Constantine the Great (Latin: Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus; c. 27 February 272 – 22 May 337), also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all religions throughout the empire.

The foremost general of his time, Constantine defeated the emperors Maxentius and Licinius during civil wars. He also fought successfully against the Franks, Alamanni, Visigoths, and Sarmatians during his reign—even resettling parts of Dacia which had been abandoned during the previous century. Constantine built a new imperial residence in place of Byzantium, naming it New Rome. However, in Constantine's honour, people called it Constantinople, which would later be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for over one thousand years. Because of this, he is thought of as the founder of the Eastern Roman Empire.

The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period (starting at about 27 BC). The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor. If a man was "proclaimed emperor" this normally meant he was proclaimed augustus, or (for generals) imperator (from which English emperor ultimately derives). Several other titles and offices were regularly accumulated by emperors, such as caesar, princeps senatus, consul and Pontifex Maximus. The power of emperors was generally based on the accumulation of powers from republican offices and the support of the army.

Roman emperors refused to be considered "kings", instead claiming to be leaders of a republic, however nominal. The first emperor, Augustus, resolutely refused recognition as a monarch. Although Augustus could claim that his power was authentically Republican, his successor, Tiberius, could not convincingly make the same claim. Nonetheless, the Republican institutional framework (senate, consuls, magistracies etc.) was preserved until the very end of the Western Empire.

Constantine I (Georgian: კონსტანტინე I, Konstantine I) (died 1411 or 1412) was King of Georgia from 1407 to 1411 (or 1405–1412).

He was the elder son of King Bagrat V of Georgia by his second wife, Anna of Trebizond. His maternal grandparents were Alexios III of Trebizond and Theodora Kantakouzene.

In 1400, he was sent as an ambassador to the Mongol warlord Timur Leng who continued a relentless war against the Georgians. Afterwards, he vainly demanded from his reigning half-brother George VII to make peace with Timur. In 1402, Constantine together with the prince Ioane Jakeli of Samtskhe submitted to Timur but never took part in the war against Georgia. He succeeded on the death of George VII as king in 1407 and launched a program of restoration of what had been ruined during Timur’s campaigns. Towards 1411, he allied with the Shirvanshah Ibrahim I and the ruler of Shaki Sidi Ahmed to counter the Kara Koyunlu Turkmen advance into the Caucasus. In the decisive Battle of Chalagan, the allies were routed and Constantine, his half-brother David and the Shervanshah Ibrahim were taken prisoner. In the captivity, he behaved arrogantly and the infuriated Turkmen prince Kara Yusuf ordered him, David and 300 Georgian nobles to be executed.

Simon Bisley (born 4 March 1962) is a British comics artist best known for his 1990s work on ABC Warriors, Lobo and Sláine. His style, reliant on paints, acrylics, inks and multiple-mediums, is strongly influenced by Frank Frazetta, Bill Sienkiewicz, Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dalí, Egon Schiele, and Richard Corben. He also took inspiration from rock album covers and graffiti as well as traditional comics art. In turn he and his work has inspired various forms in media, including the Beast in the 2006 Doctor Who episode "The Satan Pit", and Simon Pegg's character graphic artist Tim Bisley on the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced.

While still a student, Bisley did a painting of a robot holding a baby that he sent to the offices of 2000 AD. The image was seen by Pat Mills and inspired him to relaunch the ABC Warriors strip, with Bisley as artist, in 1987.^{[citation needed]} Following this, Bisley took over drawing of Sláine. Bisley also painted the intercompany crossover Judge Dredd and Batman, Judgement on Gotham.

John Constantine ( /ˈkɒnstəntaɪn/) is a fictional character, an antihero/occult detective in comic books published by DC Comics, mostly under the Vertigo imprint. The character first appeared in Swamp Thing (vol. 2) #37 (June 1985), and was created by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, John Totleben and Rick Veitch. Constantine is the protagonist of the comic book Hellblazer, published continuously since 1988.

John Constantine first appeared in 1982 as a recurring character in the horror series The Saga of the Swamp Thing, in which he acted as a "supernatural advisor" to the main character.

In these early appearances, Constantine was depicted as a sorcerer of questionable morality, whose appearance was based on that of the musician Sting (specifically, as Sting appeared in the movies Brimstone and Treacle and Quadrophenia). Alan Moore created the character after artists Stephen R. Bissette and John Totleben, who were fans of The Police, expressed a desire to draw a character who looked like Sting. They had already drawn at least one such character in Sting's likeness, as a briefly glimpsed background figure wearing a black-and-red-striped t-shirt, in Swamp Thing #25 (1984). In his earliest Swamp Thing appearances, the character is drawn with a marked resemblance to Sting, and in Swamp Thing #51, Constantine appears on a boat with the name "The Honorable Gordon Sumner" on the bow.