Editing Constantine the Great (section)

=== Historiography ===
[[File:Sir Peter Paul Rubens - Constantius appoints Constantine as his successor - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|''[[Constantius Chlorus|Constantius]] appoints Constantine as his successor'' by [[Peter Paul Rubens]], 1622]]
During Constantine's lifetime, [[Praxagoras of Athens]] and [[Libanius]], pagan authors, showered Constantine with praise, presenting him as a paragon of virtue. His nephew and son-in-law Julian the Apostate, however, wrote the satire ''Symposium, or the Saturnalia'' in 361, after the last of his sons died; it denigrated Constantine, calling him inferior to the great pagan emperors, and given over to luxury and greed.<ref>Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 272–223.</ref> Following Julian, [[Eunapius]] began – and [[Zosimus (historian)|Zosimus]] continued – a historiographic tradition that blamed Constantine for weakening the empire through his indulgence to the Christians.<ref name="auto">Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 273.</ref>

During the [[Middle Ages]], European and Near-East Byzantine writers presented Constantine as an ideal ruler, the standard against which any king or emperor could be measured.<ref name="auto" /> The [[Renaissance]] rediscovery of anti-Constantinian sources prompted a re-evaluation of his career. German humanist [[Johannes Leunclavius]] discovered Zosimus' writings and published a Latin translation in 1576. In its preface, he argues that Zosimus' picture of Constantine offered a more balanced view than that of Eusebius and the Church historians.<ref>[[Johannes Leunclavius]], ''{{lang|la|Apologia pro Zosimo adversus Evagrii, Nicephori Callisti et aliorum acerbas criminationes}}'' (''Defence of Zosimus against the Unjustified Charges of Evagrius, Nicephorus Callistus, and Others'') (Basel, 1576), cited in Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 273, and Odahl, 282.</ref> Cardinal [[Caesar Baronius]] criticised Zosimus, favouring Eusebius' account of the Constantinian era. Baronius' ''Life of Constantine'' (1588) presents Constantine as the model of a Christian prince.<ref>Caesar Baronius, ''{{lang|la|[[Annales Ecclesiastici]]}}'' 3 (Antwerp, 1623), cited in Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 274, and Odahl, 282.</ref> [[Edward Gibbon]] aimed to unite the two extremes of Constantinian scholarship in his work ''[[The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]]'' (1776–1789) by contrasting the portraits presented by Eusebius and Zosimus.<ref>Edward Gibbon, ''The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'' Chapter 18, cited in Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 274, and Odahl, 282. See also Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 6–7.</ref> He presents a noble war hero who transforms into an Oriental despot in his old age, "degenerating into a cruel and dissolute monarch".<ref>Gibbon, ''Decline and Fall'', 1.256; David P. Jordan, "Gibbon's 'Age of Constantine' and the Fall of Rome", ''History and Theory'' 8:1 (1969): 71–96.</ref>

Modern interpretations of Constantine's rule begin with [[Jacob Burckhardt]]'s ''The Age of Constantine the Great'' (1853, rev. 1880). Burckhardt's Constantine is a scheming secularist, a politician who manipulates all parties in a quest to secure his own power.<ref>Jacob Burckhardt, ''{{lang|de|Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen}}'' (Basel, 1853; revised edition, Leipzig, 1880), cited in Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 274; Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 7.</ref> [[Henri Grégoire (historian)|Henri Grégoire]] followed Burckhardt's evaluation of Constantine in the 1930s, suggesting that Constantine developed an interest in Christianity only after witnessing its political usefulness. Grégoire was skeptical of the authenticity of Eusebius's ''{{lang|la|Vita}}'', and postulated a pseudo-Eusebius to assume responsibility for the vision and conversion narratives of that work.<ref>Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 7.</ref> [[Otto Seeck]]'s ''{{lang|de|Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt}}'' (1920–1923) and [[André Piganiol]]'s ''{{lang|fr|L'empereur Constantin}}'' (1932) go against this historiographic tradition. Seeck presents Constantine as a sincere war hero whose ambiguities were the product of his own naïve inconsistency.<ref>Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 7–8.</ref> Piganiol's Constantine is a philosophical monotheist, a child of his era's religious syncretism.<ref>Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 274.</ref> Related histories by [[Arnold Hugh Martin Jones]] (''Constantine and the Conversion of Europe'', 1949) and [[Ramsay MacMullen]] (''Constantine'', 1969) give portraits of a less visionary and more impulsive Constantine.<ref>Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 8.</ref>

These later accounts were more willing to present Constantine as a genuine convert to Christianity. [[Norman H. Baynes]] began a historiographic tradition with ''Constantine the Great and the Christian Church'' (1929) which presents Constantine as a committed Christian, reinforced by [[Andreas Alföldi]]'s ''The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome'' (1948), and [[Timothy Barnes (classicist)|Timothy Barnes]]'s ''Constantine and Eusebius'' (1981) is the culmination of this trend. Barnes' Constantine experienced a radical conversion which drove him on a personal crusade to convert his empire.<ref>Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 8–9; Odahl, 283.</ref> Charles Matson Odahl's ''Constantine and the Christian Empire'' (2004) takes much the same tack.<ref>Odahl, 283; Mark Humphries, "Constantine", review of ''Constantine and the Christian Empire'', by Charles Odahl, ''Classical Quarterly'' 56:2 (2006), 449.</ref> In spite of Barnes' work, arguments continue over the strength and depth of Constantine's religious conversion.<ref>Averil Cameron, "Introduction", in ''Constantine: History, Historiography, and Legend'', ed. Samuel N. C. Lieu and [[Dominic Montserrat]] (New York: Routledge, 1998), 3.</ref> Certain themes in this school reached new extremes in T. G. Elliott's ''The Christianity of Constantine the Great'' (1996), which presented Constantine as a committed Christian from early childhood.<ref>Lenski, "Introduction" (CC), 10.</ref> [[Paul Veyne]]'s 2007 work ''{{lang|fr|Quand notre monde est devenu chrétien}}'' holds a similar view which does not speculate on the origin of Constantine's Christian motivation, but presents him as a religious revolutionary who fervently believed that he was meant "to play a providential role in the millenary economy of the salvation of humanity".<ref>[https://archive.today/20120708061334/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6404/is_2_69/ai_n29437350/?tag=content;col1 Quand notre monde est devenu chretien], Fabian E. Udoh, review, ''Theological Studies'', June 2008.</ref> [[Peter Heather]] argues that it is most plausible that Constantine had been a Christian considerably before 312&nbsp;&ndash; possibly even for his entire life&nbsp;&ndash; with the public timeline of events instead reflecting his "coming out" as Christian in stages as doing so became politically viable. As a parallel illustrating the cogency of this interpretation, Heather gestures to the later conversion of Constantine's nephew [[Julian (emperor)|Julian]] from Christianity to Hellenism, after which he practiced in secret for a decade.<ref>Peter Heather, ''Christendom'' (London: Allen Lane, 2022), pp. 11–20.</ref>