The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400-1000

by Chris Wickham

  p. 21. Primer: A. C. Dionisotti, ‘From Ausonius’ Schooldays?’, Journal of Roman Studies, 72 (1982), pp. 83-125; for torture, see J. Harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 122-34. For wider issues of violence, see H. A. Drake (ed.), Violence in Late Antiquity (Aldershot, 2006).

  p. 21. Games: Augustine, Confessions, trans. H. Chadwick (Oxford, 1991), 6.8. Banning by Constantine: Jones, Later Roman Empire, p. 977; A. Cameron, Circus Factions (Oxford, 1976), pp. 216 ff.

  p. 22. Show trials for magic: see the account in J. F. Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus Marcellinus (London, 1989), pp. 209-17.

  p. 22. Andronikos: Synesios of Cyrene, Correspondance, ed. and trans. A. Garzya and D. Roques (Paris, 2000), nn. 41-2, 72, 79, 90; cf. D. Roques, Synésios de Cyrène et la Cyrénaïque du Bas-Empire (Paris, 1987), pp. 195 - 206, 366 - 70.

  p. 23. Capital cities and their feeding: J. Durliat, De la ville antique a‘ la ville byzantine (Rome, 1990); E. Lo Cascio, in W. V. Harris (ed.), The Transformations of Urbs Roma in Late Antiquity (Portsmouth, RI, 1999), pp. 163-82; A. E. Müller, ‘Getreide für Kon stantinopel’, Jahrbuch der osterreichischen Byzantinistik, 43 (1993), pp. 1 - 20.

  p. 23. Cost of games: R. Lim, in Harris, Transformations, pp. 265-81, at pp. 271 - 5.

  p. 24. Order of Noble Cities: Ausonius, Works, vol. 1, ed. and trans. H. G. E. White (Cambridge, Mass., 1919), pp. 269 - 85.

  p. 24. End of curiae and informal élites: J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, The Decline of the Ancient City (Oxford, 2001); A. Laniado, Recherches sur les notables municipaux dans l’empire protobyzantin (Paris, 2002); C. Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 2005), pp. 274-89.

  p. 25. Sidonius: J. Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome (Oxford, 1994).

  p. 26. 30,000 officials: Jones, Later Roman Empire, p. 1057; see further for Roman bureaucracy, C. Kelly, Ruling the Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass., 2004), the best analysis of late Roman bureaucratic culture, and C. Kelly and P. Heather, in CAH, vol. 13, pp. 138 - 210.

  p. 26. Travel: figures from M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 474-81; his evidence is Carolingian and onwards, but it is unlikely to have been very different for fast horse-borne messengers under late Rome; further timings and bibliography in Kelly, Ruling, pp. 115 - 17.

  p. 27. John Lydos, On Powers, ed. and trans. A. C. Bandy (Philadelphia, 1983) (1.14 for Romulus, 2.20-21, 3.57-72 for John the Cappadocian; see M. Maas, John Lydus and the Roman Past (London, 1992); Kelly, Ruling, pp. 11-104.

  p. 27. Petronius Maximus: see refs. in PLRE, vol. 2, pp. 749-51; Sidonius Apollinaris, Letters, ed. and trans. W. B. Anderson, Poems and Letters (Cambridge, Mass., 1962-5), 2.13.

  p. 28. Otium: see J. R. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court AD 364-425 (Oxford, 1975), pp. 1-12.

  p. 29. Symmachus: Epistulae, 1.52, ed. O. Seeck, MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi, 6.1 (Berlin, 1883).

  p. 29. Paeonius: Sidonius, Letters, 1.11.5.

  p. 29. Petronius Probus: Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, ed. and trans. J. C. Rolfe, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1935 - 9), 27.11.1.

  p. 29. Melania: The Life of Melania the Younger, trans. E. A. Clark (Lewiston, NY, 1982), c. 15.

  p. 30. Juvenal: Ammianus, Res Gestae, 28.4.14. For élite culture, see A. Cameron in CAH, vol. 13, pp. 665 - 707.

  p. 30. Libanios and magic: P. Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine (London, 1972), pp. 127 - 34. p. 30. Julian: see for example the critical comments in the otherwise sympathetic Ammianus,

