The city was one of the most important features of the late ancient landscape, both in respect of the social organisation of production and the ownership and control of resources in land and manpower. Beginning of the Tetrarchy. Beyond the Mediterranean world, the cities of Gaul withdrew within a constricted line of defense around a citadel. The transition between late antiquity and the early medieval period in north Etruria (400-900 AD) Tengku Faiz Petra. Aside from a mere handful of its continuously inhabited sites, like York and London and possibly Canterbury, however, the rapidity and thoroughness with which its urban life collapsed with the dissolution of centralized bureaucracy calls into question the extent to which Roman Britain had ever become authentically urbanized: "in Roman Britain towns appeared a shade exotic," observes H. R. Loyn, "owing their reason for being more to the military and administrative needs of Rome than to any economic virtue". Greek poets of the Late Antique period included Antoninus Liberalis, Quintus Smyrnaeus, Nonnus, Romanus the Melodist and Paul the Silentiary. 'The changing city' in "Urban changes and the end of Antiquity", Averil Cameron. In the West its end was earlier, with the start of the Early Middle Ages typically placed in the 6th century, or earlier on the edges of the Western Roman Empire. Monasticism was not the only new Christian movement to appear in late antiquity, although it had perhaps the greatest influence. According to E. A Thompson, "The Barbarian Kingdoms in Gaul and Spain", José María Lacarra, "Panorama de la historia urbana en la Península Ibérica desde el siglo V al X,". In mainland Greece, the inhabitants of Sparta, Argos and Corinth abandoned their cities for fortified sites in nearby high places; the fortified heights of Acrocorinth are typical of Byzantine urban sites in Greece. Late antiquity was the period (c. 300—c.800) during which barbarian invasions defeated the Roman Empire in Western Europe by the 5th century and Arab invasions ended Roman rule over the eastern and southern Mediterranean coasts by the 7th century. [32][33] The Arch of Constantine in Rome, which re-used earlier classicising reliefs together with ones in the new style, shows the contrast especially clearly. The glazed surfaces of the tesserae sparkled in the light and illuminated the basilica churches. Changes from the artwork to the exterior architecture all depict the time period and the style of the basilicas and where their roots lie in the church. Late Antiquity provided the arena for differing styles because of the vast spreading of Christianity throughout the entire empire. Who held the balance of power and what were the greatest threats to stability? The Diocletianic Persecution of Christians in the early 4th century was ended by Galerius and under Constantine the Great, Christianity was made legal in the Empire. 3 Late Antiquity in the Medieval West 29 Conrad Leyser. Archaeology now supplements literary sources to document the transformation followed by collapse of cities in the Mediterranean basin. The longest Roman aqueduct system, the 250 km (160 mi)-long Aqueduct of Valens was constructed to supply it with water, and the tallest Roman triumphal columns were erected there. The term Spätantike, literally "late antiquity", has been used by German-speaking historians since its popularization by Alois Riegl in the early 20th century. [16] Burials within the urban precincts mark another stage in dissolution of traditional urbanistic discipline, overpowered by the attraction of saintly shrines and relics. By the late 4th century, Emperor Theodosius the Great had made Christianity the State religion, thereby transforming the Classical Roman world, which Peter Brown characterized as "rustling with the presence of many divine spirits. The supply of free grain and oil to 20% of the population of Rome remained intact the last decades of the 5th century. One of the most important transformations in Late Antiquity was the formation and evolution of the Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism and, eventually, Islam. Justinian rebuilt his birthplace in Illyricum, as Justiniana Prima, more in a gesture of imperium than out of an urbanistic necessity; another "city", was reputed to have been founded, according to Procopius' panegyric on Justinian's buildings,[20] precisely at the spot where the general Belisarius touched shore in North Africa: the miraculous spring that gushed forth to give them water and the rural population that straightway abandoned their ploughshares for civilised life within the new walls, lend a certain taste of unreality to the project. The Sasanian Empire supplanted the Parthian Empire and began a new phase of the Roman–Persian Wars, the Roman–Sasanian Wars. Justinian constructed the Hagia Sophia, a great example of Byzantine architecture, and the first outbreak of the centuries-long first plague pandemic took place. Within the recently legitimized Christian community of the 4th century, a division could be more distinctly seen between the laity and an increasingly celibate male leadership. [17], The city of Rome went from a population of 800,000 in the beginning of the period to a population of 30,000 by the end of the period, the most precipitous drop coming with the breaking of the aqueducts during the Gothic War. Within this Christian subcategory of Roman art, dramatic changes were also taking place in the Depiction of Jesus. It can't claim to be authoritative; it is is simply one scholar's view of what's most interesting and most important. Late Antique sarcophagi and catacomb paintings exhibit the first efforts at the establishment of a standard iconography of Christian subjects. In the later 6th century street construction was still undertaken in Caesarea Maritima in Palestine,[29] and Edessa was able to deflect Chosroes I with massive payments in gold in 540 and 544, before it was overrun in 609.