In English, A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire. A Social, Administrative and Economic Survey, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1964) (shorter version: The Decline of the Ancient World, London, 1966) is fundamental; for an introduction see also (on a very different scale) Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (London, 1971). G. Alföldy, The Social History of Rome, Eng. trans. (London, 1985), gives a very highly coloured picture of the later Roman empire. Roger Collins, Early Medieval Europe 300–1000 (London, 1991), provides a military and political narrative in a short compass. Vol. XIII of the revised Cambridge Ancient History covers the period AD 337–425. In German there is now an extremely full reference work on the later empire by A. Demandt (Der Spätantike) in the series known as Müllers Handbuch des Altertumswissenschaft (Munich, 1989). B. Lançon, Le monde romain tardif, IIIe – VIIe-Siècle ap. J.-C. (Paris 1992) is a useful short textbook in French. Strongly recommended for pictures and orientation is Tim Cornell and John Matthews, Atlas of the Roman World (Oxford, 1982) (much more of an illustrated history than its title implies); also useful is Clive Foss and Paul Magdalino, Rome and Byzantium (Oxford, 1977).
Third-century crisis: the most sensible introduction is by F. Millar, The Roman Empire and its Neighbours, 2nd ed. (London, 1981), Chapter 13. For very negative views see M. I. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 2nd ed., rev. P. Fraser (Oxford, 1957), Chapter 10, and G. Alföldy, The Social History of Rome, Eng. trans. (London, 1985, rev. 1988), Chapter 6 ‘The crisis in the Roman Empire and structural change in society’, with his article, ‘The crisis of the third century as seen by contemporaries’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 15 (1974), 89 ff. R. MacMullen, Roman Government’s Response to Crisis, AD 235–337 (New Haven, 1976) also deals with this period. On the difficult questions of coinage and inflation see Michael Crawford, ‘Finance, coinage and money from the Severans to Constantine’, ANRW Prinzipat II.2 (Berlin, 1975), 560–93. D. Sperber, Roman Palestine 200–400, Money and Prices, 2nd rev. ed. (Bar-Ilan, 1991) uses the evidence of rabbinic sources for prices in the third century. On the broader economic issues as well as on the Egyptian evidence, see D. Rathbone, Economic Rationalism and Rural Society in Third-Century a.d. Egypt. The Heroninos Archive and the Appianus Estate (Cambridge, 1991).
On the ‘Gallic empire’ see J. Drinkwater, The Gallic Empire. Separatism and Continuity in the North-Western Provinces of the Roman Empire (Stuttgart, 1987).
For ‘insecurity’ and increased religiosity in the third century see E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge, 1965), and see Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass., 1978).
For the continued vitality of paganism see R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (Harmondsworth, 1986), and on Christianity and Christianization see R. Markus, Christianity in the Roman World (London, 1974); id., The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, 1991). Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991), and (for a sceptical view) R. MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire AD 100–400 (New Haven, 1984).
There are several collections of sources in translation: N. Lewis and M. Reinhold, Roman Civilization II (New York, rev. ed. 1966) ; R. P. Coleman-Norton, Roman State and Christian Church I-II (1966); A. H. M. Jones, A History of Rome through the Fifth Century II: The Empire (London, 1970); J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius, (London, 1957 and later eds.) and J. Stevenson, Creeds, Councils and Controversies (London, 1966 and later eds.). On special topics see also the source-books by Brian Croke and Jill Harries, Religious Conflict in Fourth-Century Rome (Sydney, 1982) and S. C. Lieu, The Emperor Julian: Panegyric and Polemic, Translated Texts for Historians (2nd ed., Liverpool, 1989). For reference on the careers of individuals, consult A. H. M. Jones, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire I, AD 260–395 (Cambridge, 1971), a biographical dictionary of office-holders; however, only those Christians who held public office are included.
For general information on Latin authors, see Robert Browning, ‘The Later Principate’, in Cambridge History of Classical Literature II (Cambridge, 1982) (also published separately). F. Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon (London, 1983) contains discussion and bibliographies on the main Christian writers in Greek.
On education, see H-I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, 3rd ed., Eng. trans. (Madison, 1982) and see R. Kaster, Guardians of Language. The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), and see further Chapter 10. In general, see A. Momigliano, The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford, 1963) and B. Croke and A. Emmett, eds., History and Historians in Late Antiquity (Sydney, 1983).