  Res Gestae, 22.10.7, 25.4.20; cf. D. Hunt in CAH, vol. 13, p. 67.

  p. 30. Reading Augustine’s work: Sidonius, Letters, 2.9.4.

  p. 30. Estate management: Palladius, Opus Agriculturae, ed. R. H. Rodgers (Leipzig, 1975).

  p. 31. Law: good recent surveys are Harries, Law and Empire; P. Garnsey and C. Humfress, The Evolution of the Late Antique World (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 52-82; D. Liebs in CAH, vol. 14, pp. 238-59; C. Humfress, Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2007).

  p. 31. Alypius in Rome: Augustine, Confessions, 6.8 - 10. p. 32. Egypt: T. Gagos and P. van Minnen, Settling a Dispute (Ann Arbor, 1994), pp. 30 - 46.

  p. 32. Eustochius: Augustine, Letters, trans. W. Parsons and R. B. Eno, 6 vols. (Washington, 1951-89), letter 24*.

  p. 32. Salvius: C. Lepelley, in Antiquités africaines, 25 (1989), pp. 235-62, at pp. 240 - 51.

  p. 33. Amphorae: O. Karagiorgou, in S. Kingsley and M. Decker (eds.), Economy and Exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean during Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2001), pp. 129 - 66.

  p. 33. Factories: Jones, Later Roman Empire, pp. 834-6. p. 33. Weight and regional incidence of tax: this follows Wickham, Framing, pp. 62 - 80.

  p. 33. Tied occupations: A. H. M. Jones, The Roman Economy (Oxford, 1974), pp. 396 - 418.

  p. 35. Apions: The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, ed. and trans. B. P. Grenfell, A. S. Hunt et al., 65 vols. to date (Oxford, 1898-), vol. 16, nn. 1906-8, vol. 62, 4350 - 51.

  p. 36. Slavery: D. Vera, ‘Le forme del lavoro rurale’, Settimane di studio, 45 (1998), pp. 293-342.

  p. 36. Egyptian towns: R. S. Bagnall and B. W. Freer, The Demography of Roman Egypt (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 53 - 7.

  p. 36. Coloni laws: see the articles collected in E. Lo Cascio (ed.), Terre, proprietari e contadini dell’impero romano (Rome, 1997), for recent debate.

  p. 37. Estate profit: Palladius, Opus Agriculturae; P. Sarris, Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2006). p. 37. Syrian villages: G. Tate, Les Campagnes de la Syrie du Nord du IIe au VIIe siècle,

  vol. 1 (Paris, 1992).

  p. 37. Thagaste: Vita Melaniae Latina, ed. M. Rampolla del Tindaro, Santa Melania Giuniore (Rome, 1905), pp. 3 - 40, c. 21.

  p. 37. Justinian: CJ, 11.48.21.

  p. 37. Egyptian tenure: R. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993), pp. 110-23, 148-53; J. Gascou and L. MacCoull, in Travaux et mémoires, 10 (1987), pp. 103-51; compare for Italy, Vita Melaniae Latina, c. 18.

  p. 38. Dioskoros: L. S. B. MacCoull, Dioscorus of Aphrodito (Berkeley, 1988); J.-L. Fournet, Hellenisme dans l’Égypte du VIe siècle (Cairo, 1999); for Aphrodito in an Egyptian context, see J. G. Keenan, in CAH, vol. 14, pp. 612-37; for the murder, P. J. Sijpesteijn (ed.), The Aphrodite Papyri in the University of Michigan Papyrus Collection (P. Mich. XIII) (Zutphen, 1977), nn. 660-61.

  p. 39. Fussala: Augustine, Letters, 209 and 20*; see further S. Lancel, in C. Lepelley (ed.), Les Lettres de saint Augustin découvertes par Johannes Divjak (Paris, 1983), pp. 267-85.

  p. 40. Pottery: the best overview is still C. Panella, ‘Merci e scambi nel Mediterraneo in età tardo antica’, in Carandini et al., Storia di Roma, vol. 3.2, pp. 613-97; for cloth see Jones, Later Roman Empire, pp. 848-50, and S. Lauffer (ed.), Diokletians Preisedikt (Berlin, 1971), cc. 19-28.

