Helena Augusta: Mother of the Empire

Description

In the middle of the third century, a girl was born on the north-eastern frontier of the Roman empire. Eighty years later, she died as Flavia Iulia Helena, Augusta of the Roman world and mother of the first Christian emperor Constantine, without ever having been married to an emperor herself. In Helena Augusta: Mother of the Empire, Julia Hillner traces Helena's story through her life's peaks, which generated beautiful imperial artwork, entertaining legends as well as literary outrage. But Helena Augusta also pays careful attention to the disruptions in Helena's life course and in her commemoration--disruptions that were created by her nearest male relatives. Hillner shows that Helena's story was not just determined by the love of a son or the rise of Christianity. It was also--like that of many other late Roman women--defined by male violence and by the web of changing female relationships around her, to which Helena was sometimes marginal, sometimes central and sometimes ancillary. Helena Augusta offers unique insight into the roles of imperial women in Constantinian self-display and in dynastic politics from the Tetrarchy to the Theodosian Age, and it also reminds us that the late Roman female life course, even that of an empress, was fragile and non-linear. Cover Series Helena Augusta Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Timeline of the Constantinian, Valentinian, and Theodosian Dynasties Dramatis Personae Family Tree Maps Introduction The Case for (Chronological) Biography Writing Helena’s Life Forwards: Of Places, Gaps, and Relationships Helena, Dynasty, and Power 1. On the Frontiers Demographics Helena and the “Crisis of the Third Century” Meeting Constantius 2. Weather Eye on the Horizon Legalities Helena at Naissus and Salona Helena’s Tetrarchy 3. Sister Act Lost Girl: Theodora Fausta’s Nose Pruning the Tree Waiting in the Wings, Becoming Christian? 4. The Necklace Affair The Tomb at Šarkamen Divine Mothers The Augusta in the East Fair Game: Empresses as Prey 5. Keeping Up Appearances The Road to Thessalonica: A Wedding, a Conspiracy, and a War The Augusta Double Fausta, Superstar 6. Roman Holiday Palace Life Helena and the Constantinian Churches in Rome New Look 7. Four Deaths and an Anniversary Murders in the Family Becoming Genetrix 8. From Here to Eternity The Traveling Empress: Conflicting Portraits Helena, the Pilgrim? On the Road A New Jezebel Empresses in the Holy Land 9. Burying an Empress Final Honors Rebranching the Tree Coming through Slaughter 10. Silence of the Empress Extending Helena: Constantina Burying Empresses, One More Time Countering Helena: Justina 11. New Model Empress Ambrose’s Helena Reviving Helena’s Look: Flaccilla and Thermantia Reviving Helena in Action Emulating Helena: Galla Placidia and Eudocia A “New Helena” in Name: Pulcheria Being Helena: Radegund Epilogue Ancient Sources Modern Studies Index