Constantius II

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Constantius II was camera-shy and thus notoriously hard to capture in coins or portraits, resulting in high unemployment amongst sculptors of the 4th century.

Constantius II (Flavius Iulius Constantius) known as "a big prick", and even more of a prick than <insert name here>, was Roman Emperor from 337-361 (and sole Emperor from 353). Despite ruling the Empire for a number of years and maintaining peace, even amongst the Scots, Constantius II would be best remembered for two unfortunate incidents in his life, one involving his mother, and the second the deaths of several tens of thousands at his own hands.

[edit] Life

Constantius II was one of four sons of Constantine, made Caesar at the age of 7, along with his younger brother Constantine II, and his elder sibling Constans. From an early age, Constantius II had suffered from a bout of "middle child syndrome". However, this was short-lived. After Constantine had his eldest son Crispus murdered, allegedly in an attempt to cover a poor taste in names, Constantius decided blending in would not be such a bad idea.

After Constantine died, Constantius II organised a lovely funeral after which the "promiscuous massacre" took place, a massacre that was combined with an enormous amount of sex in the traditional Roman manner. His brothers (and the future emperor Julian) survived, but by 353 Constantine II and Constans had been killed in a severely bloody case of sibling rivalry.

As sole emperor of the east and west, Constantius II decided to support Christianity like his father. He was best friends with St. Athanasius, until Constantius came out of the Arian-closet. He tried to patch things up with Athanasius, and even bought him a puppy^[1], but to no avail. In 357 Constantius had the Altar of Victory removed from the Senate House and beat people with it. During his visit to Rome during the same year, Ammianus notes importantly that Constantius needed to "say it, not spray it". He was great pals with Themistius, a pagan orator, and roped him into a senatorial recruiting campaign for Constantinople, prior to which Themistius told the Roman senators that Rome had a great deal to fear from the Fair City.

[edit] Military Policy

For those without comedic tastes, the so-called experts at Wikipedia have an article about Constantius II.

Constantius' most important policy involved Persia under Shapur II. He decided the best way to get people to really love him was not to go on a major Persian invasion, but to employ a defensive strategy and wait for the Persians to tire themselves in attempts to besiege forts and steal all the ice-cream. When later challenged by historians asking whether this approach may also have had an offensive element, Constantius refused to comment and proceeded to beat said historians with the Altar of Victory.

He received this same treatment himself, in literary form, by Ammianus Marcellinus who said, "Constantius [II] cried like a girl outside Amida when Shapur [II] stole all the ice-cream." Libanius, when contrasting the different military approaches between Julian and Constantius, said, "Julian had his own way of going about things, and his 'dad', another. Both were important, but in another way, they were importantly different... don’t quote me on that."

[edit] Death

Julian reached puberty and was stuck with chronic angst, deciding to take the Empire for himself and having his troops proclaim him "the man" in 361. Constantius II started rallying his troops in order to combat this cheek but decided he simply couldn’t be bothered any more, so said "screw it, I've done enough to earn myself a wikipedia entry" and died.

[edit] Footnotes

Roman Emperors

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