Here is a round up of recent books on late antiquity that have caught my eye. First up Philip Rousseau's and Jutta Raithel's A Companion to Late Antiquity. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Ancient History reviewed by Gerard O'Daly at University College London:
Most of the chapters presuppose familiarity with
the political, social, and religious landscape of the period: 'general
readers' will struggle, though specialists in cognate areas such as
medieval and Renaissance studies will benefit from the themes treated
and state-of-the-art methodologies employed. And what precisely is
meant by 'late antiquity' in this volume? Among specialists a common
starting-date is the accession of the emperor Diocletian in 284 CE (and
the beginnings of administrative reforms that, among others, divided
the empire into eastern and western sectors), and the dust-jacket blurb
of the Companion concurs with this. The same blurb gives 'the
end of Roman rule in the Mediterranean' as the end of late antiquity.
This is usually dated to the early 7th century, the period of the Arab
Muslim and other conquests of much of the empire. Readers of the Companion
are left to find out for themselves just how late is late antiquity. In
practice, few of the chapters have anything to say about the
pre-Constantinan period, and most do not venture in any detail beyond
the end of the fifth century.
Next up, Eugenio Amato's edition of Severus Sophista Alexandrinus: Progymnasmata quae exstant omnia reviewed by Craig Gibson at The University of Iowa. It is long overdue:
This authoritative new edition of select
progymnasmata and declamations by Eugenio Amato is therefore a most
welcome contribution to the field, clearly and expertly presenting both
some new texts and some that were previously available only in very
antiquated editions. Although this book will be of interest primarily
to scholars working on Greek progymnasmata and declamations, it also
offers some valuable evidence for later Greek mythography, sexuality
studies, historiography, and reception studies.
Also good is Angela Longo's Syrianus et la métaphysique de l'antiquité
tardive. Actes du colloque international, université de Genève, 29
septembre-1er octobre 2006 reviewed by Lloyd Gerson, University of Toronto:
Syrianus (d. c. 437 C.E.) was the "head" of the
Academy at Athens for the last five years of his life. He succeeded
Plutarch of Athens, whose tenure in this position evidently lasted
throughout most of the first quarter of the 5th century. Syrianus was
the teacher of Proclus, who succeeded him after his death and also the
teacher of Hierocles of Alexandria, who was, during the middle of the
century, perhaps the leading Platonic philosopher there. Among his
works, his commentary on four books of Aristotle's Metaphysics
(2, 4, 13, 14) is extant and recently translated into English for the
first time by John Dillon and Dominic O'Meara in the series edited by
Richard Sorabji. Aside from what can be gleaned from the commentary,
what we know of his teachings depends on the testimony of Proclus, who
throughout the massive corpus of his writings frequently refers to the
views of his revered master.
Then, simply because it interests me, and not because it is late antiquity in the strict sense of the world, Grant Parker's The Making of Roman India. Greek Culture in the Roman World reviewed by Miguel John Versluys at Leiden University:
India was never conquered by the Romans and was
not a province in the sense that other parts of the ancient world were.
However, it played an important role in the Roman imagination in
various ways, often through traditions that were defined and demarcated
in the Hellenistic era (and before). Hence there were two Indias in the
Roman world: the physical land at the other side of the Indian Ocean
and India as a cultural concept. Now a large majority of scholarly
literature, especially that written by historians and archaeologists,
only takes the first India, the physical country, into account. But an
overall interpretation of India in the Roman world should also, or
perhaps even primarily, be concerned with India as a cultural scenario
and moreover develop a methodology to integrate both aspects.
Finally, for those with Spanish, Leonardo Lugaresi's Il teatro di Dio: il problema degli spettacoli nel cristianesimo antico (II-IV secolo) reviewed by Alberto Quiroga:
Lugaresi plantea una serie de objeciones: cómo
respondía el discurso radical cristiano frente a la dimensíon
socializadora de los espectáculos, cómo encajó la Iglesia el apoyo
imperial hacia los juegos y representaciones lúdicas como forma de
propaganda política, por qué motivo el cristianismo no adoptó una
postura más flexible hacia la dimensión espectacular del teatro o de
los juegos circenses como había sucedido en otros campos como la
retórica o la filosofía. Tras un extenso status quaestionis
Lugaresi finaliza el capítulo introductorio con un breve repaso a la
doctrina cristiana en relación a los espectáculos que se puede
encontrar en los textos de los concilios de Elvira, Arles y Laodicea.
What remains depressing, and strikes me every single time that I do a round up of new books, is the price. Not only do these remain completely out of the reach of individuals, few academic libraries are likely to pay for them. For the record, Lugaresi's volume is the cheapest at €40.
