FOR THE SAKE OF of simplicity, this book separates out various ways of looking at late Roman social organization: economic, military, religious, political, without debating the issue of whether such a separation is really the best way of studying history. By ‘culture’ we mean the conglomerate of ideas and information on which each society depends for its communal identity, and which is passed on through processes of learning and training. This in fact includes much of what has been treated in other chapters: knowledge of how one’s society is organized politically, for instance, is learned, not innate, and general agreement as to the political framework binds a society together. Religion certainly belongs to the realm of culture, and presupposes a certain view of how the world is or should be organized. But the term ‘culture’ is also commonly used in a narrower sense, to indicate the fields of learning, education, habits and taste.
We have become accustomed in the modern world to the idea of a plurality of cultures, and to the view of a multicultural society as a desirable aim; however, the latter (‘the terrors of multiplicity’, in the words of a recent writer) can be difficult to accommodate both for individuals and groups. In contrast, traditional societies are usually dominated by a single culture. Yet though a traditional society, the late Roman empire was geographically vast, and comprised many different individual cultures. Moreover, late Roman society itself was changing fast in several important ways: barbarians (outsiders) were becoming prominent, serving in the army or settling within the empire; the advance of Christianity brought social as well as religious change; the gap between rich and poor was in some aspects widening. All this led to variety, but also at times to conflict.
One such tension was in the field of education. There was of course no state system of education as such, and schools and especially higher education were for the better-off; nevertheless, the demand for a traditional training based on grammar and rhetoric (the standard type of education available) was high, and grammarians, teachers in the schools, and still more, rhetors, who taught at higher level, enjoyed high status. The workings of the bureaucracy and civic life at local level both demanded rhetorical skills for the many formal speeches delivered on public occasions, and these skills could lead in turn to personal advancement, as was the case with Ausonius of Bordeaux. Nazarius under Constantine, Themistius under Constantius II and later emperors, Pacatus under Theodosius I and countless unnamed others composed imperial panegyrics for formal occasions. The same practice was also extended to important Christian events such as the dedication of a major church. Eusebius’s speech at the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in AD 335 was only one of several given on the occasion. Eusebius also composed a Christian panegyric for Constantine’s thirtieth anniversary. The Latin poems of Claudian, written for occasions such as imperial consulships, had a similar function; all of these categories of public oratory might also have a strongly political content. A rhetorical education was therefore a saleable commodity, which parents wanted for their sons; we can see this illustrated vividly in Augustine’s account of his own training and early career in Carthage and Rome. Most of the well-known bishops of the period, like Basil of Caesarea, who studied in Athens, had had a similar education themselves.
The culture that was handed on in this way was strictly classical in character, still based on the standard authors – in Latin, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Horace and Virgil. No subjects such as maths, geography or even history were studied as such, and the training had little relevance to everyday life, and was largely confined to an elite. Though there was no state system in a modern sense, teachers were nevertheless granted privileges by the state, and in AD 425 the Emperor Theodosius II founded a ‘university’ in Constantinople; the subjects taught were ‘Latin eloquence’, divided into oratory and grammar, and ‘Greek facundia’ (a different word for the same thing), the teaching of which was divided between sophists and grammarians, in addition to one philosopher and two lawyers, for ‘the more profound knowledge and learning’ (CTh. XIV.9.3). These provisions underline the fact that the only alternatives to rhetoric were philosophy or law, each regarded as more specialized.
Julian, who had experienced it himself, was exceptional in recognizing the important influence teachers could exert in social terms (see Chapter VI), and in general the system as such was not questioned. It did not encourage any kind of original thought or experimentation, but concentrated on thorough learning, exposition and imitation of the great writers of the past. Inevitably it had a great effect on the style and content of what those who had experienced it wrote themselves. Thoughtful Christians however who had been through the standard education themselves sometimes found themselves in difficulties. First of all, much classical literature was either directly or indirectly concerned with pagan gods and pagan mythology. Some Christians therefore argued that it should be avoided altogether, while others, like Basil, who wrote a treatise on Greek literature addressed to his nephews, argued that only the useful parts should be read and the rest avoided. The conflict also affected individuals: Jerome felt guilty about his love of Cicero, and Augustine was deeply torn throughout his life between the classical learning which he had imbibed and taught himself, and his later conviction that knowledge could not come from secular learning, but only from God. He discussed the problems directly in two important works, the De Doctrina Christiana (‘On Christian Learning’) and the De Magistro (‘On the Teacher’). A further source of tension was the fact that Christianity directed itself at men and women of all classes. This was certainly not the case with classical education, and indeed many educated Christian writers, including Jerome, felt uncomfortable about the ‘simplicity’ of Christian literature, which had supposedly developed from what they called sermo piscatorius (‘the language of fishermen’). Reaching the uneducated members of the congregation was nevertheless seen as an important duty; bishops such as Ambrose were concerned about the means of bringing about the conversion of the rustici (rural population) and Augustine had a keen awareness of how to reach them in a sermon. Yet it has been rightly pointed out that this did not lead to a Christian programme of education as such. Churchmen wanted to convert, but to think of doing so in the context of schools or of improving standards of literacy is a modern idea. Indeed, literacy as a whole did not increase in this period, and with the fragmentation of the west it more probably declined.
