The Emperor Constantine

Hans A. Pohlsander9780415319386, 0415319382, 9780203622582

The emperor Constantine has been called the most importantemperor of Late Antiquity. His powerful personality laid thefoundations not only of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and ofJerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but of post-classicalEuropean civilization; his reign was eventful and highly dramatic.His victory at the Milvian Bridge counts among the most decisivemoments in world history.But Constantine was also controversial, and the controversybegins in antiquity itself. The Christian writers Lactantius andEusebius saw in Constantine a divinely appointed benefactor ofmankind. Julian the Apostate, on the other hand, accused him ofgreed and waste, and the pagan historian Zosimus held himresponsible for the collapse of the (Western) empire.

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Table of contents :
BOOK COVER……Page 1
TITLE……Page 4
COPYRIGHT……Page 5
CONTENTS……Page 6
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS……Page 8
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……Page 10
CHRONOLOGY……Page 12
Introduction……Page 14
The soldier emperors and Diocletian……Page 17
Constantine’s rise to power……Page 26
Constantine’s conversion……Page 35
Constantine as the sole ruler of the West……Page 44
The conflict with Licinius……Page 53
The Arian controversy, the Council of Nicaea and its aftermath……Page 61
The crisis in the imperial family……Page 69
The new Rome……Page 76
Constantine’s government……Page 86
Constantine’s final years, death and burial……Page 93
Constantine’s image in Roman art……Page 98
An assessment……Page 103
APPENDICES……Page 108
BIBLIOGRAPHY……Page 124
INDEX……Page 130