This dissertation is an examination of the Emperor Constantine's religious building program as presented in the writings of Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea. I seek to redescribe the range of Constantine's construction and destruction activities in a way that addresses some limitations in previous scholarship. Historians since Eusebius have struggled to apply a consistent explanatory framework to his seemingly contradictory religious policies and beliefs. Much of the emperor's own writing suggests that he was a sincere Christian, and yet he allowed the repair and construction of several "Pagan" temples in Rome and prominently displayed "Pagan" bronze statuary in his new eponymous capital. According to Eusebius, he also ordered the destruction of five temples in the eastern half of the empire, and confiscated the property of Donatist churches in North Africa. In addition, he had large and lavish basilicas built to honor the Christian god in cities and towns across his territory.

In this study, I argue that, in order to move beyond the legacy of Eusebius' theological representation of Constantine, modern scholars have downplayed the interrelationship of ancient imperial politics and religion. My approach is to first differentiate between the discursive categories used by the bishop and the emperor to represent this activity as it is preserved in Eusebius' Life of Constantine and Tricennial Orations, and note how their rhetorics reflect their particular social positions. Next, in order to complicate Eusebius' Christian exclusivist explanatory framework, I attempt to situate Constantine within the larger context of the Roman imperial practice of his predecessors. Then, I examine in detail the emperor's building activities in Rome, Palestine, and Constantinople, and argue that they can best be understood as the actions of an imperial victor building in honor of his patron deity. I employ poststructuralist theories of social positioning and Jonathan Z. Smith's conception of a "locative" approach to religion to argue that Constantine was building according to the traditional ancient Mediterranean religious logic in which different places and situations call for different practices.