A Companion to Late Antiquity

The essays collected in this authoritative Companion capturethe vitality and diversity of scholarship that exists on thetransformative time period known as late antiquity.

For the last generation, late antiquity the time betweenthe accession of Diocletian in AD 284 and the end of Roman rule inthe Mediterranean has come to be regarded as one of themost dynamic periods of ancient history. Once seen as a time ofdecline and fall, late antiquity is now viewed as an era ofpowerful transformation, in which the peoples and institutions thatprofoundly influenced the modern world took shape.

In providing a useful overview of current scholarship on lateantiquity, the essays emphasize the central importance of religionin this period. Theology and belief are situated in historicalcontext as the book highlights the interconnectedness of religiouslife with economic, social, and political realms.

List of Figures ix

List of Maps x

Notes on Contributors xi

Preface and Acknowledgments xviii

List of Abbreviations xxiii

1 Approaching Late Antiquity 1
Wendy Mayer

PART I The View from the Future 15

2 The Byzantine Late Antiquity 17
Stratis Papaioannou

3 Late Antiquity in the Medieval West 29
Conrad Leyser

4 Cities of the Mind: Renaissance Views of Early ChristianCulture and the End of Antiquity 43
Mark Vessey

5 Narrating Decline and Fall 59
Clifford Ando

6 Late Antiquity in Modern Eyes 77
Stefan Rebenich

PART II Land and People 93

7 The Shapes and Shaping of the Late Antique World: Global andLocal Perspectives 97
Mark Humphries

8 Mobility and the Traces of Empire 110
Blake Leyerle

9 Information and Political Power 125
Claire Sotinel

10 Mediterranean Cities 139
S. T. Loseby

11 The Archaeological Record: Problems of Interpretation156
Olof Brandt

12 Inscribing Identity: The Latin Epigraphic Habit in LateAntiquity 170
Dennis E. Trout

13 Gender and the Fall of Rome 187
Kate Cooper

14 Marriage and Family Relationships in the Late Roman West201
Judith Evans–Grubbs

15 The Church, the Living, and the Dead 220
Eric Rebillard

PART III Image and Word 231

16 The Value of a Good Education: Libanius and Public Authority233
Raffaella Cribiore

17 Textual Communities in Late Antique Christianity 246
Kim Haines–Eitzen

18 Exegesis without End: Forms, Methods, and Functions ofBiblical Commentaries 258
Karla Pollmann

19 Tradition, Innovation, and Epistolary Mores 270
Jennifer Ebbeler

20 Visual and Verbal Representation: Image, Text, Person, andPower 285
James A. Francis

21 Christianity and the Transformation of Classical Art306
Felicity Harley

22 The Discourse of Later Latin 327
Philip Burton

23 Language and Culture in Late Antique Egypt 342
Malcolm Choat

24 Late Antique Historiography: A Brief History of Time357
David Woods

PART IV Empire, Kingdom, and Beyond 373

25 Law in Practice 377
Caroline Humfress

26 The Mirror of Jordanes: Concepts of the Barbarian, Then andNow 392
Andrew Gillett

27 Beyond the Northern Frontiers 409
Guy Halsall

28 From Empire to Kingdoms in the Late Antique West 426
John Vanderspoel

29 Rome and the Sasanid Empire: Confrontation and Coexistence441
Jan Willem Drijvers

30 Syria, Syriac, Syrian: Negotiating East and West 455
Christine Shepardson

31 Syria and the Arabs 467
David Cook

32 The Early Caliphate and the Inheritance of Late Antiquity (c.AD 610–c. AD 750) 479
Andrew Marsham

PART V The Sacred 493

33 Christianization, Secularization, and the Transformation ofPublic Life 497
Richard Lim

34 The Political Church: Religion and the State 512
Michael Gaddis

35 The Late Antique Bishop: Image and Reality 525
Rita Lizzi Testa

36 The Conduct of Theology and the "Fathers" of the Church539
Thomas Graumann

37 Defining Sacred Boundaries: Jewish Christian Relations556
Naomi Koltun–Fromm

38 Pagans in a Christian Empire 572
Neil McLynn

39 "Not of This World": The Invention of Monasticism 588
Daniel F. Caner

Bibliography 601

Index 700

Philip Rousseau is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Early Christian Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Early Christianity at the Catholic University of America. He is the author of The Early Christian Centuries (2002), Basil of Caesarea (1994), Pachomius : The Making of a Community in Fourth–Century Egypt (1985), and Ascetics, Authority and the Church in the Age of Jerome (1978). He is the joint editor (with Tomas Hägg) of Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (2000).