[158] Maxentius' support continued to weaken: at chariot races on 27 October, the crowd openly taunted Maxentius, shouting that Constantine was invincible. Licinius fled across the Bosphorus and appointed Martinian, his magister officiorum, as nominal Augustus in the West, but Constantine next won the Battle of the Hellespont, and finally the Battle of Chrysopolis on 18 September 324. Italics indicates a junior co-emperor, while underlining indicates a usurper. [274] It has been thought that Constantine put off baptism as long as he did so as to be absolved from as much of his sin as possible. [134] According to Eusebius, inter-regional travel became impossible, and there was military buildup everywhere. Constantine deployed his own forces along the whole length of Maxentius' line. New York Post June 27, 2019 10:53am. [173] The figure was otherwise rare and is uncommon in imperial iconography and propaganda before the 320s. [225] Despite these declarations of being a Christian, he waited to be baptized on his deathbed, believing that the baptism would release him of any sins he committed in the course of carrying out his policies while emperor. Licinius, aided by Gothic mercenaries, represented the past and the ancient pagan faiths. He won a victory in the war and extended his control over the region, as remains of camps and fortifications in the region indicate. Taking into account various assets, Constantine's net worth is greater than $100,000 - $249,999; and makes between $100 - 149,999 a year. [78] Galerius was put into a fury by the message; he almost set the portrait and messenger on fire. Our first location shoots were at the Thebarton Theatre and Semaphore Palais. [194] Maxentius' strongest military supporters were neutralized when he disbanded the Praetorian Guard and Imperial Horse Guard. [37] Constantine probably spent little time with his father[38] who was an officer in the Roman army, part of the Emperor Aurelian's imperial bodyguard. Constantine’s first wife was Minervina, whom he married in 303 AD. In the likeness of Apollo, Constantine recognized himself as the saving figure to whom would be granted "rule of the whole world",[117] as the poet Virgil had once foretold. Constantine plays Bass is the official page of Constantine (aka Kostas), bass player of Black Kaiser & Heritage. [316] Geoffrey of Monmouth expanded this story in his highly fictionalized Historia Regum Britanniae, an account of the supposed Kings of Britain from their Trojan origins to the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The conference was cut short, however, when news reached Licinius that his rival Maximinus had crossed the Bosporus and invaded European territory. Maxentius' forces were still twice the size of Constantine's, and he organized them in long lines facing the battle plain with their backs to the river. FREE Background Report. Akbar the Great, Muslim emperor of India, established a sprawling kingdom through military conquests but is known for his policy of religious tolerance. He then sent his infantry against Maxentius' infantry, pushing many into the Tiber where they were slaughtered and drowned. Not wanting questions about the divine nature of Christ to sow discord, Constantine summoned church officials to the Council of Nicaea in 325. [206] Although this characterization of Licinius as anti-Christian is somewhat doubtful, the fact is that he seems to have been far less open in his support of Christianity than Constantine. Although not Christian, the epitomes paint a favourable image of Constantine but omit reference to Constantine's religious policies. Along with the notice, he included a portrait of himself in the robes of an augustus. Constantine was a ruler of major importance, and he has always been a controversial figure. Constantine killed his second wife. There was "not a place where people were not expecting the onset of hostilities every day". [122] He died soon after the edict's proclamation,[123] destroying what little remained of the tetrarchy. [268], Constantine knew death would soon come. In 324, Constantine defeated Licinius and took control of a reunited empire. Lenski, "Reign of Constantine" (CC), 60–61; Odahl, 72–74; Pohlsander, CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (. Odahl, 283; Mark Humphries, "Constantine," review of. [11] Beginning with the Renaissance, there were more critical appraisals of his reign, due to the rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! [75], Constantine sent Galerius an official notice of Constantius' death and his own acclamation. [262], Constantine considered Constantinople his capital and permanent residence. Diocletian's first appointee for the office of Caesar was Constantius; his second was Galerius, a native of Felix Romuliana. [212] Among the various locations proposed for this alternative capital, Constantine appears to have toyed earlier with Serdica (present-day Sofia), as he was reported saying that "Serdica is my Rome". 