In the early 300’s CE, a man named Constantine rose to power, becoming the Roman emperor. Constantine, son of Constantius, was a radical reformer of the religious policies in Rome. He helped to reshape the Mediterranean, even past the fall of Rome. In the years preceding his rule, following the development of Christianity, those who associated themselves with this descendant religion of Judaism were persecuted, albeit persecutions that happened sporadically, by several Roman emperors. Constantine was an anomaly concerning Christianity. For many Roman emperors, there were two courses of action to take on the Christians: to ignore them, or to persecute them. Constantine was the first emperor to do neither. Though affiliated with the pagan Roman religion from his birth until his deathbed baptism in 337 CE, he, during his reign, had legalized Christianity. Despite his tolerance and sympathies for Christianity, he was strongly…show more content… The emperors before him had reacted to the Christians by either leaving them to their own devices, or persecuting them. Constantine deviated from this trend, legalizing the religion, and even converting to it upon his death. He held considerable sympathies for Christians throughout his life, though he held the Jewish people his disdain. The Jews, Constantine believed, threatened Christianity, thus he attacked them in the name of defending the Christians. The decades before Constantine saw the bloodiest Christian persecutions in recorded Roman history. Diocletian, the emperor directly preceding Constantine, led the bloodiest of these, called the Diocletian persecutions. The legalization of Christianity under emperor Constantine allowed for it to flourish, eventually becoming the major religion it is today. He ended the Roman persecutions when the religion was at its weakest stage of