A Soldier's Son Becomes Emperor
Constantine was born on 27 February, around 272 (the year is uncertain), at Naissus in the Balkans, the modern city of Niš in Serbia. His father, Constantius, was an army officer who rose to become one of the four rulers of Diocletian's divided empire. His mother, Helena, was of humble birth. In her old age she became a devoted Christian, and her pilgrimage to the Holy Land made her the subject of many later legends.
As a young man Constantine lived at the court of Diocletian in Nicomedia, half guest and half hostage. He was there when the Great Persecution began in 303, and he later claimed to have seen its cruelty firsthand. In 306 his father died at York, in Britain, and the army there proclaimed Constantine emperor. Years of shifting alliances and civil wars followed among the rival emperors.
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