By the fifth century, when churches were beginning to be decorated with narrative scenes from Christian mythology, it was recognized that these could also be a way of educating the illiterate. But the relation between Christian and secular learning still produced unease. Some monks and hermits were uneducated themselves and aggressively anti-intellectual, but others had come from comfortable backgrounds. A number of the bishops and theologians of the day, such as Basil of Caesarea and Epiphanius of Salamis in Cyrus, had also spent periods of religious withdrawal in the desert. The ascetic writer Evagrius of Pontos had been part of the circle of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, had attended the Council at Constantinople in AD 381 and been nursed during an illness in Jerusalem by the Elder Melania before he became a monk at Nitria and Kellia in Egypt. The other monks were uncomfortably conscious of his learning, and after he had discoursed on one occasion, he accepted the implied rebuke when one said to him,
Abba, we know that if you were living in your own country you would probably be a bishop and a great leader, but at present you sit here as a stranger. (trans. Ward, 64)
While in symbolic terms, the ‘city’ signified worldliness and temptation, ‘the desert’ ascetic virtue, in practice there was frequent contact between the two, and ‘the desert’ was populated by the educated as well as by the rustic. Nevertheless, education in such circumstances came to stand for worldly culture, and its rejection became a topos of ascetic literature, like the rejection of marriage. Once in the desert, ascetics tended to adopt a hostile stance towards learning. But in other circles learning directed to Christian ends was enthusiastically pursued, and the ascetic women of Jerome’s circle combined an ultra-harsh lifestyle with a zeal for scholarship which extended even to the Hebrew Bible.
Such a situation gave plenty of scope for personal uncertainty, and we can see in many cases that the theme of education itself had taken on a contentious aura. Gregory of Nyssa makes a favourable comparison between his sister Macrina, educated at home on the Psalms, and his brother Basil, fresh from the learned circles of Athens. John Chrysostom’s sermons proclaim the triumph of fishermen over philosophers, even while the speaker drew on a solid traditional education himself. They also vehemently attack secular culture in general, especially those aspects to which his Christian audience was evidently addicted, such as the theatre, chariot races, fine clothes and other kinds of adornment, love of money and possessing unnecessary numbers of slaves. Some received a mainly Christian education, but there were still no Christian schools to compare with the traditional grammarian. Thus sermons such as these constituted a form of Christian education, expounding the Scriptures, conveying basic Christian teachings and telling Christians what they must not do. Moreover, though much of John’s attack is directed at the rich citizens of Antioch and Constantinople, sermons in general were aimed at all classes. In church, ordinary people and cultivated society alike were at the receiving end of the same precepts.
The ideal upbringing for Christian children, according to John Chrysostom and others, should be carefully regulated by the parents so as to avoid undesirable influences and inculcate Christian principles; however, the various works of instruction which survive, such as John’s Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up Their Children, suggest that most failed to reach these standards. Augustine’s account of his own development in the Confessions shows himself and other young men of an older age group swayed by different influences, searching among competing philosophies – Neoplatonism, Manichaeism, Christianity – and trying out different lifestyles. Augustine’s circle experimented with communal living and his friends included at different times Firminus, apparently a member of the administration, Romanianus, an old friend from home, Alypius, also from Thagaste, who became a lawyer, Nebridius, a close friend from Carthage and Verecundus, a rhetor at Milan. Limited though the contemporary forms of cultural transmission were in comparison with modern society, the effective influences on them came via reading, personal contacts and anecdotes, much as anyone’s experience might be formed today.
