Constantine the Great

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2017

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, reputation and impact of Constantine I, known as Constantine the Great (c280s -337AD). Born in modern day Serbia and proclaimed Emperor by his army in York in 306AD, Constantine became the first Roman Emperor to profess Christianity. He legalised Christianity and its followers achieved privileges that became lost to traditional religions, leading to the steady Christianisation of the Empire. He built a new palace in Byzantium, renaming it Constantinople, as part of the decentralisation of the Empire, an Eastern shift that saw Roman power endure another thousand years there, long after the collapse of the empire in the West. With Christopher Kelly Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Cambridge and President of Corpus Christi College Lucy Grig Senior Lecturer in Roman History at the University of Edinburgh and Greg Woolf Director of the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:02.0	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:05.0	There's a reading list to go with it on our website.
0:07.0	And you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.
0:12.0	I hope you enjoyed the programs.
0:14.0	Hello, Constantine the Great ruled the Roman Empire longer than anyone else other than Augustus.
0:19.0	And by his death in 337 AD, the Empire was transformed.
0:23.0	He set up a power base in the east, which is Constantinople,
0:26.0	became the centre of the Empire and Byzantium for another thousand years.
0:30.0	He protected the borders from invasions.
0:32.0	And he was the first emperor to be baptized, protecting Christians from persecution and promoting Christianity.
0:38.0	So strongly that soon after his death, he became the Empire's official religion.
0:43.0	Later, he was even believed he'd donated his Western Empire to the papacy.
0:47.0	We'd need to discuss Constantinople the Great R.
0:50.0	Christopher Kelly, Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Cambridge and President of Corpus Christi College,
0:57.0	Lucy Grig, Senior Lecturer in Roman History at the University of Edinburgh,
1:01.0	and Greg Wolf, Director of the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London.
1:06.0	Greg Wolf, what shape was the Roman Empire in when Constantin was born in 272 AD?
1:13.0	Constantine was born into an empire that was in recovery after a couple of generations of chaos.
1:18.0	It had gone through maybe 60 years of civil wars, barbarian invasions.
1:23.0	And at the time he was born, it was just beginning to put itself back together again.
1:28.0	How long had he been running? How long had he been running when he was born?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.