The main sources for Diocletian and the tetrarchy are SHA, Life of Carus; Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum; Eusebius, Church History VIII; Aurelius Victor, Caesares and Epitome; Eutropius, Breviarium; Panegyrici Latini nos. II(10) (AD 289); III(11) (AD 291); IV (8) (AD 297); V(9) (AD 298). The account of Diocletian’s reign in Zosimus, New History is unfortunately missing. See in general S. Williams, Diocletian and the Roman Recovery (New York, 1985), for a traditional account; T. D. Barnes, The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge, Mass., 1982) collects the evidence for known personnel in both reigns including emperors and many kinds of office-holders; see also Jones, LRE, I, Chapter 2. R. MacMullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome (New Haven, 1988), paints a black picture of the late Roman administrative system. Finance, coinage etc.: M. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy c. 300–1450 (Cambridge, 1985) (essential for the whole period).
Parts of Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices have been found in several different places, and a consolidated edition of the immensely long Latin text which results is given by Joyce Reynolds in C. M. Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (London, 1989), no.231; there is a translation in Lewis and Reinhold II, no. 129, Jones, History of Rome through the Fifth Century II, 308 ff. The Latin text of Diocletian’s Currency Revaluation edict is also included in Roueché, op. cit., no.230; for partial translation see Crawford, ‘Finance, coinage and money’ (see above), 589 ff. Diocletian’s laws were not included in the Theodosian Code and are to be found in the Codex Justinianus, part of the Corpus Iuris Civilis, and other collections.
On the religious aspects of Diocletian’s reign see R. MacMullen, Roman Government’s Response to Crisis (New Haven, 1976); J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford, 1979) and G. E. M. de Ste Croix, ‘Aspects of the Great Persecution’, HThR. 47 (1954), 75 ff. For the army reforms of Diocletian see the further reading given for Chapter 9; for the size of the army (not more than about 400,000) see especially R. MacMullen, ‘How big was the Roman army?’, Klio 62 (1980), 451–60, and on P. Beatty Panop. 2, R. Duncan-Jones, ‘Pay and numbers in Diocletian’s army’, Chiron 8 (1978), 541–60 (revised version also in his Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy [Cambridge, 1990], 105–17).
The main sources for Constantine are Eusebius, Church History (Penguin), bks. IX–X; Life of Constantine; Tricennalian Oration; Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum; the letters and documents on Donatism included in Optatus’s Appendix; Anon. Vales.; Zosimus, New History II. 9–39; Pan. Lat. nos. VI (AD 307); VII (AD 310); VIII (AD 312); IX (AD 313); X (AD 321). For the coinage see Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC) VI (ed. C. H. V. Sutherland) and VII (ed. P. Bruun), introductions. A newly discovered Latin text from Pisidia relating to Maximinus’s renewal of persecution in AD 312 is published by S. Mitchell, JRS 78 (1988), 105–24. For Constantine’s religious policies and the church see the source book by J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius (London, rev. ed., 1987); S. G. Hall, Doctrine and Practice in the Early Church (London, 1991) is a useful companion to Stevenson, A New Eusebius and Creeds and Councils (see under Chapter 5).
The most detailed and comprehensive book on Constantine is T. D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), which should be supplemented by his New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge, Mass., 1982). See also Jones, LRE, I, Chapter 3. There are many shorter books, e.g. R. MacMullen, Constantine (New York, 1969); A. H. M. Jones, Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (London, 1948, repr. 1978). N. Baynes, Constantine the Great and the Christian Church (1929, 2nd ed., 1972) is still useful. See also R. MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire. AD 100–400 (New Haven, 1984) and ‘What difference did Christianity make?’ Historia 35 (1986), 322–43. R. Krautheimer, Rome. Profile of a City, 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980) discusses Constantine’s Roman churches, but his account of Constantinople in Three Christian Capitals (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983) attributes more to Constantine than the sources allow.
F. G. B. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (London, 1977), 580–607, sets Constantine’s dealings with the church, and especially with the Donatists, in the perspective of established imperial procedures in secular matters. For the continuance of Donatism W. H. C. Frend, The Donatist Church (Oxford, 1971) is still well worth reading, especially for its emphasis on the archaeological evidence, although its characterization of Donatists as ‘rural’ and Catholics as ‘urban’, and the idea of Donatism as a ‘nationalist’ movement, have been shown to be much too sweeping: see the various essays by Peter Brown, in his Religion and Society in the Age of St Augustine (London, 1972), and for Augustine and Donatism, Brown’s biography, Augustine of Hippo (London, 1967).
