Late antiquity and Byzantium: an identity problem

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-37
Author(s):  
Averil Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Identity Problem ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
The World ◽  
First Time ◽  
Late Roman

1975 seems light years away. In parts of the field of Byzantine studies, at any rate, the world has shifted, and perhaps most of all in that contested territory of early Byzantium, otherwise known as late antiquity. The first issue ofByzantine and Modern Greek Studieswas published only four years after Peter Brown’sThe World of Late Antiquity,1and before the ‘explosion’ of late antiquity.2This was also the start of another explosion: the emergence of late antique archaeology as a discipline, leading to its vast expansion and the enormous and ever-growing amount of material available today. For the first time, John Hayes'sLate Roman Pottery(1972) enabled reliable dating criteria for the ceramic evidence that became the foundation of a new understanding of trade and economic life.3The UNESCO Save Carthage campaign, a landmark in the reliable recording of excavations of the late antique period, began in the following year, and since then the growth in data has been exponential.

Late Roman Philosopher Portraits from Aphrodisias

1990 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 127-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. R. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Philosophical School ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Late Roman

The rich finds of statues and inscriptions from Aphrodisias in Caria have done much in recent years to illuminate the world of the late Roman politician, the world of governors and local magnates. Aphrodisias has also recently provided important new evidence for the philosophical image of late antiquity. In 1981–2, the excavations under Professor K. T. Erim recovered a remarkable group of marble shield portraits and busts that represent both contemporary late antique philosophers and ‘classic’ figures of the hellenic past. These portraits add a new dimension to our knowledge of Aphrodisias as an intellectual centre and provide a vivid insight into the pagan culture and education of late antiquity. We are in the world of Eunapius’ Lives of the Sophists. We are probably in the context of a philosophical school, perhaps the philosophical school of late Roman Aphrodisias.

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maijastina Kahlos
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity reconsiders the religious history of the late Roman Empire, focusing on the shifting position of dissenting religious groups. The groups under consideration are non-Christians (‘pagans’) and deviant Christians (‘heretics’). The period from the mid-fourth century until the mid-fifth century CE witnessed a significant transformation of late Roman society and a gradual shift from the world of polytheistic religions into the Christian Empire. This book demonstrates that the narrative is much more nuanced than the simple Christian triumph over the classical world. It looks at everyday life, economic aspects, day-to-day practices, and conflicts of interest in the relations of religious groups. The book addresses two aspects: rhetoric and realities, and consequently delves into the interplay between the manifest ideologies and daily life found in late antique sources. We perceive constant flux between moderation and coercion that marked the relations of religious groups, both majorities and minorities, as well as the imperial government and religious communities. Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity is a detailed analysis of selected themes and a close reading of selected texts, tracing key elements and developments in the treatment of dissident religious groups. The book focuses on specific themes, such as the limits of imperial legislation and ecclesiastical control, the end of sacrifices, and the label of magic. It also examines the ways in which dissident religious groups were construed as religious outsiders in late Roman society.

The Politics of Poetics: Nonnus' Dionysiaca and the World of Late Antiquity

Ramus ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 99-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Shorrock
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
History Of ◽  
Primary Focus

Over the last thirty years or so our understanding of the world of late antiquity has undergone a radical transformation. In addition to the important contributions by historians such as Peter Brown (on the body and society) and Averil Cameron (on the evolution of Christian discourse), new perspectives have also been opened up on the material culture of the later empire. In the arena of literary criticism, however, signs of any analogous transformation have been much less obvious. Though, of course, it is easy to overstate the case, it is nevertheless clear from the bibliographic record that the literature of the late antique period has not yet been subject to the intense critical attention of other epochs, such as the Second Sophistic. This article will attempt on a necessarily modest scale to address this lack of critical attention.My primary focus is the fifth-century CE epic poem, the Dionysiaca of Nonnus, a product of Roman Egypt, written in Greek in forty-eight chapter-length books. It runs to over 21,000 hexameter lines—some five thousand lines longer than Homer's Iliad—and tells the story of the wine-loving Dionysus, the hero whose destiny it is to become a god. Though its influence on the wider literary culture of late antiquity was profound, it has remained a marginalised and neglected text within the history of modern classical scholarship. The Dionysiaca exists as an often quoted yet rarely read compendium of obscure mythological information, and is periodically mined for allusions to earlier and implicitly ‘better’ poets whose works have only survived in fragmentary form, but it is rarely considered on its own terms.

Time, Perpetuity and Eternity in Late Antique Platonism

KronoScope ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niketas Siniossoglou
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The World

AbstractThis paper focuses on the late antique conception of time, eternity and perpetual duration and examines the relation between these concepts and Plato's cosmology. By exploring the controversy between pagan philosophers (Proclus, Ammonius, Simplicius, Olympiodorus) and Christian writers (Aeneas of Gaza, Zacharias of Mytilene, Philoponus) in respect to the interpretation of Plato's Timaeus, I argue that the Neoplatonic doctrine of the perpetuity (αιδóτηζ) of the world derives from a) the intellectual paradigm presupposed by the conceptual framework of late antiquity and b) the commentators' principal concern for a coherent conception of Platonic cosmology essentially free from internal contradictions.