Classical culture was high culture, confined to the wealthier classes. Books, like education, were expensive and hard to get, and a high proportion of the poorer classes will have been either illiterate or barely literate. The narrowness of elite culture also powerfully militated against the possibility of assimilation between Romans and barbarians. With Christianity, the poor and the lower classes received more attention. Even so, at this period the cultural tensions between pagans and Christians that are revealed to us in the sources are largely those between different members of the same class. Of these we hear a great deal, while we are badly informed in contrast about the many lower-class Christians in the city congregations, or about the social origins of the bands of monks who caused so much trouble in the 390s. Similarly, the paganism of Julian, for instance, was a very highbrow affair, and while we have a lot of information about such matters as Neoplatonism, we know far less about ordinary pagans on an individual basis.
One place and period from which a large concentration of evidence has survived is late fourth-century Rome, where advancing Christianity threatened the values and the social equilibrium of the senatorial class, and where pagan members of the great families were liable to be confronted with unseemly scuffles between groups of Christians supporting rival candidates for the post of bishop (Ammianus claims that 137 corpses were found in the basilica of Sicininus during the bloody preliminaries to the election of Pope Damasus in AD 366 – XXVII.3). In this milieu, individual conversion and the prospect of a more stringently Christian policy on the part of the emperors presented themselves in sharp social and class terms. Men like Praetextatus and Symmachus, who were emotionally committed to a selfidentity which included continued attachment to pagan cult, viewed with dismay the strong influence of Ambrose on imperial policy, and some took their paganism to the lengths of open opposition, like Nicomachus Flavianus, who committed suicide when Eugenius was defeated in AD 394. But Ammianus’ denunciation of the mores of the Roman senatorial class does not suggest that religion came high on the list of priorities for more than a few. Most were concerned with maintaining their luxurious way of life, with little concern for serious things:
the few houses which once had the reputation of being centres of serious culture are now given over to the trivial pursuits of passive idleness. (XIV.6, cf. XXVIII.4)
We should not think of a general ‘pagan revival’ in this period centred round a clearly demarcated ‘circle of Symmachus’, as formerly proposed, but rather of a range of attitudes existing among the pagan upper class, from commitment to pagan cult and Roman tradition down to a simple fondness for the status quo. It is also necessary to distinguish between literature which preserves or revives classical (and therefore pagan) precedents, and works which are directly anti-Christian in character. Most belong to the former category; several works which have been assumed to be works of ‘pagan propaganda’, or otherwise anti-Christian in character, have now been shown either to be quite neutral, or to have been wrongly dated. This is the case with the so-called Saturnalia of Macrobius, a kind of miscellany in the form of a dialogue in which the principal speakers are Praetextatus and Symmachus, and whose dramatic date is placed on the eve of Praetextatus’s death in AD 384. This work is now seen to belong to the following generation, and is not therefore a document of the supposed late fourth-century pagan revival at all; the same goes for Servius’s great commentary on Virgil. Ammianus has also been supposed to be the mouthpiece of these pagan senators, but there is no evidence to support such a view, and his violent criticism of this class makes it hard to see him as its protégé. Yet another case in point is provided by the Historia Augusta, the compilation of imperial biographies purporting to be the work of six authors writing under Constantine, but actually the work of a single author, probably writing in the early 390s. This strange work, more scandal sheet than history, but unfortunately an essential source, in particular for the badly documented third century, has been the subject of vigorous scholarly controversy, both as to its date and its purpose. Claims that it was meant as pagan propaganda fail however before the simple fact that the alleged propaganda is so well hidden as to be nearly impossible to detect. It is far more likely to have been a product devised to satisfy the taste of the senatorial class for sensational reading, on which Ammianus comments:
some of them hate learning like poison, but read Juvenal and Marius Maximus [another imperial biographer] with avidity. These are the only volumes that they turn over in their idle moments, but why this should be so is not for a man like me to say. (XXVIII.4)
His disingenuous concluding remark conceals the well-known fact that Juvenal’s satires and Marius Maximus’ lives alike were notorious for their prurient content.