For doctrinal and other controversies after Constantine see the source book edited by J. Stevenson, Creeds, Councils and Controversies (London, rev. ed., 1989), and see Hall (above, Chapter 4); for Rome, see also Brian Croke and Jill Harries, eds., Religious Conflict in Fourth-Century Rome (Sydney, 1982). For Eusebius’s political theory see F. Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy, 2 vols. (Washington, DC, 1963). On Arianism see R. Gregg and D. Groh, Early Arianism. A View of Salvation (Philadelphia, 1981), and especially R. L. Williams, Arius, Heresy and Tradition (London, 1987); older ideas of a canonical norm, from which ‘heresy’ is a deviation, are questioned in some of the essays in Rowan Williams, ed., The Making of Orthodoxy (Cambridge, 1989). G. A. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton, 1983), gives a good introduction to the public oratory of the great Greek bishops of the period. For the continuance of paganism see P. Chuvin, A Chronicle of the Last Pagans (Cambridge, Mass., 1990); see also G. Fowden, ‘Bishops and temples in the eastern Roman empire 320–425’, Journal of Theological Studies n.s.29 (1978), 53–78. For Christians and Jews see F. Millar, ‘The Jews of the Graeco-Roman diaspora, AD 312–438’, in J. Lieu, J. North and T. Rajak, eds, The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (London, 1992), 97–123; R. L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983); A. Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit and Jerusalem, 1987) (sources in translation). Christianization: R. MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire, AD 100–400 (New Haven, 1984); ‘What difference did Christianity make?’, Historia 35 (1986) , 322–43; Christianization of the Roman senate: Peter Brown, ‘Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman aristocracy’, JRS 51 (1961), 1–11 (also in his Religion and Society in the Age of St. Augustine, 162–82). For the late Roman aristocracy, and especially Symmachus and the Altar of Victory, see J. F. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court AD 364–425 (Oxford, 1975, rev. 1991), and more generally, see A. Momigliano, ed., The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford, 1963).
For Roman women and asceticism see Elizabeth A. Clark, Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith (Lewiston, NY/Queenston, Ont., 1986) , and her The Life of Melania the Younger (Lewiston, NY, 1984). Peter Brown, The Body and Society. Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988) sets out in detail the evidence for the development of asceticism, and see also G. Gould, ‘Women and the Fathers’, in W. J. Shiels and D. Wood, eds., Women in the Church, Studies in Church History 27 (Oxford, 1990), 1–13; M. R. Salzman, ‘Aristocratic women: conductors of Christianity in the fourth century’, Helios 16 (1989), 207–20; Gillian Clark, Women in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1993). For the development of monasticism see Philip Rousseau, Pachomius (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1975) and D. Chitty, The Desert a City (Oxford, 1966). The social penetration of Christianization: R. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge, 1990); Peter Brown, Politics and Persuasion in Late Antiquity (Madison, Wisc, 1992). Christian writing and use of language: Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991).
A useful translation of sources otherwise not easily acccessible is provided by S. C. Lieu, The Emperor Julian. Panegyric and Polemic (Translated Texts for Historians, Liverpool, 2nd ed., 1989), containing the Latin panegyric on Julian by Mamertinus (AD 362), part of John Chrysostom’s homily on S. Babylas and the Syriac hymns against Julian by Ephrem Syrus. Libanius’s writings on Julian are contained in the Loeb edition, vol. I. Gregory of Nazianzus is also important, as are the ecclesiastical historians Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret. For the Syriac letter about the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple see S. P. Brock, ‘A letter attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem on the rebuilding of the Temple’, Bull. School of Oriental and African Studies 40 (1977), 267–86.
There are many books available on Julian, among which J. Bidez’s La vie de l’empereur Julien (Paris, 1930) remains a classic: in English see especially R. Browning, The Emperor Julian (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1976) and G. W. Bowersock, Julian the Apostate (Cambridge, Mass., 1978). Diana Bowder, The Age of Constantine and Julian (London, 1978), is written for a less scholarly audience, while P. Athanassiadi, Julian (London, 1992, rev. ed., first published as Julian and Hellenism, Oxford, 1981) focuses on Julian’s interest in and relation to Greek culture. Julian has caught the imagination of generations, and Gore Vidal’s novel, Julian (London, 1964) is well worth reading in order to find out why.
