Historiography and Space in Late Antiquity

Cambridge University Press, 8/29/2019
EAN 9781108481281, ISBN10: 1108481280

Hardcover, 226 pages, 23.8 x 18 x 1.8 cm
Language: English

The Roman Empire traditionally presented itself as the centre of the world, a view sustained by ancient education and conveyed in imperial literature. Historiography in particular tended to be written from an empire-centred perspective. In Late Antiquity, however, that attitude was challenged by the fragmentation of the empire. This book explores how a post-imperial representation of space emerges in the historiography of that period. Minds adapted slowly, long ignoring Constantinople as the new capital and still finding counter-worlds at the edges of the world. Even in Christian literature, often thought of as introducing a new conception of space, the empire continued to influence geographies. Political changes and theological ideas, however, helped to imagine a transferral of empire away from Rome and to substitute ecclesiastical for imperial space. By the end of Late Antiquity, Rome was just one of many centres of the world.

List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
from imperial to post-imperial space in Late Ancient historiography Peter Van Nuffelen
1. Constantinople's belated hegemony Anthony Kaldellis
2. Beside the rim of the ocean
the edges of the world in fifth- and sixth- century historiography Peter Van Nuffelen
3. Armenian space in Late Antiquity Tim Greenwood
4. Narrative and space in Christian chronography
John of Biclaro on East, West, and orthodoxy Mark Humphries
5. The Roman Empire in John of Ephesus' Church history
being Roman, writing Syriac Hartmut Leppin
6. Changing geographies
West Syrian ecclesiastical historiography, AD 700–850 Philip Wood
7. Where is Syriac Pilgrimage literature in Late Antiquity? Exploring the absence of a genre Scott Johnson
Bibliography
Index.