A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity

Douglas Boin

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781119076988
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia antigua

2019 PROSE Award finalist in the Classics category! A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity examines the social and cultural landscape of the Late Antique Mediterranean. The text offers a picture of everyday life as it was lived in the spaces around and between two of the most memorable and towering figures of the time—Constantine and Muhammad. The author captures the period using a wide-lens, including Persian material from the mid third century through Umayyad material of the mid eighth century C.E. The book offers a rich picture of Late Antique life that is not just focused on Rome, Constantinople, or Christianity. This important resource uses nuanced terms to talk about complex issues and fills a gap in the literature by surveying major themes such as power, gender, community, cities, politics, law, art and architecture, and literary culture. The book is richly illustrated and filled with maps, lists of rulers and key events. A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity is an essential guide that:

• Paints a rich picture of daily life in Late Antique that is not simply centered on Rome, Constantinople, or Christianity
• Balances a thematic approach with rigorous attention to chronology
• Stresses the need for appreciating both sources and methods in the study of Late Antique history
• Offers a sophisticated model for investigating daily life and the complexities of individual and group identity in the rapidly changing Mediterranean world
• Includes useful maps, city plans, timelines, and suggestions for further reading

A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity offers an examination of everyday life in the era when adherents of three of the major religions of today—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—faced each other for the first time in the same environment. Learn more about A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity 's link to current social issues in Boin's article for the History News Network.

Part I
The “Vanishing” of Rome

1
Who and What Is Late Antiquity?

Rutilius Namatianus did not want to leave Rome; but as news of the attack trickled in, he managed his goodbyes and rushed down the Tiber to board the next ship. It cannot have been an easy decision, to give up his comfortable life in the imperial city to sail, at moment’s notice, back to Gaul. But crisis had struck. The luxury of living away from home had come to a sudden halt. Friends and colleagues in Italy would have to understand. Many of them would probably have seen Rutilius’ look of anxious confusion, for “eyes cannot, tearless, say goodbye.” That, at least, is the way he describes his own departure in a Latin poem (Rutilius Namatianus, On His Return to Gaul 1.165, LCL translation by J. Duff and A. Duff [1935]).

The poetry of the line, like Rutilius’ work as a whole, is arresting for many reasons, not the least of which are related to Rutilius’ upbringing and career. A member of Rome’s wealthy senatorial class, Rutilius had been raised by a hard‐working father, a dedicated government official who had held the position of governor in central Italy and, perhaps more importantly, had fulfilled his duties without scandal. It was a solid reputation that would loom large over Rutilius’ life for many decades. Stopping in Tuscany on his journey home, in 417 CE, Rutilius tells us how touched he was to learn that the citizens there fondly remembered his father’s time in office. The residents of Pisa had paid to erect a statue of him in their Forum. “The honor done to my lost parent,” Rutilius wrote, “made me weep” (On His Return to Gaul 1.575–580).

Rutilius’ upbringing helped determine his career. An educated male, from a family who had already served the emperor, he can be counted among an elite group of people who, in the early fifth century CE, stood in the top 1 percent of Roman society. People like Rutilius moved easily through the halls of power. Three years earlier, in 414 CE, Rutilius himself had been Prefect of the City of Rome, praefectus urbi. Prior to that, he had already served at the pleasure of the emperor, acting as magister officiorum, “Master of the Imperial Offices.” Like a modern politician’s indispensable chief‐of‐staff, he oversaw the couriers, communications, interpreters, and audiences that kept the emperor’s day in some semblance of order. Prefect of the City of Rome – a twelve‐hundred‐year‐old city by Rutilius’ day – was an extraordinary accomplishment. No surprise he was morose as he watched it disappear.

That’s precisely why this chapter begins with him. Of all the writers who could have delivered the first lines of our story, of all the objects and monuments that could have been used to set the stage for what comes next in history, Rutilius Namatianus is indisputably not the most famous voice of his age. Yet I believe his minor, though heartfelt, reflections do merit top billing for an altogether different reason. I think the unhappiness that pervades his poem – the result of a highly educated, successful Latin speaker being forced to walk away from the ancient city he so deeply loved – is something that should resonate with many readers who pick up this book.

Planned as the last in a new series of volumes which explore the social and cultural world of the ancient Mediterranean, starting in Archaic Greece and finishing in Late Antiquity, this work is designed to take readers across the bridge that passes from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Now that the story has arrived in the fifth century CE, the time has come for us to bid goodbye to Rome, too. For students and scholars trained in classical history, who wouldn’t be – like Rutilius Namatianus – just a tad nostalgic when they set foot nervously towards Late Antiquity? Many readers are leaving the world they love.

1.1 An Overview of the Book

History from the ground‐up, all the way to the top

This book is built around people like Rutilius, second‐ or third‐tier historical figures who are usually passed over in many traditional narratives of the time. That is not to say students won’t learn about marquee names and dates, too: Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, is here, as is the sixth‐century Christian emperor of Constantinople, Justinian. Muhammad, the prophet who formed an important movement on the Arabian peninsula during the early seventh century, occupies these pages as well. But the emphasis throughout is not on the day‐to‐day record of wars, battles, and palace intrigue that largely predominates in our source material and gives us a narrative of what was happening at the top of society. This book focuses on reconstructing the period from the ground‐up.

