Christianisation and Local Names in Asia Minor: Fall and Rise in Late Antiquity

2019 ◽  
pp. 258-276
Author(s):  
Sylvain Destephen
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
The Rich

This article analyses processes in detail based on the evidence now provided by the relevant volumes of Prosopographie chr�tienne du Bas-Empire, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and the rich cemetery at Korykos. It is argued that the onomastic patrimony of late antique Asia Minor underwent a twofold process of transformation and simplification but did not vanish. The complete hegemony that the Romans achieved in Asia Minor in the 1st century BC induced a Latinisation of the region that was only superficial. This development had two contrasting effects. Firstly, Hellenistic and Roman influences reduced ethnic and cultural diversity in Asia Minor to the point where indigenous languages were more or less extinct when Christianity arose. Secondly, Hellenisation and Romanisation allowed a general enrichment of the onomastic patrimony in Asia Minor. The study of names therefore provides a balanced response since Asia Minor possesses a rich, varied onomastic patrimony. It also relates to how the conversion of the Roman Empire in general, and of Asia Minor in particular, brought about an overall transformation of the names people bore, even though modifications occurred more rapidly within ecclesiastical and monastic milieus than among ordinary laymen.

Nicopolis ad Istrum: Backward and Balkan?

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. WHITTOW
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of

The story of Nicopolis ad Istrum and its citizens exemplifies much that is common to the urban history of the whole Roman Empire. This chapter reviews the history of Nicopolis and its transition into the small fortified site of the fifth to seventh centuries and compares it with the evidence from the Near East and Asia Minor. It argues that Nicopolis may not have experienced a cataclysm as has been suggested, and that, as in the fifth and sixth century west, where landowning elites showed a striking ability to adapt and survive, there was an important element of continuity on the lower Danube, which in turn may account for the distinctive ‘Roman’ element in the early medieval Bulgar state. It also suggests that the term ‘transition to Late Antiquity’ should be applied to what happened at Nicopolis in the third century: what happened there in the fifth was the transition to the middle ages. This chapter also describes late antique urbanism in the Balkans by focusing on the Justiniana Prima site.

FORTIFICATION AND THE LATE ROMAN EAST: FROM URBAN WALLS TO LONG WALLS

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-432
Author(s):  
James Crow
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Great Range ◽  
Internal Barrier ◽  
Frontier Zone ◽  
The Rich

Fortifications are major surviving structures from the late antique world. This article demonstrates the great range of defences constructed across the East Roman Empire, beginning with a case study of the walls of Antioch based on late 18th c. engravings and revealing the scale of a major imperial 5th c. project now largely lost. The survey then reviews evidence from Asia Minor, where there is more limited evidence for new defences. On the eastern frontier, the great fortress cities are well known, but attention is drawn to fortified settlements within the frontier zone in both Roman Mesopotamia and the Balkan provinces. In the Balkan regions, however, a more elaborate response to security was the construction of a number of internal barrier walls, including the Anastasian Wall in Thrace and the newly discovered Haemus Gates. The conclusion assesses the role of fortification in the late antique world and considers the importance of providing multivocal interpretations across the frontiers of the East Roman Empire, engaging both the rich archaeological and textual sources.

Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Machado
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Elite ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

This book analyses the physical, social, and cultural history of Rome in late antiquity. Between AD 270 and 535, the former capital of the Roman empire experienced a series of dramatic transformations in its size, appearance, political standing, and identity, as emperors moved to other cities and the Christian church slowly became its dominating institution. Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome provides a new picture of these developments, focusing on the extraordinary role played by members of the traditional elite, the senatorial aristocracy, in the redefinition of the city, its institutions, and spaces. During this period, Roman senators and their families became increasingly involved in the management of the city and its population, in building works, and in the performance of secular and religious ceremonies and rituals. As this study shows, for approximately three hundred years the houses of the Roman elite competed with imperial palaces and churches in shaping the political map and the social life of the city. Making use of modern theories of urban space, the book considers a vast array of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic documents to show how the former centre of the Mediterranean world was progressively redefined and controlled by its own elite.

Rye’s Rise and Rome’s Fall: Agriculture and Climate in Europe during Late Antiquity

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-169
Author(s):  
Paolo Squatriti
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Climate Patterns ◽  
Cultivated Plant ◽  
Successes And Failures

Abstract This essay discusses the introduction and circulation of plants in the western Roman empire between roughly AD 300 and 800. It focuses on one cultivated plant, rye, and on a few ecologically different regions in Gaul and Italy, in order to probe the causes of botanical successes and failures. It suggests that late antique people increasingly took care of rye for economic, social, and cultural reasons. It reaches this conclusion through an analysis of other explanations for the success of rye, such as late antique climate patterns and late antique human migration. It suggests that these explanations are unsatisfactory because they do not account for all the varied instances of increased rye cultivation between the 4th and 8th c. in Europe.

The Date and Circumstances of Olympiodorus of Thebes

Traditio ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gillett
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
Political Narrative ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Western Half

Olympiodorus of Thebes is an important figure for the history of late antiquity. The few details of his life preserved as anecdotes in hisHistorygive glimpses of a career which embraced the skills of poet, philosopher, and diplomat. A native of Egypt, he had influence at the imperial court of Constantinople, among the sophists of Athens, and even outside the borders of the empire. HisHistory(more correctly, his “materials for history”) is lost, surviving only as fragments in the narratives of Zosimus, Sozomen, and Philostorgius, and in the rich summary given by the ninth-century Byzantine patriarch Photius. These remains comprise the most substantial narrative sources for events in the western Roman Empire in the early fifth century. Besides its value as a source, theHistoryis important as a monument to the vitality of the belief in the unity of the Roman Empire under the Theodosian dynasty. Olympiodorus wrote in Greek, and knowledge of his work is attested only in Constantinople, yet his political narrative, from 407 to 425, concerns only events in the western half of the empire. To understand the significance of these facts, it is necessary to set the composition of Olympiodorus's work in its proper context. Clarifying the date of publication is the first step toward this goal. Internal and external evidence suggests that the work was written in 440 or soon after, more than a decade later than the date of composition usually accepted. Taken with thematic emphases evident in the structure of theHistory, this revised dating explains why an eastern writer should have written a detailed account of western events in the early part of the century. Olympiodorus's account is a characteristic product of the highly literate class of eastern imperial civil servants, and of their genuine preoccupation with the relationship between the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire at a time when both were threatened by the rise of the new Carthaginian power of the Vandals.

