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Constantine the Emperor 1st Edition

by David Potter (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 174 ratings
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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.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0199755868
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0199755868
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  5. Publication date
    December 11, 2012
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    9.3 x 1.4 x 6.3 inches
  8. Print length
    368 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A vividly detailed and energetically told biography." --Publishers Weekly

"The interested reader could find no better starting point for exploring the man and the era than David Potter's Constantine the Emperor." --The Wall Street Journal

Book Description

A captivating new biography of the first Christian emperor of Rome

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; 1st edition (December 11, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0199755868
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199755868
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.42 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.3 x 1.4 x 6.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 174 ratings

About the author

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David S. Potter

David S. Potter

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David Potter is Francis W. Kelsey Professor of Greek and Roman History, Arthur F. Thurnau professor and Professor of Greek and Latin in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan, where he has taught for more than a quarter century. He is the author of numerous books on Roman History,has appeared on numerous History Channel programs about Roman History and, for a number of years, contributed a weekly column on issues in Greek, Roman and modern sports to the Chicago Tribune's RedEye. His recent books include Life, Death and Entertainment in the Roman Empire (with David Mattingly), Emperors of Rome, The Roman Empire at Bay 180-395, The Victor's Crown, Ancient Rome, A New History and Constantine the Emperor. He likes to think that he has the ability to appreciate things he has no ability to do so he delights in Classical Music and his athletic endeavors have devolved from active participation to vigorous fandom.

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4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
174 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

CC Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting perspectives, clearly presented
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2013
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This biography draws heavily on the Theodosian Code, and on communications with the bureaucracy, to find consistency in the things that were important to Constantine over the years. This gives a rare picture of some of the individuals who were important to the emperor and who made his system work (such as it did).

David Potter takes the line that Constantine was about 10 years younger than many biographies portray him. This leads to a slightly different perspective on many of the events in the life.

He gives credit to Helena and Minervina as powerful influences on Constantine. There's a lot of room for speculation about these two, and I found his speculation persuasive and satisfying.

A highlight: Maxentius' hiding the insignia of office -- they were only found in the 2000's, I think -- which added a new and colorful detail to the conflict over Rome in 312.

I found insights and discoveries in every chapter. Dog-eared many pages.

I wonder if it would be the best choice for a reader who's looking for their FIRST biography of Constantine. Its advantages include clear language and chronological narrative -- both hugely important. But there's a lot of names to keep straight, and I'm not sure if the lead actors stand far enough above the supporting players. But then, are the "lead actors" really the ones I expect them to be? Or were the officials who were more a part of daily life (who attended the funeral) more significant than I've given them credit for? I love that I'm asking that question! And I think it's one of the points of the book. But a reader approaching this complex story for the first time might get a little lost. Or maybe they'd be fine after reading a Wikipedia article?

