Ebook: A Companion to Late Antiquity

Notes on Contributors -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- 1 Approaching Late Antiquity -- PART I The View from the Future -- 2 The Byzantine Late Antiquity -- 3 Late Antiquity in the Medieval West -- 4 Cities of the Mind: Renaissance Views of Early Christian Culture and the End of Antiquity -- 5 Narrating Decline and Fall -- 6 Late Antiquity in Modern Eyes -- PART II Land and People -- 7 The Shapes and Shaping of the Late Antique World: Global and Local Perspectives -- 8 Mobility and the Traces of Empire -- 9 Information and Political Power -- 10 Mediterranean Cities -- 11 The Archaeological Record: Problems of Interpretation -- 12 Inscribing Identity: The Latin Epigraphic Habit in Late Antiquity -- 13 Gender and the Fall of Rome -- 14 Marriage and Family Relationships in the Late Roman West -- 15 The Church, the Living, and the Dead -- PART III Image and Word -- 16 The Value of a Good Education: Libanius and Public Authority -- 17 Textual Communities in Late Antique Christianity -- 18 Exegesis without End: Forms, Methods, and Functions of Biblical Commentaries -- 19 Tradition, Innovation, and Epistolary Mores -- 20 Visual and Verbal Representation: Image, Text, Person, and Power -- 21 Christianity and the Transformation of Classical Art -- 22 The Discourse of Later Latin -- 23 Language and Culture in Late Antique Egypt -- 24 Late Antique Historiography: A Brief History of Time -- PART IV Empire, Kingdom, and Beyond -- 25 Law in Practice -- 26 The Mirror of Jordanes: Concepts of the Barbarian, Then and Now -- 27 Beyond the Northern Frontiers -- 28 From Empire to Kingdoms in the Late Antique West -- 29 Rome and the Sasanid Empire: Confrontation and Coexistence -- 30 Syria, Syriac, Syrian: Negotiating East and West -- 31 Syria and the Arabs -- 32 The Early Caliphate and the Inheritance of Late Antiquity (c. ad 610-c. ad 750) -- PART V The Sacred -- 33 Christianization, Secularization, and the Transformation of Public Life -- 34 The Political Church: Religion and the State.;An accessible and authoritative overview capturing the vitality and diversity of scholarship that exists on the transformative time period known as late antiquity. Provides an essential overview of current scholarship on late antiquity - from between the accession of Diocletian in AD 284 and the end of Roman rule in the Mediterranean. Comprises essays from some of the world's foremost scholars of the era. Presents this once-neglected period as an age of powerful transformation that shaped the modern world Emphasizes the central importance of religion and its connection with economic, social, and political life.