Late Antiquity in Contemporary Debate

Late Antiquity in Contemporary Debate PDF Author: Rita Lizzi Testa
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443876569
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Late Antiquity, once known only as the period of protracted decline in the ancient world (Bas-Empire), has now become a major research area. In recent years, a wide-ranging historiographic debate on Late Antiquity has also begun. Replacing Gibbon’s categories of decline and decadence with those of continuity and transformation has not only brought to the fore the concept of the Late Roman period, but has made the alleged hiatus between the Roman, Byzantine and Mediaeval ages less important, while also driving to the margins the question of the end of the Roman Empire. This has broadened the scope of research on Late Antiquity enormously and made the issue of periodization of crucial significance. The resulting debate has escaped the confines of Europe and now embraces almost all historiographic cultures around the world. This book sheds new light on this debate, collecting papers given at the 22nd International Congress of Historical Sciences (CISH/ICHS) in Jinan, China. They recall key moments of the discovery of the world of Late Antiquity, and show how it is possible to reach a definition of an age, analysing different sectors of history, using disparate sources, and with the guidance of very varied interpretative models.

Late Antiquity in Contemporary Debate

Late Antiquity in Contemporary Debate PDF Author: Rita Lizzi Testa
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443876569
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book

Book Description
Late Antiquity, once known only as the period of protracted decline in the ancient world (Bas-Empire), has now become a major research area. In recent years, a wide-ranging historiographic debate on Late Antiquity has also begun. Replacing Gibbon’s categories of decline and decadence with those of continuity and transformation has not only brought to the fore the concept of the Late Roman period, but has made the alleged hiatus between the Roman, Byzantine and Mediaeval ages less important, while also driving to the margins the question of the end of the Roman Empire. This has broadened the scope of research on Late Antiquity enormously and made the issue of periodization of crucial significance. The resulting debate has escaped the confines of Europe and now embraces almost all historiographic cultures around the world. This book sheds new light on this debate, collecting papers given at the 22nd International Congress of Historical Sciences (CISH/ICHS) in Jinan, China. They recall key moments of the discovery of the world of Late Antiquity, and show how it is possible to reach a definition of an age, analysing different sectors of history, using disparate sources, and with the guidance of very varied interpretative models.

Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity

Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Dirk Rohmann
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110485559
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
It is estimated that only a small fraction, less than 1 per cent, of ancient literature has survived to the present day. The role of Christian authorities in the active suppression and destruction of books in Late Antiquity has received surprisingly little sustained consideration by academics. In an approach that presents evidence for the role played by Christian institutions, writers and saints, this book analyses a broad range of literary and legal sources, some of which have hitherto been little studied. Paying special attention to the problem of which genres and book types were likely to be targeted, the author argues that in addition to heretical, magical, astrological and anti-Christian books, other less obviously subversive categories of literature were also vulnerable to destruction, censorship or suppression through prohibition of the copying of manuscripts. These include texts from materialistic philosophical traditions, texts which were to become the basis for modern philosophy and science. This book examines how Christian authorities, theologians and ideologues suppressed ancient texts and associated ideas at a time of fundamental transformation in the late classical world.

Romanland

Romanland PDF Author: Anthony Kaldellis
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674239695
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Was there ever such a thing as Byzantium? Certainly no emperor ever called himself Byzantine. While the identities of eastern minorities were clear, that of the ruling majority remains obscured behind a name made up by later generations. Anthony Kaldellis says it is time for the Romanness of these so-called Byzantines to be taken seriously.

Readings in Late Antiquity

Readings in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Michael Maas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136617035
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
Late Antiquity (ca. 250-650) witnessed the transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. Christianity displaced polytheism over a wide area, offering new definitions of identity and community. The Roman Empire collapsed in Western Europe to be replaced by new "Germanic" kingdoms. In the East, Byzantium emerged, while the Persian Empire reached its apogee and collapsed. Arab armies carrying the banner of Islam reshaped the political map and brought the late antique era to a close. This sourcebook illustrates the dramatic political, social and religious transformations of Late Antiquity through the words of the men and women who experienced them. Drawing from Greek, Latin, Syriac, Hebrew, Coptic, Persian, Arabic and Armenian sources, the carefully chosen passages illuminate the lives of emperors, abbesses, aristocrats, slaves, children, barbarian chieftains, and saints . The Roman Empire is kept at the centre of the discussion, with chapters devoted to its government, cities, army, law, medicine, domestic life, philosophy, Christianity, polytheism, and Jews. Further chapters deal with the peoples who surrounded the Roman state: Persians, Huns, northern "Germanic" barbarians, and the followers of Islam. This revised and updated second edition provides an expanded view of Late Antiquity with a new chapter on domestic life, as well extra material throughout, including passages that appear for the first time in English translation. Readings in Late Antiquity is the only sourcebook that covers such a wide range of topics over the full breadth of the late antique period.

Motions of Late Antiquity

Motions of Late Antiquity PDF Author: Jamie Kreiner
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN: 9782503549118
Category : Byzantine Empire
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
When did Late Antiquity actually end? Peter Brown, who has done so much to define the field, once replied: 'always later than you think'. This book takes stock of this insight and, in continual conversation with Peter Brown's work, applies it to ever wider social and geopolitical horizons. The essays of this volume demonstrate that Late Antiquity is not just a period in which the late Roman world grew into the three successor cultures of the Roman Empire--the Latin West, Byzantium, and the Islamic world--but also a set of hermeneutical tools for exploring historical transformation. A late antique view considers both the profound plurality of past societies and the surprising instances when a culture coheres out of those differences. The studies here follow those motions of fracture and alignment, and they show how working along the lines of a single but deeply textured vision of Late Antiquity makes it possible to integrate different fields such as Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic studies, and to start a new conversation between ancient and medieval history.

Cities and the Meanings of Late Antiquity

Cities and the Meanings of Late Antiquity PDF Author: Mark Humphries
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004422617
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
This study examines how cities have become an area of significant historical debate about late antiquity, challenging accepted notions that it is a period of dynamic change and reasserting views of the era as one of decline and fall.

The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity

The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity PDF Author: Scott Fitzgerald Johnson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019027753X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1294

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Book Description
Late antiquity extends from the accession of the Christian emperor Constantine to the rise of Muhammad and early Islam (ca. 300-700 AD). This volume takes account of the scholarship published in the last 30 years and provide a foundational synthesis for students of late antiquity.

Individuality in Late Antiquity

Individuality in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Alexis Torrance
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317117107
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Late antiquity is increasingly recognised as a period of important cultural transformation. One of its crucial aspects is the emergence of a new awareness of human individuality. In this book an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars documents and analyses this development. Authors assess the influence of seminal thinkers, including the Gnostics, Plotinus, and Augustine, but also of cultural and religious practices such as astrology and monasticism, as well as, more generally, the role played by intellectual disciplines such as grammar and Christian theology. Broad in both theme and scope, the volume serves as a comprehensive introduction to late antique understandings of human individuality.

Recent Research on the Late Antique Countryside

Recent Research on the Late Antique Countryside PDF Author: William Bowden
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900413607X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
A complex picture of differing regional trajectories emerges, whilst cultural change is everywhere apparent, in phenomena such as Christianisation, settlement nucleation and fortification."--BOOK JACKET.

Two Romes

Two Romes PDF Author: Lucy Grig
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019024108X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
An integrated collection of essays by leading scholars, 'Two Romes' explores the changing roles and perceptions of Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity. This examination of the 'two Romes' in comparative perspective illuminates our understanding not just of both cities but of the whole late Roman world.