eptember, was
a new triumph of the standard of the cross over the sacrifices of the
gods; save that Constantine dishonored himself and his cause by the
execution of Licinius and his son.

The emperor now issued a general exhortation to his subjects to embrace
the Christian religion, still leaving them, however, to their own free
conviction. In the year 325, as patron of the church, he summoned the
council of Nice, and himself attended it; banished the Arians, though he
afterward recalled them; and, in his monarchical spirit of uniformity,
showed great zeal for the settlement of all theological disputes, while
he was blind to their deep significance. He first introduced the
practice of subscription to the articles of a written creed and of the
infliction of civil punishments for non-conformity. In the years
325-329, in connection with his mother, Helena, he erected magnificent
churches on the sacred spots in Jerusalem.

As heathenism had still the preponderance in Rome, where it was hallowed
by its great traditions, Constantine, by divine command as he supposed,
in the year 330, transferred the seat of his government to Byzantium,
and thus fixed the policy, already initiated by Domitian, or
orientalizing and dividing the empire. In the selection of the
unrivalled locality he showed more taste and genius than the founders of
Madrid, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, or Washington. With incredible
rapidity, and by all the means within reach of an absolute monarch, he
turned this nobly situated town, connecting two seas and two continents,
into a splendid residence and a new Christian Rome, 'for which now,' as
Gregory of Nazianzen expresses it, 'sea and land emulate each other, to
load it with their treasures, and crown it queen of cities.' Here,
instead of idol temples and altars, churches and crucifixes rose; though
among them the statues of patron deities from all over Greece, mutilated
by all sorts of tasteless adaptations, were also gathered in the new
metropolis. The main hall in the palace was adorned with representations
of the crucifixion and other Biblical scenes. The gladiatorial shows, so
popular in Rome, were forbidden here, though theatres, amphitheatres,
and hippodromes kept their place. It could nowhere be mistaken, that the
new imperial residence was, as to all outward appearance, a Christian
city. The smoke of heathen sacrifices never rose from the seven hills of
New Rome, except during the short reign of J