Episode 3 – Constantine’s Vision

* Then On 11 November 308, Gally called a council to put this nonsense to bed. * He invited Maximian and Diocletian. * Maximian was forced to abdicate again and Constantine was again demoted to Caesar. * Licinius, one of Galerius’ old military companions, and a close childhood friend, was appointed Augustus in the western regions. * But Conny wasn’t having it. * He continued to call himself Augustus. * Meanwhile Maximinus Daia, Galerius’ nephew, who was a Caesar, was frustrated that he had been passed over for promotion while the newcomer Licinius had been raised to the office of Augustus, and demanded that Galerius promote him. * Galerius offered to call both Maximinus and Constantine “sons of the Augusti”, and they were like “fuck off, what is that?” * By the spring of 310 AD, Galerius was referring to both men as Augusti. * Then old Maximian was getting bored in retirement and he started a rumour that Constantine was dead and he was the new Augusutus. * That didn’t go well. * Conny heard about it, returned from fighting the Franks across the Rhine, and defeated Maximian in battle. * Conny captured him and but gave him clemency. * Although he strongly suggested he commit suicide. * Which he did. He hung himself. * Maxentius promised to avenge his fathers’ death. * Conny then claimed that Maximian had actually tried to murder him in his sleep after his clemency, but Fausta had found out, so Conny told a eunuch to sleep in his place. * “Hey ummm Johnny, listen… you’ve always said you thought my bed looked really comfy, right? Well how would you like to try it out? Oh suuuure, no problem, it’s my pleasure, I’m that kind of king.” * The eunuch was murdered in his place. * And then the jig was up and Maximian committed suicide. * Conny then instituted a damnatio memoriae on Maximian. * This is all obviously propaganda to ruin Maxentius’ family’s reputation. * But it also had an impact on Conny’s legitimacy, because it was Maximian who first made him Augustus. * So, miraculously, he now discovered that he was actually distantly related to Claudius II, a soldier emperor of barbarian birth from the 3rd century. * So Conny was all like “well hold on a minute! I don’t need to be a tetrarch. I’m the real deal. Descended from an emperor. It’s mine! All mine!” * This is in 310. * BTW, there are some great stories about Claudius II. * Also known as Claudius Gothicus because he defeated the Goths. * He once knocked out a horse’s teeth with one punch. * When he performed as a wrestler in the 250s, before he was emperor, he supposedly knocked out the teeth of his opponent when his genitalia had been grabbed in the match. * Anyway, not Conny claims a divine vision of Apollo and Victory granting him laurel wreaths of health and a long reign. *  In the likeness of Apollo Constantine recognized himself as the saving figure to whom would be granted “rule of the whole world”. * He basically declared himself the saviour and sole ruler. * And his affiliation with the gods on his coinage changed too. * In his early reign, the coinage of Constantine advertised Mars as his patron. * From 310 AD on, Mars was replaced by Sol Invictus, the Unconquered sun, a god conventionally identified with Apollo. * The date of 25 December was the date of the festival of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti * Constantine decreed in 321 that the dies Solis—day of the sun, “Sunday”—as the Roman day of rest. * “On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” * Sol had been worshiped since the founding of Rome. * So we see here that Conny was happy switching around his allegiance to the gods,