ST ANDREWS/TÜBINGEN GRADUATE WORKSHOP

This paper addresses the issue of how historians of late antiquity do, or should, approach contemporary literary texts (in particular works by Christians), in the light of recent disagreements between literary scholars themselves about late antique literature and its relevance to the evaluation of late antiquity, and to conceptions of decadence and decline. It begins with a discussion of the concept of a 'Third Sophistic', advocated by some scholars but not as yet the subject of an agreed scope or definition. Two late antique writers, Methodius of Olympus and Theodoret of Cyrrhus, are adduced as case studies, after which the paper moves on to consider the place of more 'theological' texts in this discussion, and to make the case that late antique literary and theological texts need to be addressed in all their actual variety, rather than selectively. Finally it questions the idea found in several recent contributions, and which depends on such a selective reading, that Christian writing implied a 'closing down', suggesting also that making too strong a divide between late antiquity and Byzantium can be misleading for late antique scholars concerned with Greek texts. I am pleased to be able to offer this paper to Jean-Michel Carrié, a friend and colleague whose contributions on many different aspects of late antiquity never fail to ask sharp questions about the opinions of more conservative scholars. He is also sensitive to the sometimes awkward border between late antiquity and Byzantium, most recently in his provocative paper on the nature of the late antique and Byzantine economies, in which he rightly points out the slowness of Byzantine scholarship to take up debates already raging between scholars of the Roman empire and late antiquity 1 . One of the areas in which he has been interested, not least through the major contribution he has made in his years of involvement with Antiquité tardive, is that of the development of a Christian culture in late antiquity and above all its interpretation and evaluation. Among the themes relevant to this overall set of 1 J.-M. Carrié, Were late Roman and Byzantine economies market economies? A comparative look at historiography, in C. Morrisson, ed., Trade and Markets in Byzantium (Washington, DC, 2012), 13-26.

西洋古代史研究, 2007

Michele Renee Salzman, The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire (Harvard University Press, Cambridge [Mass.] and New York, 2002, xiv+354 pages) Heike Niquet, Monumenta virtu tum titulique: Senatorische Selbstdarstellung im spiitantiken Rom im Spiegel der epigraphischen Denkmiiler (Heidelberger althistorische Beitrage und epigraphische Studien 34, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 2000, iv+352 pages+8 plates) Not since the age of Augustus had Rome changed as swiftly and profoundly as it did in the fourth century AD. This century is marked by two momentous developments. The first is the definitive withdrawal of the emperor from the city and the establishment of permanent new imperial residences outside the ancient capital. The other is the Christianisation of Rome's society and topography. This second transformation is the subject of a subtle exploration by John Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century, a revised version of the author's Oxford doctoral thesis. Despite the title, C. does not offer an exhaustive account of the history of Rome in the fourth century. Rather, like an inspired tour guide, he chooses a very personal selection of sites for closer inspection. Some of the conventional must-sees, such as the pagan aristocracy of late fourth-century Rome, are missing from the itinerary. Instead, C.'s readers are shown some of the city's more closely guarded secrets, such as the monumental heritage of Maxentius' rule. Or, they are led along unfamiliar approaches to well-known sites, seen now from a fresh perspective, such as in the exploration of the significance of Constantine's construction activity in the city.

2007

Rome matters. Roman religion is, basically, the religion of one of the hundreds of Mediterranean city states. Many features of this type of territorially bound religion, centred around a politically independent community, characterise Roman religion down to the end of antiquity. However, Roman cults, gods, iconography, rituals, texts, were exported to many places throughout the Roman Empire. A change of the point of view produces similarly ambivalent results. Many of the religious traditions or concepts that attracted people in Rome originated outside of Rome and were shared by many non-Romans. At the same time, even the major religious traditions of antiquity gained distinct features at Rome and these Roman varieties informed developments outside Rome. After all, Rome was a capital, politically for the Imperium Romanum, religiously not only for the cult of the Capitoline triad, but for Isis or Christianity as well. It is one of the many attractions of the theme of “Roman religion” that in dealing with the traditions of a metropolis (and its growing “hinterland”) we are able to look into transformations reaching far beyond. At the same time we are reminded of one of the truths of modern globalisation: place and local culture matters. Religion matters. Ancient religion is not longer the object of – at best – antiquarian research, interested in “Altertümer” and pre-rational behaviour, i. e. the European exotic. With the cultural and the following “turns,” religious institutions, signs and practices, religious mentalities and language, have come to the centre of mainstream historical and literary studies. Thus, analysis of religion itself can no longer be handled as an isolated sector of culture but has to be contextualized within its cultural, social, and economic setting and has to be analysed for its political function and its use in legitimating power or resistance. Aims The volume aims to help its readers - put the manifold religious symbols, discourses, practices, which they encounter in literally every field of ancient studies, into a larger framework; - offer a broad range of methodological approaches to seemingly intransigent phenomena; the presuppositions and limits of these approaches will be made explicit; - offer basic information about the most important religious symbols and institutions; and - attempt at coherent narratives, yet not to formulate new orthodoxies, but rather to suggest that narrative is an important form of historical explanation and a didactically useful tool.