  p. 41. Egyptian wine: D. M. Bailey, Excavations at el-Ashmunein, vol. 5 (London, 1998), pp. 118-38; Life of St John the Almsgiver, trans. E. Dawes and N. H. Baynes, Three Byzantine Saints (London, 1948), pp. 199 - 262, c. 10.

  p. 42. Egypt: see esp. Bagnall, Egypt, pp. 32, 45-67.

  p. 42. Theodora: J. Maspero (ed.), Papyrus grecs d’époque byzantine, vol. 3 (Cairo, 1916), n. 67283.

  p. 42. Patronage: A. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), Patronage in Ancient Society (London, 1989); P. Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity (Madison, 1992); Kelly, Ruling, esp. pp. 138-85; J.-U. Krause, Spatantike Patronatsformen im Westen des romischen Reiches (Munich, 1987).

  p. 42. Zotikos: John Lydos, On Powers, 3.26 - 7.

  p. 42. Abinnaios: H. I. Bell et al. (eds.), The Abinnaios Archive (Oxford, 1962), esp. papyri nn. 7, 10, 12, 15, 19, 21, 26-8, 32 - 4, 44-57.

  p. 43. Libanios: Libanius, Selected Works, vol. 2, ed. and trans. A. F. Norman (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), Oration 47.

  p. 43. Persia: there is no good recent detailed account. See in general E. Yarshater (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1983), and for article-length overviews the diffe
ring positions of Z. Rubin, in CAH, vol. 14, pp. 638-61, and (more convincing to me) J. Howard-Johnston, in A. Cameron (ed.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East, vol. 3 (Princeton, 1995), pp. 157-226.

  p. 44. Berbers: Synesios, Correspondance, nn. 122, 130, 132; D. J. Mattingly, Tripolitania (London, 1995), pp. 173 - 80; Y. Modéran, Les Maures et l’Afrique romaine (IVe-VII siècle) (Rome, 2003).

  p. 45. Quadi: Ammianus, Res Gestae, 29.6.2ff., 30.6.

  p. 45. Alemans: Ammianus, Res Gestae, 16.12.1, 23, 26; cf. J. F. Drinkwater, The Alamanni and Rome 213-496 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 117 - 26, 236-44.

  p. 45. Gothic sources: P. Heather and J. Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century (Liverpool, 1991), pp. 102-10, 124-85.

  p. 46. Archaeology and ethnicity: this is highly contested. My views fit with, among others, G. Halsall, in J. F. Drinkwater and H. Elton (eds.), Fifth-century Gaul (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 196 - 207; B. Effros, Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology and the Making of the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 2003), pp. 100 - 110.

  p. 46. Denmark: L. Hedeager, Iron-Age Societies (Oxford, 1992), pp. 45-51.

  p. 46. Frontier societies: here I follow C. R. Whittaker, Frontiers of the Roman Empire (Baltimore, 1994). Against the old idea that the late imperial army was more ‘barbarized’ than before: H. Elton, Warfare in Roman Europe, AD 350-425 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 134 - 54.

  p. 47. Silvanus: Ammianus, Res Gestae, 15.5; for Firmus, 29.5.39.

  p. 48. Huns: Ammianus, Res Gestae, 31.2; for Gothic entry, 31 passim - cf. P. J. Heather, Goths and Romans 332-489 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 122ff., and H. Wolfram, History of the Goths (Berkeley, 1988), pp. 117ff.

