This year Christians worldwide will celebrate the 1700th anniversary of
Constantine's conversion and victory at the Battle of the Milvian
Bridge. 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, even on his deathbed he was
planning a major assault on the Sassanian Empire in Persia. 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.
