that was, at one time, the centre of Constantinople's public life. Re-erecting the monolith was a challenge for the technology that had been honed in the construction of siege engines. The obelisk's white marble base is entirely covered with bas-reliefs documenting Theodosius' imperial household and the engineering feat of removing the obelisk to Constantinople. Theodosius and the imperial family are separated from the nobles among the spectators in the imperial box, with a cover over them as a mark of their status. From the perspective of style, it has served as "the key monument in identifying a so-called Theodosian court style, which is usually described as a "renaissance" of earlier Roman classicism". Religious policy Arianism and orthodoxy The Arian controversy, a dispute concerning the nature of the divine trinity, and its accompanying struggles for political influence, started in Alexandria before the reign of Constantine the Great between a presbyter, Arius of Alexandria, and his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria. When Alexander died, his successor, Athanasius, became the representative of orthodoxy. Arius asserted that God the Father created the Son. This meant the Son, though still seen as divine, was not equal to the Father, because he had a beginning, and was not eternal. Father and Son were, therefore, similar but not of the same essence. This Christology quickly spread through Egypt and Libya and the other Roman provinces. Bishops engaged in "wordy warfare," and the people divided into parties, sometimes demonstrating in the streets in support of one side or the other. Constantine had tried to settle the issues at the Council of Nicaea, but as Arnold Hugh Martin Jones states: "The rules laid down at Nicaea were not universally accepted". After the Nicene Creed was formulated in 325, many in the church reacted strongly against the word "homoousios" in the Creed, and therefore Councils at Ariminum (Rimini), Nike (southeast of Adrianople), and Constantinople, held in 359–60 by Emperor Constantius II, formulated creeds that were intended to replace or revise the Nicene Creed; in particular, to find alternatives for "homoousios." These councils are no longer regarded as Ecumenical Councils in the tradition of the Church; their creeds, which are at odds with the Nicene Creed, are known as Arian Creeds. During this time, Athanasius was at the center of the controversy and became the "champion of orthodoxy" after Alexander died. To Athanasius, Arius' interpretation of Jesus' nature (Homoiousian), that the Father