[30]. Jesus Christ had been more commonly depicted as an itinerant philosopher, teacher or as the "Good Shepherd," resembling the traditional iconography of Hermes. Subsequent Muslim conquest of the Levant and Persia overthrew the Sasanian Empire and permanently wrested two thirds of the Eastern Roman Empire's territory from Roman control, forming the Rashidun Caliphate. [12] These men presented themselves as removed from the traditional Roman motivations of public and private life marked by pride, ambition and kinship solidarity, and differing from the married pagan leadership. | Library | Reference "[8], Constantine I was a key figure in many important events in Christian history, as he convened and attended the first ecumenical council of bishops at Nicaea in 325, subsidized the building of churches and sanctuaries such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and involved himself in questions such as the timing of Christ's resurrection and its relation to the Passover.[9]. Late antiquity: the reconfiguration of the Roman world. Robert L. Vann, "Byzantine street construction at Caesarea Maritima", in R.L. 30 It has been argued by modern scholars that Precopius’ secret history treats Theodora in such a way because she blurred the lines of between her identity as a ruler and that of a woman by invading traditionally male spaces. As a whole, the period of late antiquity was accompanied by an overall population decline in almost all Europe, and a reversion to more of a subsistence economy. They monopolized the higher offices in the imperial administration, but they were removed from military command by the late 3rd century. Constantine. Related to this is the Pirenne Thesis, according to which the Arab invasions marked—through conquest and the disruption of Mediterranean trade routes—the cataclysmic end of Late Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Emperor Diocletian (284-305) started to abandon territories with little strategic or economic value. Romans expanded their territories throughout Europe, Africa, and the Near East. Roman basilicas instead of temples serve as models for the first churches in Rome, including Old Saint Peter's. Soon the scenes were split into two registers, as in the Dogmatic Sarcophagus or the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (the last of these exemplifying a partial revival of classicism).[35]. This term has mostly been abandoned as a name for a historiographical epoch, being replaced by "Late Antiquity" In Roman Britain, the typical 4th- and 5th-century layer of dark earth within cities seems to be a result of increased gardening in formerly urban spaces. Concurrently, some migrating Germanic tribes such as the Ostrogoths and Visigoths saw themselves as perpetuating the "Roman" tradition. Late antique epigraphy differs in several respects from that of the High Empire, reflecting the changed political, economic, and cultural circumstances. Their biographies show how they combined the cultural and intellectual features of Late Antiquity to create a unified whole out of the disparate parts of the old society. The 4th and 5th centuries also saw an explosion of Christian literature, of which Greek writers such as Eusebius of Caesarea, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom and Latin writers such as Ambrose of Milan, Jerome and Augustine of Hippo are only among the most renowned representatives. While the usage "Late Antiquity" suggests that the social and cultural priorities of Classical Antiquity endured throughout Europe into the Middle Ages, the usage of "Early Middle Ages" or "Early Byzantine" emphasizes a break with the classical past, and the term "Migration Period" tends to de-emphasize the disruptions in the former Western Roman Empire caused by the creation of Germanic kingdoms within her borders beginning with the foedus with the Goths in Aquitania in 418. 6 Late Antiquity in Modern Eyes 77 Stefan Rebenich. The Late Antique period also saw a wholesale transformation of the political and social basis of life in and around the Roman Empire. By Dr. Averil Cameron / 05.05.2014 Professor of Classics Chair, Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research University of Oxford. A similar though less marked decline in urban population occurred later in Constantinople, which was gaining population until the outbreak of plague in 541. Scholarly opinion has revised this. If, in the words of the late Keith Hopkins, the Roman empire was a world full of gods, [1] late antiquity was a world full of talk. Late antiquity saw the rise of Christianity under Constantine I, finally ousting the Roman imperial cult with the Theodosian decrees of 393. The campaigns of Justinian the Great led to the fall of the Ostrogothic and Vandal Kingdoms, and their reincorporation into the Empire, when the city of Rome and much of Italy and North Africa returned to imperial control. By Aziz Al-Azmeh. As the soldier emperors such as Maximinus Thrax (r. 235–238) emerged from the provinces in the 3rd century, they brought with them their own regional influences and artistic tastes. Celibate and detached, the upper clergy became an elite equal in prestige to urban notables, the potentes or dynatoi (Brown (1987) p. 270).
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