‘To what extent did the Emperor Constantine reunite the Roman Empire between 312AD to 324AD?’
On the 28th October 312, Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus and Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius collided on a broad plain in front of the Milvian Bridge. The outcome of this fight would determine who the next Augustus of the Western Roman Empire would be. Maxentius, the current Emperor was facing down the usurper at Rome’s door, the young Constantine. The 40,000 hard-bitten legionnaires of Constantine had fought down through Italia and the 100,000 of Maxentius’s auxiliary and untested forces to the gates of Rome itself. Backed by his sudden belief in Christianity, Constantine and his Cavalry exterminated rank upon rank of Maxentius’s men, and routing the majority of those remaining in a panic, causing the Milvian Bridge to collapse beneath them, marking the unforeseen end to the final battle of the civil war for the Western Roman Empire. The general Constantine had won his greatest military victory. He was now sole ruler of the Western Roman Empire, and he had achieved this through his new found faith, support from the men who loyally followed his footsteps from Britain to Italy and his deep understanding of the political arena. But to what extent did his own success and prowess led to the unification of the Eastern and Western Empires by the time of his death?
When Constantine the Liberator entered the great City of Rome, he passed through a blizzard of flowers and offerings, and the masses of Rome singing his name. They gathered in their thousands to flock to him and join in the celebration of what they saw as the dawn of a new era for Rome. Many saw the new emperor as their saviour, as the previous Emperor, Maxentius, had been close to what we would call a tyrant or dictator, but the senators and high classes did not see him as such. Constantine was now walking