Pohlsander Hans A. The Emperor Constantine

Routledge, 2004. — 135 p. — (Lancaster Pamphlets in Ancient History).The emperor Constantine (ruled in 306-337) has been called the most important Emperor of Late Antiquity. His powerful personality laid the foundations not only of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and ofJerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but of post-classical European civilization; his reign was eventful and highly dramatic.His victory at the Milvian Bridge counts among the most decisive moments in world history.But Constantine was also controversial, and the controversy begins in antiquity itself. The Christian writers Lactantius and Eusebius saw in Constantine a divinely appointed benefactor of mankind. Julian the Apostate, on the other hand, accused him of greed and waste, and the pagan historian Zosimus held him responsible for the collapse of the (Western) empire.