Burying an Empress

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter describes the circumstances and geographical parameters of Helena’s death. It situates her burial in Rome within the wider landscape of commemoration that Constantine constructed for his mother. The chapter then turns to the immediate years after Helena’s death and discusses Constantine’s plans for succession that began to sideline Helena by renewing relationships with his stepfamily, the offspring of his father’s wife, Theodora. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the ways in which Helena’s and Theodora’s images and memories were deployed in the aftermath of the so-called massacre of princes in Constantinople following Constantine’s death in 337, which saw the majority of Theodora’s male descendants murdered.