But despite Ammianus’s scorn, a number of these Roman aristocrats did interest themselves in the copying of earlier Latin literature, mainly the standard works by Virgil, Horace, Terence, Livy and Quintilian, but also the less commonly read Silver Latin authors Martial, Juvenal and Persius. The copies which they had made were provided with elaborate subscriptiones (a kind of short preface) describing their editorial labours, so that we must certainly think in terms of a literary fashion. However, as Alan Cameron has pointed out, in most cases the authors whose works were re-edited were also read by Christians, who themselves shared in the enthusiasm for copying texts. The phenomenon is interesting and important, but it is not a case of classical literature having been saved for posterity by the pagan intelligensia. The case may seem rather different with Nicomachus Flavianus’s Latin translation of Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana, a biography of a famous pagan wonder-worker which some wanted to set against the Christian Gospels; this too, however, was a work read by both Jerome and Augustine, and the translation may not have had the religious import modern scholars have imagined. Again, Christians too were translating Greek works into Latin with impressive industry; thus the works of Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea were all translated for a Roman patron, Apronianus. Jerome himself played an important role in encouraging such activity and in spreading knowledge of Greek Christian works, notably the Life of Antony, and the works translated were read by Christian ladies as well as their male relatives. Generally, then, there was an interest in reading and learning on the part of both Christians and pagans that belies the criticisms of Ammianus about the reading habits (or lack of them) of the Roman senatorial class, and there is some evidence of interaction and mutual borrowing; but we must not assume that every work written by or sponsored by a pagan was automatically meant as anti-Christian polemic.
These rich Roman families were also, naturally, patrons of the arts in other respects. We should not here think of ‘works of art’, or music, in the modern sense, but rather of luxurious objects which could adorn their grand houses. The late antique period, from the fourth century on, is rich in such works in two particular media, silver and ivory; both were much admired in late fourth-century Rome, and many works were commissioned by the aristocratic families themselves. Certain of these works carry dates, especially some of the ivory ‘diptychs’, panels carved in relief and given out to mark such occasions as consulships, but many can only be dated on stylistic grounds. Here again the persistence of classical motifs on silver plates or ivory panels has been used as a direct argument for paganism, or at the least for a ‘classical revival’ on the part of their owners. This is however a dangerous argument to use, and is all too likely to be circular: ‘since we know there was a classical/pagan revival in the late fourth century, this or that work must belong to that period’. But Christians did not reject every element in their culture, or throw away the objects they already had, especially when they belonged to the upper class and were accustomed to being surrounded by beautiful objects in traditional style. Christianization was gradual – not every member of great Roman families such as the Anicii and the Aproniani became Christian at the same time. Finally, Christian art did not immediately and wholly reject classical style. A few examples will illustrate the point, starting with the famous ivory diptych whose two halves, showing a woman in classical drapery making an offering at an altar, and which are respectively in the Musée du Cluny, Paris, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, are inscribed with the names of the Nicomachi and the Symmachi, the very families so prominent in pagan circles in the period. The argument hinges on the dating of the panel, which has been assigned for obvious reasons to the supposed ‘pagan revival’; other undated panels are then given similar dates by comparison with these. Once the dating is accepted, one can go on to imagine Q. Aurelius Symmachus and Nicomachus Flavianus as patrons of classicizing art, in keeping with their role as self-appointed defenders of paganism. But both families flourished into the fifth century and beyond, and the panels may well not date from the key late fourth-century period any more than do Macrobius’s Saturnalia or Servius’s Virgil commentary. Another undated panel is the very unclassical ivory in the British Museum showing a figure ascending to heaven, and below, a quadriga and four elephants. This has a monogram whose interpretation is not agreed but which may also stand for ‘Symmachorum’; if so, since the panel clearly depicts a pagan apotheosis, at the least it illustrates that classicizing style is no sure indicator of paganism, and that works cannot be dated as though it is. Finally, the great ‘Proiecta casket’ in silver-gilt (see cover illustration), part of the group of silver objects in the British Museum known as the Esquiline Treasure from the place where it was originally discovered in the late eighteenth century, is a marriage casket covered with mythological, that is classical, figures and motifs, but with a Christian inscription fixed round the top: Proiecta et Secunde, vivatis in Christo (‘Proiecta and Secundus, may you live in Christ’). A lively debate has centred on the identification of the bride and groom and therefore the date of the casket itself, with Kathleen Shelton arguing for the 350s and Alan Cameron supporting the more common dating to the 380s. In either case, we are dealing with a set of silver objects owned and presumably commissioned by members of the late Roman senatorial aristocracy. A Proiecta died at age sixteen in AD 385 and was commemorated in an epigram by Pope Damasus; as for Secundus, the name was commonly held by members of the great family of the Turcii, and ‘Turcius’ may be the correct reading of one of the monograms on the serving dishes also included with the treasure. But in any case, the addition of the Christian inscription to the classically styled casket demonstrates again that taste did not automatically follow religious conviction. This example also shows, incidentally, some of the difficulties which exist simply in interpreting the surviving evidence, and the danger that lies in too-hasty generalization.
