Quote Originally Posted by Che Roriniho View Post
Don't even get me started on the Church. Destroying every great and noble deed done before, during and since it's creation. Fully half of the 6 wonders of thew world we have definate knowledge of their existence from (Hanging Gardens might not have existed) were destroyed by the Church. They torched he library of alexandria, and killed it's last, and arguably greatest, keeper, Hypatia in a horrible, horrible way (raped, then flayed, before being burnt alive). This caused the datrk ages. Who knows where we could be if they hadn't done that? Thanks christ. When you died, so did everything else.
There is a difference between the Church and terrorists who call themselves Christians, it's the same difference now as it was then. I would suggest that you bear that in mind when discussing these things.

as far as Constantine goes, I think he had an interesting idea, using a hybridisation of the popular civilian and military religions to try to hold the Empire together, and in fact it sort of worked, if you look at Mediaeval Christendom and the Papacy you can see that it helped to hold the Western powers at least loosely together in terms of language and culture.

Unfortunately the Empire was already in terminal decline when Constantine took power and he was unable to find a successor who could continue things in the same direction. Change of direction was a major issue for the Roman Empire, and the Republic before it.

As a man he was pretty ruthless and dispicable though.