The present study intends to analize the political and religious meaning of the move of the relic of the head of John the Baptist to Costantinople by Theodosius I, and the following construction of the church dedicate to the saint.
Our aim is to reconstruct the historical complexity of an act that christian sources (for example Sozomenus) interpret and use in an ideological way, to emphasize, first, the contrast between Theodosius and Valent – the arian Emperor who failed to move the same relic – and, afterwards, the conflict between Theodosius and Eugenius, because some Church Histories connected Theodosius’ victory at the Frigido River with the constantinopolitanian cult of the Baptist.
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