In late October AD 312, the fate of the future of the Roman world was decided near the Pons Milvius, the Milvian Bridge (the modern Ponte Milvio, Italy), crossing the River Tiber some 5 kilometres north of Rome on the via Flaminia. The battle was the culmination of the war between rival Roman emperors, Maxentius and Constantine, to see who would dominate the western Roman Empire. The victory of Constantine at the Milvian Bridge has been presented as a straightforward rout of Maxentius’ numerically superior forces. It has also been presented as a victory of Christianity. Both of these perspectives are flawed; the battle was far more complex than has previously been considered.
The Tetrarchy and Its Instability
In AD 293, the emperor Diocletian had introduced a system of two emperors (augusti (sing. (augustus)), and two junior-emperors (caesares (sing. caesar)), to govern what had become an unstable system of one emperor ruling over the entire Roman empire. The previous century had seen a great deal of instability and more than fifty emperors and usurpers. This new system was known as the Tetrarchy and saw the empire split between east and west, the west governed from Mediolanum (modern Milan, Italy) and Augusta Treverorum (modern Trier, Germany), the east from Nicomedia (modern İzmit in Turkey) and Sirmium (modern Sremska Mitrovica, near Belgrade, Serbia). The system worked well until 305 when Diocletian and his co-emperor, Maximian, retired and the caesares, Galerius and Constantius were raised to augusti and new caesares were appointed, Maximinus Daza to Galerius and Valerius Severus to Constantius.
Rise of Constantine and Maxentius
Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs (Diocletian, Maximianus, Galerius & Constantius), a porphyry sculpture sacked from the Byzantine Philadelphion palace in 1204, c. 305 AD, Venice (Source Flickr /Carole Raddato)
Constantius died in York in July 306, however, and his son, Flavius Valerius Constantius (known as Constantine), was acclaimed augustus by his father’s army. Constantius’ co-emperor Galerius, however, promoted Severus to augustus as the system dictated. In October that year, the retired emperor Maximian’s son, Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius, declared himself augustus (in opposition to Severus). Rivalry and ambition had already put the tetrarchy system at risk. Maxentius had probably expected to succeed his father, but in this he was disappointed – he would, however, prove to be popular with the troops as his father’s son. Both Maxentius and Constantine had had military careers which would prove immensely useful to their imperial claims. Aurelius Victor claims Maxentius was a coward but this seems unlikely. Severus, sent to defeat Maxentius by Galerius, suffered the ignominy of his army deserting to his enemy and he surrendered to Maxentius in 307 (he was later murdered). Galerius marched on Rome himself but he, too, was unsuccessful. Both Maxentius and Constantine were therefore recognised as augusti.
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Top image: Fresco from the Vatican depicting the Battle of the Milvian Bridge that took place on October 28, 312 between the Roman emperors Constantine I and Maxentius. Source: CC BY-SA 2.0
By Murray Dahm
