A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Illustrations
Boxed Texts
Preface: The Magic of History
Acknowledgments
Annotated List of Abbreviations and a Note on Citations from Secondary Literature
Timeline
Map: The Late Antique World At‐A‐Glance
Part I: The “Vanishing” of Rome 1 Who and What Is Late Antiquity? 1.1 An Overview of the Book
1.2 Three Lives and the “Fall of Rome”
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
2 When Does Late Antiquity Begin? When Does it End? 2.1 The Third through Fifth Centuries CE: A Narrated Timeline
2.2 A Warning about Periodization
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
3 How Do We Do Late Antique History? 3.1 Evaluating Sources, Asking Questions
3.2 The Past in the Past
3.3 Acquiring Cultural Competence: The Study of Religion in History
3.4 Linking, not Disconnecting, Different Periods of Early Christianity
3.5 Pre‐Modern vs. Early Modern History: A Note on Sources
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
Part II: Late Antiquity Appears 4 Power 4.1 Third‐Century Politics
4.2 Mithras and a Roman Fascination with the Mysteries of Persia
4.3 The Material Culture of Sasanian Persia
4.4 Rome and Sasanian Persia in Conflict
4.5 The Roman World of the Third Century CE
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
5 Worship 5.1 The Civic Sacrifice Policy of 250 CE
5.2 How Did Romans Worship Their Gods? Text and Material Culture, c. Third Century CE
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
6 Social Change 6.1 Rome’s Laws Against Christians
6.2 The End of the Third Century and the Rise of the Rule of Four
6.3 A View from Thessaloniki, Roman Greece, Late Third Century CE
6.4 Diocletian’s Edict against Followers of Mani, 296 CE or 302 CE
6.5 The Rise of Christianity: Assumptions and Starting Points
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
7 Law and Politics 7.1 Roman Law: History From the Ground‐Up, Top‐Down, and Sideways
7.2 The “Edict of Milan,” 313 CE
7.3 Individual Laws and the Collection of Legal Texts
7.4 Law and Politics in the Fourth Century CE
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
8 Urban Life 8.1 Daily Life in the Fourth Century CE and Beyond: Starting Points and Assumptions
8.2 The Archaeology of Rome
8.3 The Archaeology of Constantinople
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
9 Community 9.1 Mystery Cults
9.2 Christian Communities and Christian Law
9.3 The Jewish Community: Shared Values and Social Diversity
9.4 The Communities of Roman Egypt, Fourth–Fifth Centuries CE
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
10 Economy 10.1 Egypt beyond Its Borders
10.2 The Arena and Racing Culture
10.3 Economic Realities, Third–Sixth Centuries CE
10.4 The Crypta Balbi Excavations, Rome: The Story of a Social Safety Net, Third Century–Sixth Century CE
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
11 The Household and Family 11.1 Home as a Place
11.2 House‐Churches in the Long History of Christianity
11.3 Family and Household Relations, c.405–551 CE
11.4 Slaves and Slavery
11.5 Households and the Emergence of the Papacy in Rome
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
12 Ideas and Literary Culture 12.1 The “One” and the Many: Philosophical and Anthropological Perspectives
12.2 Literature and Ideas after the “Vanishing” of Rome
12.3 The Literary Culture of Justinian’s Roman Empire
12.4 Literature as a Source for the Study of Medicine and Disease
12.5 The Rise of a Book Culture
12.6 Latin Poetry and Christian Communities in Rome, c.366–600 CE
12.7 Looking Ahead: “People of the Book”
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
Part III: The Illusion of Mediterranean History 13 Geography and Society 13.1 Seeing the Sixth Century Through the Eyes of an Emperor and a Traveler
13.2 Cosmas’ Christian World
13.3 Beyond Rome’s Christian Empire in the Sixth Century CE
13.4 Sixth‐ and Seventh‐Century South Asia
13.5 Sixth‐ and Seventh‐Century China and Central Asia
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
14 A Choice of Directions 14.1 Jerusalem in the Sixth and Early Seventh Centuries CE
14.2 The Social World of the Arabian Peninsula in the Sixth Century CE
14.3 The Believers Movement
Summary
Study Questions
Suggested Readings
Glossary
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 01 Figure 1.1 The Buddhist caves at Bamiyan, Afghanistan, where two colossal images of the Buddha once stood. Carved from the sandstone cliffs by a community of Buddhist monks – the smaller one in the middle of the sixth century CE, and the larger one (seen here) in the early seventh century CE – they were destroyed by the order of the Taliban government of Afghanistan in March 2001. The issue of how people of different faiths or no faith interacted with each other and with the diverse world around them is one of the key topics that we will explore in this book. It is a story that crosses three continents, five centuries, and involves Jews, Christians, Muslims, believers in the Olympian gods, Buddhists, Hindus, and people who had no religious preference at all. Originally 55 meters tall (c.180 feet).