For the conservative attachment of several authors of the period to the ideal of the independence of cities in relation to central authority, see the long article by G. Dagron, ‘L’empire romain d’orient au IVème siècle et les traditions politiques de l’héllenisme: le témoignage de Thémistios’, Travaux et Mémoires 3 (1968), 1–242; for the gradual encroachment of central government on city administration see Fergus Millar, ‘Empire and City, Augustus to Julian: obligations, excuses and status’, JRS 73 (1983), 76–96. An interesting picture of a single city and its urban elites in the fourth century, demonstrating the value of using archaeological evidence, is given in P. Cartledge and A. Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta. A Tale of Two Cities (London, 1989), Chapter 9. For Ammianus’s assessment of Julian (XXV. 4 and generally) see R. C. Blockley, Ammianus Marcellinus. A Study of his Historiography and Political Thought (Brussels, 1975).
See in the first place Jones, LRE, I, Chapters 5, 15–16; on the rebellion of Procopius and the question of legitimacy, Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus, 191–203, and ibid., Chapters 11–12 on the office of emperor and the character of government, with R. MacMullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome (New Haven, 1988), especially Chapter 2. The late Roman bureaucracy is discussed in detail by Demandt, Die Spätantike, with charts to show its structure.
For Ausonius, and the value placed on rhetoric as a means of social advancement: K. Hopkins, ‘Social mobility in the Late Roman Empire: the case of Ausonius’, Class. Quart. 11 (1961), 239–300, with Alan Cameron, Claudian (Oxford, 1970); compare R. Kaster, Guardians of Language. The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), on the influence of grammatici, the teachers who passed on these skills in the schools. The heavy penalties in the law-codes are discussed by R. MacMullen, ‘Judicial savagery in the Roman empire’, Chiron 16 (1986), 43–62.
On patronage and dependent social relations, and for comparison with other periods in the ancient world, see Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, ed., Patronage in Roman Society (London, 1989), with MacMullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome, Chapter 2; Peter Garnsey and Greg Woolf, ‘Patronage of the rural poor in the Roman world’, in Wallace-Hadrill, ed., Patronage in Roman Society, 153–67, discuss pagan and Christian patronage at 162–7. Carlo Levi’s account of his internment in southern Italy in the 1930s, Christ stopped at Eboli, gives a vivid picture of a rural society dependent on patronage in action. Generally on the differences between pre-industrial and ‘modern’ societies, see Patricia Crone, Pre-Industrial Societies (Oxford, 1989).
For the traditional ideas of a ‘caste-system’ and late Roman ‘totalitarianism’ see A. H. M. Jones, ‘The Roman colonate’ and ‘The caste-system in the later Roman empire’, in The Roman Economy, ed. P. Brunt (Oxford, 1974), Chapters 14 and 21, with M. I. Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, Eng. trans., rev. P. M. Fraser (Oxford, 1957), Chapter 12, ‘The oriental despotism’; these are however overstated, for the reasons given in the chapter. Further critique in J-M. Carrié, ‘Le “colonat” du Bas-Empire’, Opus 1 (1982), 351–70; id., ‘Un roman des origines: les généalogies du “Colonat du Bas-Empire”’, ibid.2 (1983), 205–51; A. Marcone, Il colonato tardoantico nella storiografia moderna (dal Fustel de Coulanges ai nostri giorni) (Como, 1988). R. MacMullen, ‘Social mobility and the Theodosian Code’, JRS 54 (1964), 49–53 discusses the question of how to interpret the evidence of the law codes. Further evidence of actual social mobility is given in K. Hopkins, ‘Elite mobility in the later Roman empire’, Past and Present 32 (1965), 12–26; and see his ‘Eunuchs in politics in the later Roman empire’, Proc. Cambridge Philological Society 189 (1963), 62–80. On decurions see MacMullen, Corruption, 46–9. On the difficult question of late Roman slavery and the colonate see C. R. Whittaker, ‘Circe’s pigs: from slavery to serfdom in the later Roman world’, Slavery and Abolition 8 (1987), 88–123, and G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London, 1981), with R. MacMullen, ‘Late Roman slavery’, Historia 36 (1987), 359–82; D. Rathbone, ‘The ancient economy and Graeco-Roman Egypt’, in L. Criscuolo and G. Geraci, eds., Egitto e storia antica dall’ellenismo all’età araba (Bologna, 1989), 159–76, esp. 161–7.
