Composite Constantine

This paper compares two major Constantinian monuments of Rome, the Arch and St Peter’s basilica, analysing them on the basis of the model of reception and negotiation proposed by Noel Lenski. While the first pre¬sents a completely traditional and pagan Constantine, the latter proposes the mirror-image of a perfectly Christian emperor with a more complex play between the various actors of the communication. The senatorial Con¬stantine and the Constantine of the Roman Church are, however, both true, because they both draw on real elements of imperial propaganda, selecting, isolating – and sometimes forcing – the most useful elements to shape the image each one needed to ‘build’ the Constantine closer and more favour¬able to his position. Choosing only one image or averaging between the two would be wrong and reductive and the only way to grasp the ‘true’ Constan¬tine is to maintain the tension between the two poles of this opposition.