Historiography and Space in Late Antiquity

by Peter Van Nuffelen (Editor)

Overview

The Roman Empire traditionally presented itself as the centre of the world, a view sustained by ancient education and conveyed in imperial literature. Historiography in particular tended to be written from an empire-centred perspective. In Late Antiquity, however, that attitude was challenged by the fragmentation of the empire. This book explores how a post-imperial representation of space emerges in the historiography of that period. Minds adapted slowly, long ignoring Constantinople as the new capital and still finding counter-worlds at the edges of the world. Even in Christian literature, often thought of as introducing a new conception of space, the empire continued to influence geographies. Political changes and theological ideas, however, helped to imagine a transferral of empire away from Rome and to substitute ecclesiastical for imperial space. By the end of Late Antiquity, Rome was just one of many centres of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108653923
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/29/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Peter Van Nuffelen is Professor of Ancient History at Universiteit Gent, Belgium, where he leads an ERC-funded team on late ancient historiography. His recent publications include Rethinking the Gods: Philosophical Readings of Religion in the Post-Hellenistic Period (Cambridge, 2011), Orosius and the Rhetoric of History (2012), and Penser la tolérance durant l'Antiquité tardive (2018).

Table of Contents

List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Introduction: from imperial to post-imperial space in Late Ancient historiography Peter Van Nuffelen; 1. Constantinople's belated hegemony Anthony Kaldellis; 2. Beside the rim of the ocean: the edges of the world in fifth- and sixth- century historiography Peter Van Nuffelen; 3. Armenian space in Late Antiquity Tim Greenwood; 4. Narrative and space in Christian chronography: John of Biclaro on East, West, and orthodoxy Mark Humphries; 5. The Roman Empire in John of Ephesus' Church history: being Roman, writing Syriac Hartmut Leppin; 6. Changing geographies: West Syrian ecclesiastical historiography, AD 700–850 Philip Wood; 7. Where is Syriac Pilgrimage literature in Late Antiquity? Exploring the absence of a genre Scott Johnson; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

‘… the contributions are first-rate essays, sure to benefit any student who reads them … Overall, this is a worthwhile collection.’ J. A. S. Evans, Choice

‘Without a doubt, each study in this volume presents a piece of fine scholarship in itself, even though some certainly carry more weight or offer more food for thought than the others. In that regard, this is a welcome collection.’ Hrvoje Gračanin, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

‘… these individual yet (loosely) related studies offer us different approaches and methodologies to explore a rich and diverse number of texts and authors, some familiar and some less well-known, and to raise questions and to illuminate another aspect of the late antique world.’ Fiona K. Haarer, Histos

From the Publisher