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Flavius Julius Constantius (died September 337 AD) was a member of the Constantinian dynasty, being a son of Emperor Constantius Chlorus and his wife Flavia Maximiana Theodora, a younger half-brother of Emperor Constantine the Great and the father of Emperor Julian.

Biography

Julius Constantius was the son of Constantius Chlorus and his wife Theodora. He had two brothers, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, and three sisters, Constantia, Anastasia and Eutropia. Emperor Constantine I was his half-brother, as he was the son of Constantius and Helena.

Julius Constantius was married twice. With his first wife, Galla, sister of the later consuls Vulcacius Rufinus and Neratius Cerealis, he had two sons and a daughter. His eldest son, whose name is not recorded, was murdered in 337 together with his father. His second son Gallus, would later be appointed Caesar by Gallus’ cousin Constantius II. His daughter was the first wife of Constantius II. It has been proposed that Galla and Julius had another daughter, who may have been the mother of the empress Justina.

After the death of his first wife, Julius Constantius married a Greek woman Basilina, the daughter of the governor of Egypt, Julius Julianus. Basilina gave him another son, the future emperor Julian, but died before her husband in 332/333.

Allegedly at the instigation of Constantine's mother Helena, Julius Constantius did not live initially at the court of his half brother, but together with Dalmatius and Hannibalianus in Tolosa, in Etruria, the birthplace of his son Gallus, and in Corinth. It was only after Helena’s death that he was called to Constantinople, and was able to build a good relationship with Constantine.

Constantine favoured his half-brother, appointing him patricius and Consul for the year 335, together with Ceionius Rufius Albinus. However, in 337, after the death of Constantine, several male members of the Constantinian dynasty were killed, among them Constantius (whose property was confiscated) and his eldest son; his two younger sons, however, survived, because in 337 they were still children. They would later be elevated to the rank of caesar and augustus, respectively.

References

1. ^ Jones, Martindale & Morris, p. 226.
2. Jones, Martindale & Morris, p. 895.
3. Jones, Martindale & Morris, p. 382.
4. Jones, Martindale & Morris, pp. 224–225.
5. Jones, Martindale & Morris, p. 1037.
6. Noel Emmanuel Lenski (2006). The Cambridge companion to the Age of Constantine, Volume 13. ISBN 0-521-52157-2, p. 97.
7. Bradbury, Jim (2004). The Routledge companion to medieval warfare. Routledge. p. 54. ISBN 0-415-22126-9. JULIAN THE APOSTATE, FLAVIUS CLAUDIUS JULIANUS, ROMAN EMPEROR (332–63) Emperor from 361, son of Julius Constantius and a Greek mother Basilina, grandson of Constantius Chlorus, the only pagan Roman Emperor after 313.
8. Norwich, John Julius (1989). Byzantium: the early centuries. Knopf. p. 83. ISBN 0-394-53778-5. Julius Constantius…Constantine had invited him, with his second wife and his young family, to take up residence in his new capital; and it was in Constantinople that his third son Julian was born, in May or June of the year 332. The baby's mother, Basilina, a Greek from Asia Minor, died a few weeks later…
9. Julian, Letters 60.
10. Jones, Martindale & Morris, p. 148.
11. ^ Crawford 2016, p. 86.
12. Libanius, Orations 1, 524.
13. Julian, Letter to the Athenians 273B.
14. Zosimus 2, 40, 2; Libanius, Orations 18, 31.

Sources

• Burgess, R.W. (2008). "THE SUMMER OF BLOOD: The "Great Massacre" of 337 and the Promotion of the Sons of Constantine". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 62: 5–51. JSTOR 20788042.
• Crawford, Peter (2016). Constantius II: Usurpers, Eunuchs, and the Antichrist. ISBN 978-1-78340-055-3.
• Jones, A.H.M.; J.R. Martindale & J. Morris (1971). Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire. Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07233-6.

• 3rd-century births
• 337 deaths
• Ancient Roman murder victims
• Constantinian dynasty
• 4th-century Roman consuls
• Julii
• Patricii
• Sons of Roman emperors
• Julian (emperor)