Constantine II (emperor)

Constantine II (Latin: Flavius Claudius Constantinus; 316 – 340) was Roman emperor from 337 to 340. Son of Constantine the Great and co-emperor alongside his brothers, his attempt to exert his perceived rights of primogeniture led to his death in a failed invasion of Italy in 340.

Career

The eldest son of Constantine the Great and Fausta, Constantine II was born in Arles in 316 and raised as a Christian.

Caesar

On 1 March 317, he was made caesar at Serdica. Constantine II usually resided with his father, such as accompanying him on his campaign against the Sarmatians in 323, until his own court was installed at Trier in 328. An inscription dated to 328–330 records the title of Alamannicus, indicating that his generals won a victory over the Alamanni. His military career continued when Constantine I made him field commander during the 332 winter campaign against the Goths. The military operation was successful and decisive, with 100,000 Goths reportedly slain and the surrender of the ruler Ariaric. Festival games were initiated in Rome to celebrate the Caesar’s role in the successful military campaigns, in a public advertisement of his capability to rule. He was married prior to 336, although his wife’s identity remains unknown.

While Constantine I had intended for his sons to rule together with their cousins Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, soon after his death in May 337 the army murdered several of their male relatives, including Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, on the orders of Constantine II’s younger brother Constantius II. Although Constantine himself appears to not have been directly involved, Burgess observed from numismatic evidence that he and his brothers “not only seem not to have fully accepted the legitimacy of Dalmatius and viewed him as an interloper, but also appear to have communicated with one another on this point and agreed on a common response.”

In what seemed to be an attempt to distance themselves from the massacre, the three brothers proceeded to print coins of Theodora, whom their murdered relatives had been descended from. Most of the coins were generated at Constantine II’s capital Trier, indicating that he was the one responsible for designing and producing the coinage at the start, as well as convincing his brothers to do the same. Woods considered it to suggest that he was more sympathetic to Theodora’s memory than his brothers, possibly because his wife may have been a granddaughter of Theodora.

In June 337, before he was named emperor, Constantine had already begun attempting to assert his seniority. He issued an order allowing the exiled bishop Athanasius to return to Alexandria, which was under the control of Constantius II, claiming to be carrying out the unfulfilled intentions of his father. While Constantine’s motives remain unclear, suggested explanations include him truly believing in the bishop’s innocence, him wanting to get rid of a religious nuisance, or him wanting to cause trouble for Constantius, who would oust Athanasius from Alexandria only two years later.

Augustus

The three brothers were not named as Augusti until 9 September 337, when they gathered together in Pannonia and divided the Roman territories among themselves. Constantine received Gaul, Britannia and Hispania. Unlike his younger brothers, he gained little from Dalmatius’ removal.

Constantine was evidently left unsatisfied with the results of their meeting, seemingly believing that his age granted him some sort of seniority in the imperial college and, by extension, control over the dominion of his youngest brother Constans, who was still a teenager in 337. Even after campaigning successfully against the Alamanni in 338, he continued to maintain his position. The Codex Theodosianus recorded Constantine’s legislative intervention in Constans’ territory through issuing an edict to the proconsul of Africa in 339.

In 340, Constantine launched an invasion into Italy to claim territory from Constans. Constans, at that time in Naissus, sent a number of troops to confront him, and Constantine was killed in an ambush near Aquileia. Constans then took control of his deceased brother's realm, who seem to have been largely unaffected by their change in ruler. After his death, Constantine was subjected to damnatio memoriae, which his other brother Constantius II also followed.

Family tree

Gallery

Notes

References

Sources

Primary sources

• Zosimus, Historia Nova, Book 2 Historia Nova
• Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus
• Eutropius, Breviarium ab urbe condita

Secondary sources

• Baker-Brian, Nicholas (2022). The Reign of Constantius II. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-0006-1991-1.
• Barnes, T. D. (7 December 1973). "Lactantius and Constantine". The Journal of Roman Studies. 63: 29–46. doi:10.2307/299163. JSTOR 299163. S2CID 163051414.
• Barnes, Timothy D. (1981). Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-16531-1.
• Barnes, Timothy D. (1982). The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674280670. ISBN 0-674-28066-0.
• Burgess, R.W. (2008). "THE SUMMER OF BLOOD: The "Great Massacre" of 337 and the Promotion of the Sons of Constantine". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 62: 5–51. JSTOR 20788042.
• Crawford, Peter (2016). Constantius II: Usurpers, Eunuchs, and the Antichrist. Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-78340-055-3.
• DiMaio, Michael, and Robert Frakes, "Constantine II (337–340 A.D.)", D.I.R.
• DiMaio, Michael (23 January 1988). "Smoke in the Wind : Zonaras' Use of Philostorgius, Zosimus, John of Antioch, and John of Rhodes in His Narrative on the Neo-Flavian Emperors". Byzantion. 58 (1): 230–255. JSTOR 44171050.
• Drinkwater, John F. (2007). The Alamanni and Rome 213–496. Caracalla to Clovis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-929568-5.
• Hunt, David (1998). "The successors of Constantine". In Averil Cameron & Peter Garnsey (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History XIII: The Late Empire, A.D. 337–425. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-30200-5.
• Jones, A.H.M.; J.R. Martindale & J. Morris (1971). The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire Volume 1: A.D. 260–395. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07233-6.
• Lewis, William (2020). "Constantine II and His Brothers: The Civil War of AD 340". In Nicholas Baker-Brian; Shaun Tougher (eds.). The Sons of Constantine, AD 337–361: In the Shadows of Constantine and Julian. Springer International Publishing. pp. 57–94. ISBN 978-3-0303-9898-9.
• Woods, David (2011). "Numismatic Evidence and the Succession to Constantine I". The Numismatic Chronicle. 171: 187–196. JSTOR 42667233.
• Gibbon, Edward. Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire (1888)

External links

• Media related to Flavius Claudius Constantinus at Wikimedia Commons

1. Constantine XI Palaiologos
2. Constantine the Great
3. Constantine VIII
4. Constantine III (Western Roman emperor)
5. Heraclius Constantine
6. Constantine
7. Constans II
8. Tiberius II Constantine
9. Constantine IX Monomachos
10. List of Byzantine emperors
11. Constantine II
12. Constantine VI
13. Constantine Doukas (co-emperor)
14. Constantine VII
15. Constantine IV
16. Constantine II of Bulgaria
17. Romanos II
18. Licinius
19. Constantine Laskaris
20. Manuel II Palaiologos