Chapter 02 Figure 2.1 A coin from the third century CE with a portrait of the Empress Zenobia (271–275 CE). Zenobia is shown here wearing an imperial diadem, or crown. The text surrounding her portrait identifies her as “Sebastē,” the Greek word for “Augusta,” that is, Roman empress. The personification on the back is of one of the most essential Roman imperial ideals; she is the goddess Harmony (“Homonoia” in ancient Greek; “Concordia” in Latin) and is holding a cornucopia, suggesting prosperity. This coin, made from a copper alloy, was part of a series issued from Alexandria.
Chapter 03 Figure 3.1 This Latin inscription praises the Roman Emperor Honorius and is currently on display in the Roman Forum. It was erected in view of the Senate House in the early fifth century CE. Interestingly, the text also originally honored a talented Roman general, Stilicho (d. 408 CE), for his help in repelling a Gothic attack from Italy. Born to a Vandal father, with a Roman mother, Stilicho had married into the imperial family and in the process had become a trusted advisor of Honorius. After his death, some people questioned his loyalty to Rome. Later, they erased Stilicho’s name from the monument. The inscription is printed in the Collection of Latin Inscriptions (CIL 6.31987).
Figure 3.2 The funerary a
nd temple complex of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir el‐Bahari in Upper Egypt. Hatshepsut was one of the rulers of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (d. 1458 BCE). More broadly, she holds the distinction of being among a unique group of ancient female rulers, like Nefertiti and Cleopatra, who shaped the long history of ancient Egypt. That story would continue at Deir el‐Bahari two thousand years after the queen’s burial. In the sixth century CE, according to textual records from the time, a Christian monastery had been built somewhere in the vicinity of Hatshepsut’s tomb. Why Christians chose to use this ancient complex as the site of their monastic community is not entirely clear, but the site’s remarkable preservation today makes clear they did not destroy it. The funerary complex remains a popular destination for tourists intrigued by the pharaohs and queens of “Ancient Egypt.”
Chapter 04 Figure 4.1 A bronze plaque showing the Roman god Mithras slaying a bull. Depicted in wall paintings and sculptural reliefs, the scene was one of the most popular among Mithraic communities in the Late Antique Mediterranean. Mithras himself was worshipped across a wide geographic span, from the northern frontier cities of the Roman Empire, along the Rhine and Danube valleys, to the city of Rome itself and the territory of Roman Syria. This plaque, whose findspot is unfortunately not known, dates to the late second or early third century CE. It is currently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls, 1997 (accession number: 1997.145.3). Dimensions: 14 × 11 5/8 × 1 3/4 in. (35.6 × 29.5 × 4.4 cm). Open‐access Met collection.
Figure 4.2 Carved into the cliff face at Naqsh‐i Rustam, in modern Iran, is an image of the first Sasanian king, Ardashir of Persia (r. 224–242 CE). Ardashir, the founder of the Sasanid dynasty, is shown here on horseback, at left. He is meeting the Zoroastrian God of Light, Ahura Mazda, at right, who is depicted as his equal. By offering the new ruler a crown, Ahura Mazda invests the head of the Sasanian family with a symbol of divine authority. Zoroastrian values, beliefs, and worship were foundational to the Sasanian Empire. Third century CE.
