Imagine coming face to face with the bust, retrieved from a local ditch, of the emperor who spread Christianity throughout the known world. Or reading one of the earliest mentions of Britain in a tattered letter preserved for 1,700 years in the desert. Or gazing at the only known Roman mosaic depicting the head of Christ.
You can do all this at York, where a magnificent exhibition celebrates a little-known fact: 1,700 years ago Constantine, the ruler who promoted Christianity throughout the Roman Empire, became the only emperor to begin his reign on this island when he was proclaimed by legionaries in the city of York. To mark the accession of the man who ended centuries of persecution, fixed the date of Easter and drew up the early Christian creed, the Yorkshire Museum is celebrating his life and times with one of the most ambitious displays of Roman Britain for decades.
The exhibition brings together the exquisite silverware, jewellery, coins, furnishings, mosaics and weapons that have been found beneath Britain’s soil. They show that, far from being a poor offshore island, the province of Britannia was, by the 4th century, one of the empire’s most important and prosperous possessions. Its people lived well, its artists flourished and its cities boasted fine buildings, baths, villas and temples. Arguably, this rich heritage reached its high point during the long reign of Constantine. In July a service of thanksgiving will be held in the Minster to celebrate his life. At the same time the museum will hold an international symposium on life in the late Roman Empire.
You see him as soon as you walk into the museum. A splendid if weathered bust, probably his earliest portrait, found in a York ditch two centuries ago, opens the exhibition. His characteristic jutting jaw is also recognisable from a solidus, a gold coin dating from AD316.
Elizabeth Hartley, the curator, has assembled an extraordinary array of contemporary imperial, domestic and artistic objects from shoes to hairpins and rings to funerary inscriptions. There is a life-size bronze goose, found in Constantinople, that once spouted wine, sound or steam from its beak. A mid-4th-century mosaic, discovered in Dorset, shows at its centre Christ in splendour.
Also from Dorset is one of the finest examples of painted plaster to survive in Britain, depicting the god Bacchus with a satyr. The Water Newton Hoard of silverware, discovered in Cambridgeshire, consists of one gold and 27 silver pieces from the second half of the 4th century and includes probably the earliest surviving liturgical plate of the early Church from anywhere in the Roman Empire.
Another collection, the Traprain Law Treasure, dating from the late 4th century and found near Edinburgh, is huge: again including exquisite objects inscribed with scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Not everyone converted, however. Found on Hadrian’s Wall was a small sculpture of a hooded man representing the cult deity Genius Cucullatus.
The museum has also borrowed from the Victoria and Albert Museum two remarkable woven tapestry panels with portrait busts of Adonis and Aphrodite. The panels, meant to be sewn together on to a plain linen cloth, are pagan images found in a Christian burial.
York’s role in Constantine’s accession is coincidental. In AD305 the ambitious young commander was serving in the east. But, fearing arrest after the death of Diocletian, he fled to Trier, the imperial headquarters (now in Germany), to join his father, Constantius. One province, however, was giving trouble — Britain, where the Picts north of Hadrian’s Wall were on the rampage. Father and son hurried to Britain to subdue the rebels, but stopping at Eboracum (modern York) on the way home, Constantius fell ill, recommended his son to his loyal legionaries, and died.
Constantine seized the opportunity and rushed to Rome. Then in AD312, just before battle with a persistent usurper, Constantine saw in the sky the Greek letters “chi” and “rho” — the Christian symbol for Christ. Within hours he had won a famous victory. He converted to Christianity (while still honouring the Roman sun god Sol Invictus), and within three years the empire was his.
In a letter to the Palestinians in AD324, he looked back on what happened. “I, beginning from that sea beside the Britons and the parts where it is appointed by a superior constraint that the sun should set, have repelled and scattered the horrors that held everything in subjections, so that on the one hand the human race, taught by my obedient service, might restore the religion of the most dread Law, while at the same time the most blessed faith might grow under the guidance of the Supreme.”
Amazingly, that fragile letter survives, discovered after centuries in the Egyptian desert, and is one of the 270 objects and works of art from 36 museums and private collections in Britain and Europe. Constantine’s importance is for ever linked to Christianity, and scholarly essays in the catalogue look at his ambiguous relationship with this religion.
He is famous for ending one of the great quarrels of the early Church — when to celebrate Easter — by summoning some 300 bishops from across the empire in AD325 to a council in Nicea (Iznik in modern Turkey). The Emperor wanted uniformity and it was eventually decreed that Easter should be celebrated everywhere on the same day. The council also drew up the Nicene Creed — still in liturgical use.
Constantine’s conversion is sometimes seen as half-hearted, as he delayed his baptism until his deathbed. But it had a dramatic effect on Christianity, proclaimed by only 10 per cent of the empire’s population. The faith went public. Sunday was declared a day of rest. Gladiatorial contests were banned. Within 15 years almost all Roman cities had built churches. The Emperor sent his mother, Helen, to Palestine, where she is said to have discovered a piece of the Cross. After she was canonised many a medieval town in Britain named streets and squares after her, believing wrongly that she was from Britain. Finally, Constantine is remembered for two vast churches: the first cathedral of St Peter’s, Rome, and Santa Sophia in his new capital, Constantinople.
The history is well told here. And it needs to be better known — few Britons know of the indirect role this island played in spreading Christianity to the known world. Little wonder that Church leaders will give thanks for the life of Constantine in the Minster. He is York’s boy, and he did good.
Constantine the Great — York’s Roman Emperor, Yorkshire Museum, York (www.constantinethegreat.org.uk 01904 687687), until Oct 29
