City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria


Book Description

This lively and wide-ranging study of the men and ideas of late antique education explores the intellectual and doctrinal milieux in the two great cities of Athens and Alexandria from the second to the sixth centuries to shed new light on the interaction between the pagan cultural legacy and Christianity. While previous scholarship has seen Christian reactions to pagan educational culture as the product of an empire-wide process of development, Edward J. Watts crafts two narratives that reveal how differently education was shaped by the local power structures and urban contexts of each city. Touching on the careers of Herodes Atticus, Proclus, Damascius, Ammonius Saccas, Origen, Hypatia, and Olympiodorus; and events including the Herulian sack of Athens, the closing of the Athenian Neoplatonic school under Justinian, the rise of Arian Christianity, and the sack of the Serapeum, he shows that by the sixth century, Athens and Alexandria had two distinct, locally determined, approaches to pagan teaching that had their roots in the unique historical relationships between city and school.







Riot in Alexandria


Book Description

This innovative study uses one well-documented moment of violence as a starting point for a wide-ranging examination of the ideas and interactions of pagan philosophers, Christian ascetics, and bishops from the fourth to the early seventh century. Edward J. Watts reconstructs a riot that erupted in Alexandria in 486 when a group of students attacked a Christian adolescent who had publicly insulted the students' teachers. Pagan students, Christians affiliated with a local monastery, and the Alexandrian ecclesiastical leaders all cast the incident in a different light, and each group tried with that interpretation to influence subsequent events. Watts, drawing on Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac sources, shows how historical traditions and notions of a shared past shaped the interactions and behavior of these high-profile communities. Connecting oral and written texts to the personal relationships that gave them meaning and to the actions that gave them form, Riot in Alexandria draws new attention to the understudied social and cultural history of the later fifth-century Roman world and at the same time opens a new window on late antique intellectual life.




Alexandria in Late Antiquity


Book Description

“A valuable and much needed contribution to the study of Alexandria and late antiquity” which presents “a vivid and interesting portrait” (Classical Review). A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title Second only to Rome in the ancient world, Alexandria was home to many of late antiquity’s most brilliant writers, philosophers, and theologians—among them Philo, Origen, Arius, Athanasius, Hypatia, Cyril, and John Philoponus. Now, in Alexandria in Late Antiquity, Christopher Haas places these figures within the physical and social context of Alexandria’s bustling urban milieu. Haas explores the broad avenues and back alleys of Alexandria’s neighborhoods, its suburbs and waterfront, and aspects of material culture that underlay Alexandrian social and intellectual life. Moving between the city’s Jewish, pagan, and Christian blocs, he details the fiercely competitive nature of Alexandrian social dynamics. In contrast to the notion that Alexandria’s diverse communities coexisted peaceably, Haas finds that struggles for social dominance and cultural hegemony often resulted in violence and bloodshed. Haas concludes that Alexandrian society achieved a certain stability and reintegration—a process that resulted in the transformation of Alexandrian civic identity during the crucial centuries between antiquity and the Middle Ages.




Violence in Late Antiquity


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.




Power, Platonists, and Urban Change


Book Description

Abstract: This thesis analyzes the operation of the Neoplatonic school of late antique Athens, paying particular attention to the role of the school's scholarchs in this process. After an introduction that outlines the scholarship to date, the thesis explores the nature of urban change in late antique Athens, especially during the fifth century. Chapters three and four discuss individual scholarchs, their policies, successes and failures on the academic front, as well as the extent and nature of their political activities. Chapter five gives a brief conclusion of the findings. The major purpose of this thesis is to understand how the methods used by the school's scholarchs during its Ca. 130 year existence allowed the school to become the preeminent institution for instruction in Platonic philosophy in late antiquity, and how local and empire-wide urban changes affected this process.




A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity


Book Description

A comprehensive review of the development, geographic spread, and cultural influence of religion in Late Antiquity A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity offers an authoritative and comprehensive survey of religion in Late Antiquity. This historical era spanned from the second century to the eighth century of the Common Era. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the Companion explores the evolution and development of religion and the role various religions played in the cultural, political, and social transformations of the late antique period. The authors examine the theories and methods used in the study of religion during this period, consider the most notable historical developments, and reveal how religions spread geographically. The authors also review the major religious traditions that emerged in Late Antiquity and include reflections on the interaction of these religions within their particular societies and cultures. This important Companion: Brings together in one volume the work of a notable team of international scholars Explores the principal geographical divisions of the late antique world Offers a deep examination of the predominant religions of Late Antiquity Examines established views in the scholarly assessment of the religions of Late Antiquity Includes information on the current trends in late-antique scholarship on religion Written for scholars and students of religion, A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity offers a comprehensive survey of religion and the influence religion played in the culture, politics, and social change during the late antique period.




Late Antiquity on the Eve of Islam


Book Description

This volume reflects the huge upsurge of interest in the Near East and early Islam currently taking place among historians of late antiquity. At the same time, Islamicists and Qur'anic scholars are also increasingly seeking to place the life of Muhammad and the Qur'an in a late antique background. Averil Cameron, herself one of the leading scholars of late antiquity and Byzantium, has chosen eleven key articles that together give a rounded picture of the most important trends in late antique scholarship over the last decades, and provide a coherent context for the emergence of the new religion. A substantial introduction, with a detailed bibliography, surveys the present state of the field, as well as discussing some recent themes in Qur'anic and early Islamic scholarship from the point of view of a late antique historian. The volume also provides an invaluable introduction to recent scholarship, making clear the ferment of religious change that was taking place across the Near East before, during and after the lifetime of Muhammad. It will be essential reading for Islamicists and late antique students and scholars alike.




Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity


Book Description

This book brings together sixteen studies by international scholars on the origins and early development of the Latin and Syriac biblical and philosophical commentary traditions. With its breadth and ground-breaking originality, this volume is an indispensable resource not only for specialists, but also for all students and scholars interested in late-antique intellectual history, especially the practice of teaching and studying philosophy, the philosophical exegesis of the Bible, and the role of commentary in the post-Hellenistic world as far as the classical renaissance in Islam.




The Cross in the Visual Culture of Late Antique Egypt


Book Description

In The Cross in the Visual Culture of Late Antique Egypt Gillian Spalding-Stracey offers an exploration of the variety of ways in which the Holy Cross was expressed in imagery, in the monastic and ecclesiastical settings of late antique Egypt.