Constantine the Great: The Man and His Times - Hardcover

Grant, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684195208 ISBN 13: 9780684195209

Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994

Synopsis

The author of Founders of the Western World assesses the achievements of the man who founded Constantinople and converted the Roman Empire to Christianity.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Grant is formerly a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh University.

Reviews

Constantine I founded Constantinople on the site of Byzantium and converted the Roman Empire to Christianity, yet this first Christian emperor "would hardly be recognized as Christian at all today," asserts renowned classicist Grant in a compelling reassessment. A ruthless despot who strove to be a world-conqueror like Alexander the Great, Constantine (280?-337) murdered his second wife and his son, assassinated friends and advisers and extended the death penalty to minor crimes. While cultivating a reputation for almsgiving, the emperor crushed common people with oppressive taxes to finance his reckless wars, extravagant pomp and vast, corrupt bureaucracy. The Christian God whom Constantine revered was a god of power who presumably enabled him to destroy foes, and as Grant makes clear, the emperor's belief that he was constantly in touch with God made him difficult and dangerous. Illustrated. History Book Club main selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An eminent classical historian (Founders of the Western World, 1991, etc.) skillfully records the turbulent life of the first Christian Roman emperor and founder of Constantinople, Constantine the Great (c. 272337). Constantine grew up during the Tetrarchy, a system in which the Roman Empire was divided into western and eastern halves, each headed by an emperor (``Augustus'') and a deputy (``Caesar''). Constantine was the son of Constantius I Chlorus, a rough soldier of humble origin who rose to become the Caesar to Diocletian's co- emperor Maximian in 286. When Constantius was made Caesar of the western half, Constantine was left at the court of Diocletian until the resignation of Diocletian and Maximian in 305, leaving Constantius and Galerius as emperors. When Constantius died at York in 306, his troops hailed Constantine as the new emperor. Although Constantine showed genius as a general, Grant points out that he achieved his greatest victories in battles against fellow Romans: The author narrates Constantine's triumphs in the protracted civil wars with rivals Maximian and his son Maxentius in 310 and 312 and his giant victory over co-emperor Licinius at Hadrianopolis in 334, in which Constantine consolidated his control over the entire empire. Constantine dealt pitilessly with any challenge: Among his many victims, he had his eldest son Crispus murdered (326) based on charges from his (Constantine's) wife Fausta that Crispus was plotting to usurp the throne, and then had Fausta murdered on charges of adultery. Although the founding of Constantinople (330) and the establishment of state Christianity (312) were great achievements, Grant concludes that Constantine ``had a lot to answer for.'' Finally, despite the precedent of the Tetrarchy, he divided the empire among his sons at his death, thus ensuring another round of debilitating civil wars. A highly readable and superbly researched biography of a man whose achievements transformed the decaying Roman Empire and had a lasting impact on Europe. (History Book Club main selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Almost yearly, popular classicist Grant writes a volume on the ancients, this one a life of Flavius Valerius Constantinus. By the time he died in 337, that emperor had reigned over changes of pivotal significancenotably the establishment of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire. Christianity's ascendance was controversial in the near-contemporary histories: Christian writers (like Eusebius) extolled the conversion; pagans blamed it for Rome's subsequent woes. Indeed, Constantine's time embodied a fleeting recovery of the strength of the empire, the western part of which soldiered on for two more centuries (the eastern half, governed from the self-named city Constantine built, existed another millenium). Grant, comfortable in the objective command of his sources, creates another knowledgeable narrative, critically objective of his man, who, after all, was an absolute autocrat. Grant crystallizes these complicated issues, be they the plainly understood power struggle to succeed Diocletian, or the more numinous schisms and anathemas of the early Church. In the process, he reaffirms his own authority and companionability with his immense audience. A History Book Club main selection. Gilbert Taylor

Since the very day of his death, Constantine the Great has been the subject of conflicting appreciations. Grant, the eminent historian of Greco-Roman times, clearly demonstrates in this latest book the intense partisanship Constantine aroused in biographers. On the one hand, pious Christians routinely overstated his virtues. They admired his support of the church, his ambitious civil building programs, and his military successes while ignoring his predatory taxation, his enlargement of the imperial bureaucracy, and his murders of perceived enemies. On the other hand, pagan (and later secular) historians routinely exaggerated his faults and scanted his real achievements. Grant has pruned away the exaggerations of both sanctifiers and vilifiers to produce a readable and reliable (if sometimes noncommittal) evaluation. Like most of Grant's books, it is directed to educated readers generally and is suitable for both public and academic libraries.
James F. DeRoche, Alexandria, Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684195208
• ISBN 13: 9780684195209
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 282