Either way, a great read.
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Alberto Esteban
4.0 out of 5 stars Well documented
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2022
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But hard going, not for a pleasant read, unless you are deeply familiar with the facts of that unstable and confusing chapter of Roman history.
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drM
5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2021
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Yes, indeed, there are a few 1 star reviews that truly miss the point of this book. Especially one who asks what castration has to do with Constantine? This book sets the stage for the “rule”, “reign” of Constantine, and as such, how do you place a person in context unless you at least attempt to set the scene of events prior to ascension.
Now, if your criticism is that it is rather dry, or that it could be better structured, then you are on far better ground. But, in my humble opinion, this is a small price to pay for a very scholarly, in depth and detailed look at Constatine’s **time** and rule.
So, be prepared for a perhaps harsh introduction to Roman times in about 300, hang on and persevere, it will be worth it.
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Maurice K Leach
5.0 out of 5 stars Fills in Some Gaps
Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2016
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David Potter has put together an excellent, informative, fact-based history of one of the world's greatest emperors of the Roman Empire and he came to power. He's done his research. A good read. The author does not insert his own theories where there are gaps in written history.
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Matthew O'Neil
3.0 out of 5 stars Meh...
Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2014
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Potter is an excellent resource for so much about Constantine, but his writing is really dry. I learned a lot about Constantine and his exposure to, and practice of, Christianity (what I bought the book to help me understand), but it took me reading, and re-reading, passages at a rather slow pace to really take in the information. Perhaps for those who are looking for additional resources, maybe not for someone just starting their quest for knowledge on this emperor.
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Brooks Cressman
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent comprehensive portrait of Constantine the man
Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2024
This excellent book reopens the very controversial question as to the nature of Constantine's relationship with Christianity. The author comprehensively examines the surviving sources and performs extensive contextual research to build a complete portrait of Constantine; his origins, formative years, ascent to power, and military and administrative actions. It considers Eusebius's well known biopic; the Life of Constantine, but identifies its limitations and uses other contemporary sources such as Lactantius 'De mortibus persecutorum' and Eusebius' own 'Church History' as well as contemporary military insignias to plausibly explain events preceding and during the Battle of the Milvian bridge. The author develops a compelling portrait of his approach to governing, to his relationships, and to waging war in order to infer the nature of his relationship with Christianity. His relationship to Christianity was nuanced - he credited the Christian God with his success and ended all persecution of Christians and even shifted funding toward the construction of churches, but was wise enough to tolerate all other religions. Pragmatic and protective of Romans in general, he was against the persecution of Romans for any reason except treachery - having been raised during the persecution of Christians by Diocletian while observing that his father (Constantius) refused to persecute them in the West. He separated his own beliefs from his expectation of others. In accepting Christianity, he also voided the previous trend of the cult of the emperor as a god. Despite this, he disliked contradictions within Christianity and insisted on clarity in dogma. The result is a competent assessment of a complex man who moved from success to success, was mostly able to avoid the corruption that befell so many emperors, and who, more than any other, created an empire truly accepting of all religions without requiring adherence to any - perhaps one of the first that provided lawful separation of church and state.
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MAximiliano ochoa
5.0 out of 5 stars Bien
Reviewed in Mexico on March 3, 2021
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El libro me llegó en buen estado y a tiempo, lo recomiendo.
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Pamela den Ouden
5.0 out of 5 stars informative; clear thesis; well written
Reviewed in Canada on March 6, 2014
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This book covers the background to Constantine's life, first describing the zeitgeist of the Roman world into which he was born. Potter develops his thesis that Constantine's main aim was to preserve the unity and harmony of the empire and of the church. This book is useful for history students, seminary students, and church leaders who want to understand more about the foundation of the modern church. However, this book is so engaging that anyone who likes biographies or has an interest in history could enjoy it.
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Arch Stanton
5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Biography of Constantine Available
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 2, 2013
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This book is the best biography I've seen on Constantine. Such a famous emperor is bound to get many biographies but unlike many other famous figures there has yet to be a penultimate book on him. Most books on the man miss the point of the man to one degree or another. Many bios (such as  Constantine: Unconquered Emperor, Christian Victor , and  Constantine's Sword ) focus on what he's best known for today (ie. converting the empire to Christianity). Others (like  The Life and Times of Constantine the Great ) offer brief adventure novel-ish accounts of his reign. Others (such as  Constantine the Great: The Man and His Times  and  The Roman Revolution of Constantine ) have the same goal as this one and attempt to portray the man as he was, with varying degrees of success. But I don't think that any of them come as close to the heart of the man as this one.

Potter's approach when considering motivation and intent is to examine the evidence written the closest to the time in question. He places a lot of focus on Constantine's laws and rescripts since these were written during Constantine's life. Most of the ecclesiastical and historical sources were written well after his death. All of them had a bone to grind of one sort or another. The ecclesiastical historians were keen to prove that Constantine was the devout and persecutory emperor that they wanted while the pagan ones wanted to show how bad Constantine was for the empire.

This gives Potter a rather different perspective than most biographies on the man. His Constantine is an emperor first and a Christian second, and often a distant second. Most of his ethics were conservative Roman more than Christian and he cited examples of previous emperors more than he did Biblical figures. This comes through in his concern for protecting the lower classes (never an exclusively Christian concern) and his harsh attitudes towards slaves. His Constantine is a deeply devout man who was convinced he had a god on his side, but who is never the less a Roman through and through. His religious policy (which most ecclesiastical historians consider confused) was actually as simple as could be: he wanted everybody to get along and serve him. Christians who rocked the boat were treated just as harshly as radical pagans.

As to this book's problems there are quite a few. It is probably not the best beginners book on the man. For that I'd recommend Grant's or Kousoulas' books. This book seems to assume a basic knowledge of the events described. For example, the description of the battle of the Milvian Bridge is minimal and it seems to be a rather unimportant event judging from the focus given to it. He seems more interested in what others say about the fight than the battle itself. His focus on Constantine is often vague. You understand what was happening around him, but often not what it would have meant to the man. The first part of the book is better understood as a dual biography of Constantine and Diocletian while the rest of the book seems more a book about important trends during Constantine's reign than a proper biography per se. Far too often he deals with this by ending the chapter on an out of the blue comment about what Constantine was thinking at that moment in time. He has some good insights to Constantine's personality but he seems uncertain how to incorporate that within his traditional historical structure.