An archaeology of late antique pilgrim flasks

2004 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 79-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Past ◽  
Material Evidence

AbstractPilgrimage happens when a place becomes the focus of veneration because of its association with a person or event. Pilgrim cults from the past can sometimes be identified by grouping certain types of material evidence, although interpretation of a cult's historical meaning is only possible once the material has been fully assessed. This study considers what sorts of information can be drawn from the archaeological context of a group of clay ampullae; miniature flasks originating from Asia Minor in late antiquity.

scholarly journals Late Antiquity and World History

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Humphries
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Final Section ◽  
World History ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
Local Perspectives ◽  
Evolutionary Interpretation

The flourishing of late-antique studies in the last half-century has coincided with the rise of “world history” as an area of academic research. To an extent, some overlap has occurred, particularly with Sasanian Persia being considered alongside the late Roman Empire as constituting an essential component in what we think of in terms of the “shape” of late antiquity. Yet it is still the case that many approaches to late antiquity are bound up with conventional western narratives of historical progress, as defined in Jack Goody's The Theft of History (2006). Indeed, the debate about whether late antiquity was an age of dynamic transformation (as argued by Peter Brown and his disciples) or one of catastrophic disruption (as asserted, most recently, by Bryan Ward-Perkins) can be regarded as representing two different faces of an essentially evolutionary interpretation of western historical development. This article argues, however, that we can challenge such conventional narrative frameworks by taking a world historical perspective on late antiquity. It shows, first, that our interpretation of late antiquity depends on sources that themselves are representative of myriad local perspectives. Secondly, it argues that since Gibbon's time these sources have been made to serve an essentially western construct of and debate about history. The final section considers how taking a more global perspective allows us to challenge conventional approaches to and narratives of late antiquity.

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 Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Shepard Kraemer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Large Population ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Mediterranean Population ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The Mediterranean

The alliance of the Roman Empire with the emerging orthodox Christian church in the early fourth century had profound consequences for the large population of Greek- (and Latin-)speaking Jews living across the Mediterranean diaspora. No known writings survive from diaspora Jews. Their experiences must be gleaned from unreliable accounts of Christian bishops and historiographers, surviving laws, and limited material evidence—synagogue sites, inscriptions, a few papyrus documents. Long neglected by historians, the diaspora population, together with its distinctive cultural forms, appears in decline by the early seventh century. This book explores why. In part, diaspora Jews suffered from disasters that affected the whole late antique Mediterranean population—continuing warfare, earthquakes, and plague. But, like all other non-orthodox Christians, Jews were subject to extensive pressures to become orthodox Christian, which increased over time. Late Roman laws, sometimes drafted by Christian lobbyists, imposed legal disabilities on Jews that were relieved if they became Christians. Fueled by malicious sermons of Christian bishops, Christian mobs attacked synagogues and sometimes Jews themselves. Significantly, Jews retained many of their earlier legal rights while other non-orthodox Christians lost theirs. In response, some Jews became Christians, voluntarily or under duress. Some probably emigrated to escape orthodox Christian pressures. Some leveraged political and social networks to their advantage. Some violently resisted their Christian antagonists. Jews may occasionally have entertained the possibility of divine messianic intervention or embraced forms of Jewish practice that constructed tighter social boundaries around them—an increased use of Hebrew, and heightened interest, perhaps, in rabbinic practices.

The Comparative Study of “Scholasticism” in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Rabbis and East Syrians

AJS Review ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam H. Becker
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Great Distance ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Transmission Of Knowledge ◽  
History Of

Now is an appropriate time to reconsider the historiographical benefit that a comparative study of the East Syrian (“Nestorian”) schools and the Babylonian rabbinic academies may offer. This is attributable both to the recent, rapid increase in scholarship on Jewish–Christian relations in the Roman Empire and late antiquity more broadly, and to the return by some scholars of rabbinic Judaism to the issues of a scholarly exchange of the late 1970s and early 1980s about the nature of rabbinic academic institutionalization. Furthermore, over the past twenty years, scholars of classics, Greek and Roman history, and late antiquity have significantly added to the bibliography on the transmission of knowledge—in lay person's terms, education—in the Greco-Roman and early Christian worlds. Schools continue to be an intense topic of conversation, and my own recent work on the School of Nisibis and the East Syrian schools in general suggests that the transformations and innovations of late antiquity also occurred in the Sasanian Empire, at a great distance from the centers of classical learning, such as Athens, Alexandria, and Antioch. The recently reexamined East Syrian sources may help push the conversation about rabbinic academic institutionalization forward. However, the significance of this issue is not simply attributable to its bearing on the social and institutional history of rabbinic institutions. Such inquiry may also reflect on how we understand the Babylonian Talmud and on the difficult redaction history of its constituent parts. Furthermore, I hope that the discussion offered herein will contribute to the ongoing analysis of the late antique creation and formalization of cultures of learning, which were transmitted, in turn, into the Eastern (i.e., Islamic and “Oriental” Christian and Jewish) and Western Middle Ages within their corresponding communities.

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