Helena Augusta
Mother of the Empire
Published on 15. November 2022
256 pages
978-0-19-087531-2 (ISBN)
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.
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Person
Julia Hillner is Professor of Ancient History at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. She is the author of Prison, Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity.
Content
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Timeline of the Constantinian, Valentinian and Theodosian Dynasties
Dramatis Personae
Family Tree
Maps
Introduction: Writing Helena
The Case for (Chronological) Biography
Writing Helena's Life Forwards: Of Places, Gaps and Relationships
Helena, Dynasty, and Power
Part I: Extra (c. 248-c.289)
Chapter 1: On the Frontiers
Demographics
Helena and the 'Crisis of the Third Century'
Meeting Constantius
Chapter 2: Weather Eye on the Horizon
Legalities
Helena at Naissus and Salona
Helena's Tetrarchy
Part II: Off-Stage (c. 289-c. 317)
Chapter 3: Sister Act
Lost Girl: Theodora
Fausta's Nose
Pruning the Tree
Waiting in the Wings, Becoming Christian?
Chapter 4: The Necklace Affair
The Tomb at %Sarkamen
Divine Mothers
The Augusta in the East
Fair Game: Empresses as Prey
Part III: Centre-Stage (c.317-c.329)
Chapter 5: Keeping Up Appearances
The Road to Thessalonica: A Wedding, a Conspiracy, and a War
The Augusta-Double
Fausta, Super Star
Chapter 6: Roman Holiday
Palace Life
Helena and Constantine's Churches in Rome
New Look
Chapter 7: Four Deaths and an Anniversary
Murders in the Family
Becoming Genetrix
Chapter 8: From Here to Eternity
The Travelling Empress: Conflicting Portraits
Helena, the Pilgrim?
On the Road
A New Jezebel
Empresses in the Holy Land
Part IV: Curtain and Encores (c.329-c. 600)
Chapter 9: Burying an Empress
Final Honours
Rebranching the Tree
Coming Through Slaughter
Chapter 10: Silence of the Empress
Extending Helena: Constantina
Burying Empresses, One More Time
Countering Helena: Justina
Chapter 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