Potter also displays an unfortunate tendency to be easily sidetracked. This is a consistent feature of the book but the most random sections have to do with the making of eunuchs and the local tax situation of Oxyrhynchos. These come out of the blue and have nothing to do with anything else that he is discussing. These sections are (I gather) there to give a feel for the world that he lived in but they are often distracting and rather clumsy. I do have to wonder if some of these were thrown in as space-takers to bring the book up to an amusing total of 306 pages, thus matching the year Constantine became emperor. I see a lot of reviewers blasting these (and they are annoying) but they're usually short and obvious and so don't completely sidetrack your ability to follow the book.

These are some pretty serious problems but they aren't enough to damage my appreciation for the book. It analyzes how Constantine perceived of his duties in the context of the situation within his lifetime rather than the situation that later writers wanted to believe. This alone is enough to make me forgive a lot. Then too the book is usually an easy read when it doesn't go off on sidenotes and it is helped in this by having short chapters. I wouldn't recommend this as anybody's first book on Constantine, but it's an excellent one to read if you want to understand the way that Constantine was understood in his own time. If it isn't the penultimate biography that I've been waiting for then it's at least a valid attempt. Well done.
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Matthew Senkowski
4.0 out of 5 stars WITH LAW RISING & FALLING, BY THE SUN
Reviewed in Canada on January 26, 2018
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The Oxford University Press library of classic literature, encompassing Virgil, Apulias, Aristotle & all of the other rhetoricians and social pundits of ancient Rome, have a wonderful resource with this comprehensive work, authored by David Potter.

Some of the photos of Constantine's Archway, along with an actual map of ancient Rome's monuments, temples, and governing institutions, circa 330 A.D., are of Potter's own supply and authoring. With his insightful documenting of the fall of Maxentius, Constantine's father-in-law, along with his invention of the snake-in-bag patricide punishment. One might assume this work could be more of an assessment of a daytime soap opera, than the summary lifetime of Roma's most compassionate Caesar.

It's clearly impressive to remove any focus away from public transit, the shelters, home's and refuges of the poor along the Aquaduct. And firmly establishing Constantine's studentship, of taking the power away from the multiple Emperors & Caesars of his time, and dutifully making him seem more of a poet & vigilant, of the human condition.

It seemed rather wicked that so many might have self-destructed around Constantine. That his in-laws, Galerius, Diocletion, and even his own father perished by their own hands. Yet Constantine persisted in becoming a father, maintaining the marriage with his wife Fausta, and freeing African territories away from Roman ownership, to further introduce a stronger Christian foundation for the poor, weakened, and impoverished of the one great city state.

Fear, and the regulation of it, seemed to vanquish by the rising sun. And laws, literacy, and divine punishment, came fruitfully to the evolution of Constantine disempowering himself. Enforcing edicts that the family unit, was a precedent of moral conduct, and enforced by his Praetorian guard. That free civil servants who found no marriage as their function, found equality amidst family oriented individuals who were commanded to obey the law more strenuously than all others.

This is truly a wondrous volume. Which by it's own merit, becomes more resourceful, for those with the aptitude and modesty to remain studious through their rising & waning years. It is by no means mandatory to learn the merits of law, literacy, and the equality of obedient virtues. But it succeeds in becoming easier to value the family unit, over an individuals right to life, when the challenge seems to determine that morality must be enforced by a state based on demeaning the worship of the Sun, and it's territory.
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Nathan R
4.0 out of 5 stars Potter's Constantine
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 22, 2013
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The Emperor Constantine is undoubtably one of the most widely discussed figures of antiquity - only Alexander the Great rivals him in the number of books devoted to his study. This is not surprising; as David Potter writes in this one, Constantine was `not only one of the most successful emperors of Rome, but one of history's most influential leaders'.

If there was to be a definitive history of Constantine, David Potter, author of the compendious and enormously detailed 'The Roman Empire at Bay', looked like he might be the man to write it. This isn't that book, unfortunately, but it's a serious contribution to the field anyway.

Potter starts his account long before Constantine's birth, with the capture of Valerian by the Persians, and goes on to describe the crisis of the 3rd century and Diocletian's institution of the tetrarchy. This covers the first third or so of the book, but it's vital in establishing the context for Constantine's reign. Potter's detailed and thorough analysis of this complex era covers all the main points, besides going into some unexplored corners. Many other historians have mentioned the Panopolis papyri in connection with Diocletian's Egyptian tour; Potter suggests that the travails of the strategos of Panopolis in procuring supplies for the imperial party might betray a lingering allegiance to a recently defeated usurper! This sort of lateral thinking and detailed enquiry is one of the things that made 'The Roman Empire at Bay' such a pleasure, and it's welcome here too. Potter's note about Diocletian's idea of piety, `humans are acting on a stage laid out before the eyes of the gods', is both insightful and a brilliant introduction to the discussion of the persecutions which follows.

