When the emperor Justinian entered his grand new church of Haghia Sophia in 537, it was said that he exclaimed, ‘O Solomon, I have conquered you!’ The reference was explained by Martin Harrison (A temple for Byzantium: the discovery and excavation of Anicia Juliana's palace-church in Istanbul, London 1989). A decade or so earlier Anicia Juliana had completed a substantial and lavish church dedicated to her favourite saint, the soldier-martyr Polyeuctus, which followed the measurements for Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and was decorated with symbols of royalty. Anicia's father Olybrius had briefly been emperor of the west, her mother was descended from daughters of both Theodosius i and Theodosius ii, her husband Areobindus had been proclaimed by Chalcedonian opponents of Anastasius in 515, and her son Olybrius was to be banished, probably by Justinian for alleged involvement in the Nika Riot in 532 though he was soon reinstated. Anicia's family constituted credible imperial opponents for Justin, who had surprisingly obtained the throne in 518, and his ambitious nephew who orchestrated a campaign to marginalise rivals during the 520s.

This anecdote is preserved in a late source, one of the Constantinopolitan Patriae (3.57), and is beyond verification, but demonstrates the on-going importance of internal Christian competition for precedence that could be played out through buildings. This is the topic that Bern Isele studies within the urban frameworks of Constantinople and Alexandria during the fourth century, when cities throughout the Roman Empire came to be dominated by substantial church buildings in the place of previous low-key or even concealed structures. After an introduction that sets the scene, reviews the available evidence and outlines the main lines of scholarly enquiry, each city is accorded five chapters. For Constantinople the key issue is how Christianity helped to shape the new imperial city, so the chapters deal with the religious development of the young city, including the significance of the death of the heresiarch Arius near the Forum of Constantine; the central area of the city where the ‘old’ bishop's church dedicated to Eirene was joined by its imperial neighbour, Haghia Sophia; the outer parts of the city beyond the old wall of Byzantium where martyr shrines provided a focus for construction and Constantine's imperial mausoleum was transformed from a hubristic expression of imperial majesty into the Church of the Holy Apostles; the impact on the city of the schisms and heresies of the fourth century, with those groups currently excluded from official recognition establishing their own, often small, places of worship; and finally, and briefly, issues of location and urban design. For Alexandria the discussion starts with geography, then turns to the power struggles between Alexander and Arius and then the campaign of the newly installed Athanasius to consolidate his position against both the Melitians and Arius, including the affair of the priest Ischyras; the next chapter analyses the role of the Theonas church in the resistance to the Arianising tendencies of bishops supported by Constantius ii, with the imperial development of the Caesareum as the Great Church the subject of the next; the final Alexandrian chapter reflects on the relationship between the emperor's church and those of the bishops.

The last chapter presents a broader overview of how religious conflict shaped the development of urban space. For most of the fourth century internal Christian disputes took priority over competition with non-Christians: just as in modern revolutionary movements, internal purity was more important than external opponents, since if the latter were to be beaten it was crucial that the victors who would derive considerable credit from the actions were devotees of the right sort. This internal focus is undoubtedly helped by the fact that much of the available evidence revolves around the disputes generated by Arius and the Council of Nicaea with Macedonius, Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzenus as key figures. It does, however, also reflect the reality that until the 380s a direct challenge to non-Christian space was only likely to succeed with clear imperial backing. Even under Theodosius there was strong opposition to the attacks which Marcellus of Apamea co-ordinated, to the extent that he met his death when opponents managed to separate him from his military support; similarly in Alexandria, the destruction of the Serapaeum by Theophilus, an iconic moment in the triumph of Christianity within the city once known as ‘The City of Serapis’, required a considerable orchestration of violence. There is much focus on people and personalities. Important as these are, I would have been interested in further consideration of the fluidity of religious authority. Outside the Holy Land, relatively few places were holy in themselves unless they could claim association with a saint or martyr; the number of sites of martyrdoms was considerable, but still finite, outstanding individuals could transform the reputation and economics of a site, as Symeon Stylites did for Qalat Seman but Daniel the Stylite did not at Anaplous, but the explosion of relics offered much wider possibilities. In the fourth century the installation of the relics of Babylas at Daphne and then their relocation to the city centre of Antioch are one example of how holy objects elevated particular places, or at Milan the invention and the transfer of the remains of Protasius and Gervasius provided an opportunity both to desecrate a Jewish cemetery and to sanctify Ambrosius’ grand anti-Arian basilica. Extending the chronological scope into the fifth century would have cast considerably more light on the religious evolution of Constantinople as an influx of relics established the reputations of particular places, with the cult of the Virgin and the acquisition of associated relics decisively redirecting this development. In the fifth century Alexandria became the city of an episcopal awkward squad, the powerful heirs of Theophilus who continued his opposition to the pretensions of the imperial capital, first and most successfully Cyril, then Dioscorus and Timothy the champions of opponents of Chalcedon in struggles which affected the city's ecclesiastical geography. All this would have required a much larger book, and might have diluted the focus of what Isele has achieved in this clearly presented and well-grounded study of specific fourth-century developments.