Constantine the Great Dies: Rome's Christian Emperor
Constantine the Great died at Nicomedia on May 22, 337, the Sunday before Pentecost, days after being baptized on his deathbed. He was approximately 65. He'd spent 31 years as the most powerful ruler in the Western world, founded Constantinople, and shaped Christianity's relationship with state power in ways that lasted 1,700 years. He divided the empire between his three sons and his two nephews in his will. Within months of his death, his sons had killed his nephews and most of his brothers. The empire he'd unified was divided and never fully reunited again. The city he named after himself fell to the Ottomans in 1453, over a thousand years after he built it.
May 22, 337
1689 years ago
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