There's a specialist from your university waiting to help you with that essay.
Tell us what you need to have done now!
order now
History changed when Constantine decided to support the main Christian Church of his day. He gave the Church state patronage, expending considerable sums on building magnificent churches, supporting the Christian clergy and providing for the Church. He did everything to encourage Christianity and made it clear that those of ambition would improve their prospects by adopting, or seeming to adopt, Christianity. He even went so far as to promise a white garment and a gold coin for each Roman who converted. But he went further than lavishing state funds, he began the persecution of the pagan temples.
All emperors must die, and Constantine’s oldest son, Crispus, was a pagan, so some fairness and balance would have returned to the empire when he succeeded to the throne. But fate intervened when Constantine’s wife accused Crispus of plotting against him, so that her own sons would succeed to the throne. Constantine had Crispus murdered, only to discover that his wife had lied. In time, Constantine was succeeded by his Christian sons, whose persecution of the pagans was exceeded by their plots to kill each other in order to gain outright power.
By the middle of the fourth century, Christianity seemed destined to replace paganism throughout the empire. Moderation intervened when Julian the Apostate succeeded in 361 and decreed that the Christian Church return pagan properties to the pagan temples, much to the Church’s consternation. However Julian died in battle and was succeeded by another Christian emperor.
By the end of the fourth century, paganism was in serious decline and the final destruction was assured when Emperor Theodosius banned the public worship of the pagan gods.
It took Christianity less than a century to emerge as dominant religion in the Roman Empire. It took imperial largesse, state patronage and decades of persecution of the pagan temples, but the task was complete.
