The first biography of the last Byzantine Emperor.

Constantine XI’s last moments in life, as he stood before the walls of Constantinople in 1453, have bestowed a heroic status on him. This book produces a more balanced portrait of an intriguing individual: the last emperor of Constantinople. To be sure, the last of the Greek Caesars was a fascinating figure, not so much because he was a great statesman, as he was not, and not because of his military prowess, as he was neither a notable tactician nor a soldier of exceptional merit. This monarch may have formulated grandiose plans but his hopes and ambitions were ultimately doomed, because he failed to inspire his own subjects, who did not rally to his cause. Constantine lacked the skills to create, restore, or maintain harmony in his troubled realm. In addition, he was ineffective on the diplomatic front, as he proved unable to stimulate Latin Christendom to mount an expedition and come to the aid of south-eastern Orthodox Europe. Yet in sharp contrast to his numerous shortcomings, his military defeats, and the various disappointments during his reign, posterity still fondly remembers the last Constantine.

This is the first modern language translation of the entire text of the tenth-century Greek Book of Ceremonies (De ceremoniis), a work compiled and edited by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII (905-959). It preserves material from the fifth century through to the 960s. Chapters deal with diverse subjects of concern to the emperor including the role of the court, secular and ecclesiastical ceremonies, processions within the Palace and through Constantinople to its churches, the imperial tombs, embassies, banquets and dress, the role of the demes, hippodrome festivals with chariot races, imperial appointments, the hierarchy of the Byzantine administration, the equipping of expeditions, including to recover Crete from the Arabs, and the lists of ecclesiastical provinces and bishoprics.

Presents the first comprehensive study of the 'Byzantine Google' and how it reshaped Byzantine court culture in the tenth century.

An authoritative and vibrant new account of the extraordinary life of Constantine.

Eusebius' Life of Constantine is the most important single record of Constantine, the emperor who turned the Roman Empire from prosecuting the Church to supporting it, with huge and lasting consequences for Europe and Christianity. The only English version previously available is based on a seventeenth-century Greek edition, but two new critical editions produced this century make a new English version necessary. The authors of this edition present the results of the recent scholarly debate, as well as their own researches so as to clarify the significance of Eusebius' work and introduce the student to the text and its interpretation, thus opening up the contentious issues. At face value much of what Eusebius wrote is false. This book shows how, once his partisan interpretations and rhetoric are properly understood, both Eusebius' text and the documents it contains give vital historical insights.

Many reasons can be given for the rise of Christianity in late antiquity and its flourishing in the medieval world. In asking how Christianity succeeded in becoming the dominant ideology in the unpromising circumstances of the Roman Empire, Averil Cameron turns to the development of Christian discourse over the first to sixth centuries A.D., investigating the discourse's essential characteristics, its effects on existing forms of communication, and its eventual preeminence. Scholars of late antiquity and general readers interested in this crucial historical period will be intrigued by her exploration of these influential changes in modes of communication. The emphasis that Christians placed on language—writing, talking, and preaching—made possible the formation of a powerful and indeed a totalizing discourse, argues the author. Christian discourse was sufficiently flexible to be used as a public and political instrument, yet at the same time to be used to express private feelings and emotion. Embracing the two opposing poles of logic and mystery, it contributed powerfully to the gradual acceptance of Christianity and the faith's transformation from the enthusiasm of a small sect to an institutionalized world religion. Many reasons can be given for the rise of Christianity in late antiquity and its flourishing in the medieval world. In asking how Christianity succeeded in becoming the dominant ideology in the unpromising circumstances of the Roman Empire, Averil Cameron