God Against The Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism by Kirsch Jonathan

Author:Kirsch, Jonathan [Kirsch, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781436299879
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2005-01-25T05:00:00+00:00

“Constantine is not fighting against us but against the gods,” Licinius announced in advance of the decisive battle, according to Constantine’s chronicler, Eusebius of Caesarea. “Now we shall see who is wrong. If the gods prove themselves in battle to be true helpers, we shall march against all the godless. But if that stranger god wins, we have sacrificed to our gods in vain. We shall know what to do, for one must follow the conquering god.”27

Of course, the final victory of Constantine can be measured in purely political terms. A pagan historian called Eutropius insists that the struggle between the emperors was a rivalry for absolute power between two ambitious men: “[O]nce he had decided to rule the whole world,” insists Eutropius, Constantine “occasioned a war with Licinius.”28 Indeed, the defeat of Licinius meant that the Roman empire was now ruled by a single all-powerful monarch; for the first time in nearly a half century, only one man held the lawful title of Augustus. A coin issued by Constantine in celebration of his new stature was inscribed with the boastful and self-revealing phrase Rector totius orbis—“Ruler of the Whole World”—and now, at least in terms of the vast empire that was the Roman world, the words were literally true.29

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