The Roman Revolution of Constantine (review)

Appropriately, given its title, this latest book on Constantine begins and ends with the emperor Julian, who was to accuse his uncle of being an "innovator and disturber of ancient laws and custom" (Amm.Marc. 21.10.8). The title pays explicit homage to Sir Ronald Syme on Augustus and to the significance of Syme's model of Realpolitik for proper historical scrutiny of the Constantinian "agenda." Van Dam's introduction also invokes the other leading twentieth-century interpreter of Augustus, Paul Zanker, whose focus on the emperor's self-representation points to valuable ways of understanding the historical Constantine. Van Dam rejects the hindsight that sees Christianity alone as "the defining characteristic of his long reign" (p. 10), reflected in the titles of numerous modern books on Constantine; instead, he promises other perspectives that view Christianity as incidental and/or secondary for a ruler who was, first and foremost, a Roman emperor in the long line from Augustus.

This book is by no means (nor does it set out to be) a comprehensive study of Constantine. It is not a biography, nor is it organized in strictly chronological fashion; neither is it confined solely to the period of Constantine. It presents several overlapping themes significant for placing Constantine in the wider context of a late Roman world evolving from the era of the Tetrarchs to the end of the fourth century. The themes are grouped into three sections and take a key ancient text as their starting point (the first two sections in particular amount to an extended historical commentary on the text in question). Section 1 ("A Roman Empire without Rome") focuses on Constantine's famous rescript to the Italian city of Hispellum on the matter of local ceremonies in honor of the imperial family, which Van Dam reads against the background of the empire's center of gravity receding from Rome and central Italy to Gaul, the Balkans, and "new Rome" in the East (he raises the interesting possibility, pp. 53–57, that the petition from Hispellum may have been in hopes of Constantine returning to Italy to celebrate his tricennalia in 335–36, and passing close by on the Via Flaminia en route to Rome). Van Dam also emphasizes Constantine's single-minded promotion of his second Flavian dynasty as an imperial monopoly (hence his permission for the construction of a new "Flavian" temple at Hispellum: "dynastic succession trumped religion" [p. 126]).

Section 2 ("A Greek Roman Empire") is based on another civic inscription, the record of Constantine's grant of city status to the community of Orcistus in central Asia Minor. Van Dam helpfully clarifies (pp. 152–55) that what modern books on Constantine tend to conflate into a single text was actually a dossier of several separate documents pointedly arranged on a single pillar to highlight the emperor's generosity. Two main themes for discussion arise from Constantine's "dialogue" with Orcistus. On the significance of religious affiliation in determining imperial decisions, Van Dam is concerned to show (pp. 176–83) that Constantine's statement that "all are said to reside there as supporters of the most holy religion"was not necessarily an exclusive claim to Christianity on the part of the petitioners (although Van Dam's reading of these words as a "description of themselves" [emphasis added] overlooks the fact that the phrase is actually Constantine's own, drawn from his letter to the undeniably Christian prefect Ablabius). More important to the success of the petition than religion, in Van Dam's view, was that the citizens of Greek-speaking Orcistus chose to address Constantine in Latin, a fact that leads him to reflect on the cultural implications of a Roman imperial administration now implanted in the midst of the Greek East.

Section 3 ("Emperor and God") again begins from an inscription, a dedication in the apse of the Constantinian basilica of St. Peter in Rome, which praised "the virtues of father and son...