Читать книгу Discovering Constantine and Helena - Hans-Joachim Kann - Страница 4

Trier’s history before Constantine and Helena

Following Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul between 58 and 50 BC, the territory of the Celtic Treveri between the Moselle, Nahe, and Rhine was integrated into the Roman Empire but not developed. It was the plan for a highway from Marseille on the Mediterranean via Lyon to as far as the Rhine that led to the building of a wooden bridge across the Moselle in 18/17 BC and to the founding of Augusta Treverorum, the Augustus city of the Treveri. Because of its excellent location at the junction of the later eight highways and two rivers (Moselle and Saar), this first founding of a Roman civilian settlement in Germany developed into a flourishing city.

The decline in the third century of imperial morale and statecraft led to the fall of the limes , the border of the Roman Empire in the North, so that the Germanic tribes came as close as the Rhine. At the same time, the Persians endangered the eastern border. The period of the soldier emperors falls into this time of a shrinking empire. Between 235 and 285, there were 26 emperors, 3 vice-emperors or Caesars, and 41 usurpers. For example, between 269 and 274, for a period of time after Cologne, Trier was capital of a Gallic Empire under the usurper Victorinus, even with its own mint. According to the most recent finds, this mint was located west of the Simeon’s College (2 – see map on inside cover) . But, in 275, Trier was destroyed by the Germanic tribe of the Alemanni. The city seemed to be at its end.

The last soldier emperor, Diocletian, however, provided for order and reigned for 21 years. He set up Maximian as co-emperor, whose residence was in Trier beginning in 286. The choice fell to Trier evidently for infrastructural and strategic reasons. The city had a wall 4 miles/6.4 kilometers long and 26.5 feet/8 meters high, had a bridge, an amphitheater, a large theater, administration buildings, the second largest market place in the Empire, temples, and, among other things, the largest temple district north of the Alps. Furthermore, the city was located close enough to the Rhine border (70 miles/120 kilometers) for the administration to have its finger on the pulse of events on the Rhine. But, at the same time, the city was far enough away to be able to avoid being overrun at the first onslaught. In addition, Trier was about equidistant from Cologne and Mainz and reachable, for example, by the legions stationed there in a march of three or four days. The special cavalry troops of the Emperor could secure the Rhine border even more quickly.

Diocletian then took the decisive step in 293. On March 1 of that year, the Empire was divided into an Eastern and a Western Empire. The border was the Drina, today the border river between Croatia and Serbia. Each half of the empire was governed by an Emperor (with the title Augustus) and a vice-emperor (with the title Caesar). Augustus of the western empire was Maximian in Milan, and Caesar was Constantius Chlorus, about 43 years old, in Trier. Thus Trier was the official capital with the attendant improvements in the infrastructure. Soon an area was leveled for a large precinct for imperial structures. Several administrative levels were established, extending to the administration of the entire western half of the Empire between Atlantic and Rhine, between Scotland and the Sahara in Africa. Most notably, the fiscal administration for the entire territory had its seat in Trier, and the taxes, paid in silver and gold, flowed into Trier. Here the silver and gold were smelted and minted again: the mint had been moved as early as 293 from Lyon to Treveri, as the city was then called. The two to three Trier mints were to develop into the leading mints in the entire empire, and the most beautiful and largest medallions in all the Roman Empire were minted here. The few surviving pieces of the treasure from Arras give an indication of the splendor of this series.

Constantius Chlorus was from Illyria (Albania) and completed a successful military career. He lived with a “common-law” wife, a tavern keeper named Helena, with whom he had a son the parents named “the constant one”. Constantius Chlorus himself justified the trust he was accorded and reconquered, for example, the lost province of Britannia in 296, where he made Eboracum (York) an additional capital. The price he paid for his career was giving up his “wife,” as Constantius had to marry Theodora, the daughter of the Augustus Maximian. He was also separated from his son, who was taken under the wing of the Augustus of the east, Diocletian. The son led in 306. Now Augustus of the West, Constantius died on July 25, 306, in the presence of his son in York.