and despair, in December, 312. [back] |
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Note 28. This
urn was made so large in order to contain not the ashes but the whole body of
this empress. It was discovered in 1672, in the time of Pope Urban VIII. The
carvings on the urn of a lion and many other figures, without any heathenish
emblems, are in a middle taste of architecture, such as that of the first
figures on the triumphal arch of her son Constantine. This vast mausolæum was
situated near the road to Palestrina; the ruins are now called Torre
Pignattara, on the Via Lavicana, about three miles from Rome. See Keysler’s
Travels, t. 2; and Venuti, the celebrated antiquary to the Popes Benedict
XIV. and Clement XIII. in his Accurata Descrizione Topografica delle
Antichita di Roma, in 4to. Rome, 1763, t. 1, p. 125, part. 1, c. 7. The ruins
also of the private baths built with great magnificence in Rome for her use
by her son, still bear the name of Thermæ S. Helenæ, in Italian Terme di S.
Elena. See a fine stamp with the description in the same author, t. 1, p.
131, with a fragment of an inscription still remaining there in the Villa Conti,
as follows: “D. N. Helena. ven. Aug. Mat. Avia. Beatis.—Therma,” &c. The
ashes of St. Helen are now kept in a rich shrine of porphyry under the high
altar of the church of Ara Cœli. See Keysler’s Travels, t. 3. [back]
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