1880). [220][page needed] This removed penalties for professing Christianity, under which many had been martyred previously, and it returned confiscated Church property. [144] Other cities of the north Italian plain sent Constantine embassies of congratulation for his victory. He had delayed his baptism — a common practice at the time — but now underwent the rite. He minted a coin issue after his victory over the Alemanni which depicts weeping and begging Alemannic tribesmen, "the Alemanni conquered" beneath the phrase "Romans' rejoicing". Exclusion of the old senatorial aristocracy threatened this arrangement. [127], Maxentius' rule was nevertheless insecure. Bowman, p. 70; Potter, 283; Williams, 49, 65. Kōnstantînos; 27 February c. 272 – 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from 306 to 337. [264] Constantine resettled some Sarmatian exiles as farmers in Illyrian and Roman districts, and conscripted the rest into the army. Maximian had been sent south to Arles with a contingent of Constantine's army, in preparation for any attacks by Maxentius in southern Gaul. Norman H. Baynes began a historiographic tradition with Constantine the Great and the Christian Church (1929) which presents Constantine as a committed Christian, reinforced by Andreas Alföldi's The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome (1948), and Timothy Barnes's Constantine and Eusebius (1981) is the culmination of this trend. [141] The first town his army encountered was Segusium (Susa, Italy), a heavily fortified town that shut its gates to him. Constantine ordered his troops not to loot the town, and advanced with them into northern Italy. Leithart, Peter J. [218] The capital would often be compared to the 'old' Rome as Nova Roma Constantinopolitana, the "New Rome of Constantinople". [260] The myth rests on slim evidence as an interpretation of the executions; only late and unreliable sources allude to the relationship between Crispus and Fausta, and there is no evidence for the modern suggestion that Constantine's "godly" edicts of 326 and the irregularities of Crispus are somehow connected. [10] He built a new imperial residence at Byzantium and renamed the city Constantinople (now Istanbul) after himself (the laudatory epithet of "New Rome" emerged in his time, and was never an official title). [164] According to Lactantius "Constantine was directed in a dream to cause the heavenly sign to be delineated on the shields of his soldiers, and so to proceed to battle. In Scheidel, ed.. Udoh, Fabian E. "Quand notre monde est devenu chretien", review, Warmington, Brian. Constantine's armies emerged victorious. The bishops, Eusebius records, "performed the sacred ceremonies according to custom". There, in a church his mother built in honor of Lucian the Apostle, he prayed, and there he realized that he was dying. Although she is a demon - or at the least half-demon - Maria's instinctive form is that of a fourteen-year-old blonde girl. Constantine pursued successful campaigns against the tribes on the Roman frontiers—the Franks, the Alamanni, the Goths and the Sarmatians—even resettling territories abandoned by his predecessors during the Crisis of the Third Century. While in power, Constantine issued reforms intended to strengthen his regime. She was born into a humble family around 255 and married Constantinius Chlorus. [132] To prevent Maxentius from forming an alliance against him with Licinius,[133] Constantine forged his own alliance with Licinius over the winter of 311–312 AD, and offered him his sister Constantia in marriage. He likely also witnessed the persecution of Christians. Senators were stripped of the command of legions and most provincial governorships, as it was felt that they lacked the specialized military upbringing needed in an age of acute defense needs;[241] such posts were given to equestrians by Diocletian and his colleagues, following a practice enforced piecemeal by their predecessors. Fowden, "Last Days of Constantine," 148–9. He restructured the government, separating civil and military authorities. Galerius refused to recognize him but failed to unseat him. [57] On 23 February AD 303, Diocletian ordered the destruction of Nicomedia's new church, condemned its scriptures to the flames, and had its treasures seized. Constantine's later propaganda describes how he fled the court in the night, before Galerius could change his mind. Therefore, Licinius was prone to see the Church as a force more loyal to Constantine than to the Imperial system in general,[207] as the explanation offered by the Church historian Sozomen. It made little difference, however, as loyal citizens opened the rear gates to Constantine. [170][171] A medallion was issued at