Helena – Mother. Empress. Saint.
Welcome to Rome Across Europe! Not too long ago we decided that it was time to get an idea of women in Ancient Rome.
We had some articles such as: Four Sisters in Ancient Rome, Women in Ancient Rome, and Messalina – A Woman of Interest. Having gotten off to a good start we thought it was time to focus on one of the most important, and our favorite, Lady of Rome.
Today we take a look at the life of Flavia Iulia Helena Augusta, known to most today as Saint Helena!
Helena’s birth date and birthplace is not known with certainty. She is believed to have been born circa AD 250.
The Bishop and historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, states that she was about 80 years of age on her return from Palestine. Since that journey has been dated to AD 326–28, Helena was probably born in AD 248 or 250.
The 6th Century historian Procopius is the earliest authority for the statement that Helena was a native of Drepanum, in the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor. Her son, Emperor Constantine the Great, would rename the city of his mother’s birth Helenopolis after her death around AD 330, which supports the belief that the city was her birthplace.
The Byzantinist Cyril Mango has argued that Helenopolis was re-founded to strengthen the communication network around the Empire’s new capital in Constantinople, and was renamed simply to honor Helena, not to mark her birthplace.
There was also a Helenopolis in Palestine and a Helenopolis in Lydia. These cities, and the province of Helenopontus in the Diocese of Pontus, were probably both named after Constantine’s mother. Helena was considered a Briton by the British, a tradition noted by Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose 12th Century Historia Regum Britanniae reports that Helena was a daughter of the British King Coel.
Little is known of her early life. Fourth Century sources, following Eutropius‘ Breviarium, record that Helena came from a low background. Saint Ambrose was the first to call her a stabularia, a term translated as “stable-maid” or “inn-keeper”.
He makes this fact a virtue, calling Helena a bona stabularia, a “good stable-maid”. Other sources, especially those written after Constantine’s proclamation as Emperor, gloss over or ignore her background.
It is unknown where she originally met Constantius, the father of Constantine. The historian Timothy Barnes has suggested that Constantius, while serving under Emperor Aurelian, could have met her while stationed in Asia Minor for the campaign against Zenobia.
It is said that upon meeting they were wearing identical silver bracelets. Constantius saw her as his soul mate sent by God.
Barnes calls attention to an epitaph at Nicomedia of one of Aurelian’s protectors, which could indicate the Emperor’s presence in the Bithynian region soon after 270. The precise legal nature of the relationship between Helena and Constantius is also unknown.
The sources are equivocal on the point, sometimes calling Helena Constantius’ “wife”, and sometimes, following the dismissive propaganda of Constantine’s rival Maxentius, calling her his “concubine”. Jerome, perhaps confused by the vague terminology of his own sources, manages to do both.
Some scholars assert that Constantius and Helena were joined in a common-law marriage, a cohabitation recognized in fact but not in law. Others stress that Constantius and Helena were joined in an official marriage, on the grounds that the sources claiming an official marriage are more reliable.
Helena gave birth to the future emperor Constantine I on 27 February around AD 272 in Naissus. In order to obtain a wife more consonant with his rising status, Constantius divorced Helena some time before AD 289, when he married Theodora, Maximian’s daughter under his command.
Having to divorce Helena to marry another would thusly support the theory of the legal marriage between Constantius and Helena.
Helena and her son were dispatched to the court of Diocletian at Nicomedia, where Constantine grew to be a member of the inner circle. Helena never remarried and lived for a time in obscurity, though close to her only son, who had a deep regard and affection for her.
Constantine was proclaimed Augustus of the Imperium Rōmānum in AD 306 by Constantius’ troops after the latter had died. Following his elevation in AD 312, Helena returned to the Imperial Court where she was brought back to the public life.
She appears in the Eagle Cameo portraying Constantine’s family, probably commemorating the birth of Constantine’s son Constantine II in the summer of AD 316. In AD 325, Constantine appointed his mother as Augusta Imperatrix, and gave her unlimited access to the imperial treasury in order to locate the relics of Judeo-Christian tradition.
