Baum, Margaux and Julian Morgan. Constantine. Part of the Leaders of the Ancient World series. 2017. 112p. ISBN 978-1-5081-7252-9. Available at B CON on the library shelves.
A century of civil strife in Rome had led to the Empire’s weakening. The separation of the Roman Empire in two sections, each ruled by an Augustus and a Caesar, caused further destabilization. When Constantine finally ascended the throne after putting down challenges from several other contenders to the title of Emperor, he reunited the Roman world under the leadership of one man. A military genius, Constantine set out to reform the Empire by reorganizing its military and its civilian structures. Keen to avoid further bloodshed, Constantine created a plan to ensure an orderly succession when the time came.
Attracted to Christianity, either through belief or through seeing the advantages that membership in the Church would bring, Constantine actively supported Christians and advocated for their protection from persecution. He believed that the structures of the Church could be used to administer large parts of the Roman Empire, and he promoted the Christian faith, making it the Empire’s own.
Constantine had no real love for the city of Rome, and only visited it for the first time after becoming Emperor. With settled and generally peaceful western borders, Constantine decided to create a new capital closer to the Empire’s eastern borders. He settled on the straits of Bosphorus, and called the new city Constantinople (today’s Istanbul).
Despite his efforts, or perhaps because of them, Constantine’s reign led to further division of the Empire and eventually the fall of Rome in 476 C.E, but it can be argued that he saved the Eastern half of the Empire, which continued for another thousand years.
Titles in the Leaders of the Ancient World include:
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