In many ways, it is a people’s history of the time: a story of ambition and failure, of the daily grind around which people organized their hours and of their hopes and aspirations for change that sometimes materialized, sometimes did not. It is a picture not just of life in the Roman Empire’s capital, Romulus’ historic city, which Rutilius was fortunate to manage, or life in the empire’s second capital, Constantinople – although it certainly will paint an impressionistic picture of both. It takes readers, instead, on a tour: to the borderlands of the classical world to see what the people on the inside of the Mediterranean looked like to others who were looking in and then back again. In doing so, we have the opportunity to lay our eyes on a historical panorama that includes more than the isolated figures of emperors and kings.

In the fourteen chapters of this book, we will pause to inspect where the people of Late Antiquity lived and how they worshipped. We will explore the family bonds that sustained them and the economic structures that underpinned their daily life. We will encounter the fascinating literature they produced in a positively astounding number of languages, visit major monuments they built, and pick up the objects they left behind. This book is not a plodding survey of literature or archaeology, however. It is a social and cultural history – a story at its core about people, about the things and ideas that occupied their imaginations and shaped their world.

A reader could be forgiven for feeling enveloped, overwhelmed even, by such a broad, patchwork quilt of different cities, people, classes, and times. But there are recognizable faces here that are meant to comfort (and surprise, for those fortunate to meet them again for the first time). Augustine, the late fourth‐century Christian author of the now world‐famous spiritual autobiography called the Confessions, is but one of the familiar figures who hides in this landscape. Sometimes presumed to have dominated the period, Augustine will prove to be a much tougher person to hear than his later, saintly stature might imply, though. For the world we’re about to put under our microscope hardly belonged to him. Even the map that we’ll use to chart our journey will reveal itself to be more expansive and diverse than it sometimes appears in stories of Rome – with chapters featuring the history of South Asia, Central Asia, and the Arabian peninsula.

That is part of what makes Late Antiquity so exciting. It demands a deep, empathetic desire to inquire into the lives of ancient people who have outgrown the traditional labels, “Greek” and “Roman,” with which the study of ancient Mediterranean history has traditionally been concerned. Their dramas played out on three continents – Europe, Africa, and Asia – and the richness of their experiences cannot be appreciated with the use of a simple, parochial lens like a focus on Christian theology or church history. In fact, a large number of its actors were not Christian at all: They were Jews shut out of their holiest site by an aggressive Christian take‐over of Jerusalem; Muslims who wrestled with the complicated legacy of what had been revealed to Muhammad; and followers of the Buddha who worshipped in monastic communities over the din of Chinese and Persian traders passing outside their caves (Exploring Culture 1.1: Late Antiquity Lost; Figure 1.1). And among them was also a nameless, faceless, but no less important host of traders, laborers, wives, husbands, daughters, and sons who never declared any religious preference.

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Exploring Culture 1.1 Late Antiquity Lost at the Start of the Twenty‐First Century

It can be difficult to think about the ancient past, let alone study it. Buildings, statues, even pieces of old cookware can breathe a little bit of life into people long gone. They bridge the distance and lend the past a more tangible presence. For archaeologists and historians, they also inform us about aspects of life not preserved in documents.

Stones and sherds are more than scientific artifacts, however. They are people’s cultural heritage, and the loss of objects and monuments – whether through natural disaster like the sudden rumbling of an earthquake or through more nefarious means, described below – can strike like a gut‐wrenching blow to communities who value the stories these precious pieces contain.

The start of the twenty‐first century has witnessed some dramatic upheavals around the globe that have directly impacted how Late Antique scholars do their jobs. Regional conflicts, civil wars, international terrorism, and domestic disturbances have led, tragically, to the loss of many important examples of the historical and archaeological record. Two damaged sites, in particular, Bamiyan in Afghanistan and Palmyra in Syria, illustrate how truly expansive this period was and how interconnected its people were. Late Antiquity crossed many modern time zones.

Bamiyan lies in the center of Afghanistan. Located about 150 miles west of the Afghan capital, it is nestled in the tail of a mountainous ridge, the Hindu Kush, which snakes across northeastern Afghanistan before it merges with the Himalayas in Pakistan. Starting in the sixth century CE, two monumental statues of the Buddha were carved from the rock face. These towering Bamiyan statues were examples of Gandhara material culture. An ancient kingdom of the Indus River valley and Hindu Kush, with roots dating back to 1500 BCE, the people and culture of Gandhara began to see many Mediterranean customs and ideas come through the mountains in the wake of Alexander the Great’s military excursions. Gandhara culture...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• 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
• Part II: Late Antiquity Appears
• Part III: The Illusion of Mediterranean History
• Glossary
• Index
• End User License Agreement