Constantine The Great And 1700 Years Of Edict Of Milan

Thank you for the great pictures, mvojnovic!!. It must be wonderful to have all that fantastic history right on your doorstep!!

That's really interesting, I would love to see that collection.

Great post, I found this one very interesting and along my new collecting interests.

This is my favorite:
one out of two gold helmets :)






and here is one better pic

http://www.artiscenter.com/wp-conte...irmium-1.jpg

I will venture a guess .... The two principals involved in the 'Edict', Constantine and Licinius.
The Edict of Milan is a curious piece of legislation. It established complete religious toleration throughout the Empire both East and West. But as Edward Gibbon pointed out so very long ago (1776), Within less than twenty years the rules were amended. You were allowed complete freedom of religion with one condition. If you practiced the 'New' faith you were required to conform to the Orthodox (aka Catholic) faith. The penalty for straying from the 'One true faith' was harsh ...... Death. While apparently rarely if ever enforced it betrayed the intolerance which zealots are ever so fond of enforcing on their neighbors. And made the new Christians not all that different from the great persecutors whom they so reviled.

It is somewhat ironic that when Constantine was baptised either on his deathbed or as some suspect 'post mortem' the ceremony was performed by a "heretic" Arian Bishop.

When I hear some people mention the religious intolerance in some modern Nation States which were once Roman Provinces and they dismiss this as a modern phenomenon related to an "evil" belief system I ask them how they explain the religious riots and lethal controversies which plagued great cities such as Alexandria in the 4th Century.
I get a rather blank look as they have no idea that 'slaying' people who pray differently than you is an extremely old custom.

Hmmm ..... Does not look like Diocletian.
Perhaps that indomitable old pain in the backside (and father inlaw too)
Maximianus

Galerius?