David S. Potter

While I'm giving this book four stars, I do have the sense that it ends on something of a whimper, as Potter takes you from the rise of Rome as an imperial power, with the First Punic War, ending with the reigns of Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius; men who cemented the image of the Roman Empire as one of the best of all possible worlds. The issue that Potter wrestles with is that the Roman republic never developed a good way of disciplining its military "contractors," once it became clear that a militia army was insufficient, and it is out of that mix of business and elite competition that the imperium emerged. Although Potter has insights to impart on every page, and offers intelligent critiques of the sources that have come down to us, I'm left with the impression that he attempted to do too much in the page count allotted to him.… (more)

A pretty academic but readable biography by a serious scholar. It turns out that contemporaneous information about Constantine is relatively sparse despite his outsized role in the history of Rome and Christianity.

As a result, the early years of Constantine are a blur, and mostly describe his probable experiences in Diocletian’s court. The biography draws from panegyrics (long poems celebrating his achievements) and Constantine’s responses to petitions from around the empire. It reveals an world where people had fixed legal duties and obligations to their communities, much of the petitions were seeking for exemptions from these costly obligations.

The author tries hard to not “back out” Constantine’s life from his conversion. Hence the title “emperor” and reliance on contemporaneous sources like panegyrics and petition responses. Constantine comes across as a supremely pragmatic ruler. He reforms some marriage laws to protect young brides and is concerned about mistakes in status that could deprive a person born free of their free status but never questions slavery or the notion that people are born into fixed statuses itself. His conversation experience is a little more nuanced as well. Early experiences seem to indicate that he wasn’t sure which god was speaking to him, either Apollo or a personal warrior god. The idea of a personal god for the emperor was not particularly new, as a predecessor took sol invictus as his. Eventually Constantine became convinced that the god helping him win battles was the Christian God. There’s some suggestion that Constantine may have adopted monotheism to distance his reign from Diocletian’s. A particularly fascinating argument the book makes is that in the famous moment that Constantine has his soldiers paint the chi-rho in their shields may not have been linked with Christianity at all. The chi-rho could have stood for Christ or simply luck (in Greek they’re apparently similar), and only record of the story of Constantine’s famous dream was not contemporaneous. Constantine is shown as a ruler, who learns from his mistakes, first blundering by reacting harshly the donatist controversy before trying to resolve the Adrian controversy through a more peaceful council at Nicaea where he proposed a compromise.

The book is shorter than it seems, and it is a work of serious historical scholarship. Parts of it are dense (prepare to learn a lot about the period, its complex politics and law. As an aside, I particularly liked a response to a petition setting aside a contract as immoral. A predecessor to public policy?) but interesting historically. A great biography about a great figure… (more)