Constantine's Stamp On Early Christian Art
I found this article that was interesting because of the time period of when Constantine did his art.
Enjoy...
The pagan Roman emperors were, in many respects, tolerant of diversity of belief. What made the Christians obnoxious was their refusal to recognize the emperor, and therefore the state, as the supreme authority.
One of the worst periods of suppression, the "Great Persecution" under the Emperor Diocletian, almost immediately preceded an extraordinary "volte-face." The Edict of Milan of 313, declared not only general freedom of worship, but mentioned the Christians by name and particularly favored them. A dozen years later, Christianity became the official state religion.
The prime author of the edict was Constantine, then one of the joint rulers of the Roman empire. In the following years, he eliminated the last of his rivals and reunified the empires of east and west. In 330, he inaugurated a new capital bearing his name on the shores of the Bosporus, and it would remain a bastion of Christianity in the east for more than 1,100 years. In the west, the primacy of the religion he adopted endured until the 20th century.