{"title":"A Late Antique Preacher in Action: Augustine, Ep. 29","authors":"Mattias Gassman","doi":"10.1353/jla.2022.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jla.2022.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In Ep. 29, Augustine describes four sermons he delivered in May 395. A vivid account of the delivery and reception of late antique preaching, the letter shows how Augustine's listeners debated his message, and how Augustine shaped his preaching to win them over. This article situates the events in the social and archeological setting at Hippo, arguing that the laity were not as indifferent or opposed to clerical teaching as has often been supposed. For Augustine, a devout subset of laypeople were important interlocutors: meeting with him, bringing others to church, and becoming convinced, even when they had been most resistant. Similar patterns can be traced, less vividly, in many of Augustine's sermons, and, near the end of his life, the experiences of ordinary Christians helped to reshape Augustine's own theology and preaching on the martyrs.","PeriodicalId":16220,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48734435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Narrating the Saints: Paulinus of Nola and the Beginning of Verse Hagiography","authors":"Michael Roberts","doi":"10.1353/jla.2022.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jla.2022.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Paulinus of Nola's Natalicia represent a poetic cycle unparalleled in Latin literature: thirteen complete poems (and a fourteenth fragmentary one) composed every year for the annual festival of Saint Felix of Nola. This article considers the poems as a group, analyzing the sources of Paulinus's poetic invention and identifying significant features that run through the corpus. In particular, the concept of varietas serves as an aesthetic principle at various levels of integration and in various situations, while Paulinus's role as impresario of the cult of Saint Felix and master of ceremonies at the saint's festival finds expression in the metatextual directions he introduces into the text, the guided tour he gives to the shrine through the person of Nicetas of Remesiana in poem 27, and the mental peregrination he invites his reader/listener to take. Ultimately in Late Antiquity verse hagiography was to take a different course, but Paulinus's achievement remains substantial, and his poems illuminate an important stage in the history of the cult of the saints.","PeriodicalId":16220,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41297526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Oases of Egypt's Western Desert from Byzantine to Islamic Rule: Problems and New Perspectives","authors":"Nicoletta De Troia","doi":"10.1353/jla.2022.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jla.2022.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Once a part of Byzantine Egypt, the oases of Egypt's Western Desert acquired the status of an independent kingdom in the early Islamic period and retained this status at least until the advent of the Fatimid dynasty. As I argue in this article, a nuanced interpretation of a limited dossier of Greco-Latin and Arabic texts (consisting mostly of literary sources) yields insight into the mechanisms behind the political and administrative changes that the Egyptian oases underwent after the collapse of Byzantine rule following the Arab conquest of Egypt.","PeriodicalId":16220,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43003498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Education, Religion, and Literary Culture in the 4th Century CE. A Study of the Underworld Topos in Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae by Gabriela Ryser (review)","authors":"Alison John","doi":"10.1353/jla.2022.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jla.2022.0011","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":16220,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44862215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Other Woman: Felicitas in Late Antiquity","authors":"L. Cobb","doi":"10.1353/jla.2022.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jla.2022.0000","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas narrates the stories of four men and two women. Late ancient homilies regularly address the relative unimportance of the male martyrs in the church's celebrations of the Carthaginian martyrs. For the late ancient church, the Passion was primarily the story of Perpetua's and Felicitas's heroic witness to their faith. Modern scholarship has further restricted the characters of interest by focusing attention on only one of the Christians: Perpetua. Relegating Felicitas to the margins of the narrative is a wholly modern phenomenon. This article traces Felicitas's importance in the late ancient church and examines some of the reasons why scholars have undervalued her role in this martyr text.","PeriodicalId":16220,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48292454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Imagining the Divine: Exploring Art in Religions of Late Antiquity across Eurasia ed. by Jaś Elsner and Rachel Wood (review)","authors":"Benjamin J. K. Anderson","doi":"10.1353/jla.2022.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jla.2022.0012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":16220,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43348538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Catechumens, Women, and Agricultural Laborers: Who Used the Fourth-century Hall at the Church of 'Ain el-Gedida, Egypt?","authors":"Nicola Aravecchia","doi":"10.1353/jla.2022.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jla.2022.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article assesses the archaeological evidence of a large hall that was part of a fourth-century church complex discovered at 'Ain el-Gedida, in the Dakhla Oasis of Egypt's Western Desert. The focus is on the spatial and functional relationship of the hall with the church and the rest of the complex. The room was broadly identified as a gathering hall because of the existence of mudbrick mastabas (benches) running along three of its walls. It was also connected to the church via two passageways, one of which was sealed—at some point in antiquity—with a mudbrick wall that obscured the remains of a stepped podium between the two spaces. The location of the platform suggests that it was once used by someone—possibly a priest—who needed to be seen and heard by people assembled in both the church and the gathering hall. People sitting (or standing) in the latter would have had only limited visual access onto the church, with the area of the sanctuary being concealed to them. The goal of this essay is to shed light on who might have congregated in the hall at 'Ain el-Gedida, before and after its alterations, and—more broadly—on the social composition of the community that inhabited this rural site of Egypt's Western Desert in Late Antiquity.","PeriodicalId":16220,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44053619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rome and the Invention of the Papacy: The Liber Pontificalis by Rosamond McKitterick (review)","authors":"S. Bruce","doi":"10.1353/jla.2022.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jla.2022.0016","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":16220,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43213784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Companion to Byzantine Science ed. by Stavros Lazaris (review)","authors":"Giulia Freni","doi":"10.1353/jla.2022.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jla.2022.0017","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":16220,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46162311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Battle Of Mursa, 351: Causes, Course, and Consequences","authors":"John F. Drinkwater","doi":"10.1353/jla.2022.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jla.2022.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:I argue that Magnentius was brought to power by, and ruled with, a team of high-status imperial politicians, best referred to collectively as \"Magnentians.\" The Magnentians' main aim was to share power with Constantius through a formally established imperial college, and, even when his refusal compelled them to march towards him, they still hoped to extract a settlement without having to resort to a pitched battle. However, wrong-footed and heavily outnumbered, they found themselves fighting at Mursa. The discipline of their troops allowed them to resist fiercely, and Constantius won mainly because of his joint deployment of cataphracts and armored horse-archers. There were heavy casualties on both sides, but this did not cripple Roman military strength. The main consequence of Mursa was the re-establishment of the Constantinian dynasty's exclusive control of imperial power.","PeriodicalId":16220,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43265607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}