Social Life in Late Antiquity: a Bibliographic Essay

The study of the imperial aristocracy stands on relatively firm ground. We might consider it to consist of two main parts: firstly, a military aristocracy, for whom membership was partially the result of birth, or (more likely) of military ability (well attested in the western empire); and secondly, a senatorial aristocracy, whose membership was based on imperial service and personal wealth. To the large store of written evidence—most notably the correspondence of Symmachus and Libanius—one should add the substantial number of inscriptions that were still being set up in the political centres of the Mediterranean and, to a lesser extent, the archaeological record: artefacts such as jewels, diptychs, statues, objects of daily use, as well as houses and villas. At the same time, the developments of late antique prosopography since the 1960s have led scholarship to a very sophisticated understanding of the political standing and connections of the members of this group. Studies have concentrated on issues such as personal and political connections, particularly in terms of friendship and patronage. More recent is the scholarly interest in questions of senatorial self-representation (especially with respect to epigraphy and statuary). The study of housing, both urban (strongest in the case of Rome) and rural, is especially relevant to late antique archaeology, and a number of questions have been addressed: the Christianisation of this group, the political functions performed in domestic spaces, and the development of a senatorial ‘representational’ architecture, especially in the case of their massive palatial residences in Constantinople. A few problems still remain, however, most fundamentally ones of definition: the position of senators in late antique society was defined not only juridically, but also visually, in the sense that those who