Old St. Peter’s and the emperor Constans? A debate with G. W. Bowersock

A few years ago, G.W. Bowersock questioned Constantine’s paternity of St. Peter’s Basilica and attributed the project to Constans. The paper is a detailed examination of the sources and argu-ments relative to the problem of dating the basilica. The Liber Pontificalis and the monumental in-scriptions are arguments solid enough to justify a Constantinian dating. Less significant and de-cisive are the arguments based on the brickstamps, the Depositio martyrum, the Theophany of Eu-sebius and the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates. Accessory elements are the dating of the coin in the urn of Trebellena Flaccilla, the altars of the Phrygianum, the decree of Constans, the coins found in the 17th c., the oldest sarcophagi of the basilica, and the report of Ammianus Marcellinus. In con-clusion some of Bowersock’s objections fall because they do not take into account all the elements available and previous scholarship, while others can be overcome without great difficulty. Those that have a stronger basis do not change the essential points on which the Constantinian dating rests.