  Chapter 3

  For introductions, most of the books cited in Chapter 2 are equally important. P. Garnsey and C. Humfress, The Evolution of the Late Antique World (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 132 - 215, and P. Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity (Madison, 1992), are original rereadings of the evidence. On Christianity, A. Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (Berkeley, 1991); P. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom (2nd edn., Oxford, 1997); and R. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, 1990), are key points of reference.

  p. 50. Sidonius: Letters, ed. and trans. W. B. Anderson, Poems and Letters (Cambridge, Mass., 1962-5), 4.25 (Chalon), 7.5, 8, 9 (Bourges); cf. J. Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome (Oxford, 1994), pp. 179 - 86. For a context, R. Van Dam, Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul (Berkeley, 1985) is basic. For the complexity of the roles and authority of bishops, see above all C. Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 2005).

  p. 51. Synesios: Correspondance, ed. and trans. A. Garzya and D. Roques (Paris, 2000) nn. 105 (open letter), 10, 15, 16, 46, 81, 124, 154 (to Hypatia); for Theophilos and Cyril, C. Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity (Baltimore, 1997), pp. 159-69, 295-316; see in general D. Roques, Synésios de Cyrène et la Cyrénaïque du Bas-Empire (Paris, 2000), pp. 301 - 16.

  p. 51. ‘Pagan’: this is an unsatisfactory word. Traditional Graeco-Roman religion had no word for its practitioners; paganus, originally meaning ‘rustic’, is used already to mean ‘not Christian (or Jewish)’ in the early third century, however, and became common by the late fourth (e.g. CTh, 16.2.18, for the year 370). ‘Hellene’ is another late Roman word which came to be used for ‘pagan’. Some modern authors prefer ‘polytheist’, but not all ‘pagans’ were polytheistic.

  p. 52. Late paganism: see G. W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1990); F. R. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization c.370-529, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1993-4); G. Fowden, in CAH, vol. 13, pp. 538-60; Garnsey and Humfress, Evolution of the Late Antique World, pp. 152-60; John of Ephesos, Ecclesiastical History, ed. and trans. E. W. Brooks (Louvain, 1935-6), 2.44, 3.36.

  p. 52. Jews: see S. T. Katz (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 67 - 82, 404-56, 492 - 518.

  p. 52. Laws: CTh, 16.10.10 - 12 (391-2), CJ, 1.11.10 (Justinian). Edessa: John of Ephesos, Ecclesiastical History, 3.27 - 8.

  p. 53. First of January: Markus, End of Ancient Christianity, pp. 103 - 6, and in general for festivals, pp. 97 - 135.

  p. 54. Sunday: Gregory of Tours, The Miracles of the Bishop St Martin, trans. in R. Van Dam, Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993), pp. 199-303, e.g. 2.24, 3.29, 4.45.

  p. 54. Augustine: Letters, trans. W. Parsons and R. B. Eno, 6 vols. (Washington, 1951 - 89), letter 29.

  p. 54. Brioude: Van Dam, Saints and their Miracles, pp. 41 - 8. Drinking at martyrs’ tombs: Augustine, Letters, 22; Augustine, Confessions, trans. H. Chadwick (Oxford, 1991), 6.2.2. Gregory the Great: Bede, HE, 1.30. For a general discussion of religious space and its contexts in the Mediterranean, see P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea (Oxford, 2000), pp. 403-60.

  p. 55. Christian topography: see e.g. N. Gauthier, ‘La Topographie chrétienne entre idéologie et pragmatisme’, in G. P. Brogiolo and B. Ward-Perkins (eds.), The Idea and Ideal of the Town between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, 1999), pp. 195 - 209.

  p. 55. Rome: R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308 (Princeton, 1980), pp. 71, 75.

  p. 55. Intramural burials: see, for an analysis of developments in Italy, N. Christie, From Constantine to Charlemagne (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 252-9. For dead saints, see P. Brown, The Cult of the Saints (Chicago, 1981).

  p. 56. Demons: see B. Caseau, in G. Bowersock et al. (eds.), Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), pp. 406-7.

  p. 56. Theodore of Sykeon: Vie de Théodore de Sykéôn, ed. and trans. A. J. Festugière (Brussels, 1970), cc. 37, 43, 91 - 4, 103, 114 - 16, 162, etc.

  p. 57. Foucault: e.g. M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish (London, 1977). For the patterns of everyday Christianity, see esp. P. Brown, in CAH, vol. 13, pp. 632-64.

  p. 57. Gregory of Nyssa: Garnsey and Humfress, Evolution of the Late Antique World, pp. 207-10.

  p. 57. Jerome: Select Letters of St Jerome, ed. and trans. F. A. Wright (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), letter 22, is a good example.

