The Fragmentary Classicising Historians Of The Later Roman Empire

Volume 1 contains discussions of the historiography of the four writers, and an annotated conspectus of the fragments; the full text and translation is in volume 2.

This volume is the much larger companion to Roger Blockley's similarly-titled monograph, published in 1981 (ARCA 6). The earlier volume gave a commented conspectus of the fragments, and essays on the individual historians. In vol. II the texts themselves are printed, with English translations and historiographical notes. Included also is a correlation of Blockley's order with the older numbering of Mueller, Dindorf and Niebuhr, and indices of names, places, quotations and citations. This work, with the earlier monograph, has become a standard for the increasingly important study of the later Roman Empire.

The historical works of the fifth-century AD classicising historians originally covered the years from the death of Claudius II in 270 to the death of Zeno in 491, a period which saw the dismemberment of the western Roman Empire and the transformation of the eastern portion into the Byzantine Empire. These writers now survive only in fragmentary and indirect form. R.C. Blockley's Fragmentary Classicising Historians has become an indispensable source and resource for students and scholars in this increasingly popular field of study, which offers an illuminating background to understanding current events in the near- and middle-eastern region.

Late Antiquity witnessed a dramatic recalibration in the economy of power, and nowhere was this more pronounced than in the realm of religion. The transformations that occurred in this pivotal era moved the ancient world into the Middle Ages and forever changed the way that religion was practiced. The twenty eight studies in this volume explore this shift using evidence ranging from Latin poetic texts, to Syriac letter collections, to the iconography of Roman churches and Merowingian mortuary goods. They range in chronology from the late third through the early seventh centuries AD and apply varied theories and approaches. All converge around the notion that religion is fundamentally a discourse of power and that power in Late Antiquity was especially charged with the force of religion. The articles are divided into eight sections which examine the power of religion in literature, theurgical power over the divine, emperors and the deployment of religious power, limitations on the power of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the use of the cross as a symbol of power, Rome and its transformation as a center of power, the power of religion in the barbarian west, and religious power in the communities of the east. This kaleidoscope of perspectives creates a richly illuminating volume that add a new social and political dimension to current debates about religion in Late Antiquity.