Would the house of a late fourth-century pagan family in Rome have differed much from a Christian household? Jerome’s picture of ascetic households where all comfort was rejected will have applied only to a few, if any, but while pagans presumably still had their household shrines, Christian religious items as such were still not common. There were no icons as such at this date, and crosses in the form of crucifixes did not become common until much later. On the other hand, Christians might have seal rings or embroideries with religious images, or possibly lamps and bottles from the Holy Land; glass vessels with engraved medallions of gold-leaf in the bottom were particularly favoured in the fourth century, and there is also a little evidence of religious pictures on their walls. Many of the themes used in the small objects had been taken over from catacomb art and sarcophagi; they include the Good Shepherd, Jonah, the three men in the fiery furnace. Adam and Eve also appear on the gold-glass marriage vessels, as does a youthful unbearded Christ on an example of gold-glass in the British Museum. However, the amount of surviving Christian art that can be dated with certainty to the fourth century is in fact rather limited. The earliest surviving figural mosaics in churches, for example, are from the end of the century; in other cases, we have to rely on literary descriptions. In the case of small objects, pagan and Christian artists worked side by side and frequently drew on the same repertoire, as they had in the early period of Christian art. We have seen that the Christian Proiecta casket simply adopted existing styles. From the end of the period, Christian ivories as such begin to appear, in the form of small boxes with Biblical scenes (though most examples are from the sixth century), while a fifth-century diptych shows a scene of the ascension. In contrast, official diptychs sponsored by Christians such as the diptych of Probus (AD 406) simply add Christian symbols such as the chi-rho to the standard representation of late Roman dignitaries.
But even if pagans and Christians were not necessarily in conflict during the late fourth century, this was certainly a tense period in cultural and social relations. During the reigns of Valentinian and Valens the Senate endured a series of trials brought by imperial agents for such offences as magic, adultery and other sexual transgressions, and heard under the law of treason (maiestas), which allowed the use of torture. Beginning in the mid-36os, they are associated by Ammianus with two henchmen of Valentinian, Maximin and Leo, while the prefects of the city, who included Praetextatus in AD 367, are carefully distanced from blame; the victims were mainly men and women of senatorial rank. The circumstances of these trials, and Ammianus’ narrative itself (XXVIII. 1), give rise to several problems; nevertheless, he cannot be far wrong in his description of their impact on contemporaries:
the tocsin which heralds internal calamities was now ringing, and people were numb with horror at the frightfulness of the situation.
A similar series of trials for magic and divination had been held under Constantius II at Scythopolis in Palestine (XIX. 12), and more were held at Antioch under Valens in the early 370s, this time linking divination with conspiracy (XXIX.1). During the latter episode Maximus of Ephesus, the philosopher who had introduced Julian to theurgy, was beheaded; the main trials, which involved stories of seances, and the use of a pendulum to spell out the name of the next emperor after Valens, were followed by a witchhunt to seek out any sign of magic or treason (XXIX.2). Books and papers were at risk for fear of being suspected of harbouring spells and charms; Ammianus no doubt exaggerates when he writes that all over the eastern provinces people simply burnt all their books so as to avoid suspicion, and that at Antioch men crept about ‘as if in the shadows of the underworld’, but both the executions and the fear were real enough. They show, first, the importance in the ancient world of the grey area between religion and magic, which persisted long after the spread of Christianity; Christian writers fight a losing battle against Christians who still clung to popular superstitious practices and to the belief in sorcery, magic and astrology, and as late as the seventh century the church is as concerned with this problem as it is with the Arab invasions themselves. But even allowing for some exaggeration, these trials also show the degree of suspicion and division among the upper class itself, the tensions between the senatorial class and the emperors and their appointees, and the lack of common ground in social and political matters. They are the outward signs of a nervous atmosphere in which people no longer knew where they were, and which could explode all too easily.
