CONSTANTINE I

born Aug. 2, 1868, Athens, Greece died , Jan. 11, 1923, Palermo, Italy king of Greece from 1913 to 1917 and from 1920 to 1922. His neutralist, but essentially pro-German, attitude during World War I caused the Western Allies and his Greek opponents to depose him in 1917, and, having lent himself to Greece's disastrous Anatolian policy after his restoration, he again lost his throne in 1922. The eldest son of King George I of the Hellenes, Constantine received his higher education in Germany. Although the troops under his command were defeated in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, and he, as commander in chief of the army (after 1900), failed to unite Crete with Greece in 1909. Constantine restored his reputation during the Balkan Wars of 191213 and succeeded his father to the throne on March 6, 1913. The brother-in-law of the German emperor William II, he was determined to keep Greece neutral after the outbreak of World War I, whereas Prime Minister Eleuthrios Venizlos backed the Allied cause. The Allied occupation of Salonika (October 1915), Venizlos' formation of a separate pro-Allied government (October 1916), and an Allied demand for his abdication finally forced Constantine to turn power over to his second son, Alexander, on June 12, 1917, without, however, renouncing his titular right. On Alexander's death and Venizlos' fall from power (1920), Constantine was recalled from exile by a plebiscite. He had to pursue Venizlos' anti-Turkish policies, which led to catastrophic war in Anatolia in 1922. A military revolt cost him his throne for the second time, and he abdicated on Sept. 27, 1922, in favour of his eldest son, who became King George II. born Feb. 27, after AD 280?, Naissus, Moesia [now Ni, Yugos.] died May 22, 337, Ancyrona, near Nicomedia, Bithynia [now Izmit, Tur.] byname Constantine the Great, Latin in full Flavius Valerius Constantinus the first Roman emperor to profess Christianity. He not only initiated the evolution of the empire into a Christian state but also provided the impulse for a distinctively Christian culture that prepared the way for the growth of Byzantine and Western medieval culture. Constantine was born probably in the later AD 280s. A typical product of the military governing class of the later 3rd century, he was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, an army officer, and his wife (or concubine) Helena. In AD 293 his father was raised to the rank of Caesar, or deputy emperor (as Constantius I Chlorus), and was sent to serve under Augustus (emperor) Maximian in the West. In 289 Constantius had separated from Helena in order to marry a stepdaughter of Maximian, and Constantine was brought up in the Eastern Empire at the court of the senior emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia (modern Izmit, Tur.). Constantine was seen as a youth by his future panegyrist, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, passing with Diocletian through Palestine on the way to a war in Egypt. died 877, Inverdovat, Scot. king of Scotland or Alba, the united kingdom of the Picts and Scots (862877), who succeeded his uncle Donald I. Constantine's reign was occupied with conflicts with the Norsemen. Olaf the White, the Danish king of Dublin, laid waste the country of the Picts and Britons year after year; in the south the Danish leader Halfdan devastated Northumberland and Galloway. Constantine was slain at a battle at Inverdovat in Fife, at the hands of another band of northern marauders. His heir was his brother Aed, who was killed by the Scots after a year and was succeeded by a nephew, Eochaid. born Feb. 27, after AD 280?, Naissus, Moesia [now Ni, Yugos.] died May 22, 337, Ancyrona, near Nicomedia, Bithynia [now Izmit, Tur.] byname Constantine the Great, Latin in full Flavius Valerius Constantinus the first Roman emperor attested to have become a Christian. A brief account of the life and works of Constantine I follows. For a full biography, see Constantine the Great. Constantine's youth was spent at the court of Diocletian. He became first Western emperor (AD 312) after a complex series of civil wars, and then sole emperor (324). Throughout his life Constantine ascribed his success to his conversion to Christianity. He was personally committed to Christianity by 313, when he issued the Edict of Milan extending toleration to Christians. He addressed the Council of Nicaea (325), which met to resolve a theological dispute. He rebuilt and enlarged Constantinople (formerly Byzantium), making it his permanent capital, probably as a memorial to his final military victories, and that city continued in this capacity for more than a millennium. His conversion influenced the relations of church and state for centuries to come. Believing that he was God's chosen servant, he regarded himself as responsible to God for the good government of his church. Formerly a minority sect, Christianity became the official religion of the empire and was stimulated by the imperial patronage of Constantine and his sons. The church so grew in wealth and numbers that its position could not be shaken by the apostate emperor Julian. Constantine is revered as a saint in the Orthodox church. Additional reading Biographies and commentaries Two accounts remain classic: ch. 1418 of Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by J.B. Bury, vol. 1 and 2 (1896), available also in many later editions; and Jacob Burckhardt, The Age of Constantine the Great (1949, reissued 1983; originally published in German, 1880). Norman H. Baynes, Constantine the Great and the Christian Church (1930, reprinted 1975), is still a fundamental study, emphasizing the authenticity of Constantine's own writings. See also A.H.M. Jones, Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (1948, reissued 1978), and The Later Roman Empire, 284602, 2 vol. (1964, reprinted 1986); Andrew Alfldi, The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome, trans. from German (1948, reprinted 1969); Joseph Vogt, Constantin der Grosse und sein Jahrhundert, 2nd rev. ed. (1960); and Ramsay MacMullen, Constantine (1969, reissued 1971). Timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (1981), and The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (1982), are basic reappraisals of the political and religious background of Constantine's career. On the foundation of Constantinople, see Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d'une capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 451 (1974). On Constantine's church building, see Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 3rd ed. rev. (1981). Sources For Constantine's letters, see especially the modern translations of Eusebius, Church History, Book X, and Life of Constantine, both in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, vol. 1 (1961); and Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum, edited and translated by J.L. Creed (1984), part of the Oxford Early Christian Texts series. Eusebius' panegyrics of Constantine are translated and discussed in H.A. Drake, In Praise of Constantine: A Historical Study and New Translation of Eusebius' Tricennial Orations (1976). The ancient secular accounts are scanty; the fullest account, although with a hostile bias, is Zosimus, Historia nova, available in a modern translation by Ronald T. Ridley, New History (1982). The bulk of Constantine's surviving legislation is in the Codex Theodosianus, in an edition translated by Clyde Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels, and the Sirmondian Constitutions (1952, reissued 1969). J.F. Matthews Donald MacGillivray Nicol