Ticinum in 315 AD which shows Constantine wearing a helmet emblazoned with the Chi Rho,[172] and coins issued at Siscia in 317/318 AD repeat the image. Emperor Haile Selassie I worked to modernize Ethiopia for several decades before famine and political opposition forced him from office in 1974. [55] In late 302, Diocletian and Galerius sent a messenger to the oracle of Apollo at Didyma with an inquiry about Christians. His father, Flavius Valerius Constantius, was an officer in the Roman army. Henry Charles Lea, "The 'Donation of Constantine'". In constructing the Old Saint Peter's Basilica, Constantine went to great lengths to erect the basilica on top of St. Peter's resting place, so much so that it even affected the design of the basilica, including the challenge of erecting it on the hill where St. Peter rested, making its complete construction time over 30 years from the date Constantine ordered it to be built. [56] Constantine could recall his presence at the palace when the messenger returned, when Diocletian accepted his court's demands for universal persecution. Constantine was also the first emperor to adhere to Christianity. During the medieval period, Britons regarded Constantine as a king of their own people, particularly associating him with Caernarfon in Gwynedd. [160] Maxentius, no longer certain that he would emerge from a siege victorious, built a temporary boat bridge across the Tiber in preparation for a field battle against Constantine. Baronius' Life of Constantine (1588) presents Constantine as the model of a Christian prince. [214] Eventually, however, Constantine decided to work on the Greek city of Byzantium, which offered the advantage of having already been extensively rebuilt on Roman patterns of urbanism, during the preceding century, by Septimius Severus and Caracalla, who had already acknowledged its strategic importance. [309] Paul Veyne's 2007 work Quand notre monde est devenu chrétien holds a similar view which does not speculate on the origin of Constantine's Christian motivation, but presents him as a religious revolutionary who fervently believed that he was meant "to play a providential role in the millenary economy of the salvation of humanity". [121] His final act survives: a letter to provincials posted in Nicomedia on 30 April 311 AD, proclaiming an end to the persecutions, and the resumption of religious toleration. [242] The title of perfectissimus was granted only to mid- or low-level officials by the end of the 4th century. [287][288], The Holy Roman Empire reckoned Constantine among the venerable figures of its tradition. Constantine—with a lot of help from his Druidess mother Helena—was the father of the perverted Latin Vulgate Version. [83], Constantine's share of the Empire consisted of Britain, Gaul, and Spain, and he commanded one of the largest Roman armies which was stationed along the important Rhine frontier. Supernatural exorcist and demonologist John Constantine helps a policewoman prove her sister's death was not a suicide, but something more. According to Lactantius, Galerius was a brutal, animalistic man. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, German and Sarmatian campaigns of Constantine, "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Constantine the Great", "Saint Constantine Ukrainian Catholic Church - Patron Saint", "Portrait Head of the Emperor Constantine, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 26.229", "The sign in the sky that changed history", Sardonyx cameo depicting constantine the great crowned by Constantinople, 4th century AD, "CHURCH FATHERS: Life of Constantine, Book III (Eusebius)", "Imperial Porphyry Sarcophagi in Constantinople", "Barba – NumisWiki, The Collaborative Numismatics Project", "Edict of Milan celebration to begin in Niš", 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199249183.001.0001, On the Question of Constantine's Conversion to Christianity, Complete chronological list of Constantine's extant writings, "Constantine the Great, the Reorganisation of the Empire and the Triumph of the Church", BBC North Yorkshire's site on Constantine the Great, Constantine's time in York on the 'History of York', Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution, Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, Prayer of Consecration to the Sacred Heart, Persecutions of the Catholic Church and Pius XII, Pope Pius XII Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Dogma of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Constantine_the_Great&oldid=1006781944, Burials at the Church of the Holy Apostles, Characters in works by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Converts to Christianity from pagan religions, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from July 2020, Pages using multiple image with auto scaled images, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with multiple identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, 25 July 306 – 22 May 337 (alone from 19 September 324). One day, John returned to his apartment to find that his old friend Gary Lester, who had become a drug addict over the last ten years, waiting for him there. The African bishops could not come to terms, and the Donatists asked Constantine to act as a judge in the dispute. Constantine was declared emperor by his troops. Maximinus considered Constantine's arrangement with Licinius an affront to his authority. Bleckmann, "Sources for the History of Constantine" (CC), 27–28; Lieu and Montserrat, 2–6; Odahl, 6–7; Warmington, 166–67. In the cultural sphere, Constantine revived the clean-shaven face fashion of the Roman emperors from Augustus to Trajan, which was originally introduced among the Romans by Scipio Africanus. Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom. "[165] Eusebius describes a vision that Constantine had while marching at midday in which "he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, In Hoc Signo Vinces" ("In this sign thou shalt conquer"). Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea (now Niš, Serbia), he was the son of Flavius Constantius, an Illyrian army officer who became one of the four emperors of the Tetrarchy. Hindley Street Country Club was established in 2017 by Constantine Delo and Darren Mullan. The two core members team up with a variety of other local musicians including a variety of regular performers. Constantine's mother, Helena, was from humble beginnings; it is unknown whether she was the wife or concubine of Constantius. The story goes that Constantine had a vision of the words in hoc signo vinces ("in this sign you will conquer") upon a cross, and he swore that, should he triumph against great odds, he would pledge himself to Christianity. He requested the baptism right away, promising to live a more Christian life should he live through his illness. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. [7] The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built on his orders at the purported site of Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem and became the holiest place in Christendom. [261] Therefore, an alternative explanation for the execution of Crispus was, perhaps, Constantine's desire to keep a firm grip on his prospective heirs, this—and Fausta's desire for having her sons inheriting instead of their half-brother—being reason enough for killing Crispus; the subsequent execution of Fausta, however, was probably meant as a reminder to her children that Constantine would not hesitate in "killing his own relatives when he felt this was necessary". [notes 2] Although he lived much of his life as a pagan, and later as a catechumen, he began to favor Christianity beginning in 312, finally becoming a Christian and being baptised by either Eusebius of Nicomedia an Arian bishop or Pope Saint Sylvester which is maintained by the Catholic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church. During his time of leadership, he united Greece, reestablished the Corinthian League and conquered the Persian Empire. [269] It came sooner than he had expected. "[97], Following Galerius' recognition of Constantine as caesar, Constantine's portrait was brought to Rome, as was customary. Constantine is a 2005 American superhero horror film directed by Francis Lawrence, in his feature-length directorial debut, with a screenplay by Kevin Brodbin and Frank Cappello.Its cast includes Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf, Tilda Swinton, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Djimon Hounsou, Gavin Rossdale, and Peter Stormare. See the complete profile on LinkedIn and discover Constantine’s connections and jobs at similar companies. By the new Constantinian arrangement, one could become a senator by being elected praetor or by fulfilling a function of senatorial rank. According to this, after Constantine had pardoned him, Maximian planned to murder Constantine in his sleep. [228], In 321, he legislated that the venerable Sunday should be a day of rest for all citizens. Constantine served with distinction under emperors Diocletian and Galerius campaigning in the eastern provinces against barbarians and the Persians, before being recalled west in 305 to fight under his father in Britain. Pagans showered him with praise, such as Praxagoras of Athens, and Libanius. Constantine adopts the Greek letters Chi Rho for Christ's initials, Constantine is not revered as a saint but as “the great” in the. (Constantine actually resisted baptism until he was on his deathbed.) [45] In 288, Maximian appointed Constantius to serve as his praetorian prefect in Gaul. In 305, following Maximian's abdication, Constantine's father became Emperor Constantius