{"title":"Urban Crises and the Contours of the Late Antique Empire through the Lens of Antioch","authors":"Shane Bjornlie","doi":"10.1525/sla.2023.7.2.184","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2023.7.2.184","url":null,"abstract":"This introduction sets the stage for three essays that each address different crises in the late antique history of Antioch. The essay considers some of the difficulties presented by various methodological lenses for “reading” the urban experience of a city such as Antioch and provides a framework for understanding the cultural meaning of the late antique urban landscape and the modern discourse concerning the role of cities in the Roman Empire. The essay also considers the rhetoric of Antioch in late antique sources and the intersection of that rhetoric with the centrality of cities in the maintenance of the Roman Empire. The essay suggests that the complicity of the cityscape in modern narrative frameworks for the fall of the Roman Empire has produced teleologies that inflect the understanding of disaster and crisis at Antioch and elsewhere in the Roman Empire.","PeriodicalId":36675,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66953038","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":"Constructing Monastic Landscapes of Southern Syria in Late Antiquity","authors":"Jacob Ashkenazi","doi":"10.1525/sla.2023.7.1.75","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2023.7.1.75","url":null,"abstract":"While monastic landscapes in arid surroundings can be more easily defined, interpreting the imprint of monks on rural arable landscapes is more challenging. In the current study, I face this challenge by examining a late antique rural landscape, the fertile Vulcanic plains of southwest Syria, in the light of the document known as “the letter of the archimandrites of Arabia.” Analyzed by the distinguished orientalist Theodore Nöldeke in 1875, the letter is a declaration of faith, written in Syriac, dated to 570 and signed by 137 signatories, most of whom held the title of abbot (resh dira in Aramaic). Quite a few scholars have dealt with this letter and extracted valuable information out of its lines. In the following presentation, I will concisely review the various viewpoints from which they scrutinized the letter and offer an additional reading: a reading of a cultural landscape in which monasticism is a significant designer. Since archaeological records of monastic manifestations in this area are sparse and debated, I will use a comparative study of nearby rural landscapes that were surveyed during the last decades to facilitate a spatial interpretation of the monastic landscape encapsulated in and between the lines of the letter.","PeriodicalId":36675,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66952980","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":"Julian’s Misopogon and the Food Shortage in Antioch","authors":"J. Marvin","doi":"10.1525/sla.2023.7.2.286","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2023.7.2.286","url":null,"abstract":"When Emperor Julian departed from Antioch in early 363 after eight months in the city, he left behind a biting satire that he had posted in its forum. That satire, the Misopogon, is the emperor’s response to the Antiochenes’ criticisms, which they composed in verse and sang through the city streets. He claims that what aroused the Antiochenes’ animosity most of all was his handling of the food shortage that afflicted the city during his stay. Julian details the measures he took to alleviate the shortage, yet despite generous measures he had undertaken, he claims Antiochenes were dissatisfied. He blames powerful citizens for undercutting the effect of his measures and exacerbating the shortage, and he belittles their distress by depicting it as the result of insatiable appetites rather than genuine deprivation. This article focuses neither on the nature nor cause of the shortage, nor on the accuracy of its depiction in the Misopogon. Instead, it draws upon the theory of crisis management that underpins Julian’s defense against accusations that he responded poorly to the shortages. Although explicit references to the food shortage constitute a small fraction of the Misopogon, an examination of the Misopogon’s conceptual dependence on Plato’s De legibus reveals that the text in its entirety contributes to Julian’s defense of his conduct. Julian’s allusions throughout the Misopogon to Plato’s De legibus works to absolve him of any responsibility for the distress caused by the food shortage. In brief, De legibus correlates virtue and vulnerability to crisis: the soul determines behavior, and the behavior of the political community determines its vulnerability to crisis. Virtue is the proper cognitive and emotional disposition of the soul. Besides making explicit the way virtue incites behavior that reduces risk and increases resiliency to crises, Plato’s De legibus also details how an individual’s lifestyle habits indicate their soul’s disposition. In this way, the De legibus provided the framework for Julian’s defense.","PeriodicalId":36675,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66953105","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":"Constantine and Eusebius in Antioch","authors":"H. Drake","doi":"10.1525/sla.2023.7.1.106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2023.7.1.106","url":null,"abstract":"In the 320s CE, the eastern metropolis of Antioch became the scene of violent conflict between pro- and anti-Nicene factions vying to put one of their own in the bishopric. Eusebius of Caesarea (himself one of the candidates) claims in his influential Vita Constantini that bloody conflict was avoided only by the calming influence of the emperor himself. This article focuses on three letters that Eusebius included in the Vita Constantini to illustrate the emperor’s involvement, looking for what they can tell us about the sequence of events, and also about the relationship between the first Christian emperor and his future biographer. Scholars have labeled Eusebius as everything from the power behind Constantine’s throne to a sycophant who needed Constantine to protect him from his ecclesiastical enemies. This study reveals an evolving relationship in which the emperor learned to respect Eusebius’s political as well as academic skills.","PeriodicalId":36675,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66952877","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":"God’s Wrath over Antioch, 525–540 CE","authors":"J. Borsch","doi":"10.1525/sla.2023.7.2.201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2023.7.2.201","url":null,"abstract":"Ancient Antioch (modern Antakya) is well known as a city prone to disasters. However, the calamitous events that hit the city between 525 and 540 CE have attracted particular attention. Within a time span of fifteen years, Antioch suffered major destructions by two massive earthquakes, several conflagrations, and a Persian sack. These events are reported in highly dramatic accounts by John Malalas and Procopius. Based on such reports, scholars since