Lecture 15 Roman Law and

Society

Constantine:
a Christian
Statue of Constantine, by Philip Jackson,
York (Eboracum) 1998
legislator
 Constantine’s rise to power

• 305: Diocletian abdicates

• Battle of the Milvian Bridge
(312)
• 313: Licinius (East) and
Constantine (West)
• 324: Constantine – one
ruler
In hoc signo vinces
(In this sign you will conquer)
He said, moreover, that he doubted within himself what the
import of this apparition could be. And while he continued
to ponder and reason on its meaning, night suddenly came
on ; then in his sleep the Christ of God appeared to him with
the same sign which he had seen in the heavens, and
commanded him to make a likeness of that sign which he
had seen in the heavens, and to use it as a safeguard in all
engagements with his enemies.

Eusebius, Life of Constantine 1.29

Gold medallion issued at
Ticinum (Pavia) in 313 AD
Edict of tolerance, Milan (313)
When I, Constantine Augustus, as well as I, Licinius Augustus, happily
met near Milan, and were considering everything that pertained to the
public welfare and security, we thought, among other things which we
saw would be for the good of many, those regulations pertaining to the
reverence of the Divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we
might grant both to Christians and to all men full freedom to follow
whatever religion each one wished.

Lactantius, On the Death of the Persecutors 48.1-11

 Religious reforms: Edict of Milan (313)/1
• Edict of Milan (Licinius and Constantine):
a neutral State

1. Freedom of cult to Christians and all others

2. Return of confiscated properties
3. Clergy exemptions
4. Allowance for Church officials to use post system
5. Manumission of slaves
Edict of Milan/2
5. Ecclesiastical tribunals:
321: equal verdicts to those of civil law courts
bishops’ vs emperors’ jurisdiction
6. Sunday
7. Allowances (donations and legacies):
the temporal power
Appropriate types of marriage
1. If any man should be so abominable as to presume that a daughter of a brother or
a sister should be made his wife, and if he should fly into her embrace, not as her
paternal or maternal uncle, he shall be held subject to a
sentence of capital punishment. [Constantius and Constans, 342]
2. Although the ancients believed it lawful for a man to marry his brother’s wife
after the marriage of his brother had been dissolved, and lawful also for a man, after
the death or divorce of his wife, to contract a marriage with a sister of the said wife,
all men shall abstain from such marriages and they shall not suppose that legitimate
children may be begotten from such a union. For it is established that children so
born are spurious. [Constantius and Constans, 321]
Theodosian Code 3.12.1–2
On betrothals
It was the will of Our father that no act of generosity should be valid
unless it was entered in the public records. We decree also that,
after the time of the promulgation of this law, gifts between
betrothed persons, as well as those between all other persons, shall
be valid only if they are accompanied by the attestation of the public
records.

[Constantine, 319],Theodosian Code 3.5.1

On adultery
If any woman should commit adultery, it must be inquired whether she was the
mistress of a tavern or a servant girl and thus in the performance of her servile
duty she herself frequently served the wines of intemperance. If she should be
mistress of the tavern, she shall not be exempt from the bonds of the law. But
if she should give service to those who drink, in consideration of the mean
status of the woman who is brought to trial, the accusation shall be excluded
and the men who are accused shall go free, since chastity is required only of
those women who are held by the bonds of law, but those who because of their
mean status in life are not deemed worthy of the consideration of the laws shall
be immune from judicial severity.
[Constantine, 326],Theodosian Code 9.7.1
 On divorce
It is Our pleasure that no woman, on account of her own depraved desires, shall be permitted to
send a notice of divorce to her husband on trumped up grounds, as, for instance, that he is a
drunkard or a gambler or a philanderer, nor indeed shall a husband be permitted to divorce his
wife on every sort of pretext. But when a woman sends a notice of divorce, the following
criminal charges only shall be investigated, that is, if she should prove that her husband is a
homicide, a sorcerer, or a destroyer of tombs, so that the wife may thus earn commendation
and at length recover her entire dowry. For if she should send a notice of divorce to her husband
on grounds other than these three criminal charges, she must leave everything, even to her last
hairpin, in her husband’s home, and as punishment for her supreme self-confidence, she shall be
deported to an island. In the case of a man also, if he should send a notice of divorce, inquiry
shall be made as to the following three criminal charges, namely, if he wishes to divorce her as
an adulteress, a sorceress, or a procuress. For if he should cast off a wife who is innocent of
these crimes, he must restore her entire dowry, and he shall not marry another woman. But if
he should do this, his former wife shall be given the right to enter and seize his home by force
and to transfer to herself the entire dowry of his later wife in recompense for the outrage
inflicted upon her.
[Constantine, 331], Theodosian Code 3.16.1
Raising abandoned children
If any person should take up a boy or a girl child that has been cast out
of its home with the knowledge and consent of its father or owner, and
if he should rear this child to strength with his own sustenance, he shall
have the right to keep the said child under the same status as he
wished it to have when he took charge of it, that is, as his child or as a
slave, whichever he should prefer. Every disturbance of suits for
recovery by those persons who knowingly and voluntarily cast out from
home newly born children, whether slaves or free, shall be abolished.
[Constantine, 331] Theodosian Code 5.9.1
Selling children
We have learned that provincials suffering from lack of sustenance and the
necessities of life are selling or pledging their own children. Therefore, if any
such person should be found who is sustained by no substance of family
fortune and who is supporting his children with suffering and difficulty, he
shall be assisted through Our fisc before he becomes a prey to calamity.
The proconsuls and governors and the fiscal representatives throughout all
Africa shall thus have the power, they shall bestow freely the necessary
support on all persons whom they observe to be placed in dire need, and
from the State storehouses they shall immediately assign adequate
sustenance. For it is at variance with Our character that We should allow any
person to be destroyed by hunger or to break forth to the commission of a
shameful deed.
[Constantine, 322], Theodosian Code 11.27.2
Sunday
Just as it appears to Us most unseemly that the Day of the Sun (Dies
Solis), which is celebrated on account of its own veneration, should be
occupied with legal altercations and with noxious controversies of the
litigation of contending parties, so it is pleasant and fitting that those
acts which are especially desired shall be accomplished on that day.
Therefore all men shall have the right to emancipate and to manumit
on this festive day, and the legal formalities thereof are not forbidden.

