Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Battle of Milvian Bridge (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. In the year 312, two claimants to the Roman imperial throne met outside the walls of Rome near a bridge that crossed the Tiber River. The subsequent battle that followed was not that much different than many other Roman battles which had been fought over the centuries. However, the implications of that battle have had long-reaching ramifications that have shaped the world for the past 1700 years. Learn more about the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and how it changed the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere. daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? Throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day and tonight and how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR.

Starting point is 00:01:09 When looking back at world history, there are great battles and there are important battles. And not all great battles are important, and not all important battles are great. The Battle of Caney, which I did a previous episode, was a great battle. Hannibal and the Carthaginians defeated the Romans in one of the most lopsided victories in history. However, it wasn't really an important victory insofar as the Carthaginians ended up losing the war. The Battle of Stalingrad between Germany and the Soviet Union and the Battle of Galgumela between Alexander the Great and the Persians were both great and important battles. And I would place the Battle of the Milvian Bridge into the category of battles that were not great, but were extremely important. To understand

Starting point is 00:01:54 the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, you have to understand what was happening in the Roman Empire in the early 4th century. During the 3rd century, the Roman Empire was a mess. The assassination of Emperor Severus Alexander in 235 ushered in a 50-year period of anarchy, known as the crisis of the third century. There were civil wars, rebellions, uprising, and barbarian invasions, and no fewer than 26 men claimed the imperial throne during this period. It finally ended with the rise of Emperor Diocletian. Diocletian reigned for 21 years, which was an eternity for a Roman emperor at this time, and did something few emperors ever did. He retired from power and died a natural death. Diocletian realized that the empire had simply become too large for one person to rule. To solve this

Starting point is 00:02:39 he created a system known as the Tetraarchy. The Tetraarchy divided the empire into two halves, east and west. A senior emperor would lead each side of the empire with the title of Augustus. Each Augustus would be paired with a junior partner with the title of Caesar. The Caesar would be the designated successor to the Augustus, thus ensuring that there would always be a smooth transition of power. And the tetrararchy worked pretty well. For a while. Dioclesian was the unified Augustus of the Empire, and he appointed as his Caesar a man by the name of Maximian, and Maximian was eventually named the Co-Augustus with Diocletian. In the year 305, in a bloodless transfer of power, Diocletian and Maximian retired, and the new Augusti, Augustus's, were Galerius in the

Starting point is 00:03:26 East and Constantius in the West. Their respective Caesar, second in command, were Maximius Daya in the East, and Flavius Valerius Severus in the West. Problems began the next year, in 306 when Constanches died in Britain while he was campaigning, in what is today the city of York. After he died, his army proclaimed his son Constantine as the new Augustus in the West. Constantine, not wanting to cause a civil war, agreed to be the junior Caesar to Severus, who was now the new Augustus. This angered Maximian's son Maxentius, who felt that he should have been named the new Caesar. What happened over the next few years was extremely complicated, and I've thought of ways to explain it, but I think this is the easiest way to do it.

Starting point is 00:04:07 Maxentius got the Senate and the Praetorian Guard to declare him emperor with his father. And then his father turned on him and joined up with him again. Severus marched to Rome to take up Maxentius and was killed, making Constantine the new Augustus in the West. Maximian eventually tried to kill Constantine, and he was caught and then forced to kill himself. Galerius died in 3-11, which set the entire empire into chaos. By 312, the dusthead sort of settled, and Constantine and Maxentius were the two major claimers. for the throne, and they were on a path to war. Maxentius controlled the Italian peninsula, Sicily, Corsica, and North Africa. Constantine controlled Britain, Spain, and Gaul. In the spring, Constantine and his army of 40,000 men marched over the Alps and headed to Italy. They took what are the modern-day cities of Turin and Milan, besieged Verona, and then headed to Rome

Starting point is 00:04:59 where Maxentius was waiting. Maxentius's plan was originally to just wait him out behind the walls of Rome. However, he consulted with the Sibeline books, which said that on the next day, an enemy of Rome will die. And if you remember back to my episode on the Sibbline books, you always have to be careful how you interpret them. He figured that meant that he was going to win a battle, so he decided to take the fight to Constantine. The location of the battle was just across the Milvian Bridge, which was a stone bridge that crossed the Tiber and led to the Via Flamina, which was an important Roman road. McSentius had also built a pontoon bridge right across the river next to the stone bridge. The battle commenced on October 28 in the year 312.

Starting point is 00:05:41 Maxentius's men were pushed back due to poor planning on Maxentius' part, and they had nowhere to go because the river was behind them. This led to a stampede across both bridges, with the pontoon bridge collapsing, drowning almost everyone on it, including Mexentius. Constantine won the day, became the unified emperor of Rome, established a new capital city that bore his name, and became known as Constantine the Great. What I just described is the basic X's and O's of the story of the battle. And for those of you familiar with the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, you will have noticed that I have left out what is by far the most important part of the story and the thing which made the battle so important to world history.

