Constantine the Emperor
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- £14.99
Publisher Description
No Roman emperor had a greater impact on the modern world than did Constantine. The reason is not simply that he converted to Christianity, but that he did so in a way that brought his subjects along after him. Indeed, this major new biography argues that Constantine's conversion is but one feature of a unique administrative style that enabled him to take control of an empire beset by internal rebellions and external threats by Persians and Goths. The vast record of Constantine's administration reveals a government careful in its exercise of power but capable of ruthless, even savage, actions. Constantine executed (or drove to suicide) his father-in-law, two brothers-in-law, his eldest son, and his once beloved wife. An unparalleled general throughout his life, planning a major assault on the Sassanian Empire in Persia even on his deathbed. Alongside the visionary who believed that his success came from the direct intervention of his God resided an aggressive warrior, a sometimes cruel partner, and an immensely shrewd ruler. These characteristics combined together in a long and remarkable career, which restored the Roman Empire to its former glory.
Beginning with his first biographer Eusebius, Constantine's image has been subject to distortion. More recent revisions include John Carroll's view of him as the intellectual ancestor of the Holocaust (Constantine's Sword) and Dan Brown's presentation of him as the man who oversaw the reshaping of Christian history (The Da Vinci Code). In Constantine the Emperor, David Potter confronts each of these skewed and partial accounts to provide the most comprehensive, authoritative, and readable account of Constantine's extraordinary life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seventeen centuries ago, Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 282 337 C.E.) converted to Christianity, changing that religion's course from a minority sect into the West's dominant religion. Drawing on many primary sources, Potter efficiently narrates Constantine's youth in Emperor Diocletian's court, his succession to the throne after Diocletian's abdication, his conversion in 312, his reuniting of the Eastern and Western empires, and his participation in 325 C.E. in the Council of Nicaea and the writing of one of Christianity's defining documents, the Nicene Creed. He was not by nature a merciful man swiftly punishing those he believed guilty of crimes against the empire and the qualities he valued most were loyalty, efficiency, and hard work. Constantine believed the Roman people knew what was fair and tried to abide by that even as he established elaborate rituals to keep his subjects at arm's length, so he could reach out like a god to correct the wrongs he perceived. Yet as Potter, a classical historian at the University of Michigan, reminds us in this vividly detailed and energetically told biography, Constantine was also one of Rome's greatest emperors and one of history's greatest leaders, with savvy leadership skills, great passion, and desire for an ordered society.
