Eusebius, Vita Constantini

The graphs above both display the entire network of characters drawn from the data we have collected from Eusebius of Caesarea's Life of Constantine (Vita Constantini), written between 337 and 339.

Green nodes = male characters; purple nodes = female characters; blue nodes = mixed gender groups; yellow nodes = ungendered characters.

Circle nodes = named characters; Square nodes = nameless characters.

The graph on the left shows characters as circles that are named at least once in the text; the graph on the right shows characters as squares if they are entirely nameless, but also if they are not named on their first mention. For example, the character at the centre of both graphs is Constantine himself. On the left he appears as a circle, because he is named in the text, but on the right he appears as a square, because he is not named on first mention. Overall, the graphs show the high number of nameless characters in Eusebius' text (91% characters in the text are entirely nameless). Our distinction between namelessness on first appearance and namelessness throughout further reveals Eusebius' propensity for the rhetorical technique of delayed naming. Since we are studying how networks change over the course of story-telling, this is an important finding. We discuss this in greater detail in our article 'The Politics of Female Namelessness Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages'.

For more on our preliminary results on Eusebius of Caesarea's work (including his Church History), see here.