The main intellectual alternative to Christianity was Neoplatonism, which also had a distinctly religious and superstitious tinge, especially through the practice of theurgy, a technique of calling on the gods by magical or occult means; it was associated in particular with the early fourth-century philosopher Iamblichus from Apamea in Syria, and passed to Julian by Maximus of Ephesus. The ultimate aim of theurgy, as of Neoplatonism in general, was the union of the soul with God; everyday magic and miracles were simply a lower rung of the ladder leading the adept to this mystical union, for the skills of the theurgist gave him knowledge and control over the physical world. Eunapius’s Lives of the Sophists, written c. AD 399, describes how Maximus could make statues move, and how Iamblichus could conjure up divinities. The latter wrote a vast commentary on the so-called Chaldaean Oracles, a set of supposed oracular revelations in verse about God and the nature of the universe, which he also presented in his work On the Mysteries as the ultimate key to understanding Plato’s philosophy. Plato’s works, indeed, in this way acquired the status of a holy book, a set of philosophical Scriptures. In the fifth and sixth centuries Neoplatonism, especially as taught at the Academy at Athens, became more and more identified with pagan opposition to Christianity, until the Academy was closed in AD 529. In the late fourth century, however, many Christians as well as pagans were deeply influenced by it, especially in the more intellectual form developed in the third century by Plotinus and Porphyry, just as members of the senatorial class of Rome had attended Plotinus’s lectures, according to Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus. Acquaintance with the writings of Plato was part of the mental equipment of many upper-class Romans, among them Augustine, who in Book XII of the Confessions seeks to reconcile Christian and Platonic views of Creation. Marius Victorinus translated works by Plotinus and Porphyry into Latin, and Calcidius translated Plato’s Timaeus; later, Macrobius and Servius both show knowledge of Neoplatonist doctrines. In the east, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa were deeply imbued with Platonic ideas, which overlapped or coincided in many respects with Christian ones, for instance on the relation of the soul to the body, the aim of mystical union with the divine, or the ineffability of God. Works of Plato which especially appealed to Christians thus included the Symposium and the Phaedrus, which deal with the ascent of the soul to God. Neoplatonism also shared with Christianity an emphasis on asceticism and self-restraint; Porphyry wrote a work entitled De Abstinentia, and a Letter to Marcella (his wife) counselling sexual abstinence. The De Abstinentia, like Iamblichus’s On the Pythagorean Life, advocated vegetarianism, on the model of the teachings of Plato’s predecessor Pythagoras.
For those looking for something in which to believe, or for some system to adopt, there was plenty to choose from. For a time Augustine also belonged to the Manichaeans, a rigorist sect which followed the teachings of the third-century Mesopotamian guru Mani, according to which there were two gods, an evil creator god who was responsible for matter, and the good god of spirit. Likewise the Manichaeans themselves were divided into the ‘Elect’, on whom very strict asceticism was enjoined, including complete abstention from sex, which was regarded as evil, and the ‘Hearers’, who were regarded as weaker brethren. Manichaeism addressed the real problem which orthodox Christianity has in explaining evil, and drew on the same ascetic tendencies observable in both Christian and Neoplatonic circles. Despite official persecution there were Manichaean groups all over the empire, thanks to Manichaean missionaries, and Manichaeism was to have a long life in the east in countries as far afield as China.
Alongside the highly educated bishops such as Ambrose and John Chrysostom, who took so well to public life, were monks, nuns and hermits who ostentatiously rejected any attachment to secular culture or education and thus directly challenged the values of their surrounding society. Like similar challenges to conventional mores in our own day, this pose often had more than a little affectation about it, and the alternative lifestyle adopted had its own conformism. Real lives were beginning to be fashioned according to the pattern set out in the hagiographical literature that was now developing. But early Christianity was also a religion of words, based on sacred writings which were in need of interpretation, and with elaborate doctrines requiring learned exposition. At the same time as they advocated ‘simplicity’, Christian writers were turning out vast quantities of learned theological literature, from treatises on virginity, the Trinity or Creation, to commentaries on books of the Bible. All the great bishops of the later fourth century wrote technical treatises on theological subjects as well as sermons, letters and speeches; the more disagreement there was, the more they wrote and the more they refined their academic positions. These writings too required a high level of rhetorical skill. They are of importance for cultural history, even if their actual audience was limited, for they show secular learning and philosophical argument being put to the cause of doctrinal issues, and demonstrate the search for a comprehensive system of Christian knowledge suitable for the desired objective of a more unified state. They are also evidence of the direction into which so many of the best minds of the day put their talents. This had important consequences for the future development of the church, and some, like A. H. M. Jones, have seen in it a drain on the limited resources of the empire.
