# Constantine the Great The first fact about Constantine is that Christianization is a stack of instruments, not a cartoon baptism. Galerius’s 311 edict is in Lactantius at https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0705.htm. The 313 joint letters with Licinius are in Fordham’s extract file at https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/edict-milan.asp and Britannica at https://www.britannica.com/topic/Edict-of-Milan. York 306 is at https://www.livius.org/articles/person/constantine-i/ and https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor. Collapsing those into one ‘Edict of Milan’ by one man is a method error. Milvian Bridge 28 October 312 (https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-the-Milvian-Bridge) killed Maxentius’s court. 324 Chrysopolis ended Licinius; the later execution is extra-judicial. Crispus and Fausta in 326 are deaths in a fog: Livius and Britannica record the cluster and refuse a single tape. Donatist coercion after 316 and Jewish disabilities in later codes (Grenoble Roman law at https://droitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/) are privileging, not tolerance. Nicaea 325 (https://www.britannica.com/event/First-Council-of-Nicaea-325) is both a copyable creed and a court-backed exile machine — split those rows. Constantinople 11 May 330 (https://www.britannica.com/place/Constantinople, UNESCO https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/356/) is administration and spoliation. Eusebius’s Life (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2502.htm) is panegyric. Lactantius is a partisan of the new court. Cambridge Ancient History (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-ancient-history/) is the independent modern frame. Vatican pages (https://www.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html) carry later Latin tradition, including the Donation later unmasked — not his pen. Offsets that survive the panegyric: solidus in museum trays (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection), Lateran patronage beside UNESCO Rome (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/91/), Sunday rest and church bequests in the codes, Helena’s Palestine programme as later pilgrimage infrastructure, Capitoline bronze fragments (https://www.museicapitolini.org/en) as educational objects not faces. What the score must not say: that he wrote a single surviving ‘Edict of Milan’ plaque; that a noon vision is a meteorological file; that 326 is a proven adultery trial; that UNESCO cancelled 324; that the Donation is his; that he abolished slavery or gladiature; that Nicaea ended Arian controversy. Confidence is high on 306/312/313/324/330/325 as received chronology, medium on 326 motives and on fiscal-welfare sign, low on vision-as-event. Related people are Constantius Chlorus, Licinius as 313 co-author then casualty, Maxentius, Fausta, Crispus, Helena, Eusebius of Caesarea as panegyrist, Lactantius as narrator, Athanasius and Arius as Nicaea counterparts, [Diocletian](/people/diocletian) as persecuting predecessor, Augustine as later Donatist-file heir, Paul as earlier Christian heading, and [Charlemagne](/people/charlemagne) as later western imperial reader. Keep 311, 313, 324, 325, 326, and 330 on separate dates. Remaining dated instruments kept after dropping later editions, museums, and split rows: 0306-07-25 Troops at York proclaim Constantine emperor, opening a civil war among tetrarchs; 0312-10-28 Constantine defeats Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge, a civil-war killing of a rival court; 0324-09-18 Constantine defeats Licinius at Chrysopolis, ending the eastern colleague in war; 0325-01-01 Licinius is executed after the war, against the received amnesty story; 0326-01-01 Crispus is executed in 326 on an uncertain charge; the file is not a tape; 0326-06-01 Fausta dies in the 326 cluster, a second imperial killing under Constantine’s household; 0315-10-18 Constantinian constitutions in later codes restrict Jewish slaveholding and conversion-adjacent acts; 0316-01-01 After the 313–314 African hearings Constantine’s government moves from arbitration to coercion against Donatists; 0325-06-19 Constantine convenes and underwrites Nicaea, making creed a court-backed political instrument; 0330-05-11 Constantinople is dedicated with spoliated temple art and a new sacral capital; 0324-12-01 After 324 Constantine restores hereditary dynasty against the tetrarchic colleague-system; 0330-01-01 A new capital and court ceremonial raise fiscal extraction on cities already taxed; 0312-10-29 Later Christian narrators record a labarum as army standard, sacralising civil war as cult war; 0334-01-01 Constantinian law as later coded still treats slave property as a normal fiscal and household form; 0332-01-01 Constantine’s later Danube campaigns kill and resettle Goths and Sarmatians as received; 0313-02-01 Constantine and Licinius issue the 313 Milan agreement restoring confiscated cult property and ending licensed persecution; 0313-11-01 The Lateran and other Roman church buildings begin as imperial patronage after 312; 0310-01-01 Constantine’s gold solidus becomes the durable late-Roman monetary unit; 0330-05-11 Constantinople is dedicated as an eastern administrative capital with a senate and grain; 0321-03-07 A 321 constitution orders judges and town populations to rest on the venerable day of the sun. Later Loeb, UNESCO, and encyclopedia pages are evidence, not additional acts. ## Dated facts - Athanasius is exiled to Trier in the 335 cluster after Tyre, an imperial displacement of a Nicene bishop. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-athanasius-exile-335. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Athanasius, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor. - 334: Constantinian law as later coded still treats slave property as a normal fiscal and household form. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-slavery-continuity. Sources: https://droitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-ancient-history/. - 332: Constantine’s later Danube campaigns kill and resettle Goths and Sarmatians as received. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-gothic-sarmatian-campaigns. Sources: https://www.livius.org/articles/person/constantine-the-great/, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-ancient-history/. - 330: Constantinople is dedicated as an eastern administrative capital with a senate and grain. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-constantinople-administrative-capital. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/place/Constantinople, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/356/. - 330: Constantinople is dedicated with spoliated temple art and a new sacral capital. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-pagan-temple-spoliation. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/place/Constantinople, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/356/. - 330: A new capital and court ceremonial raise fiscal extraction on cities already taxed. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-fiscal-extraction-new-capital. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-ancient-history/. - Fausta dies in the 326 cluster, a second imperial killing under Constantine’s household. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-fausta-death-326. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor, https://www.livius.org/articles/person/constantine-the-great/. - 326: Helena’s and Constantine’s Palestine building programme creates public Christian sites as later pilgrimage infrastructure. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-palestine-church-building. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2502.htm. - Crispus is executed in 326 on an uncertain charge; the file is not a tape. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-crispus-execution-uncertainty. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor, https://www.livius.org/articles/person/constantine-the-great/. - 325: Later codes and Christian narrators record Constantinian limits on some gladiatorial and branded penalties. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-gladiature-limits-as-received. Sources: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04295c.htm, https://droitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/. - 325: Constantine convenes and underwrites Nicaea, making creed a court-backed political instrument. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-nicaea-imperial-doctrine-police. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/event/First-Council-of-Nicaea-325, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2502.htm. - 325: Licinius is executed after the war, against the received amnesty story. https://factrail.ai/facts/co-licinius-execution. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Constantine-I-Roman-emperor, https://www.livius.org/articles/person/constantine-the-great/. ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/constantine-the-great