ABSTRACT
While marching from Gaul to Italy during a campaign to wrest control of Rome from an imperial usurper in the year AD 312, the emperor Constantine the Great felt the need for divine assistance against the substantial armed forces and the numerous religious rites employed by his enemy. Noting that the previous generation of emperors who had followed the traditional pagan cults and persecuted the Christian Church had come to unhappy ends, he invoked the Deus Summus, the “Highest God” of the universe, in prayer for aid and power in his time of trial. Believing that he had received an answer to this appeal through revelatory experiences from the God of the Christians, he decided to employ the caelestia signa, the “celestial symbols” of Christ, as talismanic emblems on the arms of his troops. The emperor’s climactic victory at the Battle of the Mulvian Bridge on 28 October 312 convinced him that he had made the right choice for a divine patron and that he should direct his religious loyalty to this Divinity in the future.