See in general C. E. King, ed., Imperial Revenue, Expenditure and Monetary Policy in the Fourth Century AD (Oxford, BAR, 1980). M. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy c. 300–1450 (Cambridge, 1985), more on coinage, money and fiscal policy than on the general economy, is difficult to use because of the way it is arranged, but valuable for its description of late Roman finance and banking. On the bronze coinage see R. A. G. Carson, P. V. Hill and J. P. C. Kent, Late Roman Bronze Coinage AD 324–498 (1972), and for the gold, J. P. C. Kent, ‘Gold coinage in the later Roman empire’, in R. A. G. Carson and C. H. V. Sutherland, eds., Essays in Roman Coinage presented to Harold Mattingly (1956), 190–204.
Mining: J. C. Edmondson, ‘Mining in the later Roman Empire and beyond: continuity or disruption?’, JRS 79 (1989), 84–102. Coinage and metals: Jones, LRE, 438–48; Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy, 284–333. Large estates: see C. R. Whittaker, ‘Late Roman trade and traders’, in Peter Garnsey, Keith Hopkins and C. R. Whittaker, Trade in the Ancient Economy (London, 1983), 163–80. The villas at Carthage and Mungersdorf are illustrated in Foss and Magdalino, Rome and Byzantium, 41; see also John Percival, The Roman Villa (London, 1976) ; Edith Wightman, Roman Trier and the Treveri (London, 1970).
On slavery, see the items listed under Chapter 7, and M. I. Finley, The Ancient Economy, 2nd rev. ed. (London, 1985). Some of the most important recent work on the late Roman economy has been done by Andrea Carandini and his school; see A. Giardina, ed., Società romana e impero tardoantico, III (Rome, 1986) , and for a review, C. Wickham, ‘Marx, Sherlock Holmes and late Roman commerce’, JRS 78 (1988), 183–93. For the corn-doles, see B. Sirks, Food for Rome (Amsterdam, 1991); J. Durliat, De la ville antique à la ville byzantine (Rome, 1990). On cities, C. Lepelley, Les cités de l’Afrique romaine au Bas-Empire, 2 vols. Paris, 1979) demonstrates the prosperity of late Roman cities in North Africa, while the relations between Antioch and its hinterland are discussed in the study by J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Antioch. City and Imperial Administration in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1972).
There are several important articles relevant to the fourth-century economy in C. Morrisson and J. Lefort, eds., Hommes et richesses dans l'Empire byzantin I, IVe–VIIe siècle (Paris, 1989), for example by C. Lepelley, P. Leveau, C. Abadie-Reynal and C. Panella. E. Patlagean’s book, Pauvreté économique et pauvreté sociale à Byzance (4e–7e siècles) (Paris, 1977), provides an enormous amount of information on population growth and general economic conditions in the eastern provinces, while arguing that one of the consequences was an increase in the numbers of urban poor; see Chapter 11, and see also the review by Averil Cameron, Past and Present 88 (1980), 129–35. [Note that unlike most British historians, French scholars often classify the fourth century as part of Byzantium.]
Pilgrimage: J. Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels (London, 1971); E. D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire (Oxford, 1982). The story about Arsenius is quoted from Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (London, 1975), 14. For pilgrim souvenirs, see G. Vikan, Byzantine Pilgrimage Art (Washington, D.C., 1982). On Christian building, see Bryan Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Urban Public Building in Northern and Central Italy AD 300–850 (Oxford, 1984) (Appendix 2 lists church building in the period in Rome, Ravenna, Pavia and Lucca) and Patlagean, Pauvreté économique, 196–203. Literary evidence for Christian art: see the collection of sources by C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (Englewood Cliffs, 1972), and see further, Chapter 10.
