The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity: AD 395-600

270 Pages·1993·3.1 MB·English

by  Averil Cameron

The Mediterranean World in Late
Antiquity 395–600
AD
The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity AD 395–600 deals with the exciting
period commonly known as ‘late antiquity’ – the fifth and sixth centuries.
The Roman empire in the west was splitting into separate Germanic
kingdoms, while the Near East, still under Roman rule from Constantinople,
maintained a dense population and flourishing urban culture until the
Persian and Arab invasions of the early seventh century.
Averil Cameron places her emphasis on the material and literary evidence
for cultural change and offers a new and original challenge to traditional
assumptions of ‘decline and fall’ and ‘the end of antiquity’. The book
draws on the recent spate of scholarship on this period to discuss in detail
such controversial issues as the effectiveness of the late Roman army, the
late antique city and the nature of economic exchange and cultural life.
With its extensive annotation, it provides a lively, and often critical
introduction to earlier approaches to the period, from Edward Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to the present day.
No existing book in English provides so detailed or up-to-date an
introduction to the history of both halves of the empire in this crucial
period, or discusses existing views in such a challenging way. Averil Cameron
is a leading specialist on late antiquity, having written about the period
and taught it for many years. This book has much to say to historians of all
periods. It will be particularly welcomed by teachers and students of both
ancient and medieval history.
Averil Cameron is warden of Keble College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the
British Academy.
ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT
WORLD
General Editor: Fergus Millar
THE GREEK WORLD 479–323 BC
Simon Hornblower
THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITY AD 395–600
Averil Cameron
THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST VOLUMES I AND II
Amélie Kuhrt
THE BEGINNINGS OF ROME
ITALY FROM THE BRONZE AGE TO THE PUNIC WARS
(c. 1000–264 BC)
Tim Cornell
The Mediterranean World in
Late Antiquity 395–600
AD
Averil Cameron
London and New York
First published 1993
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
© 1993 Averil Cameron
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Cameron, Averil.
The Mediterranean world in late antiquity AD 395–600 / by Averil Cameron.
p. cm. – (Routledge history of the ancient world)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Mediterranean Region–Civilization. 2. Romans–Mediterranean Region.
I. Title. II. Series.
DE71.C25 1993
909'.09822–dc20 92–34600
ISBN 0–415–01421–2 (Print Edition)
ISBN 0-203-13420-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17723-1 (Glassbook Format)
Contents
List of figures and plates vii
Preface ix
Date-list xiii
Abbreviations xv
Introduction 1
1 Constantinople and the eastern empire in the fifth century 12
2 The empire, the barbarians and the late Roman army 33
3 Church and society 57
4 Late Roman social structures and the late Roman economy 81
5 Justinian and reconquest 104
6 Culture and mentality 128
7 Urban change and the end of antiquity 152
8 The eastern Mediterranean – settlement and change 176
Conclusion 197
Notes 201
Select critical bibliography 237
Index 244

Figures and plates
FIGURES
1 The Diocletianic provinces of the late Roman empire. 3
2 Constantinople. 14
3 The Mediterranean world, early sixth century. 35
4 The ‘reconquest’ of Justinian, c. AD 565. 105
5 The east in the sixth century. 178
PLATES
1 A Byzantine empress, late fifth or early sixth century. Vienna,
Kunsthistorisches Museum. 19
2 The Proiecta casket from the Esquiline Treasure, Rome, late
fourth century. Trustees of the British Museum. 39
3 Ostrogothic-style buckle, late fifth–early sixth century. Trustees
of the British Museum. 46
4 S. Paolo fuore le Muri. From a watercolour by G. P. Panini, 59
1741. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum.
5 Clay pilgrim token depicting St Symeon Stylites the Younger on
his pillar near Antioch, late sixth–seventh century. Trustees of
the British Museum. 77
6 The Barberini ivory. Paris, Musée du Louvre. 107
7 St Catherine’s monastery, Mt Sinai. 119
8 The shape of the world, as described in the Christian
Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes. Florence, Biblioteca
Medicea Laurenziana, MS. Plut. IX.28, f. 95 v. 135
9 The refectory of the monastery of Martyrius in the Judaean 142
desert.
10 An olive-press astride a former main street, Sbeitla, Tunisia, 161
perhaps seventh-century.
11 The city of Scythopolis (Bet Shean). 167
12 Nessana as it is today. 179

Preface
The shape and parameters of this book are explained by the fact that it was
conceived as part of a series designed to replace the earlier Methuen History
of the Ancient World, though of course the latter had no volume with the
present scope, and the concept of ‘late antiquity’ still lay firmly in the
future. As it happens, while the present volume (the last chronologically in
the series) antedates the writing of that projected on the fourth century, it
follows on from my own book in another series, the Fontana History of the
Ancient World. Though entitled simply The Later Roman Empire, the latter
effectively ends where the present book begins, with Augustine as the bridge.
The effect therefore is that despite minor differences of format and scale
between the two, the reader will find in them an introduction to the whole
period of late antiquity from, roughly, the reign of Diocletian (AD 284–305)
to the late sixth century AD, where A. H. M. Jones also ended his great work,
The Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1964).
As most people will be well aware, this period has been the focus of a great
upsurge of interest in the generation that has passed since the publication
of Jones’s massive work; in the past twenty years it has found its way for the
first time on to ancient history syllabuses in many universities, with
corresponding effects on courses in medieval history and (where they exist)
Byzantine studies. The addition of two extra volumes to the new edition of
the Cambridge Ancient History (now in progress) is also symptomatic of this
changed perspective; together, they will cover the period from the death of
Constantine (AD 337) to the late sixth century. Peter Brown’s small book,
The World of Late Antiquity (London, 1971), still provides an exhilarating
introduction from the perspective of cultural history. The influence of that
ix