The Day the Cross Rose

Constantine's Vision, 312 CE

On the night before a battle for Rome in 312 CE, Constantine looked up and saw a cross of light. Whether dream or omen is only part of the story; this book follows the far more consequential act—how a private vision was seized, stylized, and weaponized into a public standard that bent law, art, and allegiance toward a new center of power.

Part detective work, part courtroom cross-examination of sources, The Day the Cross Rose traces the path from a luminous sign to painted shields, chaotic fighting at the Milvian Bridge, and the slow, stubborn fusion of Christian symbol and imperial authority. Witty, incisive, and firmly grounded in the surviving fragments, JD Arden asks what we owe to conviction and what to calculation—and how a single image can redraw the map of history.