ABSTRACT
The last years of Constantine and the years in which his sons ruled the empire saw a remarkable change in the nature of the Roman Empire. This change goes well beyond the obvious, that Christianity had obtained a new status, and impacts on the problem of what it meant to be Roman. The deep involvement of Constantine and his sons made the church a symbol of attachment to Roman-ness for those who would not readily fit any definition of what it meant to be Roman in the second century. One no longer had to be under the direct authority of Roman magistrates to be, in some degree, a member of the community of the Romans. At the same time, a new style of recruitment into the Roman army created a group with links on both sides of the border different from those whose connections could be defined simply by influence, clientage, or economic activity. The bureaucratic structures connected with the army now stretched beyond the frontiers into tribal lands, creating a form of “Roman” who was brought up outside the empire and yet played a role in the defense of the state. To be in the army, and in the service of the emperor, was to be “Roman,” even if one’s roots were beyond the Rhine or Danube, as may have been the member of Licinius’ horse guards who died fighting for his master “in the battle between the Romans and their adversaries” at Chalcedon.1
