Ebook: The Emperor Constantine

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.