the nineteenth century have often interpreted these disasters as the starting point for a general decline of the city beginning in the sixth century. More recent reassessments, in contrast, have highlighted continuities on a variety of levels, emphasizing that over the long term, Antioch displayed high resilience on structural and institutional levels. This article picks up on these more recent findings but strives to approach the subject from a different angle. It focuses on Malalas’s and Procopius’s influential disaster narratives and seeks to further contextualize them. It traces how modern scholarly reception of the literary sources has fostered the traditional picture of “decline,” and it analyzes the narrative strategies of the texts, considering the literary traditions from which they originate and the cultural setting of which they form a part. The article seeks to show that the late ancient reports aim not to establish a picture of decline but rather to present Antioch as a purified, freshly Christianized city emerging from the ashes. It further argues that while it is important to critically reflect upon the rhetorical character of the double narrative of heavenly destruction and recreation, exploring the question of Antioch’s urban development in the sixth century through the lens of contemporary discourse on the Christian city not only increases our sensitivity to the methodological problems connected to these texts but may also lead to a better understanding of our evidence on Antioch’s post-Roman development.","PeriodicalId":36675,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66953046","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":"Review: Wealth, Poverty, and Charity in Jewish Antiquity, by Gregg E. Gardner","authors":"K. Bowes","doi":"10.1525/sla.2023.7.3.474","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2023.7.3.474","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":36675,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66953179","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":"Rebel Nuns and the Bishop Historian","authors":"Cassandra M. M. Casias","doi":"10.1525/sla.2022.6.1.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2022.6.1.5","url":null,"abstract":"This article contextualizes the letter that Radegund (c. 520–587 CE), who had been married to the Merovingian king Clothar, wrote to the bishops of Gaul to establish her new convent. Gregory of Tours preserved this letter in his account of the rebellion that erupted in Radegund’s convent two years after she died. By analyzing this letter as a tool of Gregory’s historical narrative and then evaluating it as an independent source for Radegund’s life, this paper demonstrates that Gregory’s deliberate misinterpretation of Radegund’s letter illuminates the conflict between holy women and bishops for religious influence in Late Antiquity.","PeriodicalId":36675,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66952637","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 Late Antique Rural Community in Mérida","authors":"Javier Martínez Jiménez, Isaac Sastre de Diego","doi":"10.1525/sla.2022.6.1.54","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2022.6.1.54","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents the contextualized results of the latest excavations at the site of Casa Herrera (Mérida, Spain). Casa Herrera is one of the best examples of a late antique site in the Iberian Peninsula, not only because of the degree of preservation of the remains but also because of its long chronological sequence, which runs from the first to the ninth century. The excavations of the surroundings of the funerary basilica and the Roman aqueduct have unearthed the remains of a handful of buildings that could be linked to a rural monastic community from the late Roman and Visigothic periods. The site has an Umayyad phase where settlement clusters around the basilica before being finally abandoned during the ninth century.","PeriodicalId":36675,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66952643","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 Way It Is in the Church”","authors":"Amit Gvaryahu","doi":"10.1525/sla.2022.6.4.651","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2022.6.4.651","url":null,"abstract":"For centuries, the legal rate of interest in the Roman Empire was “one-hundredth”: 1 percent of the principal of the loan was added to it each month. Although Christian leaders and writers in the Greek and Latin west did not approve of this practice, Syriac-speaking Christian communities in the eastern Roman Empire incorporated the rate of “one-hundredth” into canon law, and some grounded it in a novel interpretation of the Syriac Bible. In this paper, I describe the incorporation of Roman lending norms into the framework of the Syriac church and discuss an early document that both reflects and modifies these norms: a “circular letter” of Symeon Stylites (d. 459), in which he commands that interest rates be lowered by 50 percent as a temporary act of piety. That letter is preserved in a manuscript of Symeon’s Syriac Life, found today in the British Library (Add. 14,484, fols. 130b–133b). I situate the letter within that Syriac tradition, and I offer the possibility that Justinian’s law of 528, which also lowered interest rates by 50 percent (CJ 4.32.26), might have been the result of contacts with this Syriac tradition, and specifically with Symeon’s regulation. I also examine the reception of the Roman rate of “one-hundredth” in early Christian normative sources (“lawbooks” and “canons”) from the Church of the East, in the Sasanian Empire. These Christians received the Roman norm of “one-hundredth” differently and did not incorporate Symeon’s pious reduction of the interest rate, or Justinian’s imperial legislation to the same effect.","PeriodicalId":36675,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66952697","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":"Apollinarios, the Chalcedonian Theodosian","authors":"Felege-Selam Yirga","doi":"10.1525/sla.2022.6.3.519","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/sla.2022.6.3.519","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that the Chronicle of John, the bishop of Nikiu, in Egypt, a late seventh-century world chronicle, preserves two passages that suggest the Egyptian Chalcedonian patriarch Apollinarios (551–570 CE) was chosen by a coalition of Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonian Severan-Theodosians as a bulwark against the growing popularity of the aphthartist Gaianites during the reign of Justinian I. The accidental preservation of this memory in a rather unpopular text suggests that the lines separating the Severan-Theodosian (or proto-Coptic) miaphysite church from its doctrinal rivals were contingent and often remarkably blurry.","PeriodicalId":36675,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Late Antiquity","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66953050","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}
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