Once Constantine appears on the stage, Potter follows the course of events rather more directly. He doesn't really attempt to elucidate Constantine's conversion to christianity, except to note that dreams have a long history in the relationship between emperors and gods. He doesn't have much time for the idea - first put forward by Peter Weiss and supported by Timothy Barnes - that the vision of Apollo Constantine apparently saw in Gaul was a solar halo (although he notes that his refusal of the theory `does not necessarily indicate an attachment to the Nazi party as is implied [by Barnes] in his discussion'!).

On Constantine's christianity generally, Potter takes a middle line, portraying neither Burkhardt's arch pragmatist or Barnes's devout hammer of paganism. Constantine's view of christianity seems to have been quite muddled anyway - Potter does a good job here of picking apart the confused theology in the 'Oration to the Saints' - but in Potter's view he was happy enough for his subjects to be either christian or pagan, so long as they were loyal and kept the peace. In his epilogue Potter debunks most of the wilder notions about Constantine that have accrued over the centuries, from the Donations to the Da Vinci Code.

All this is fair enough, although there are lapses - there's nothing much on the years between the death of Fausta and Constantine's own death, beyond the building of Constantinople. Timothy Barnes refers to his period as a `dark age', and it's easy to see why Potter spends little time on it, but a bit more attention to the wars with Sarmatians and Goths and the engineering works on the Danube would have been nice. Potter's view of army reforms is a little cursory and vague, meanwhile - where he got the idea that Diocletian equipped his men with `leather chest protectors' instead of `chain mail' is unclear, but it surely wasn't from Nicasie, as mentioned in the endnotes! A little more on the culture of the times too maybe would have been good - the literature, the development of art and architecture, the changing iconograpy of empire. Potter write well and interestingly about these matters in 'The Roman Empire at Bay', but here he seems deliberately to restrict his view to the imperial orbit, which is a shame. Compared to the depth of wide-ranging analysis and debate in 'The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine' (ed.Lenski), for example, Potter's contribution can seem a bit thin in places.

For all his caution, Potter nevertheless proceeds from a number of very bold assumptions. The first appears on the opening page - Constantine, Potter claims, was `born around AD 282'. Constantine's actual birthdate is unknown, but most historians opt for a date up to ten years earlier. Barnes (2011) makes a good argument for Constantinian propaganda promoting a later birthdate; Eusebius states in his 'Church History' that Constantine became emperor at the age that Alexander died, which would put him in his early thirties at the time, rather than his early twenties as Potter claims. Potter doesn't really refute any of this, and it's unclear why he settles for 282, and more importantly why he doesn't mention in his main text that his claim might be controversial. It may seem a small point, but in a book that may be seen as authoritative, this is important.

Also curious is Potter's repeated claim that Constantine loved his wife Fausta. Much of Constantine's personal life is obscure - we don't really know what happened to his first wife Minervina (despite Potter deciding that she died in Nicomedia!), nor whether they were legally married. Fausta's birth date is also mysterious - Potter opts for AD299, which makes her a child of seven or eight when she married Constantine. There's good reason for the assumption, which Potter goes into in 'The Roman Empire at Bay' but not here - another case of the earlier book being somewhat superior - but it's still not a firm fact. Interestingly, Potter claims in his endnotes that the story in Zosimus about Fausta betraying her father's plot against Constantine proves that Fausta did not share the imperial bedroom. In fact, it seems to prove exactly the opposite: that Fausta shared a chamber with the emperor in cAD310 and was able to make decisions about who was allowed into it, and was therefore a grown woman and not a child of ten or eleven.

Potter makes no particular guesses about the deaths of Crispus, Constantine's eldest son, and Fausta. He does rather vaguely allude to idea that Fausta might have died much later than Crispus, and therefore Constantine might not have directly killed her; a few pages later they have merely `drawn apart'. Constantine, Potter says `seems never to have ceased loving his wife'. This seems disingenuous - we can't say anything about matters of the heart at this distance. One does wonder, as well, what sort of `love' might encompass murdering the loved one, or ordering her murder. Whatever Fausta did, Constantine never forgave her for it. Potter finds it only `ironic' that in the year of her death the emperor passed a series of very punitive laws against adultery. That he never remarried, and developed an interest in celibacy, might suggest that whatever Fausta had done had put her husband off the idea of matrimony altogether - or, in fact, that he was a bitter misogynist who disliked women, aside from his sainted mother. Either possibility would be as admissible as Potter's idea of Constantine's undying love.

For all this, 'Constantine the Emperor' is still a solid and very readable book. The view that Potter presents of the emperor is necessarily a partial one, and in many ways a rather biased one. But read against Barnes's version, for example, or Stephenson's, or in company with Lenski, Odahl or Van Dam, Potter's book makes a respectable contribution to seeing both Constantine and his age in all their fascinating complexity.
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