The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World) 2nd Edition

This book on the age of Constantine confirms much of what I've found elsewhere on his life and times, from Eusebius to modern historians.For example, that in Constantine's mind Christianity and Sol worship were compatible (p.16), that he'd had a vision in 310 A.D., similar to the one he'd later have at the Milvian bridge, but of Apollo (Mithras, Sol Invictus) rather than of Jesus (p. 67), that he commissioned the minting of coinage with the image of Sol Invictus long after his alleged conversion to Christianity (p. 154), and that there was "overlap between solar monotheism and Christian ideas of light." (p. 175)Recommended resource for the study of Constantine.

This book is a remarkable collection of sixteen studies by a wide range of authors on various aspects of the “Age of Constantine”. The studies are grouped in five sections of three studies, with each section on a specific theme. These are Politics and Personalities, Religion and Spiritual Life, Law and Society, Art and Culture, Empire and Beyond. The book’s first study stands apart and it is a review and analysis of the sources that cover the period.The period, however, is not limited to Constantine’s reign (AD 306 – AD 337). This is because to put Constantine and his achievements into perspective, the authors under the direction of Noël Lenski, who edited the book and contributed the piece on this Emperor’s reign, a wider period has been chosen. Essentially, it covers more or less some eighty years or so from the rise to power of Diocletian (AD 284) to the death of Julian (AD 363) in what turned out to be his disastrous Persian expedition. The advantage offered by such an approach is that it allows assessing to what extent Constantine introduced changes or walked in the footsteps of his predecessors. It also allows for examining to what extent his successors, and Constantius II in particular, followed his own lead or deviating from it.This is particularly well illustrated by the book’s first section on Politics and Personalities. The first study is essentially an over view of the Tetrarchy up to Constantine’s seizure of power. The second study focuses on the main events of Constantine’s reign and how he unified the Empire by eliminating the competition before dividing it again among his three surviving sons. The third study is about the troubled reigns of these sons, and of Julian, the last Emperor of the dynasty.Unsurprisingly, there is also a full section on religion, but not only on Christianity. As one of the authors’ states, while many have disputed whether and to what extent one Constantine was a Christian, perhaps a more interesting point is to determine what kind of Christian he was or intended to be. Also shown through these studies are the ways in which “the old” was blended with “the new” and the real role played by the Emperor Constantine in this, as opposed to the semi-legendary role that the later Church’s recasting of events would make him play. An additional feature of particular interest is the study on “traditional religions”, their evolution, and the growing tendency towards one supreme God (Sol Invictus) that Constantine and a number of his predecessors seemed to have worshipedThe third section on law and society covers changes in government, with a growing bureaucracy and centralisation. Also included is an article entitled “Civil Law and Social Life” which is an illuminating analysis of Constantine’s contribution to the legal corpus and how he saw social relationships. There is very little that is revolutionary here – if anything at all. In fact, the Emperor seems to have been as conservative as Diocletian and to have confirmed most of his reforms. One reason for this and for the increasingly intrusive and bureaucratic government was the need to harness all resources. This is what the article of the Empire’s economy tends to show. While it is difficult to talk of decline, if only because this would have affected different regions at different times and in different ways, the author’s conclusion seems to be that the Empire’s economy was probably stagnating and that some areas were indeed recovering slowly from the disruptions of the Third Century. Another major point made is the changes in the cities, with these shrinking to a fraction of their previous size and seeking protection against raids that could no longer be prevented behind their hastily built walls.The fourth section on Art and Culture also contains a handful of gems. One is a study analysing how the image and deeds of Constantine have been recast in “Legendary Literature”. The two others are on architecture, and on the range and mix of monuments built by Constantine, churches, but also triumphal arches and on “perspectives in art”, with an interesting study on mosaics.The last section (Empire and beyond) focuses on the Empire’s relations with its neighbours. There is one article on Constantine’s relations with the “Northern Barbarians”, those lining the northern and eastern sides of the Danube and the Rhine. This study follows an excellent piece from Hugh Elton - “Warfare and the Military” – showing how the Roman Army evolved and included a growing proportion of troops but also officers of Germanic origin but Roman trained and subject to Roman discipline, with both features giving them an edge on just about any other opponents.Also described are the army’s reorganisation between frontier troops and mobile field armies and a short summary of the main historical debates, including those on numbers and on the Empire’s strategy. A final article is centred on the Eastern frontier. It focuses on the relations and tensions with the other great Empire of the Sassanids, but also on those with other people, the Arabs and the Armenians in particular, who were caught between the two rival Empires.The end of each study also includes a little bibliography for “further reading” which includes references up to 2011 included, in addition to notes.Also included are a number of maps, some forty two figures (which are superb, even if only in black and white), a dozen plans of buildings built during Constantin’s (mostly churches, unsurprisingly) and several plates of coins of the period.In a nutshell, this Companion book provides good value for money, although it is not exactly cheap, even in paperback. It provides the interested reader with a comprehensive overview of the Age of Constantine, and an excellent starting point for anyone wanting to explore any of its aspects in more detail. Five stars.