Editing Battle of the Milvian Bridge (section)

==Vision of Constantine==
[[File:La Vision de Constantin (phbw15 0208).jpg|left|thumb|La vision de Constantin by Jacob Punel (ca. 17th century).]]
It is commonly understood that on the evening of 27 October with the armies preparing for battle, Constantine had a vision which led him to fight under the protection of the Christian God. Some details of that vision, however, differ between the sources reporting it.

Lactantius states that, on the night before the battle, Constantine was commanded in a dream to "delineate the heavenly sign on the shields of his soldiers" (''On the Deaths of the Persecutors'' 44.5). He followed the commands of his dream and marked the shields with a sign "denoting Christ". Lactantius describes that sign as a "staurogram", or a [[Christian cross|Latin cross]] with its upper end rounded in a P-like fashion. There is no certain evidence that Constantine ever used that sign, as opposed to the better known [[Chi-Rho]] sign described by Eusebius.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fact-index.com/b/ba/battle_of_milvian_bridge.html|title=Battle of Milvian Bridge|website=fact-index.com|access-date=28 October 2017}}</ref>
[[File:Constantine multiple CdM Beistegui 233.jpg|thumb|right|A coin struck in 313<!-- see talk page -->, depicting Constantine as the companion of a solar deity]]

From Eusebius, two accounts of the battle survive. The first, shorter one in the ''[[Church History (Eusebius)|Ecclesiastical History]]'' promotes the belief that the Christian God helped Constantine but does not mention any vision. In his later ''Life of Constantine'', Eusebius gives a detailed account of a vision and stresses that he had heard the story from the Emperor himself. According to this version, Constantine with his army was marching (Eusebius does not specify the actual location of the event, but it was clearly not in the camp at Rome), when he looked up to the sun and saw a cross of light above it, and with it the Greek words " Ἐν Τούτῳ Νίκα", ''En toutōi níka'', usually translated into Latin as "''[[in hoc signo vinces]]''". The literal meaning of the phrase in Greek is "in this (sign), conquer" while in Latin it's "in this sign, you shall conquer"; a more free translation would be "Through this sign [you shall] conquer". At first he was unsure of the meaning of the apparition, but in the following night he had a dream in which Christ explained to him that he should use the sign against his enemies. Eusebius then continues to describe the [[labarum]], the military standard used by Constantine in his later wars against [[Licinius]], showing the Chi-Rho sign.<ref>Gerberding and Moran Cruz, 55; cf. Eusebius, ''Life of Constantine''.</ref>

The accounts of the two contemporary authors, though not entirely consistent, have been merged into a popular notion of Constantine seeing the Chi-Rho sign on the evening before the battle. Both authors agree that the sign was not widely understandable to denote Christ (although among the Christians, it was already being used in the [[Chi Rho#Gallery|catacombs]] along with other special symbols to mark and/or decorate Christian tombs).<ref>http://www.catacombe.roma.it/it/simbologia.php {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140321013409/http://www.catacombe.roma.it/it/simbologia.php |date=21 March 2014 }}; http://www.catacombe.org/simboli.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201127015747/http://www.catacombe.org/simboli.html |date=27 November 2020 }}; [https://books.google.com/books?id=iShnAQAAQBAJ&dq=chi-rho+in+catacombs&pg=PA609 ''The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World'', p. 609]; John Hardon, [http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=32479 ''Catholic Dictionary'',s.v. Chi-Rho]</ref> Its first imperial appearance is on a Constantinian silver coin from {{circa}} 317, which proves that Constantine did use the sign at that time, though not very prominently.<ref>Smith, 104: "What little evidence exists suggests that in fact the labarum bearing the chi-rho symbol was not used before 317, when Crispus became Caesar"</ref> He made more extensive use of the Chi-Rho and the Labarum later, during the conflict with Licinius.

[[File:Fargo Sundogs 2 18 09.jpg|thumb|The description from 28 October 312, "A cross centered on the Sun", fits with the atmospheric optical phenomenon of a [[sun dog]].]]
Some<ref>E.g. Peter Weiss, ''The vision of Constantine'', Journal of Roman Archeology 16 (2003), 237–259.</ref> have considered the vision in a solar context (e.g. as a [[Halo (optical phenomenon)|solar halo]] phenomenon called a [[sun dog]]), which may have preceded the Christian beliefs later expressed by Constantine. Coins of Constantine depicting him as the companion of a solar deity were minted as late as 313, the year following the battle. The solar deity [[Sol Invictus]] is often pictured with a [[Halo (religious iconography)|nimbus]] or halo. Various emperors portrayed Sol Invictus on their official coinage, with a wide range of legends, only a few of which incorporated the epithet ''invictus'', such as the legend <small>SOLI INVICTO COMITI</small>, claiming the Unconquered Sun as a companion to the emperor, used with particular frequency by Constantine.<ref>A comprehensive discussion of all sol-coinage and -legends per emperor from [[Septimius Severus]] to [[Constantine I (emperor)|Constantine]] can be found in Berrens 2004.</ref> Constantine's official coinage continues to bear images of Sol until 325/6. A [[solidus (coin)|solidus]] of Constantine as well as a gold medallion from his reign depict the Emperor's bust in profile [[jugate]] with Sol Invictus, with the legend <small>INVICTUS CONSTANTINUS</small>.<ref>The medal is illustrated in Jocelyn M.C. Toynbee, ''Roman Medallions'' (1944, reprinted 1987) plate xvii, no. 11; the solidus is illustrated in J. Maurice, ''Numismatique Constantinienne'' vol. II, p. 236, plate vii, no. 14</ref> The official cults of Sol Invictus and Sol Invictus [[Mithras]] were popular amongst the soldiers of the Roman Army. Statuettes of Sol Invictus, carried by the standard-bearers, appear in three places in reliefs on the [[Arch of Constantine]]. Constantine's triumphal arch was carefully positioned to align with the [[Colossus of Nero|colossal statue of Sol]] by the [[Colosseum]], so that Sol formed the dominant backdrop when seen from the direction of the main approach towards the arch.<ref>E. Marlowe, "Framing the sun. The Arch of Constantine and the Roman cityscape", ''Art Bulletin'' '''88''' (2006) 223–242.</ref>

However, other historians have discounted Eusebius's later account of a vision entirely. [[John Julius Norwich]] argued that "the vision of the Cross above the battlefield ... never occurred. Had it done so, it is unthinkable that there should not be a single reference to it in any of the contemporary histories until the ''Life of Constantine''",<ref name=Norwich>{{cite book |last=Norwich |first=John Julius |author-link=John Julius Norwich |date=1990 |title=Byzantium: The Early Centuries |location=London |publisher=Penguin Books |pages=41-42 |isbn=0-14-011447-5}}</ref> and that Eusebius's "specific statement that 'the whole army ... witnessed the miracle'"<ref name=Norwich/> is implausible. On the other hand, Norwich did concede that shortly before the battle, Constantine must have undergone "some profound spiritual experience",<ref name=Norwich/> and that Eusebius's story was likely not so much "a deliberate falsehood"<ref name=Norwich/> as "a possibly unconscious exaggeration",<ref name=Norwich/> with Constantine adding "a gentle gloss"<ref name=Norwich/> to his recollections which the author then uncritically noted down or embellished.