Figure 4.3 The Sasanids were not the only ones who used the landscape at Naqsh‐i Rustam to promote their family’s authority and power. The relief sculpture of Ardashir, for example, is carved out of the same cliff where the mighty Persian kings Darius and Xerxes (fifth century BCE) were buried. Darius and Xerxes belonged to the Achaemenid family, the great Persian dynasty founded by King Cyrus in the sixth century BCE. His successors would rule for three hundred years and expand Persian territory westward to Egypt and Asia Minor and eastward to the Indus River in modern Pakistan. They were eventually overthrown by Alexander in the third century BCE. Six hundred years later, the Sasanids returned to the burial sites of these long‐gone cultural heroes to express their own hopes for a new empire. An inscription on the Ka’ba, a shrine for Zoroaster at Naqsh‐i Rustam, refers to the new Sasanian leaders as the kings of the people of “Iran.” It is one the earliest documented references to the name of the modern country.
Figure 4.4 This piece of jewelry is a cameo, carved from sardonyx, a shiny black gemstone with bands of brownish red. On its face it depicts a battle between the Sasanian King Sapur I (r. c.242–270 CE) and the Roman Emperor Valerian. Cameo craftsmanship was a highly valued trade. Starting with a stone that contains a thin band of contrasting color (a stripe of white, as seen here), the artist would begin to shave away its exterior. When the two colors of the stone were dramatically exposed, a scene would be carved on its surface. This cameo, originally from Iran, is now in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France. Measurements: height 6.8 cm, width 10.3 cm (3.5 in. × 4.0 in.).
Figure 4.5 In the late third century CE, the Roman Emperor Aurelian constructed a new brick‐and‐mortar wall for the city of Rome. The capital had long since outgrown its earlier defenses, constructed out of volcanic rock seven hundred years earlier during the city’s Republican period. Aurelian’s new wall would begin to redefine life in Rome and play a lasting role, in many urban forms, throughout the Middle Ages. This view of Rome faces to the west from the ramparts of the ancient gate now called the Porta San Sebastiano, leading to the church of St. Sebastian. With this new spectacular fortification, the neighborhoods in the distance, on the west bank of the Tiber, were included in Rome’s walls for the first time in the third century CE.
Chapter 05 Figure 5.1 In this fresco from the synagogue at Dura Europos, Syria, the pharaoh’s daughter finds the infant Moses in the Nile River – a story preserved in the Hebrew Bible. The synagogue at Dura Europos was constructed, c.239 CE, by renovating a private home. When the transformation was complete, the synagogue’s hall of assembly was painted with scenes like this one. The paintings prove definitively that Jewish individuals and communities in antiquity did not interpret the second commandment of the Hebrew Bible as a prohibition against making figural art. This nuanced observation is an important point with relevance for understanding the history of early Christianity, as well. Although Hebrew Scripture instructs Jews not to worship idols, it did not prevent them from drawing, painting, or sculpting pictures of their sacred stories.
Figure 5.2 A silver plate with the Roman goddess Cybele from the city of Parabiago, outside Milan, Italy. It has been dated to the end of the fourth century CE, the time when Nicene Christianity was established as the only legally acceptable faith throughout the Roman Empire. Cybele was a goddess who had been important to the protection of the Roman state for six hundred years, and the traditions associated with worshipping her remained a popular part of many city’s festival calendars throughout the fourth century CE. As a product of these highly contentious times, the daring display of non‐Christian imagery on this silver plate raises intriguing questions about the faith of its owner, who else would have seen it, and how often it would have been displayed or used. The plate is now in the Museo Archeologico, Milan, Italy. Measurement: diameter 40 cm (c.16 in.).
