Following Odysseus Not the end of the world Amarna city of light ...

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Exhibition1 2Dalu Jones visits a new exhibition tracing the background to and the effects of therevolutionary Edict of Milan that established Christianity in Europe in AD 313ConstantineToday Milan is known as athriving business centreand the home of some ofthe world’s greatest fashionhouses. But in other ways it islike most other Italian cities filledwith ancient churches, magnificentmuseums and beautiful palaces withelegant inner courtyards, all testifyingto a rich and historically importantpast spanning many centuries.Milan actually ousted Rome when,after several centuries of Romancontrol, Emperor Diocletian (r. 284-305) declared Mediolanum (Milan)1. Marble portrait headthought to be Helena.AD 300-310. H. 32cm.Ny Carlsberg Glyptotech,Copenhagen.2. Bronze portrait ofConstantine. H. 36cm.AD 325-330. NationalMuseum of Serbia,Belgrade.3. Bronze krismon.Late 4th century.D. 25.4cm. CeljieRegional Museum, Celjie.capital of the Western RomanEmpire in AD 293. Diocletian, however,chose to stay in Nicomedia(now Izmit in Turkey) the then capitalof the Eastern Roman Empire,while his colleague Maximian(r. AD 286-305) ruled the Westernsection. Maximian immediately builtseveral important monuments in thenew capital, including a large circusmeasuring 470 × 85 metres (1,540 ×279 feet), the baths known as theThermae Herculeae, an imposingcomplex of imperial palaces andseveral administrative buildings. Anew exhibition in the former royalpalace celebrates the glory ofancient Milan under the rule ofConstantine the Great (r. AD 306-337) and the anniversary of the revolutionaryEdict of Milan (AD 313).The edict was jointly proclaimed byConstantine and Licinius (r. AD 308-324), respectively the emperors ofthe Western and the Eastern Romanempires – when the two Augustiwere in Milan to celebrate the weddingof Constantine’s younger halfsisterConstantia to Licinius.The edict encouraged tolerance of38Minerva November/December 2012
Exhibition534the great6all religions throughout the empireand specified that Christianity washenceforth to be considered a lawfulreligion, thus ushering in aperiod of religious tolerance andgreat political and cultural renewal.Whether Constantine himselfhad already sincerely embracedChristianity is a moot point. Theemperor’s policy went beyond toleratingthis new faith, for he alsoallowed paganism and other religions;but he actively promotedChristianity as part of his overallimperial policy. The edict was aMinerva November/December 20124. Votive plaque. 6th/7thcentury AD. H. 3.6cm.W. 6.1cm. Fabbrica di SanPietro, Vatican City.5. Gilded silver HolyCross reliquary withConstantine and Helenain prayer. Late 12thcentury. H. 16cm. W. 9.2cm.Musée du Louvre, Paris.6. Gold cross pendant.Late 5th century AD.H. 3.7cm. W. 2cm. MuseoCivico d’Arte Antica,Palazzo Madama, Turin.watershed: Christianity soon becamethe one and only state religion forByzantium and the whole of Europeuntil the modern age.Versions of the text of the edictwere recorded by the Bishop ofCaesarea, the historian Eusebius(AD 263-339), in his HistoriaEcclesiastica (History of theChurch) and, more accurately,in Lactantius’ De MortibusPersecutorum (On the Deathof the Persecutors), written beforeAD 315. Lactantius (circa AD 240-circa AD 320), known as theChristian Cicero, had himself survivedDiocletian’s persecutions andbecome Constantine’s adviser onreligious matters and tutor to theemperor’s son Crispus.A previous and similar Edict ofToleration had been issued by theco-emperor Galerius (r. AD 305-311) from Serdica (Sophia) andposted up at Nicomedia on 30 April311. By its provisions, the Christians‘… who had followed such a capriceand had fallen into such a folly thatthey would not obey the institutesof antiquity’, were granted an39
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