I. Constantine then joined his father on a military campaign and fought alongside him in Britain. It subsequently became the capital of the Empire for more than a thousand years, the later Eastern Roman Empire being referred to as the Byzantine Empire by modern historians. With the recently announced Dark Universe on the way, the DCEU is continuing its foray into its characteristically darker side.There’s little doubt that the human sorcerer John Constantine will make an impact on the film, likely serving as the face of the Justice League Dark franchise, but the Hellblazer has long been igniting fans with his tricky cons and charismatic, foul-mouthed attitude. In 308 AD, he raided the territory of the Bructeri, and made a bridge across the Rhine at Colonia Agrippinensium (Cologne). [193], Constantine also sought to upstage Maxentius' achievements. His reputation flourished during the lifetime of his children and for centuries after his reign. [63] Lactantius states that Galerius manipulated the weakened Diocletian into resigning, and forced him to accept Galerius' allies in the imperial succession. Lenski, "Reign of Constantine" (CC), 71, citing. [295] Following Julian, Eunapius began—and Zosimus continued—a historiographic tradition that blamed Constantine for weakening the Empire through his indulgence to the Christians. [198], In the following years, Constantine gradually consolidated his military superiority over his rivals in the crumbling Tetrarchy. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea (now NiÅ¡, Serbia), he was the son of Flavius Constantius, an Illyrian army officer who became one of the four emperors of the Tetrarchy. [85] He then left for Augusta Treverorum (Trier) in Gaul, the Tetrarchic capital of the northwestern Roman Empire. In 317, Constantine issued an edict to confiscate Donatist church property and to send Donatist clergy into exile. Instead, the orator proclaims that Constantine experienced a divine vision of Apollo and Victory granting him laurel wreaths of health and a long reign. [197] The Legio II Parthica was removed from Albano Laziale,[191] and the remainder of Maxentius' armies were sent to do frontier duty on the Rhine. [259], Although Constantine created his apparent heirs "Caesars", following a pattern established by Diocletian, he gave his creations a hereditary character, alien to the tetrarchic system: Constantine's Caesars were to be kept in the hope of ascending to Empire, and entirely subordinated to their Augustus, as long as he was alive. [140], At the approach to the west of the important city of Augusta Taurinorum (Turin, Italy), Constantine met a large force of heavily armed Maxentian cavalry. [This is a review of the Constantine season 1 finale. Eusebius is the best representative of this strand of Constantinian propaganda. [129] By 312 AD, he was a man barely tolerated, not one actively supported,[130] even among Christian Italians. [112] Along with using propaganda, Constantine instituted a damnatio memoriae on Maximian, destroying all inscriptions referring to him and eliminating any public work bearing his image. Constantine went to the court of Diocletian, where he lived as his father's heir presumptive. [183] Unlike his predecessors, Constantine neglected to make the trip to the Capitoline Hill and perform customary sacrifices at the Temple of Jupiter. Constantine planned to be baptized in the Jordan River before crossing into Persia. [43] Maximian ruled in the West, from his capitals at Mediolanum (Milan, Italy) or Augusta Treverorum (Trier, Germany), while Diocletian ruled in the East, from Nicomedia (İzmit, Turkey). [277] Similar accounts are given in the Origo Constantini, an anonymous document composed while Constantine was still living, and which has Constantine dying in Nicomedia;[278] the Historiae abbreviatae of Sextus Aurelius Victor, written in 361, which has Constantine dying at an estate near Nicomedia called Achyrona while marching against the Persians;[279] and the Breviarium of Eutropius, a handbook compiled in 369 for the Emperor Valens, which has Constantine dying in a nameless state villa in Nicomedia. Both names were removed from public documentation. He abandoned and divorced her for political reasons in 292 to marry the stepdaughter of emperor Maximian. Its inscription bore the message which the statue illustrated: By this sign, Constantine had freed Rome from the yoke of the tyrant. He treated the war as a Christian crusade, calling for bishops to accompany the army and commissioning a tent in the shape of a church to follow him everywhere. One such campaign was sanctioned by Emperor Trajan after he received a letter from Pliny (A.D. 111-113). [147] Ruricius Pompeianus, general of the Veronese forces and Maxentius' praetorian prefect,[148] was in a strong defensive position, since the town was surrounded