Chapter 06 Figure 6.1 This view of the city of Thessaloniki, Greece, looking northeast, shows two important Late Antique monuments: the arch and the rotunda built by the Roman ruler Galerius. The Arch of Galerius, c.298–303, commemorated the Roman Empire’s recent victories over the Persians. It crossed one of the most important Roman roads in Thessaloniki, the Via Egnatia, which led to the Black Sea and onward to Asia Minor. The arch also formed part of the vestibule, or entrance way, for Galerius’ palace. In the distance is the rotunda, or round building, which was likely planned as Galerius’ mausoleum. After being promoted from the rank of Caesar to Augustus in 305 CE, he would rule for six years but was eventually buried in modern Serbia, rendering the rotunda a vacant imperial property. By the fifth or sixth century CE, it would be transformed into a church for Saint George, called Agios Georgios in Greek.
Figure 6.2 A close‐up view of three sculpted scenes from the Arch of Galerius at Thessaloniki, Greece (c.298–303). In the top panel, which art historians call a register, Caesar Galerius addresses his troops and is surrounded by foreign bodyguards, who are distinguished by their non‐Roman dress. In the middle register, Galerius receives an embassy of Sasanians, whom he has just conquered; the three Persian men kneel before the Roman ruler to recognize his power and authority. In the lower register, a traditional Roman sacrifice is taking place. The arcade, at right, acts as an urban backdrop, showing how the sacrifice brought leading figures of the town together to give thanks for Galerius’ victory. Some attendees wear togas with their heads covered as a sign of Roman piety. Galerius, in his military uniform, stands at center and offers incense at the altar.
Figure 6.3 A plan of the old agora, or market center, of Athens, Greece, c.400–700 CE. For centuries, its stoas (shaded porticos), temples, shrines, fountains, and wells had seen countless lively characters walk in their midst, from philosophers like Socrates to anonymous wives and daughters of Athenian families out for a day’s chores. Even under Rome, emperors and citizens continued to live in the shadow of Pericles’ Parthenon and Athens’ historic monuments. That story began to cha
nge in the middle of the third century CE. When a tribe of foreigners, the Heruli, attacked Athens c.267 CE, the Romans of Athens decided to build a new set of defenses. These walls can be seen on this plan to the east and southeast of the old agora. They were built along the road to the Acropolis, site of the city’s precious Temple of Athena, and even incorporated older monuments in the agora, like the Stoa of Attalos. The central area of the old agora would be excluded from the much smaller walled city at this time. Plan courtesy of John Camp, The Athenian Agora: Excavations in the Heart of Classical Athens (London: Thames and Hudson, 1998), p. 199 with author’s modifications.
Chapter 07 Figure 7.1 Unlike at Rome, where excavations on the Palatine Hill provide a rich amount of material evidence about the emperor’s residence, the palace at Constantinople is not well known archaeologically. This artifact, known as the Great Palace Mosaic, was found in the area east of Constantinople’s hippodrome, where the palace was located. It depicts a scene of animal husbandry. In this close‐up, two men dressed in colorful tunics, an unpretentious garment worn by laborers, attend to horses and goats. Although a seemingly innocent, rustic scene, the proper cultivation of the land had long been used by Roman poets, like Varro and Virgil, as a metaphor for good governance. That message would have had a powerful resonance in the imperial palace, particularly if the mosaic were visible to diplomatic guests, august senators, and distinguished dignitaries. From the Great Palace Mosaic Museum, Istanbul, Turkey. Dated roughly between the fourth and sixth century CE.
Chapter 08 Figure 8.1 This silver plate shows the Roman Emperor Constantius II, one of the successors of Constantine. He ruled from 337–361 CE. The plate is embossed and engraved with an eye‐catching mixture of copper, silver, and black lead, called niello, and gilded. It was discovered in Kerch, near the Sea of Azov in the Bosporus necropolis on the Gordikov estate, on the northeastern slope of Mt. Mithridat, in 1891. Strikingly, no Roman writer ever mentions that Constantius II visited this distant area of the Black Sea – which lay far beyond Rome’s borders. For that reason, this piece of material culture is an important historical piece of evidence. It attests to and evokes cultural connections between the people of the northern frontiers and the Roman government which may not have been recorded in contemporary written sources. The dish is now in the collection of The State Museum, Hermitage, Russia (Inventory number 1820‐79). Measurements: diameter 25 cm (c.10 in.). Used by permission of the Hermitage.