ABSTRACT
Catholic Church always had an affinity with empire and saw even the hea-
then variety as providential if there was any chance of converting the ruler,
as had happened with such prodigious consequences with Constantine in fourth-century Rome. Charlemagne, Frederic II, Charles V, Philip II, Louis
XIV, Napoleon – all dreamt of re-establishing the universal empire. Repub-
licans, too, admired the emancipatory vigor of the Roman Republic, seeing
its imperial reach as proof of the special virtue of this form of government,
even as they worried about the danger that a republican empire could be
undermined by its own successes and capsize (as Rome did) into militarism
and monarchy.