Starting point is 00:06:21 The details of what made the battle so important have differed over time. I'll give the most common version of the story, which might just be apocryphal, but it might as well have been true for the purposes of creating a legend. legend. Supposedly the night before the battle, Constantine had a dream. And in that dream, he saw a cross with words inscribed on it in Greek that read, In Tutu-Nika. In Latin, it reads, In Hoc Signo, Wen case. And the English translation is, in this sign, you shall conquer. When Constantine woke up, he asked some of his men who were familiar with Christianity what this meant. They said it was a message from God. Constantine then ordered all of his men to

Starting point is 00:07:01 to paint the Cairo symbol on their shields before the battle. The Cairo is the superimposition of the Greek letters Kai and Roe, which are the first two letters of the Greek words Christos. It looks like an elongated P with an X at the bottom, and early Christian communities used it as a symbol for Christ. Having received a message from God and painted their shields, Constantine went on to win the battle and converted to Christianity. Or at least that's how the story goes.

Starting point is 00:07:29 Here I should note that Christians were just a might- sect in the Roman Empire at the time of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. They had no real political, economic, or military power. They had been persecuted for almost 300 years by the Romans, with the greatest persecution occurring under Diocletian and Constantine's father. It's estimated that Christians probably only made up about 10% of the empire's population at the time of the battle. However, it had been growing rapidly over the last 50 years. Christianity may have only constituted 2% of the empire in the year 2050. Several histories of the period do mention Constantine having a dream, but others omit the story entirely.

Starting point is 00:08:08 However, none of the original stories of the dream have it taking place the night before the battle. If it did happen, it probably happened months before on the March to Rome. Likewise, the shields might have been painted much earlier as well, and possibly with a cross and not a Cairo. There's an enormous amount of debate amongst historians regarding Constantine and Christianity. In particular, the very simple question of if Constantine was in fact a Christian himself. Much of what we know comes from a Greek Christian historian named Eusebius. Eusebius actually met and interviewed Constantine later in his life and wrote his biography, the Vita Constantine.

Starting point is 00:08:46 Eucibius makes note of Constantine's dream in his biography, but doesn't link it to a particular time, nor the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. As for Constantine, if he had converted to Christianity at this time, He had a funny way of showing it. Right after the battle, he marched into Rome and went directly to the temple of Jupiter-Capitalinus, which was the main pagan temple in the city. Today, you can see for yourself the Arch of Constantine in Rome, and nowhere on it is there any mention of anything to do with Christianity. Likewise, official Roman coins and documents referenced the Roman sun god Saul of Victus for at least 12 years after the battle.

Starting point is 00:09:23 So, if he was a Christian, he wasn't in your face about it as an emperor. Many think Constantine was probably influenced by his mother, St. Helena. However, according to Eusebius, Helena didn't convert to Christianity until after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. It's widely assumed that he wasn't baptized until he was near death, which was his get-out-of-jail-free card for all the sins he had committed in his life, including murdering his own family members. He was baptized by either Eusebius himself or by Pope Sylvester I. However, the story of Pope Sylvester baptizing him may have been made up after the fact because, Eusebius embraced the Aryan heresy. And also in the 7th century, it was part of a forged document called the Donation of Constantine, which was used to justify papal control over the city of Rome, because

Starting point is 00:10:09 supposedly Constantine had given it to the church and his will. So, Constantine's personal religious beliefs are a major question mark, as is the veracity of the story of him seeing a cross in a dream. What there isn't any doubt about are the policies that Constantine implemented after he became emperor. A literal over three months after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which gave Christianity formal tolerance of the empire and officially recognized freedom of religion. A copy of a letter sent to the governor of Bithynia in northern Turkey reported the edict by saying, quote, when we, Constantine Augustus and Licinius Augustus met so happily at Milan and considered together all that concerned the interest and security of the state,

Starting point is 00:10:53 we decided to grant Christians and to everybody the free power to follow the religion of their choice in order that all is divine in the heavens may be favorable and propitious towards all who are placed under our authority. End quote. This did not make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. That wouldn't happen for another 67 years. But the Christians were now allowed to practice their religion out in the open, which only accelerated the growth of the religion. In the years after the Edict of Milan, Constantine wasn't really neutral about Christianity.

Starting point is 00:11:25 While at first, he did actually encourage and fund the construction of Roman temples. By the end of his reign, he was pillaging them and tearing them down. Constantine was a patron of some of the Roman Empire's first churches. Before the Edict of Milan, most Christians secretly met in private homes. Constantine paid for the construction of these first buildings, including the original St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, which I touched on in a previous episode. He also commissioned at least four of the first churches in Constantinople, and he commissioned copies of the Bible, at least the Gospels, for those churches in Constantinople. He was also responsible for calling the Council of Nicaea in 325, which attempted to resolve the issue of Arianism, which held that Jesus was subordinate to God the Father. It was probably the biggest issue facing the Christian community in the early 4th century.

Starting point is 00:12:14 So you should be able to see why the Battle of the Milvian Bridge was such an important battle. It was Constantine's victory that allowed him to become emperor and allowed Christianity to move from becoming an underground minority sect, to eventually becoming the official religion in the Roman Empire, the dominant religion in Europe, and then spread around the globe to every continent. And it was all due to a battle outside the walls of Rome on the banks of the Tiber River 1700 years ago. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Peter Bennett and Cameron Kiefer. I wanted to give a big thanks to everyone who supports the show on Patreon.

Starting point is 00:12:58 Your support helps me put out a new show every day. And if you're interested in Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise, Patreon is currently the only place where it's available. And if you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and get notified to future episodes and projects, please join my Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Battle of Milvian Bridge (Encore)

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