Book Description

This book brings together a number of case studies to show some of the ways in which, as soon as the Roman Senate gained new political authority under Constantine and his successors, its members crowded the political scene in the West. In these chapters, Rita Lizzi Testa makes much of her work – the fruit of decades of research –available in English for the first time. The focus is on the aristocratics' passion for aruspical science, the political use of exphrastic poems, and even their control of the hagiographic genre in the late sixth century. She demonstrates how Roman senators were chosen as legates to establish proactive relations with Christian emperors, their ministers and military commanders, and Eastern and Western provincial elites. Senators wove a web of relations in the Eastern and Western empires, sewing and stitching the empire's fabric with their diplomatic skills, wealth, and influence, while lively and highly litigious assembly activity still required of them a cultured rhetoric. Through employing astute political strategies, they maintained their privileges, including their own beliefs in ancient cults. Christian Emperors and Roman Elites in Late Antiquity provides a crucial collection for students and scholars of Late Antique history and religion, and of politics in the Late Roman Empire.