Emperor and Senators in the Reign of Constantius II

Explores the political importance of senators for the maintenance of imperial rule under Constantine I and his son Constantius II.

Sheds new light on the relationship between the emperor and his senators in the later Roman Empire, focusing on Constantius II, son of Constantine the Great. Provides new insights into imperial relations to the senates in Constantinople and Rome and the construction of late antique imperial rule and ideology.In this book, Muriel Moser investigates the relationship between the emperors Constantine I and his son Constantius II (AD 312–361) and the senators of Constantinople and Rome. She examines and contextualizes the integration of the social elites of Rome and the Eastern provinces into the imperial system and demonstrates their increased importance for the maintenance of imperial rule in response to political fragility and fragmentation. An in-depth analysis of senatorial careers and imperial legislation is combined with a detailed assessment of the political context - shared rule, the suppression of usurpations, Constantius' use of Constantine's memory. Using a wide range of literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and legal sources, some of which are as yet unpublished, this volume produces significant new readings of the history of the senates in Rome and Constantinople, of the construction of imperial rule and of historical change in Late Antiquity.