PDF Hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/161652 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-09-28 and may be subject to change. Monuments ‘In Hoc Signo Vinces’: The Various Victories Commemorated Through the LABARUM* Nathalie DE HAAN & Olivier HEKSTER The Battle at the Milvian Bridge? to, and aimed to confront Constantine at the strategically much more relevant Saxa Rubra, On 28 October 312, Constantine won a decisive nine miles outside of Rome. Perhaps Maxentius battle over the then-ruler of Rome, Maxentius. left the city to assuage riotous Romans who did This victory, according to the likes of Lactantius not like the prospect of a prolonged siege, or and Eusebius, marked the beginning of Con- perhaps he was encouraged by a prophecy from stantine’s conversion to Christianity. It is one of the Sibylline books which stated that ‘the en- the canonical battles of Roman Antiquity, rep- emy of Rome would be killed that day’. Euse- resented in some detail through contemporary bius interprets Maxentius’s infelicitous decision reliefs on the Arch of Constantine. These reliefs to engage Constantine outside of Rome as an include a famous scene showing Maxentius’s act of God, who ‘drew [Maxentius], as if bound troops drown next to a collapsed bridgehead, in chains, some distance outside of the gates’.5 possibly even depicting Constantine’s van- The battle at Saxa Rubra was won by Con- 1 quished opponent. The story as it is often told stantine’s troops, who forced Maxentius and his holds that Maxentius planned for a Constantin- soldiers towards the city. When they reached the ian siege of Rome, but at the last moment de- Tiber, they had to flee over the pontoon bridge, cided to face his enemy outside the city wall. To and it is probable that Maxentius died there. do so, he had to construct a temporary bridge That was the moment which Constantine chose over the Tiber, having demolished the perma- to commemorate later on, and which came to nent structure in anticipation of Constantine’s be depicted in monuments like the Arch of attack of the city. Making his stand in front of Constantine, and in panegyric texts. Whether this pontoon bridge, Maxentius was surprised Constantine also had a monument construct- by the onslaught of Constantine’s soldiers, and ed near the site of the bridge is unknown. No had to hurriedly retreat, causing the collapse of reference to such a building, if it ever existed, the wooden structure. Maxentius and his most has survived. But in whatever mode the new 2 loyal troops drowned. Constantine could enter emperor focused attention on the events at the Rome in victory. Milvian bridge, attention to that moment of the Though the story is well known, it is prob- battle gave the death of Maxentius central stage. ably not exactly true. To be more precise, the This allowed Eusebius (c. 260/65-339), for ex- brunt of the battle is unlikely to have been ample, to describe events in biblical terms in his fought at the Milvian bridge. It is highly im- Church History, which was written not long after probable that Maxentius lined up his troops the events took place: with the Tiber at the rear, which would have 3 been tactically insane. Moreover, we know that Thus, as in the time of Moses himself and of Constantine set up camp about 20 kilometres the ancient God-beloved race of Hebrews, ‘he outside of Rome, at Malborghetto, a site which cast Pharaoh’s chariots and host into the sea, he afterwards commemorated through the con- and overwhelmed his chosen charioteers in the struction of a quadrifons arch, the remains of Red Sea, and covered them with the flood,’ in which were later integrated into various build- the same way Maxentius also with his soldiers ings.4 Combining some of the ancient authors, and body-guards ‘went down into the depths a likely reconstruction assumes that Maxentius’s like a stone,’ when he fled before the power of troops marched in the direction of Malborghet- God which was with Constantine, and passed 17 Nathalie de Haan & Olivier Hekster through the river which lay in his way, over tory over Maxentius in Trier in 313 mention any which he had formed a bridge with boats, and vision or dream.8 In his Life, however, Eusebius thus prepared the means of his own destruc- claims to have heard from Constantine himself 6 tion. that he had a vision sometime well before the battle: ‘About the time of the midday sun, when The death of Maxentius at the Milvian bridge, the sky was just turning, [Constantine] said he in