During the heyday of the Roman empire in the second century, elite culture was remarkably homogeneous for so vast a political unit. The ideal of a rhetorical education was shared throughout the provinces; its content naturally differed depending on whether it was obtained in Latin or in Greek, but the overall style and conception differed little from one area to another. By the late fourth century various factors have intervened to introduce a greater degree of cultural diversity, even though the premium placed on rhetoric itself continued. One such factor was Christianity, which on the one hand presented different values and alternative ways of living and on the other gave new opportunities for the exercise of rhetorical training. Another factor which challenged traditional attitudes was the impact of barbarians, both individually and collectively; in the longer term, this would make the old system impossible to maintain. A third factor was the rise of local cultures, which had been a feature of the third-century upheavals.
The growing importance of local cultures in the east is indicated by the development of Syriac as a major literary language, which can effectively be dated from the works of Ephrem the Syrian in the fourth century. Ephrem’s career began at Nisibis, where he lived through the repeated sieges of the city by the Persians in the reign of Constantius II, leaving it for Edessa only when it was ceded to the Persians by Jovian in AD 363; Ephrem is indeed traditionally said to have founded the School of Edessa. He is the author of a large quantity of metrical hymns and homilies in Syriac, as well as exegetical, ascetic and polemical works in prose, some of which were quickly translated into Greek. His heavily symbolic and figurative style, and the use of elaborate metres for singing, give his works an unmistakable character, which has usually been seen as essentially Semitic, although its connection with Greek literature has also been emphasized. At any rate, Ephrem is one of the greatest writers in Syriac, and his importance was quickly recognized in Greek circles too (see Sozomen, HE III.16). From his day on, a substantial body of Christian literature in Syriac grew up, including homilies, church history, hagiography and chronicles, and an increasing amount of translation between Greek and Syriac and vice versa. This phenomenon in itself mirrors the increase in attention paid to the eastern provinces and their growing importance from the late fourth century onwards. Coptic literature also begins in the third and fourth centuries, though it takes off only in the fifth. A vernacular Christian literature develops in Armenian after the invention of the script around AD 400, and then progresses from translations from Syriac and Greek to its own historical works, and the same kind of development can be seen somewhat later in the case of Georgian. Over the next centuries, translation between these languages becomes a major preoccupation, and evidently took place on a large scale. All these literatures arose to fulfil Christian needs, and as we have seen, the Gothic alphabet was devised for a similar purpose.
After AD 395, the east and the west grew steadily apart, and this too was reflected in the linguistic sphere. Knowledge of Greek in the west had already diminished, as we see from Jerome’s translations of Greek patristic texts into Latin, and Augustine’s reliance on translations of Plato and the Neoplatonic writers. For some generations yet, Latin writers including Faustus of Riez (Rhegium in Provence), Sidonius Apollinaris of Clermont-Ferrand, Ennodius of Pavia, Caesarius of Arles, Dracontius in Vandal Africa, Cassiodorus in Ostrogothic Italy and, in the late sixth century, Venantius Fortunatus at Poitiers were able to maintain the traditions of Latin rhetoric and to continue to write in classicizing Latin prose or verse. We even have an anthology of Latin verse in classical metres from the last period of Vandal rule in North Africa in the early sixth century. However, the History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, of the later sixth century, shows the extent to which the Latin language itself was now changing. Considering the degree of social and political change in the west, the determined continuity of Latin culture is remarkable; in the east, of course, where there was continuity of government and administration, and no comparable barbarian settlement, things were easier for the continuation of classicizing writing in Greek, though here too a change in the spoken language is evident by the sixth century.
Even in the fourth century, there was considerable cultural change, extending for instance to the limited increase in prominence attached to women (Chapter 8). This was certainly no renaissance or revolution; no fundamental economic or political movements were taking place in late Roman society to match those which happened in later periods of European history. But the conventional model of decline does not fit what was happening either. It is true that the mass of legislation in the codes seems to suggest that the government, or the emperors, were uneasily aware that things were going on which were out of their control. The rhetorical hyperbole to which they resorted represents their attempts to halt changes of whose underlying causes they could not be aware. But this amounts less to totalitarianism than to an unenviable helplessness. Turning to other texts and other evidence can give a quite different picture of what it was like to be alive in the fourth century AD.