![[Media/1920px-BnF_MS_Gr510_folio_440_recto_-_detail_-_Constantine's_Vision_and_the_Battle_of_the_Milvian_Bridge.jpg]] *9th-century Byzantine manuscript. Constantine defeats Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge; the vision of Constantine is a Greek cross with ἐν τούτῳ νίκα written on it.* By the beginning of the fourth century (300s), the Roman Empire was fractured by civil wars and dynastic struggles. Flavius Constantius, a Roman army officer, became one of four joint emperors in the Tetrarchy system, and his position passed to his son, Constantine, when he died in 306. Constantine (272-337), however, was challenged by other claimants to the imperial titles. Before a battle in 312 against one of these rivals, he claimed to have had a vision of the cross and the Greek words "In this, be victorious". According to the legend, the following night he had a dream in which Jesus explained to him that he should use the sign of the cross against his enemies. Another legend claims that Constantine's mother, Helena, was a commoner from Bithynia (the Anatolian province from which Pliny the Younger had written to Trajan for advice) who had instructed him as a boy (she was made a saint for this reason). ![[Media/Bithynian_Kingdom.png]] ----- Next: [[8.5 - Nicaea]] Back: [[8.3 - Martyrs]]