Constantine and the Christian Empire

This biographical narrative is a detailed portrayal of the life and career of the first Christian emperor Constantine the Great (273—337). Combining vivid narrative and historical analysis, Charles Odahl relates the rise of Constantine amid the crises of the late Roman world, his dramatic conversion to and public patronage of Christianity, and his church building programs in Rome, Jerusalem and Constantinople which transformed the pagan state of Roman antiquity into the Christian empire medieval Byzantium.

The author’s comprehensive knowledge of the literary sources and his extensive research into the material remains of the period mean that this volume provides a more rounded and accurate portrait of Constantine than previously available.

This revised second edition includes:

• An expanded and revised final chapter

• A new Genealogy and an expanded Chronology

• New illustrations

• Revised and updated Notes and Bibliography

A landmark publication in Roman Imperial, early Christian, and Byzantine history, Constantine and the Christian Empire will remain the standard account of the subject for years to come.

Charles Matson Odahl obtained his doctorate in Greek, Roman, and Medieval History from the University of California, San Diego (1976). He has served as Professor of Ancient and Medieval History, and Classical and Patristic Latin at Boise State University in Idaho for over thirty years; and has traveled widely through Europe, the Mediterranean Basin and the Near East, teaching at universities in Britain and France, working at museums and archaeological sites, and directing tour-seminars in Italy, Greece and Turkey. His research specialties are Cicero and the late Roman Republic, early Christianity, and Constantine and the early Byzantine Empire. He has published some forty articles and reviews in scholarly journals, and recent books on Early Christian Latin Literature (Chicago, 1993), Cicero and the Catilinarian Conspiracy (New York and London: Routledge, 2010), and first edition of Constantine and the Christian Empire (London and New York: Routledge, 2004 Hb, 2006 Pb).