The shake-up caused by the policies of Diocletian and his right-hand man Galerius were healthy for the Sol Invictus and provoked a radical shift in the priestly family's policies. As far as can be judged from the historical consequences, it decided from then on no longer to entrust the responsibility of the Empire to people who did not belong to the priestly lineage, even if they were Sol Invictus initiates, but always to assume the imperial office itself and always to the first of the priestly families.

The first result of this policy was the appointment of Constantine as Augustus (proclaimed by the troops in Britannia on the death of his father) and Licinius (nominated at the Sol Invictus summit meeting in Carnuntum). In 312 [1] Constantine got rid of his rival M. Valerius Maxentius at the famous Battle of Milvian Bridge, thus remaining sole master of the West. Straight afterwards, at the beginning of 313, the two of them, Constantine and Licinius, met in Milan. On that occasion they fraternally acknowledged each other’s respective spheres of influence and sealed their agreement with the marriage of Licinius to Constantine's sister, Flavia Constans. They also agreed to jointly eliminate the last enemy of the Christians, Maximinus Daia, which they did soon afterwards [2].

The Milan meeting in 313 heralded a fundamental change in world history. Not so much because on that occasion the famous Edict of Tolerance was issued, which at last gave full freedom of worship to Christianity, as is claimed by the majority of historians, who give the credit to Constantine. Actually, no Edict of Tolerance was issued in 313. The two Emperors limited themselves to agreeing to ratify the Edict of Nicomedia, signed two years earlier by Galerius and Licinius, extending it to the whole of the Empire and expanding some of its clauses (in particular with regard to the restoration of confiscated property to the Church), and sending letters to their respective governors with instructions for its application. Ironically, it is from one of Licinius' letters, reported in full by Eusebius and Lactantius, that we know what actions they took. [3]

Credit for the confirmation of the Edict of Tolerance and Christianity's consequent definitive triumph, was wholly attributed to Constantine, but it should have been shared out equally between the two. If anything, Licinius had more right to it. But, as we know, the victor is always right. It was inevitable that sooner or later a conflict for supremacy would break out between the two of them. After a few years of relations that oscillated between the fraternal and the conflictual, in 324 they faced each other in a decisive confrontation, and Constantine had the better of it, and reunited the Empire.

The real turning-point, however, was due to the two Emperors' secret agreements, which settled once and for all the policy of the priestly organization, thus deciding the fate of the Empire. From that moment on the conquest of civil society proceeded openly and extremely rapidly on two fronts: on one hand the forced Christianization of the Empire[4], and on the other the destruction of what remained of the old ruling class and its substitution with new men; we can be reasonably certain that in the majority of cases these new men were members of priestly families.

If Licinius had won, history would probably not have changed much, at least regarding Christianity. They both belonged to the Sol Invictus; they had both imposed Christian prayers and symbols on their armies; both depended on Christianity and showed favor toward it in every way (and Licinius perhaps even more openly than Constantine, since he vaunted a direct lineage from the first Christian emperor, Philip the Arab). And as well as being brothers-in-law, they both belonged to the same lineage, the “Gens Flavia”.

 In all likelihood, it was exactly this that was at the center of the agreements between Flavius Constantine and Flavius Licinius at their meeting in Milan in 313. We have already said that the decisions of the Mithraic organization were an inviolable secret, of which we cannot expect to find any trace in any historical document. But of this particular detail, given its importance and resonance within the priestly family, there is perhaps an indirect mention in the historical chronicle of a contemporary writer, Aurelius Victor. [5]

In his chronicles “De Caesaribus” he says that after the victory over Maxentius, the “patres” (an ambiguous formula that can mean either the Senate or the heads of the Mithraic lodges, who went by the name of “patres”) dedicated a basilica in Rome to the merits of Flavius Constantine. Straight afterwards he adds that “sacerdotium conferitum Flaviae Genti” - i.e., literally, that the “priesthood” was conferred on the Flavian lineage.

A sentence of this kind is highly ambiguous from the pagan point of view; the only meaning that we can attribute to it is that a priestly body was instituted that was devoted to the cult of the Flavian lineage, and certainly not that the members of that family were made priests, since the office of Pontifex Maximus was automatically connected with that of the Emperor. And from the Christian point of view it makes no sense at all. It does make sense, however, from the point of view of the Judaic priestly family.

To understand the meaning of this sentence we must bear in mind who this Aurelius Valerius was, who the Gens Flavia to whom he refers were, and what this meant exactly for the different interpretations of the word “priesthood”.