The development of Christian charity is an important theme: see Patlagean, Pauvreté économique, 188–96; Judith Herrin, ‘Ideals of charity, realities of welfare: the philanthropic activity of the Byzantine church’, in R. Morris, ed., Church and People in Byzantium (Manchester, 1991), 151–64; J. Harries, ‘“Treasure in heaven”: property and inheritance among the senators of late Rome’, in E. Craik, ed., Marriage and Property (Aberdeen, 1984), 54–70; see also Garnsey and Woolf, art. cit. (Chapter 8) and Chapter 11 below. The late Roman family has been studied by Brent Shaw, ‘The family in late antiquity: the experience of Augustine’, Past and Present 115 (1987), 3–51, and see his ‘Latin funerary epigraphy and family life in the later Roman empire’, Historia 33 (1984), 457–97. For misogyny, virginity and sexuality in the thought of the church fathers, see R. Radford Ruether, ‘Misogynism and virginal feminism in the Fathers of the Church’, in Ruether, ed., Religion and Sexism (New York, 1974), 150–83; Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve and the Serpent (London, 1988) and Averil Cameron, ‘Virginity as metaphor’, in Cameron, ed., History as Text (London, 1989), 184–205. Ascetic ideas were not confined to Christianity – see also the interesting book by Aline Rousselle, Porneia (Paris, 1983, Eng. trans. Oxford, 1988), and on Neoplatonic asceticism, Iamblichus: On the Pythagorean Life, trans. Gillian Clark (Liverpool, 1989), with the source-book by V. Wimbush, ed., Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Minneapolis, 1990). On private life, see the section by Peter Brown on late antiquity in P. Ariès and G. Duby, eds., A History of Private Life I. From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, ed. P. Veyne (Eng. trans., Cambridge, Mass., 1987). The quotation is from G. Alföldy, The Social History of Rome, rev. Eng. trans. (London, 1988), 210, 217.
Sources: Peter Heather and John Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century (Liverpool, 1991) (translated sources); for Jordanes’s Gothic History see the translation by C. C. Mierow (repr. Cambridge, 1966) ; Pacatus’s panegyric is translated by C. E. V. Nixon, Pacatus, Panegyric to the Emperor Theodosius (Liverpool, 1987); the fragments of Olympiodorus are translated by R. C. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire II (Liverpool, 1983), and see I (Liverpool, 1981), 27–47.
On the early history of the Germans, see F. Millar, The Roman Empire and its Neighbours, Chapter 17, and E. A. Thompson, The Early Germans (Oxford, 1965). See generally on the Goths E. A. Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila (Oxford, 1966) ; H. Wolfram, History of the Goths (Eng. trans., London, 1988); T. S. Burns, A History of the Ostrogoths (Bloomington, 1984); Peter Heather, Goths and Romans, 332–489 (Oxford, 1991). Huns: O. Maenchen-Helfen, The World of the Huns (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1973); E. A. Thompson, A History of Attila and the Huns (Oxford, 1948).
For the battle of Adrianople see T. S. Burns, ‘The battle of Adrianople: a reconsideration’, Historia 22 (1974), 336–45 and Wolfram, History of the Goths, 117–39; Heather, Goths and Romans, Chapter 4. For its effects on the Roman army, see J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops. Army, Church and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom (Oxford, 1990), Chapters 1–2. Ulfila and the Gothic Bible are discussed in Heather and Matthews, Chapters 5 and 6. On the treaty of AD 382 see Heather, Goths and Romans, Chapter 5.
On hospitalitas (quartering), see W. Goffart, Barbarians and Romans AD 418–584 (Princeton, 1980), though this is not accepted by all. For subsidies to barbarians see Heather and Matthews, 23–5. The evidence of Synesius and John Chrysostom is important for the politics of Constantinople in the years around AD 400: see Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, and for Stilicho’s policies, see Alan Cameron, Claudian (Oxford, 1970). Britain: M. Todd, Roman Britain 55 BC-AD 400 (London, 1981); S. Johnson, Later Roman Britain (London, 1980).
B. Isaac, The Limits of Empire (Oxford, 1990), especially Chapters 4 and 5, is important for the Persian wars and the eastern frontier, on which M. H. Dodgeon and S. C. N. Lieu, The Roman Frontier and the Persian Wars AD 226–363 (London, 1991) provides annotated and translated sources. F. Millar, ‘Empire, community and culture in the Roman Near East: Greeks, Syrians, Jews and Arabs’, Journal of Jewish Studies 38 (1987), 143–64 puts the case for the shift of balance towards the east. The theory of ‘defence-in-depth’ is stated by E. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (Baltimore, 1976), but see J. C. Mann, ‘Power, force and the frontiers of the empire’, JRS 69 (1979), 175–83 and (against the idea of ‘grand strategy’) F. Millar, ‘Emperors, frontiers and foreign relations, 31 BC to AD 378’, Britannia 13 (1982), 1–23, with Isaac, Limits of Empire, Chapter 4.
