All through the years since Christ was crucified, those who said they believed in Christ had been terribly treated--“persecuted,” we call it--because they were Christians. They had been flogged; they had been stoned; they had been torn with iron hooks; they had been roasted and burned to death. Yet, strange as it may seem, in spite of this terrible treatment, more and more people were becoming Christians every day. They believed so strongly in life after death, and they believed that they would be so much happier after death if they died for Christ’s sake, that they seemed even glad to suffer and to be killed. But at last the emperor himself put a stop to all these persecutions. This is how it happened. About the year 300 A.D. Rome had an emperor by the name of Constantine. Constantine was not a Christian. His gods were the old Roman gods. He probably did not put much faith in them, however. Well, once upon a time Constantine was fighting with an enemy when he dreamed one night that he saw in the sky a flaming cross. Beneath this cross were written the Latin words, “In hoc signo vinces.” In English this is, “In this sign thou shalt conquer.” Constantine thought this meant that if he carried the Christian cross into battle he would conquer. He thought it would at least be worth while to give the Christian God a trial. So he had his soldiers carry the cross, and he did win the battle. Then immediately he became a Christian himself and asked every one in the Roman Empire to become a Christian also. From that time on, all the Roman emperors who came after Constantine, all except one, were Christians. To celebrate Constantine’s victory the Roman Senate built a triumphal arch in the Forum of Rome and called it the Arch of Constantine. If has three openings; the Arch of Titus has only one. Constantine’s mother was named Helena. She was one of the very first to become a Christian and be baptized. Then she gave up her life to Christian works and built churches at Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives. It is said that she went to Palestine and found the actual cross on which Christ had been crucified three hundred years before and sent part of it to Rome. When she died she was made a saint, and so she is now called St. Helena. Constantine built a church over the spot where St. Peter was supposed to have been crucified. Many years later, this church was torn down so that a much larger and grander church to St. Peter might be built there. But Constantine did not care for Rome. He preferred to live in another city in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. This city was called Byzantium. So he moved from Rome to Byzantium and made that city his capital. Byzantium was called New Rome, and then the name was changed to Constantine’s city. In Greek, the word for “city” is “polis.” We see the word used in Anna_polis_ and Indiana_polis_. So Constantine’s City became Constantinepolis, and then shortened to Constantinople.