Valerius Aurelius, born in Carthage (like St. Augustine, his contemporary) was from an equestrian family and is defined as “pagan” by historians. He had a brilliant career in the imperial administration before becoming, in 389, prefect of a Rome that by that time was already completely in the hands of the Christians. It is inconceivable that in a situation of this kind the highest civil office would have been left in the hands of a pagan in the true sense of the word. Valerius was surely a “pagan” as Constantine, Ambrose and so on had been, i.e. a member of the Sol Invictus organization, in whose hierarchy he must have held a high-profile position  and therefore he must have been well-informed of its secret matters. 

Let us now see who these “Gens Flavia” - i.e. the lineage of the Flavians - were. Historians agree that they had nothing to do with the family of emperors of the first century, and often restrict this definition exclusively to Constantine's family. This is certainly incorrect; at the very least it must also have extended to Licinius' family. As we have seen, the cult of Mithras started to appropriate Pannonia at the beginning of the second century, and it can be assumed that Constantine's and Licinius' ancestors arrived in the area exactly in that period. There can be no doubt that over two centuries they must have established a vast network of interrelated families, which held an almost absolute prominence all over the region (let us not forget that Constantine claimed to descend from the Pannonian emperor Claudius the Goth and Licinius from Philip the Arab. It was a genuine imperial dynasty) and they were all connected through the Sol Invictus organization.

Finally, let us consider the interpretation of the word “priesthood”. As high-ranking members of the Sol Invictus, those who belonged to the Gens Flavia were priests by birthright. In the Bible, however, and in Josephus Flavius, the attribution of the priesthood to a priest often means the attribution of the “high priesthood”, a status with which, in the Hasmonean tradition, the highest political office of the state was also connected (the Hasmoneans combined the offices of king of Judah and high priest within the same person).

What Valerius Aurelius seems to have wanted to communicate in his writings, albeit it in cryptic form comprehensible only to initiates (so as not to give away any secrets), is some information of extreme relevance – i.e. that on that occasion the high priesthood was conferred on the Gens Flavia.

What does this mean? From what we have seen from our examination so far, the imperial office, from Commodus onwards, had almost exclusively been conferred on members of the Sol Invictus organization, independently of the rank they held in the organization and whether they belonged to the  stock of priestly families, and which branch of these families. This had caused an interminable series of internecine struggles, which had certainly not helped the cause of the priestly family.

At the meeting in Milan the two Flavians, Constantine and Licinius, must have persuaded the priestly organization of the Sol Invictus to decree that from then on the high priesthood, and consequently the imperial office connected with it, would go by rights exclusively to their lineage. This interpretation of Valerius Aurelius' phrase may not be correct, but it is certainly plausible. A decision of this kind must have been made on that occasion, because from then on all the Roman emperors were always and exclusively chosen, without the slightest hesitation or deviation, from among the members of the “Gens Flavia”.

The presence of this name, Flavius, would become almost an obsession from then on among the members of the imperial families, starting, obviously, with that of Constantine. His father's full name was: Marcus Flavius Valerius Constans Chlorus. His first wife (although she would go down in history as his concubine) was Flavia Helena, Constantine's mother, and his second wife was Flavia Maxima Theodora. And the name Flavius then appears in almost all the descendants of Constans Chlorus, starting with Constantine, who, incidentally, also married a woman of the same “gens”, Flavia Maxima Fausta. From among them we can cite Flavius Julius Crispus, Flavius Julius Constantine, Flavius Julius Constans, Flavia Julia Constans, Flavius Dalmatius, Flavius Hannibalianus, Flavius Gratian, and finally Flavius Claudius Julian, known as the Apostate, the last representative of the Constantinian dynasty, but certainly not of the Gens Flavia, which would continue uninterruptedly.

On the death of Julian a general by the name of Flavius Jovianus was elected, and was Emperor for a few months. His successor, Valentinian I, was the founder of a new dynasty of Flavians, which included Gratian and his grandson Valentinian II. Flavius was the name given to Theodosius, the Spanish general who founded the following dynasty, and it was also given to most of his descendants, both male and female. [6]  Flavius was the name given to the general Constans, created Augustus by Flavius Honorius, son of Valentinian. Flavius was also the name of the usurper Eugenius, created Augustus by Arbogast in opposition to Theodosius. Another Flavius was Magnus Maximus [7], who, like Theodosius came from Spain, and gave the name Flavia Caesarensis Maxima the most important province in Britannia [8]; and Flavius was the name of the Roman general who in 406 was proclaimed Emperor in Britannia, with the name of Constantine III. Flavius was the name of that Marcian who, in Constantinople, founded the dynasty that followed that of Theodosius. And Flavius would be the name given to Justinian, founder of the third dynasty in the East, who would be instated in Constantinople in 518. And so on.

