ABSTRACT
At first, reorganization of what Constantine had conquered kept him busy; next, his capital, and doctrinal disputes, and the Nicene council; and then his celebration of his vicennalia, beginning with the bishop's banquet and ending with his trip to Rome. According to pagan sources, hostile but not necessarily wrong, Helena's distress or sense of guilt over what had happened prompted a visit to the Holy Land in this year. Helena through Constantine also put up a basilica on the Mount of Olives, and over the cave at Bethlehem where, variant traditions said, Christ had been born. He made it a capital crime to distrain for debt on a man's slaves or draught animals, to collect taxes beyond the authorized amount, or for a free woman to have sexual intercourse with a slave. The East was also the home of divine kingship, perpetuated through Hellenistic monarchies. The Romans found in it a treasury of ideas and symbols.
