Constantine the Great
Gaius Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus, better known as Constantine I, emperor of Rome from A.D. 306 until his death in A.D. 337, is called the most important Roman emperor in late antiquity. He was born on February 27, in the early 270s, in what is now Serbia, but was then the Roman province of Moesia. His father was to become Emperor Constantius I, but was a military officer at the time of Constantine's birth. His mother was Helena, who became a saint in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church. Constantine completed the major necessary administrative reorganization of the Roman emperor that had been begun by Emperor Diocletian (ruled 284-305), waged successful wars against barbarians -- the Franks, Alamanni, Visigoths, and Sarmatians -- on the borders of the Empire, moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium, and legalized Christianity.
