The World's Greatest Books — Volume 11 — Ancient and Mediæval History
History
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 11 — Ancient and Mediæval History
History, Ancient; Middle Ages
Constantine celebrated the twentieth year of his reign at Rome in the
year 326. The glory of his triumph was marred by the execution, or
murder, of his son Crispus, whom he suspected of a conspiracy, and the
reputation of the emperor who established the Christian religion in the
Roman world was further stained by the death of his second wife, Fausta.
With a successful war against the Goths in 331, and the expulsion of the
Sarmatians in 334, his reign closed. He died at Nicomedia on May 22,
337.
_II.--The Division of East and West_
The unity of the empire was again destroyed by the three sons of
Constantine. A massacre of their kinsmen preceded the separation of the
Roman world between Constantius, Constans, and Constantine. Within three
years, civil war eliminated Constantine. The conflict among the emperors
resulted in a doubtful war with Persia, and the almost complete
extinction of the Christian monarchy which had been founded for
fifty-six years in Armenia.
Constantius was left sole emperor in 353. He associated with himself
successively as Cæsars the two nephews of the great Constantine, Gallus
and Julian. The first, being suspected, was destroyed in 354; the second
succeeded to the purple in 361.
Trained in the school of the philosophers, and proved as a commander in
a series of successful campaigns against the German hordes, Julian
brought to the throne a genius which, in other times, might have
effected the reformation of the empire. The sufferings of his youth had
associated in a mind susceptible of the most lively impressions the
names of Christ and of Constantius, the ideas of slavery and religion.
At the age of twenty he renounced the Christian faith, and boldly
asserted the doctrines of paganism. His accession to the supreme power
filled the minds of the Christians with horror and indignation. But
instructed by history and reflection, Julian extended to all the
inhabitants of the Roman world the benefits of a free and equal
toleration, and the only hardship which he inflicted on the Christians
was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow subjects,
whom they stigmatised with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics.
While re-establishing and reforming the old pagan system and attempting
to subvert Christianity, he held out a hand of succour to the persecuted
Jews, asked to be permitted to pay his grateful vows in the holy city of
Jerusalem, and was only prevented from rebuilding the Temple by a
supposed preternatural interference. He suppressed the authority of
George, Archbishop of Alexandria, who had infamously persecuted and
betrayed the people under his spiritual care, and that odious priest,
who has been transformed by superstition into the renowned St. George of
England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the Garter, fell a
victim to the just resentment of the Alexandrian multitude.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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