Even Odoacer, once he had conquered Italy in 576 and been created “patrician”, hurriedly assumed the name of Flavius. The fact that the name Flavius was adopted in adulthood even by figures who were probably not of priestly lineage, does not in any way weaken the argument that the imperial office was reserved exclusively for the Gens Flavia. On the contrary it strengthens it, because whoever aspired to the office, for himself or for his sons, hurried to assume that name, usually having first married a woman from the Gens Flavia. This establishes a direct link with Josephus Flavius, who claimed descent from the Hasmoneans on his mother's side, and with the custom of the priestly class after Ezra's reforms, which established that priestly status was inherited from the mother. This custom is still observed today by the Jews.

The Visigoth king Favritta assumed the name Flavius after marrying a Byzantine noble, and with this he felt entitled to ask Theodosius for the rank of patrician and a life annuity [9]. Similarly Stilicho, thought to be of Vandal origin, took the name Flavius after marrying Theodosius' granddaughter, Flavia Serena. Marrying a woman from the Gens Flavia certainly did not confer on the consort any right to the imperial crown; but it did to their sons, because they inherited this right from the mother. Indeed, Stilicho planned to have his son from Serena, Flavius Eucherius, created Caesar, and this was probably the reason he and his son were condemned to death. Odoacer, too, who for himself claimed only the title of patrician, dreamed of a future as Emperor for his son Flavius Telane, whom he had proclaimed Caesar [10]. It was a dream that must have cost him the throne and his life, because it was probably the reason that the Eastern emperor Zeno unleashed Theodoric's Ostrogoths against him.

The same fate awaited the Visigoth king Ataulf, who dreamed of an imperial future for his lineage (it was part of his dream for the restoration of the Roman Empire); he married, in Narbonne in January 414, the sister of the Emperor Flavius Honorius, Galla Placidia, captured during the sack of Rome in 410. The following year she bore him a son, whom he named, without much subtlety, Flavius Theodosius. [11] Ataulf was killed the following year by the Goths and Galla Placidia was restored to her brother Honorius and given in marriage to the general Flavius Constans, who was of the right lineage and was immediately proclaimed Augustus; from their union the future Emperor Flavius Valentinian II was born.

Evidently the “pure” members of the Gens Flavia were not prepared to tolerate competition from the “bastards”, or accept them in their ranks, and they resorted to every means to eliminate them. Other barbarians in that period cultivated the same dream. The Vandal king Geiseric, for example, gave his son Huneric in marriage to Eudocia, one of Valentinian III's daughters, captured in the sack of Rome in 455; he gave the other daughter in marriage to the Roman Senator Flavius Anicius Olybrius, whom he managed to impose as Emperor for some time in 473. His dream, apparently, was that of instating one of his own grandsons on the Western throne, legitimized for the imperial office by his mother.

But where did this Gens Flavia come from? The one certainty, as we have seen, is that they bore no relation to the imperial Flavians of the first century. It was a family that was clearly linked with the Sol Invictus Mithras, instated in Pannonia since the beginning of the second century and immediately afterwards in Spain, in the wake of the Roman legions stationed in Galicia (in fact one of Galicia's main cities was called “Aquae Flaviae”), and in Britannia. It was a family that had spawned at least two emperors in the third century, of whom one was a self-confessed Christian. We have seen, in fact, that Licinius counted among his ancestors Philip the Arab, who was certainly not an Arab, although he was born in Bosra [12].

So it was a family of priests, all members of the Sol Invictus Mithras, traditionally linked with Christianity and with an almost divine right to govern, whose members apparently drew on an ancestor named Flavius. It does not require very much imagination to conclude that we must be talking about the descendants of Josephus Flavius, member of the first of the Judaic priestly families, descendant of the Hasmonean royal family, founder of the Mithraic organization, as well as, on the basis of our initial reconstruction, promoter of the Church of Rome.

In little more than two centuries his descendants had completely and irreversibly taken control of that hugely powerful empire that had almost annihilated his race, reducing it to exactly what the kingdom of Judah had been for the priestly family at the time of the Hasmoneans. Josephus Flavius' “impossible” dream had become reality: the Mosaic priestly family had become for Rome what it had been for Jerusalem at the peak of its power: mistress of economic and political power and undisputed arbiter of religion. And its direct descendants were its high priests, as well as sovereigns of the Empire by birthright. The only difference was that, outside the secret organization, nobody even suspected the existence of the Judaic priestly family and therefore nobody knew of the bonds of kinship and solidarity among the families who constituted the ruling class of the Empire.

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