Roman Revolution

A central thesis of Raymond van Dam’s The Roman Revolution of Constantine is that Constantine was obsessed with the issue of succession, and that religious concerns were subordinate to the need for a smooth transition of power. That thesis is, I think, overstated, but van Dam’s book has many virtues and offers plenty of insight. He uses articles and architectural evidence to very good effect, explains the symbolisms of names and actions, shows the consequences of Constantine’s decisions in the century following.

There are many telling specific observations. Like this, on the significance of decapitation:

“if portraits, statues, and busts announced the beginning of a new emperor’s reign, then his actual bodiless head announced the end . . . . A new emperor was a new face and the new head of government; a deposed emperor was defaced and beheaded. Decapitation marked the deathboth of a failed emperor and of any memories of him. Decapitation was teh symbolic equivalent of erasing names and ending a lineage: without its head, the corpse of one usurper was ‘nameless.’”

Or this neat symbol of the transformation of Rome after the triumph of Christianity: Van Dam is speaking of the Nova Basilica, built by Maxentius, taken over and claimed by Constantine, later neglected: “The huge Constantinian Basilica next to the old Forum became a quarry, especially for medieval Popes and Renaissance builds. One seventh-century pope neatly articulated the new realignment of priorities when he removed bronze tiles from the basilica to provide a new roof for the Church of St. Peter. Repairing a church outside the city’s walls was more important than maintaining an imperial building in the city’s heart, even one associated with the first Christian emperor. As this basilica crumbled over the centuries and was gradually (and literally) deconstructed, its name has reverted to its original patron. These days many guidebooks and exhibition catalogues refer to its imposing remains as the Basilica of Maxentius.”