The Absence of Evidence as the Evidence of Absence

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-42
Author(s):  
Ross Shepard Kraemer
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
History Of ◽  
Absence Of Evidence ◽  
Evidence Of Absence ◽  
Late Roman

Evidence for Jews in the late antique Mediterranean diaspora declines precipitously from the fourth to the seventh centuries CE. No identifiable writings in Greek or Latin survive from late antique Jews, forcing reliance on late Roman laws, accounts in non-Jewish authors, and limited archaeological remains. This increasing absence of evidence ultimately seems to be actual evidence of increasing absence. The category “diaspora”—in opposition to the homeland of Israel—has practical and theoretical limitations and is implicated in debates about contemporary Jewish identifications. Still, a study devoted almost exclusively to Jews of the late ancient Mediterranean is warranted by virtue of prior neglect, a history of privileging rabbinic sources, and a related tendency to assimilate the history of all Jews in late antiquity into that of the rabbis. The study tries to avoid the derogatory terms “pagan” and “heretics,” preferring the admittedly more cumbersome “dissident Christians” and “practitioners of (other) traditional Mediterranean religions.”

scholarly journals Plagues and their Function in Sources of Late Antique-Visigothic Hispania and Gregory of Tours

Vox Patrum ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 365-388
Author(s):  
Alberto Ferreiro
Keyword(s):  
Historical Record ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The World ◽  
Isidore Of Seville ◽  
First Time

This study identifies where plagues are mentioned in the works of major chroniclers of Late Antique/Visigothic Hispania; they are Hydatius, John of Biclar, Isidore of Seville, the anonymous Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium, and select Visigothic councils of Toledo. Gregory of Tours’ De virtutibus sancti Martini (1.11) is the representative text of an event in Gallaecia. Two other texts in the Libri historiarum decem involve Hispania and Visigothic Narbonne. In addition a few select sermons of Caesarius of Arles have some relevance. The biblical background is explored as it relates to plagues since it shaped more than any other cultural source the Weltanschauung of our writers. The topic is timely in view of the current situation that the world is in with Covid19; even though it is hardly the first time we have been here and for sure will not be the last as the historical record shows.

History, Eschatology, and the Development of the Six Ages of the World

Augustinianum ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-206
Author(s):  
John Joseph Gallagher ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Salvation History ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Church

The sex aetates mundi constituted the defining framework for understanding biblical and salvation history in the Early Christian and Late Antique worlds. The origins of the idea that history can be divided into six epochs, each lasting roughly a thousand years, are commonly attributed to Augustine of Hippo. Although Augustine’s engagement with this notion significantly influenced its later popularity due to the prolific circulation of his works, he was by no means the sole progenitor of this concept. This bipartite study undertakes the first conspectus in English-speaking scholarship to date of the origins and evolution of the sex aetates mundi. Part I of this study traces the early origins of historiographical periodisation in writings from classical and biblical antiquity, taking account in particular of the role of numerology and notions of historical eras that are present in biblical texts. Expressions of the world ages in the writings of the Church Fathers are then traced in detail. Due consideration is afforded to attendant issues that influenced the six ages, including calendrical debates concerning the age of the world and the evolution of eschatological, apocalyptic, and millenarian thought. Overall, this article surveys the myriad intellectual and exegetical currents that converged in Early Christianity and Late Antiquity to create this sixfold historiographical and theological framework. The first instalment of this study lays the groundwork for understanding Augustine’s engagement with this motif in his writings, which is treated in Part II.

DEFINING PERSONAL SPACE: DRESS AND ACCESSORIES IN LATE ANTIQUITY

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 495-529
Author(s):  
Maria G. Parani
Keyword(s):  
Communication System ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Personal Space ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
The World

Late antique dress in its diversity offers a mirror to the heterogeneity and complexities of late antique society. This paper presents a brief overview of the attire of various social groups in Late Antiquity—beginning from the imperial court and reaching down to the professionals of the world of public-spectacle—as this may be reconstructed from the archaeological, the written, and the artistic records. Its purpose is to highlight the importance of clothing and accompanying accessories as eloquent signs in an intricate communication system that enabled individuals and groups to articulate their identity and express it outwards in different physical settings and in a variety of social contexts.

Gnostic Biblical and Second Sophistic Homeric Interpretation

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-217
Author(s):  
Austin Busch
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Joint Analysis ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Bodies

Abstract Gnostic biblical interpretation closely resembles, from a formal perspective, Second Sophistic interpretation of Homeric Epic, which no less than the Bible constituted canonical scripture in late antiquity. This becomes apparent when one compares rewritings of Homer in Philostratus’ Heroicus and in Dio Chrysostom’s Trojan Oration to biblical revision in the Secret Book of John, the Nature of the Rulers, and On the Origin of the World. This essay accounts for this resemblance with reference to ancient rhetorical textbooks and model compositional exercises (progymnasmata), which treat a rhetorical tactic identified as ἀνασκευὴ (“refutation”). It also ponders the implications and interpretive possibilities of joint analysis of these two bodies of late antique scriptural revision.

The Early Modern Invention of Late Antique Rome: How Historiography Helped Create the Crypt of the Popes

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Denzey Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Textual Material ◽  
Apostolic Succession ◽  
Important Evidence ◽  
Late Roman

Abstract:At some point in late antiquity, most scholars believe, Christians reversed the powerful valence of death pollution and considered corpses and bones to be sacred. The rise of the ‘Cult of the Saints’ or ‘cult of relics’ is widely accepted as a curious social phenomenon that characterized late antiquity. This paper argues that although present elsewhere in the late Roman Empire, no such ‘corporeal turn’ happened in Rome. The prevailing assumption that it did – fostered by the apologetic concerns of early modern Catholic historiography – has led us to gloss over important evidence to the contrary, to read our own assumptions into our extant textual, material, and archaeological sources. As a ‘case study’, this paper considers the so-called ‘Crypt of the Popes’ in the catacombs of Callixtus, which is universally presented unproblematically as an authentic burial chamber attesting to an age of persecution and the strength of Catholic apostolic succession. This paper argues, by contrast, that the chamber is not what it seems; it is, rather, a case of early modern historiographical artifice masquerading as late antique Roman Christianity.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document