[Constantine, 321], Theodosian Code 2.8.1

Ending gladiatorial combat
Emperor Constantine to Maximus, Praetorian Prefect.
Bloody spectacles displease us amid public peace and domestic
tranquillity. Wherefore, since We wholly forbid the existence of
gladiators, You shall cause those persons who, perchance, on account
of some crime, customarily sustained that condition and sentence, to
serve rather in the mines, so that they will assume the penalty for their
crimes without shedding their blood.
Promulgated at Berytus October 1 (325).
Theodosian Code 15.12.1
• Battle of
Chrysopolis
(324)
• Murder of
Licinius
• Byzantium:
a new
Rome
A new Rome
Rapid institutionalisation of the Church after 324 CE

• Doctrinal controversies and disputes:

The role of imperial forces
• Defining the Church’s organisation:
The bishops
• The right doctrine (orthodoxy) vs heresy
• The Donatist schism (312):
Donatus
Questioning the validity of sacraments
Heresies
• Arianism
Arius (256-336)
Questioning the Trinity
• The Council of Nicaea (325)
 The Council of Nicaea (325)
• Legislating for the
Church
• The Symbolum Nicenum
• Arianism and
Constantine
• Eusebius of Nicomedia
• Athanasius of Alexandria
Miniature
(10th c. AD):
Arius and
Constantine
at the
Council of
Nicaea
Constantine’s Political Reforms
The Roman dream
1. A solid monarchy
• Tetrarchy abolished
• Hereditary succession
• Imperial ceremonial
2. Centralised administration
• civil and military power separation:
• central government
• emperor
Financial reforms
• Bankrupt
• Solidus (309)
• Taxes

• VICTORIA CONSTANTINI AUG(USTI), " The Victorious Emperor Constantine ".

• SMNC S.C. S(enatus C(onsultus) = Issued on the authority of the Roman Senate.
M(etalla aurarium) N(ova) = new gold mines, i.e., 'new gold issue'.
Changes under Constantine,
novator turbatorque rerum
• Mediterranean balance > East
• From Roman to Christian Empire
• The Church seals its moral orthodoxy
• Usurpation and legitimisation
• Emperor= a representative of God on earth (icon)
• Reinforcement of power rituals: accessibility and mission
• Constantine aids and strengthens the Church, but later the Church
will owe its strength to the fall of the Roman State
Arch of
Constantine (312
AD)
Further reading
• Baker, G. P. (2001). Constantine the Great and the Christian
Revolution. Cooper Square Publishers
• Evans Grubbs, J. (2000). Law And Family In Late Antiquity: The
Emperor Constantine's Marriage Legislation. OUP
• Humfress, C. ‘Patristic sources’, in Johnston, D. (ed.) The Cambridge
Companion to Roman Law (CUP 2015), chapter 7, pp. 97-118.
• James, A. H. M. (1948). Constantine and the Conversion of Europe.
Macmillan