For the desert frontier see also S. T. Parker, Romans and Saracens. A History of the Arabian Frontier (Winona Lake, 1986) ; id., The Roman Frontier in Central Jordan. Interim report on the Limes Arabicus Project, 1980–85, 2 vols. (Oxford, BAR Inst, ser., 340 i-ii, 1987) and D. Kennedy and D. Riley, Rome’s Desert Frontier from the Air (London, 1990) (beautiful pictures and useful historical survey); on Rome’s use of Arab allies see M. Sartre, Trois études sur l'Arabie romaine et byzantine (Brussels, 1982), 132–53; G. W. Bowersock, Roman Arabia (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), 138 ff.; I. Shahid, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century (Washington D.C., 1984).
The army in cities: R. MacMullen, Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass., 1963); Isaac, The Limits of Empire, Chapter 6. The Roman army in general: Jones, LRE, Chapter 17; D. Hoffmann, Das spätrömischen Bewegungsheer und die Notitia Dignitatum (Düsseldorf, 1969); A. Ferrill, The Fall of the Roman Empire. The Military Explanation (London, 1986) (but see my remarks in the chapter). Isaac, The Limits of Empire, 208 ff. and ‘The meaning of “limes” and “limitanei” in ancient sources’, JRS 78 (1988), 125–47, argues against the older interpretation of limitanei as a peasant-militia. For barbarian federates, see Heather, Goths and Romans, 109 ff.; Constantinople and the fall of Gainas, see Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, especially Chapters 4–5, 10, 16, and for the aftermath of the Gainas affair ibid., Chapters 11–12.
For the educational system see P. Lemerle, Byzantine Humanism, Eng. trans. (Canberra, 1986), Chapter 3, and R. Raster, Guardians of Language. The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988), and on literacy in the late empire see W. V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), Chapter 8.
There are a number of standard works on Christian and pagan culture, including C. N. Cochrane, Christianity and Classical Culture (Oxford, 1940), M. L. W. Laistner, Christianity and Pagan Culture in the Later Roman Empire (Ithaca, NY, 1951) (with a translation of John Chrysostom, On Vainglory) and W. Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Cambridge, Mass., 1962). There is a valuable chapter on John Chrysostom’s preaching in Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops (Chapter 15); see also Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, 154–8.
The essential arguments against the idea of a ‘pagan reaction’ have been put in various articles by Alan Cameron: see especially ‘Paganism and literature in late fourth-century Rome’, in Christianisme et formes littéraires de l’antiquité tardive en Occident, Entretiens Hardt 23 (Vandoeuvres, 1977), 1–30; ‘The Latin revival of the fourth century’, in W. Treadgold, ed., Renaissances before the Renaissance (Stanford, 1984), 42–58, 182–4, and see also R. Markus, ‘Paganism, Christianity and the Latin classics in the fourth century’, in J. W. Binns, ed., Latin Literature of the Fourth Century (London, 1974), 1–21. For the idea of a ‘classical revival’ in late fourth-century art see E. Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making (Cambridge, Mass., 1977). The Proiecta casket is discussed by Kathleen Shelton, The Esquiline Treasure (London, 1981), and see the exchange of arguments as to date between Shelton and Alan Cameron in American Journal of Archaeology 89 (1985). Many individual objects of Christian, Jewish and pagan art in late antiquity are illustrated and described in the catalogue edited by K. Weitzmann, ed., The Age of Spirituality (New York, 1979), which also gives a very good impression of the sheer range and vitality of art in this period. There are many books on early Christian art: for a general survey, see R. Milburn, Early Christian Art and Architecture (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991), and for literary evidence about art, see C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (Englewood Cliffs, 1972), Chapter 2 (translated sources).
Trials for magic and treason: see Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus, 209–25. On Neoplatonism and its importance, see A. H. Armstrong, ed., Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge, 1970); R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism (London, 1972). Chuvin, Chronicle of the Last Pagans, Chapter 8, gives an idea of the continued vigour and importance of the philosophical schools in the fifth century.
There is a good brief introduction to Syriac Christianity and the Syriac literature of late antiquity in Sebastian P. Brock and Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), 1–12; see also R. Murray, ‘The characteristics of the earliest Syriac Christianity’, in N. Garsoian, T. Mathews and R. Thomson, eds., East of Byzantium (Washington, D.C., 1982), 3–16.