  p. 57. Divorce: see A. Arjava, Women and Law in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1996), pp. 177-92; G. Clark, Women in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1993), pp. 21-7; A. Giardina, in CAH, vol. 14, pp. 392-8.

  p. 58. Jewish patriarch: D. Goodblatt, in Katz, Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4, pp. 416-23.

  p. 59. Church as a career structure: see e.g. Rapp, Holy Bishops, pp. 172-207.

  p. 60. Donatists: see W. H. C. Frend, The Donatist Church (Oxford, 1952), p. 167 for the bishops; P. Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine (London, 1972), pp. 237-331.

  p. 60. Pelagians: Brown, Religion and Society, pp. 183-226; B. R. Rees, Pelagius, 2nd edn. (London, 1998).

  p. 61. Clerical celibacy: R. Gryson, Les Origines du celibat ecclésiastique du premier au septième sie‘cle (Gembloux, 1970).

  p. 61. Eastern Christological debates: H. Chadwick, in CAH, vol. 13, pp. 561-600, and P. Allen, in CAH, vol. 14, pp. 811-34, give useful narratives. The historiography is huge; I have found particularly useful the crisp and incisive theological introductions in F. M. Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon (London, 1983). For ‘Arianism’, see most recently D. M. Gwynn, The Eusebians (Oxford, 2007).

  p. 62. ‘Arianism’ in Constantinople: see J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops (Oxford, 1990), pp. 157-89.

  p. 63. Monophysite episcopal hierarchy: D. D. Bundy, ‘Jacob Baradaeus’, Le Muséon, 91 (1978), pp. 45-86; L. Van Rompay, in M. Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 239-66.

  p. 64. Mobs: Haas, Alexandria, pp. 258 - 330; Frend, Donatist Church, pp. 172-7 (but who exactly Circumcellions were is much debated: see B. D. Shaw, in A. H. Merrills (ed.), Vandals, Romans and Berbers (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 227-58); T. E. Gregory, Vox Populi (Columbus, Ohio, 1979).

  p. 64. Patriarch Juvenal: Evagrios, The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus, trans. M. Whitby (Liverpool, 2000), 2.5; Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Euthymios, in Lives of the Monks of Palesti
ne, trans. R. M. Price (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1991), pp. 1-83, cc. 27-30.

  p. 65. Ascetics: the seminal article is P. Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, (London, 1982), pp. 103-52, updated in CAH, vol. 14, pp. 780-810; the very substantial recent bibliography on ascetics and saints is summed up in two conferences, published as J. Howard-Johnston and P. Hayward (eds.), The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 1999), and Journal of Early Christian Studies, 6 (1998), pp. 343-671.

  p. 65. Stylites: Life of Daniel the Stylite, trans. E. Dawes and N. H. Baynes, Three Byzantine Saints (London, 1948), pp. 7-71, c. 62; Theodoret of Cyrrhus, A History of the Monks of Syria, trans. R. M. Price (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1985), 26.22. See for Theodoret, T. Urbainczyk, Theodoret of Cyrrhus (Ann Arbor, 2002), esp. pp. 115-47.

  p. 65. Gaza advice: Barsanouphios and John, Correspondance, ed. and trans. F. Neyt et al., 3 vols. (Paris, 1997-2002), nn. 636, 671, 777, 775, 776, 669, 841.

  p. 66. Brown quote: CAH, vol. 14, p. 806.

  p. 66. Paula: Jerome, Letters, 45.

  p. 66. Monasticism: see in general D. J. Chitty, The Desert a City (Oxford, 1966); P. Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian (Oxford, 1978); C. Leyser, Authority and Asceticism from Augustine to Gregory the Great (Oxford, 2000).

  p. 66. Benedict: The Rule of St Benedict, ed. and trans. J. McCann (London, 1952). So there!

  p. 67. Infill in cities: H. Kennedy, ‘From polis to madina’, Past and Present, 106 (1985), pp. 3-27.

  p. 67. Adventus and victory: Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, ed. and trans. J. C. Rolfe, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1935-9), 16.10.4-13; S. G. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1981), pp. 33-61; M. McCormick, Eternal Victory (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 189-230 for Constantine VII and other later accounts.