this reformulation of memory, was an act of saw with his own eyes, up in the sky and resting God, rather than a harshly fought civil war just over the sun, a cross-shaped trophy formed from outside of the capital. light, and a text attached to it which said, Ἐν Τούτῳ Νίκα (By this conquer). This vision was The Labarum and the Battle at the Milvian Bridge followed by a dream in which Christ appeared telling Constantine to use the sign against his The possible reformulation of the location of enemies. The next morning, Constantine set Constantine’s final battle against Maxentius was out to represent the image; a representation certainly not the most prominent post hoc re- which Eusebius stresses he himself ‘had an op- adjustment of events. In almost all discussions portunity of seeing’. This labarum, as Eusebius of Constantine’s struggle with Maxentius, there calls it: is explicit emphasis on the importance of the divine favour that was bestowed upon Constan- was made in the following manner. A long tine through this major victory. This was not spear, overlaid with gold, formed the figure simply a victory of man over man, or even of of the cross by means of a transverse bar laid rightful emperor over unjust usurper; this was over it. On the top of the whole was fixed a a decisive victory of a ruler supported by the wreath of gold and precious stones; and within Christian God. The different narratives in An- this, the symbol of the Saviour’s name, two let- tiquity and later times about the mode through ters indicating the name of Christ by means which the (Christian) God had expressed that of its initial characters, the letter p being in- support differ markedly, and show various mo- tersected by x in its centre: and these letters the emperor was in the habit of wearing on his ments in which memory must have been ma- helmet at a later period. From the cross-bar of nipulated. As is well known, Constantine is said the spear was suspended a cloth, a royal piece, to have had a dream or vision in which he was covered with a profuse embroidery of most told to use the sign of the cross against his en- brilliant precious stones; and which, being also emies. About which sign of the cross, how to richly interlaced with gold, presented an in- use it against his enemies, and when he had the describable degree of beauty to the beholder. dream (or vision) the sources disagree.7 This banner was of a square form, and the up- The main ancient literary sources are Lactan- right staff, whose lower section was of great tius (c. 250–c. 325) and Eusebius. Lactantius length, bore a golden half-length portrait of states that Constantine had a dream on the night the pious emperor and his children on its up- before the battle whilst encamped ‘opposite to per part, beneath the trophy of the cross, and 9 the Milvian bridge’. In this dream, he ‘was di- immediately above the embroidered banner. rected in a dream to cause the heavenly sign to be delineated on the shields of his soldiers, There have been many attempts to square the and so to proceed to battle’. This sign in ques- different accounts, or try to find the ‘true’ ver- tion was ‘the letter X, with a perpendicular line sion. If one beliefs in an actual vision, the argu- drawn through it and turned round at the top’. ment of Peter Weiss, who argues that Constan- tine experienced a ‘solar halo phenomenon’ in Eusebius gives an extended account in his On 10 the Life of Constantine, written toward the end Gaul in 310, is probably the most convincing. of the 330s, although his much earlier Church If such a vision took place, it was re-interpreted History mentions no vision or dream. Nor did a in (or after) 312 to argue in favour of Constan- panegyric oration celebrating Constantine’s vic- tine’s divine support. In terms of a historical (re) construction, the best point to start is still Henk 18 ‘In Hoc Signo Vinces’ Singor’s excellent 2003 article, in which he ar- To reiterate, the emphasis here is not on gues in favour of the introduction by Constan- what really happened in 310 or 312. Instead, we tine of ‘a new military banner, not for any par- would like to focus on the possible shifts in what ticular army unit but one closely bound to his the labarum meant, and on the certain develop- own person and one that by its design pointed ments in its importance from an unremarked- to the emperor’s special relationship with his upon vexillum in 312 to a monumental image in protecting divinity, for it had the sign of his di- the 320s and 330s.