Approaching Late Antiquity: The Transformation from Early to Late Empire
Simon Swain and Mark Edwards
Abstract
What factors already present in the society of the High Roman Empire developed and expanded into the world of Late Antiquity? What was distinct in this period from what went before? The answers to these questions embrace the fields of cultural history, politics, ideas, art, philosophy, pagan religion, Christian church, Greek and Latin literature, the army, the law, the provinces, settlement, and the economy. This book is an illustrated collection of fifteen essays on the later Roman world, and each study focuses on the two centuries from AD 200 to 400. The book challenges orthodoxies (for exam ... More
What factors already present in the society of the High Roman Empire developed and expanded into the world of Late Antiquity? What was distinct in this period from what went before? The answers to these questions embrace the fields of cultural history, politics, ideas, art, philosophy, pagan religion, Christian church, Greek and Latin literature, the army, the law, the provinces, settlement, and the economy. This book is an illustrated collection of fifteen essays on the later Roman world, and each study focuses on the two centuries from AD 200 to 400. The book challenges orthodoxies (for example, Honoré on law, Whitby on military life, Edwards on monotheism), gives coverage (Duncan-Jones on economy, Cameron on poetry, Elsner on art), and discusses the general issues and problems through major examples (McLynn on emperors in church, Papi on Italian towns, Adams on governing Egypt, Swain on Libanius, Garnsey on citizens, Dillon on philosophers, Walker on mummy portraits). The authors have set their contributions in the light of current approaches and bibliography, and the volume is a reference work in its own right.
Keywords:
Late Antiquity,
High Roman Empire,
pagan religion,
Christian church,
Latin literature,
army,
provinces,
settlement,
later Roman world,
military life
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2006 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199297375 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199297375.001.0001 |
