Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
This situation lasted until the 3rd century. By the time Diocletian (245-305) became
emperor, attacks on the Empire from without and revolts within had become part and par-
cel of imperial existence. A new religious force, Christianity, was gaining popularity and
under Diocletian persecution of Christians became common, a policy reversed in 313 un-
der Constantine I (c 272-337) in his Edict of Milan.
Roman Sex
by John Clarke is the result of decades of investigation into Roman eroticism, sexu-
al mores and social attitudes. It is at once a serious anthropological retrospective and an
amusing look at a society whose attitudes to sex were very different from our own.
Inspired by a vision of the cross, Constantine defeated his own rival, Maxentius, on
Rome's Ponte Milvio (Milvian Bridge) in 312, becoming the Roman Empire's first Chris-
tian leader and commissioning Rome's first Christian basilica, San Giovanni in Laterano.
The Empire was later divided in two, with the second capital in Constantinople (foun-
ded by Constantine in 330; today known as Istanbul), on the Bosporus in Byzantium. It
was this, the eastern Empire, which survived as Italy and Rome were overrun. This rump
empire stretched from parts of present-day Serbia and Montenegro across to Asia Minor, a
coastal strip of what is now Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel down to Egypt and a sliver
of North Africa as far west as modern Libya. Attempts by Justinian I (482-565) to recover
Rome and the shattered western half of the Empire ultimately came to nothing.