on three sides by the Adige. The division was merely pragmatic: the empire was called "indivisible" in official panegyric,[44] and both emperors could move freely throughout the empire. Carrié & Rousselle, p.657 citing T.D. https://www.biography.com/political-figure/constantine-i. [115] Indeed, the orator emphasizes ancestry to the exclusion of all other factors: "No chance agreement of men, nor some unexpected consequence of favor, made you emperor," the orator declares to Constantine. [66] It is uncertain how much these tales can be trusted. [267] The letter is undatable. Special commemorative coins were issued in 330 to honor the event. For example, the Circus Maximus was redeveloped so that its seating capacity was 25 times larger than that of Maxentius' racing complex on the Via Appia. Two imperial commissioners for each province had the task of getting the statues and melting them for immediate minting, with the exception of a number of bronze statues that were used as public monuments in Constantinople. [190] Maxentius' rescripts were declared invalid, and the honours that he had granted to leaders of the Senate were also invalidated. Constantine accepted and married Fausta in Trier in late summer 307 AD. The new ideology expressed in the speech made Galerius and Maximian irrelevant to Constantine's right to rule. Constantine now gave Maxentius his meagre support, offering Maxentius political recognition. Hindley Street Country Club was established in 2017 by Constantine Delo and Darren Mullan. Constantine then resolved to campaign against Persia himself. Constantine possibly retained the title of pontifex maximus which emperors bore as heads of the ancient Roman religion until Gratian renounced the title. [139] Early in the spring of 312 AD,[140] Constantine crossed the Cottian Alps with a quarter of his army, a force numbering about 40,000. Maxentius accepted. We strive for accuracy and fairness. He may have attended the lectures of Lactantius, a Christian scholar of Latin in the city. Licinius departed and eventually defeated Maximinus, gaining control over the entire eastern half of the Roman Empire. [290], The Niš Constantine the Great Airport is named in honor of him. [296] The Renaissance rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources prompted a re-evaluation of his career. However, he died only a month later, and Constantius took the throne himself, marrying Cole's daughter Helena. Constantine's forces successfully surrounded the town and laid siege. In, This page was last edited on 14 February 2021, at 19:36. Drake, "The Impact of Constantine on Christianity" (CC), 126; Elliott, "Constantine's Conversion," 425–26. [310], Latin Rite Catholics considered it inappropriate that Constantine was baptized only on his death bed by an unorthodox bishop, as it undermined the authority of the Papacy, and a legend emerged by the early fourth century that Pope Sylvester I (314–335) had cured the pagan emperor from leprosy. Eusebius, for example, edited out any praise of Crispus from later copies of Historia Ecclesiastica, and his Vita Constantini contains no mention of Fausta or Crispus at all. [281], Following his death, his body was transferred to Constantinople and buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles,[282] in a porphyry sarcophagus that was described in the 10th century by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in the De Ceremoniis. [306] Charles Matson Odahl's Constantine and the Christian Empire (2004) takes much the same tack. [34] His father was Flavius Constantius, an Illyrian,[35][36] and a native of Dardania province of Moesia (later Dacia Ripensis). In response, he sent ambassadors to Rome, offering political recognition to Maxentius in exchange for a military support. [94] His military skill and building projects, however, soon gave the panegyrist the opportunity to comment favourably on the similarities between father and son, and Eusebius remarked that Constantine was a "renewal, as it were, in his own person, of his father's life and reign". Constantine rested his army in Milan until mid-summer 312 AD, when he moved on to Brixia (Brescia). [237] They were forbidden to own Christian slaves or to circumcise their slaves. A similar edict had been issued in 311 by Galerius, senior emperor of the Tetrarchy, which granted Christians the right to practise their religion but did not restore any property to them. Being described as a tolerant and politically skilled man,[39] Constantius advanced through the ranks, earning the governorship of Dalmatia from Emperor Diocletian, another of Aurelian's companions from Illyricum, in 284 or 285. John Constantine, the Hellblazer, is a working-class magician, occult detective and a golden-tongued con man. Fausta learned of the plot and warned Constantine, who put a eunuch in his own place in bed.