There are very few secrets left in the world of ski holidays. Luckily the Norwegian resort of Gausta – 115 miles west of Oslo in the region of Telemark – knows how to keep quiet.
constantine legalizes christianity throughout the empire. fourteen years later, his mother is on her way to the holy land. i think that she was sent by the emperor constantine. he felt that the cross was very important, and he wanted to send her there to do something special. there is potentially a darker side to helena s journey. it follows on from a scandalous episode within the house of constantine. constantine abandoned his first wife to marry the noble woman fausta. fausta has given him three young sons, but her husband s likely successor is his eldest son, crispus. crispus was the golden boy of the constantinian household.
you are a weak and sinful man. the murder of fausta and of crispus happens in 326. helena departs for the holy land in 327. there s almost certainly some connection between those two events. if you re his mother hoping for his soul to be saved somehow, you re going to want to make a passionate gesture of reconciliation, of penitence. she knew what she wanted when she traveled to jerusalem, and when she went looking for that
sent to a place called pola on the coast of croatia, and he is put to death by poison. helena was crushed by this scandal. this was likely her favorite grandson. this must have been devastating for her. but the scandal is about to get bigger. constantine discovers from back channels that perhaps fausta had manufactured all of this, that she favored her own sons for the throne and that she set crispus up to be murdered.
he d had a very successful military career. he d been made caesar by his father. on the face of it, the christian family at the center of the roman empire are united, but a scandal is about to erupt. christian sources tend to hush-hush about it. they don t wanna say anything, but the pagan sources jump all over constantine. the story goes that constantine discovers that his son, crispus, his favorite son, has been having an affair with constantine s second wife, fausta. what we re told by the sources we have is that on the orders from his father, he is