From AD 326-28 Helena undertook a trip to the Holy Places in Palestine. According to Eusebius of Caesarea she was responsible for the construction or beautification of 2 churches, the Church of the Nativity and the Church on the Mount of Olives, sites of Christ‘s birth and ascension, respectively.
Local founding legend attributes to Helena’s orders the construction of a church in Egypt to identify the Burning Bush of Sinai. The chapel at Saint Catherine’s Monastery, often referred to as the Chapel of Saint Helen, is dated to the year AD 330.
Jerusalem was still being rebuilt following the destruction caused by Emperor Hadrian. He had built a temple to Venus or Jupiter over the site of Jesus‘ tomb near Calvary, and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina.
According to tradition, Helena ordered the temple torn down and chose a site to begin excavating. This led to the recovery of 3 different crosses.
The legend is recounted in Ambrose, On the Death of Theodosius (died 395) and at length in Rufinus‘ chapters appended to his translation into Latin of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, the main body of which does not mention the event.
Rufinus relates the Empress refused to be swayed by anything short of solid proof and performed a test to confirm it was the cross on which Christ was crucified. Possibly through Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem, she had a woman who was near death brought from the city.
When the woman touched the 1st and 2nd crosses her condition did not change, but when she touched the final cross she suddenly recovered. Helena declared the cross with which the woman had been touched to be the True Cross.
On the site of discovery, Constantine ordered the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Churches were also built on other sites detected by Helena.
Sozomen and Theodoret claim that Helena also found the nails of the crucifixion. To use their miraculous power to aid her son, Helena allegedly had one placed in Constantine’s helmet, and another in the bridle of his horse.
Helena left Jerusalem and the eastern provinces in AD 327 to return to Rome, bringing with her large parts of the True Cross and other relics. These relics were then stored in her palace’s private chapel, where they can be still seen today.
Helen’s palace was later converted into the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. This has been maintained by Cistercian monks in the monastery which has been attached to the Church for centuries.
Tradition says that the site of the Vatican Gardens was spread with earth brought from Golgotha by Helena to symbolically unite the blood of Christ with that shed by thousands of early Christians, who died in the persecutions of Nero.
According to one tradition, Helena acquired the Holy Tunic on her trip to Jerusalem and sent it to Trier.
According to Byzantine tradition, Helena is responsible for the large population of cats in Cyprus. Local tradition holds that she imported hundreds of cats from Egypt or Palestine in the 4th Century AD to rid a monastery of snakes. The monastery is today known as “St. Nicholas of the Cats” and is located near Limassol.
Several relics purportedly discovered by Helena are now in Cyprus, where she spent some time. Among them are items believed to be part of Jesus Christ’s tunic, pieces of the holy cross, and pieces of the rope with which Jesus was tied on the Cross. The rope, considered to be the only relic of its kind, has been held at the Stavrovouni Monastery, which was also founded by Helena.
Helena’s search for Christian relics and the official establishment of these icons are viewed by some scholars to be the introduction of idolatry into the Church. Some centuries later, Emperor Leo III sought to remove such images from Christian worship, but Pope Gregory II and Gregory III, and a majority of the clergy, protested against the Emperor’s iconoclastic edicts.
The issue for the Catholic Church was settled at the Second Council of Nicaea.
Helena died around AD 330 with her son at her side. She was buried in what is now the Mausoleum of Helena, outside Rome on the Via Labicana. Her sarcophagus is on display in the Pio-Clementine Vatican Museum.
Next to Helena is the sarcophagus of her granddaughter Saint Constantina (Saint Constance). The Empress’s skull is displayed in the Cathedral of Trier, in Germany.
Helena is considered by the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern and Latin Catholic churches, as well as by the Anglican Communion and Lutheran Churches as a Saint, famed for her piety. She is sometimes known as Helen of Constantinople to distinguish her from others with similar names.
