THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL WORLD LEADERS OF ALL TIME

(Ron) #1
7 Constantine I 7

Romans; and when he left after a short visit, it was never
to return. These events set the course of the last phase of
the reign of Constantine. After his defeat of Licinius, he
had renamed Byzantium as Constantinople. Immediately
upon his return from the West, he began to rebuild the
city on a greatly enlarged pattern, as his permanent capital
and the “second Rome.” The dedication of Constantinople
(in May of 330) confirmed the divorce, which had been in
the making for more than a century, between the emper-
ors and Rome.
Constantine fell ill at Helenopolis while preparing for
a campaign against Persia. He attempted to return to
Constantinople but was forced to stop near Nicomedia,
where he died. He was buried at Constantinople in the
Church of the Apostles, whose memorials, six on each
side, flanked his tomb.


Attila


(d. 453)


A


ttila was king of the Huns from 434 to 453 (ruling
jointly with his elder brother Bleda until 445). Known
as Flagellum Dei (in Latin “Scourge of God”), he was one
of the greatest of the barbarian rulers who assailed the
Roman Empire, invading the southern Balkan provinces
and Greece and then Gaul and Italy. In legend he appears
under the name Etzel in the Nibelungenlied and under the
name Atli in Icelandic sagas.
The empire that Attila and his elder brother Bleda
inherited seems to have stretched from the Alps and the
Baltic in the west to somewhere near the Caspian Sea in
the east. Their first known action after becoming joint rul-
ers was the negotiation of a peace treaty with the Eastern
Roman Empire that required the Romans, in order to
avoid being attacked by the Huns, to double the amount

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