Photograph of the week: Arch of Constantine, Colosseum, Rome, Italy

Roman Emperor Maxentius wouldn’t have liked it much. (Had he survived, that is.) After all, the Arch of Constantine was erected specifically to mark his emphatic (and humiliating) defeat at the hands of Roman Emperor Constantine I in an ancient Roman civil war.

Even more notable, though, was the fact that this exquisite arch would come to symbolize not only Constantine’s victory, which gave him sole control over Rome, but a complete overhaul of religion worldwide. After all, this battle was the moment in time that would lead to Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, and why it was eventually embraced throughout the Western World. The reason? Faced with a much smaller army than Maxentius, Constantine carried his faith into battle, along with the Christian symbol of a cross, and had his troops do the same. Emerging victorious, in spite of his markedly smaller army, it is little wonder that the win was attributed, at…