Her feast day as a Saint of the Orthodox Christian Church is celebrated with her son on 21 May, the “Feast of the Holy Great Sovereigns Constantine and Helen, Equal to the Apostles”. Likewise, Anglican churches and some Lutheran churches, keep the Eastern date.
Saint Helena’s feast day in the Roman Catholic Church falls on 18 August. Her feast day in the Coptic Orthodox Church is on 9 Pashons.
Eusebius records the details of her pilgrimage to Palestine and other eastern provinces. Saint Helena is the Patron Saint of New Discoveries.
Her discovery of the True Cross along with Constantine is dramatized in the Santacruzan, a ritual pageant in the Philippines held in May that bears elements of the month’s Marian devotions.
In Great Britain, Helena is quite revered. Legend claims that Helena was a daughter of the King of Britannia, Cole of Camulodunum, who allied with Constantius to avoid more war between the Britons and Rome.
It is further stated that Helena was brought up in the manner of a queen, as she had no brothers to inherit the throne of Britain. The source for this may have been Sozomen’s Historia Ecclesiastica, which however does not claim Helena was British but only that her son Constantine picked up his Christianity there.
Constantine was with his father when he died in Eboracum, but neither had spent much time in Britain.
The statement made by English chroniclers of the Middle Ages, according to which Helena was supposed to have been the daughter of a British prince, is entirely without historical foundation. It may arise from the similarly-named Welsh princess Saint Elen, alleged to have married Magnus Maximus and to have born a son named Constantine, or from the misinterpretation of a term used in the 4th chapter of the panegyric on Constantine’s marriage with Fausta.
The description of Constantine honoring Britain oriendo (from the outset) may have been taken as an allusion to his birth (from his beginning) although it was actually discussing the beginning of his reign.
At least 25 holy wells currently exist in the United Kingdom dedicated to a Saint Helena. She is also the patron saint of Abingdon and Colchester.
St Helen’s Chapel in Colchester was believed to have been founded by Helena herself. Since the 15th Century, the town’s coat of arms has shown a representation of the True Cross and 3 crowned nails in her honor.
Colchester Town Hall has a Victorian statue of the Saint on top of its 160 ft high tower. The arms of Nottingham are almost identical because of the city’s connection with Cole, her supposed father.
It has been argued that Helena traveled to Nevern in Wales and hid the True Cross near the local Norman church of St Brynach, where a cross is carved into a rock formation. Named the Pilgrim’s Cross, religious pilgrims once came here to pray for visions.
Names of local places are abundant with cross imagery, including River of the Empress, Mountain of the Cross, Pass of the Cross, and others.
In medieval legend and chivalric romance, Helena appears as a persecuted heroine in the vein of such women as Emaré and Constance. Separated from her husband, Helena lives a quiet life, supporting herself on her embroidery, until such time as her son’s charm and grace wins her husband’s attention and so the revelation of their identities.
Helena is the protagonist of Evelyn Waugh‘s novel Helena. She is also the main character of Priestess of Avalon (2000), a fantasy novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Diana L. Paxson. She is given the name Eilan and depicted as a trained priestess of Avalon.
Helena is also the protagonist of Louis de Wohl‘s novel The Living Wood (1947) in which she is again the daughter of King Cole of Colchester.
Revered as a Saint, Helena is an important figure in the history of Christianity and the world. Because of her major influence on her son and her own contributions, Helena placed Christianity at the heart of Western Civilization.
Traditionally credited with a pilgrimage to Syria Palaestina, during which she is claimed to have discovered the True Cross, Saint Helena has been a major impact on the Roman Empire and Western World.
We hope you enjoyed learning more about Helena and her impactful life. If you have any women from Ancient Rome you’d like to see here, let us know.
Come back soon to see what we have in store for you. Till next time, Don’t Stop Rome-ing!
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