The present book is the result of the conference ‘Renovatio, inventio, absentia imperii. From the Roman Empire to Contemporary Imperialism’, held in Brussels at the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Academia Belgica in Rome (September 11-13, 2014). At the heart of the conference was the ‘reception’, ‘Nachleben’ or ‘permanence’ of the Roman Empire, of an idea and a historical paradigm which since classical Antiquity has supported the most widespread claims to obtain and consolidate power. The volume’s focus is on culture in a broad sense, i.e. including besides the arts, philosophy, religion and, most importantly, discourse. As such, a wide array of themes are subjected to academic scrutiny. Whereas the main focus is on Europe and North America, some contributors also reach out towards non-Western contexts, whether or not directly related to the Roman example. A theoretical and sociological dimension is also added thanks to the discussion on methodological issues. More specifically, the following question(s) receive particular attention: what is our position as researchers, embedded in a contemporary, often Western, democratic and capitalist context; what about the notion of empire itself, its constituent elements and the kind of ideological prerogatives to which it is generally subjected; in other words, apart from the many historical variants and instances of reception of empire, through which filters can, and inevitably do, we approach this topic? A question that has become ever more pregnant since the beginning of the twenty-first century, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the events of September 11, which have revivified what could be called American ‘imperialism’, and at a time when an essentially economic variant, driven by ‘emerging’ powers such as China, has increasingly contested existing power structures. In light of such meta-historical awareness, this book touches as much on the nature of the Roman Empire as it does on its historical legacy and, more importantly so, on who claims the latter inheritance throughout the most diverse epochs. By discussing some highly contrasting views upon this topic, participants explore issues that are of fundamental importance to the writing, not only of cultural history, but also of history itself.

Early Medieval Europe, 2018

Journal of Roman Studies, 2018

Roman pasts, of manipulations and negotiations which 'would not always have been readily intelligible or even recognizable to a non-local, Roman audience' (229). The exploration ranges widely across histories involving Trojans, Rutulians, Romulus and Remus, republican events and gures. The nal main chapter opens with a discussion of the visual representation of the Sequanian brothers at Burdigala, a passage which, along with several others, would have beneted from the inclusion of images. The chapter takes as its mission demonstration of 'performance of identity' and discusses local ofces (e.g. through the ring lists of La Graufesenque), Druidism, expressions of identity in Ausonius and Martial and a will from an individual of the Lingones. The scope of the book is ambitious: no individual can be expected to write equally expertly on the literary, epigraphical and archaeological evidence from Gaul and the Iberian peninsula. J.'s expertise and the most successful parts of the book lie in the contextually sensitive manipulation of literary sources: there is comparatively little discussion of archaeology and we rarely hear what the inscriptions look like, how they are physically presented, how they t within the epigraphic landscape. J.'s treatment of the materials conrms that the evidence tends to be very good on the 'Roman side', whereas often leaps of faith and imagination are required to reach the local. It is of course tempting to see links, for example, between early monumental architecture and snippets in much later authors, but examples such as the sixth-century B.C. Massaliote Floralia, which J. can identify as 'anachronistic', indicate caution is required. Reading back across centuries with notoriously slippery later Roman sources as guides makes for an enjoyable adventure, but we may still end up far from the local. To my mind there is not enough engagement with Gaulish inscriptions, and the Monumenta linguarum hispanicarum (MLH), the bible of local language inscriptions from the Iberian peninsula, only appears once in the whole text. J. criticises others for a focus on the dichotomy between objective change and continuity, but does not in practice offer a better approach: his temporal scope is stretched and messy, skipping between material centuries apart without careful contextualisation (e.g. of transmission processes of literary sources) and not acknowledging broader, sometimes radical, societal, economic and political changes. The Roman Empire ends up being everywhere and nowhere, a problematic feature of many critiques of 'Romanisation'. Understanding Roman provincial realities requires not only sensitivity to the local, but also to the complex and constantly evolving broader provincial and imperial context.

The Fall of Cities in the Mediterranean