Political and Ecclesiastical Rivalries

Abstract

The project of Constantine the Great, joint emperor from 306 and reigning alone from 323 until 337, to establish a new capital based on the eastern provinces of the Empire, cannot but have excited the ambitions of the Thessalonians. Under Galerius and, between 312 and 322, under Constantine himself, the Macedonian capital had several times served as the imperial residence and the headquarters for military operations against the northern invaders. Under the latter emperor’s direction, Gothic prisoners of war had constructed a proper harbour, which Thessalonica had hitherto lacked, and the city had been the assembly point of an army and a navy gathered to wage war against his rival emperor Licinius. It would certainly have been strange if Constantine had not seriously weighed the advantages of a city so strategically placed, so well situated on important trade routes and, moreover, with a Church possessing the moral prestige of a Pauline foundation. To the Thessalonians, understandably enough, their city must have been the obvious and only choice.