------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transcriber’s Note: This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are referenced. Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Heroes of the Nations EDITED BY =H. W. Carless Davis, M.A.= FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD FACTA DUCIS VIVENT OPEROSAQUE GLORIA RERUM.—OVID, IN LIVIAM, 265. THE HERO’S DEEDS AND HARD-WON FAME SHALL LIVE. CONSTANTINE [Illustration: CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM PRINT ROOM. _Frontispiece._ ] CONSTANTINE THE GREAT THE REORGANISATION OF THE EMPIRE AND THE TRIUMPH OF THE CHURCH BY JOHN B. FIRTH (SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF QUEEN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD) AUTHOR OF “AUGUSTUS CÆSAR,” “A TRANSLATION OF PLINY’S LETTERS,” ETC. --- G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET LONDON 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND =The Knickerbocker Press= 1905 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COPYRIGHT, 1904 BY G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS ---------- Published, January, 1905 =The Knickerbocker Press, New York= ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] PREFACE In the following chapters, my object has been to tell the story of the Life and Times of Constantine the Great. Whether he deserves the epithet my readers will judge for themselves; certainly his place in the select list of the immortals is not among the highest. But whether he himself was “great” or not, under his auspices one of the most momentous changes in the history of the world was accomplished, and it is the first conversion of a Roman Emperor to Christianity, with all that such conversion entailed, which makes his period so important and so well worth studying.