Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity

Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Ralph W. Mathisen
Publisher: Variorum Publishing
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
This volume results from a conference held at the University of Kansas in 1995. The papers it encapsulates cover frontier studies from the third to the seventh century. It takes in the Roman world from Spain to Syria and from Britain to Dacia, clarifying the boundary role of Late Antiquity.

Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World

Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World PDF Author: Danuta Shanzer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317061691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
One of the most significant transformations of the Roman world in Late Antiquity was the integration of barbarian peoples into the social, cultural, religious, and political milieu of the Mediterranean world. The nature of these transformations was considered at the sixth biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in March of 2005, and this volume presents an updated selection of the papers given on that occasion, complemented with a few others,. These 25 studies do much to break down old stereotypes about the cultural and social segregation of Roman and barbarian populations, and demonstrate that, contrary to the past orthodoxy, Romans and barbarians interacted in a multitude of ways, and it was not just barbarians who experienced "ethnogenesis" or cultural assimilation. The same Romans who disparaged barbarian behavior also adopted aspects of it in their everyday lives, providing graphic examples of the ambiguity and negotiation that characterized the integration of Romans and barbarians, a process that altered the concepts of identity of both populations. The resultant late antique polyethnic cultural world, with cultural frontiers between Romans and barbarians that became increasingly permeable in both directions, does much to help explain how the barbarian settlement of the west was accomplished with much less disruption than there might have been, and how barbarian populations were integrated seamlessly into the old Roman world.

Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity

Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity PDF Author: David Brakke
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351900315
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity explores the transformation of classical culture in late antiquity by studying cultures at the borders - the borders of empires, of social classes, of public and private spaces, of literary genres, of linguistic communities, and of the modern disciplines that study antiquity. Although such canonical figures of late ancient studies as Augustine and Ammianus Marcellinus appear in its pages, this book shifts our perspective from the center to the side or the margins. The essays consider, for example, the ordinary Christians whom Augustine addressed, the border regions of Mesopotamia and Vandal Africa, 'popular' or 'legendary' literature, and athletes. Although traditional philology rightly underlies the work that these essays do, the authors, several among the most prominent in the field of late ancient studies, draw from and combine a range of disciplines and perspectives, including art history, religion, and social history. Despite their various subject matters and scholarly approaches, the essays in Shifting Cultural Frontiers coalesce around a small number of key themes in the study of late antiquity: the ambiguous effects of 'Christianization,' the creation of new literary and visual forms from earlier models, the interaction and spread of ideals between social classes, and the negotiation of ethnic and imperial identities in the contact between 'Romans' and 'barbarians.' By looking away from the core and toward the periphery, whether spatially or intellectually, the volume offers fresh insights into how ancient patterns of thinking and creating became reconfigured into the diverse cultures of the 'medieval.'

The Fifth Century: Age of Transformation. Proceedings of the 12th Biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference

The Fifth Century: Age of Transformation. Proceedings of the 12th Biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference PDF Author: N. Lenski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788872288863
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description


Scale and the Study of Late Antiquity

Scale and the Study of Late Antiquity PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity

The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Andrew Cain
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317019539
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
Late Antiquity witnessed a dramatic recalibration in the economy of power, and nowhere was this more pronounced than in the realm of religion. The transformations that occurred in this pivotal era moved the ancient world into the Middle Ages and forever changed the way that religion was practiced. The twenty eight studies in this volume explore this shift using evidence ranging from Latin poetic texts, to Syriac letter collections, to the iconography of Roman churches and Merowingian mortuary goods. They range in chronology from the late third through the early seventh centuries AD and apply varied theories and approaches. All converge around the notion that religion is fundamentally a discourse of power and that power in Late Antiquity was especially charged with the force of religion. The articles are divided into eight sections which examine the power of religion in literature, theurgical power over the divine, emperors and the deployment of religious power, limitations on the power of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the use of the cross as a symbol of power, Rome and its transformation as a center of power, the power of religion in the barbarian west, and religious power in the communities of the east. This kaleidoscope of perspectives creates a richly illuminating volume that add a new social and political dimension to current debates about religion in Late Antiquity.

Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity

Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Professor Hugh Elton
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1472443500
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
This volume examines the transformation that took place in a wide range of genres in Late Antiquity. Aspects of sacred and secular literature are discussed, alongside chapters on technical writing, monody, epigraphy, epistolography and visual representation. What emerges is the flexibility of genres in the period: late antique authors were not slavish followers of their classical predecessors, but were capable of engaging with existing models and adapting them to their own purposes.

Confrontation in Late Antiquity

Confrontation in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Linda Jones Hall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781903283080
Category : Byzantine Empire
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
These twelve papers, from the Second Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference held at the University of South Carolina in 1997, examine the laws and government of Late Antiquity, searching for traces of the transition from Classical to Christian. Subjects include: the significance of the actual script, size and format of a legal text; the impact of change on architecture; Roman civil law and the family; the legal protection of churches; Christian soldiers; the establishment of ecclesiastical law; conflicts in Balkan law; legal guarantees by the barbarian kings of Burgundy; the early Anglo-Saxon laws of Aethelberht of Kent; the ethnicity of Beirut. This is a well-presented study with notes confined to the end of each paper.

Violence in Late Antiquity

Violence in Late Antiquity PDF Author: H. A. Drake
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367887896
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
'Violence' is virtually synonymous in the popular imagination with the period of the Later Roman Empire-a time when waves of barbarian invaders combined with urban mobs and religious zealots to bring an end to centuries of peace and serenity. All of these images come together in the Visigothic sack of the city of Rome in A.D. 410, a date commonly used for the fall of the entire empire. But was this period in fact as violent as it has been portrayed? A new generation of scholars in the field of Late Antiquity has called into question the standard narrative, pointing to evidence of cultural continuity and peaceful interaction between "barbarians" and Romans, Christians and pagans. To assess the state of this question, the fifth biennial 'Shifting Frontiers' conference was devoted to the theme of 'Violence in Late Antiquity'. Conferees addressed aspects of this question from standpoints as diverse as archaeology and rhetoric, anthropology and economics. A selection of the papers then delivered have been prepared for the present volume, along with others commissioned for the purpose and a concluding essay by Martin Zimmerman, reflecting on the theme of the book. The four sections on Defining Violence, 'Legitimate' Violence, Violence and Rhetoric, and Religious Violence are each introduced by a theme essay from a leading scholar in the field. While offering no definitive answer to the question of violence in Late Antiquity, the papers in this volume aim to stimulate a fresh look at this age-old problem.

Violence in Late Antiquity

Violence in Late Antiquity PDF Author: H.A. Drake
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351875744
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
'Violence' is virtually synonymous in the popular imagination with the period of the Later Roman Empire-a time when waves of barbarian invaders combined with urban mobs and religious zealots to bring an end to centuries of peace and serenity. All of these images come together in the Visigothic sack of the city of Rome in A.D. 410, a date commonly used for the fall of the entire empire. But was this period in fact as violent as it has been portrayed? A new generation of scholars in the field of Late Antiquity has called into question the standard narrative, pointing to evidence of cultural continuity and peaceful interaction between "barbarians" and Romans, Christians and pagans. To assess the state of this question, the fifth biennial 'Shifting Frontiers' conference was devoted to the theme of 'Violence in Late Antiquity'. Conferees addressed aspects of this question from standpoints as diverse as archaeology and rhetoric, anthropology and economics. A selection of the papers then delivered have been prepared for the present volume, along with others commissioned for the purpose and a concluding essay by Martin Zimmerman, reflecting on the theme of the book. The four sections on Defining Violence, 'Legitimate' Violence, Violence and Rhetoric, and Religious Violence are each introduced by a theme essay from a leading scholar in the field. While offering no definitive answer to the question of violence in Late Antiquity, the papers in this volume aim to stimulate a fresh look at this age-old problem.