The best books on Constantinople in the fourth century are both in French: G. Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale (Paris, 1974), and C. Mango, Le développement urbain de Constantinople (IVe-VIIe siècles) (Paris, 1985, rev. 1992). On the development of the Byzantine traditions about the origins of the city see also the brilliant book by G. Dagron, Constantinople imaginaire (Paris, 1984). R. Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983), makes attractive reading (the three capitals are Rome, Constantinople and Milan), but is insufficiently critical about Constantine’s actions and intentions in Constantinople. For Ephesus, see Clive Foss, Ephesus after Antiquity (Cambridge, 1979). Antioch: G. Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria (Princeton, 1961), Chapters 12–15, and see for the riots of AD 387 R. Browning, ‘The riot of AD 387 in Antioch: the role of the theatrical claques in the later empire’, JRS 42 (1952), 13–20.
Public entertainments, and the political confrontations which often took place there, are the subject of Alan Cameron, Circus Factions (Oxford, 1976) (see especially Chapters 7, for the earlier history, and 8, especially 201–29 on chariot racing). J. Humphrey, Roman Circuses (London, 1986) gives a synthesis of the large amount of archaeological evidence for circuses (Greek ‘hippo-dromes’) in late antique cities. On the development of acclamation, see C. M. Roueché, ‘Acclamations in the later Roman empire: new evidence from Aphrodisias’, JRS 74 (1984), 181–99, and on claques and acclamations in the later empire see Cameron, 237 ff. and Liebeschuetz, Antioch, City and Administration in the Later Roman Empire, 210 ff. C. M. Roueché, Performers and Partisans (London, 1992), presents new epigraphic material about entertainments, and contains a new discussion of their organization; see also her article on the theatre at Aphrodisias, ‘Inscriptions and the later history of the theatre’, in R. R. R. Smith and K. T. Erim, eds., Aphrodisias Papers 2 (Ann Arbor, 1991), 99–108. Monks as ‘stormtroopers’: Cameron, Circus Factions, 290 f. For John Chrysostom in relation to public entertainments, see Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, 181–8. There is much relevant discussion in Patlagean, Pauvreté économique et pauvreté sociale, especially Chapter 5, e.g. 179 ff. (population), 203 ff. (urban poor), 208 f. (churches as theatre), 210 ff. (theatres and hippodromes and urban violence), and on ‘the poor’ see Peter Brown, in Ariès and Duby, eds., A History of Private Life I, 277 ff.
Prosperity of Jerusalem and the Holy Land: Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire, especially 138–54 and Chapter 10. Patlagean, Pauvreté économique et pauvreté sociale, 310–11, gives comparative tables of late antique and other settlements in Palestine; see also the figures for rural churches (312–13) and monasteries (326–7); continuity of villages: ibid., 236–340. Much of the important work in Syria has been done by French archaeologists; for a recent report on northern Syria see G. Tate, in Hommes et richesses (see Chapter 8), 69–71, 74–5. For Israel, see for instance D. Urman, The Golan (Oxford, BAR Int. ser. 269, 1985); Carol A. M. Glucker, The City of Gaza in the Roman and Byzantine Periods (Oxford, BAR Int. ser. 325, 1987).
Antiochene and Alexandrian Christianity: D. S. Wallace-Hadrill, Christian Antioch. A Study of Early Christian Thought in the East (Cambridge, 1982). Origenism, Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon: see Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, 141 ff. and Chapter 5. Death of Hypatia (unedifying from the Christian point of view): Socrates, HE VII. 13–15, on which see Chuvin, Chronicle of the Last Pagans, 85–90. Syrian asceticism: S. P. Brock, ‘Early Syrian Asceticism’, Numen 20 (1973), 1–19, repr. in Brock, Syriac Perspectives on Late Antiquity (London, 1984); see also Peter Brown, ‘The rise and function of the holy man in late antiquity’, JRS 61 (1971), 80–101, repr. in Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982), 103–52. Hellenism in relation to local cultures: see G. W. Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1990). Egyptian monasticism: D. Chitty, The Desert a City (Oxford, 1966); Young, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, Chapter 1; Rousseau, Pachomius. For Egyptian churches and monasteries see Milburn, Early Christian Art and Architecture, 145–52, and Alan K. Bowman, Egypt after the Pharaohs (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986; repr. in paperback with addenda, 1989), especially 190–202. Large estates in Byzantine Egypt: see J. Gascou, ‘Les grands domaines, la cité et l’état en Egypte byzantine’, Travaux et Mémoires 9 (1985), 1–90, questioning the traditional view. R. S. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993) is an important general text.
Peter Brown’s biography of Augustine (Augustine of Hippo, London, 1967) should be read by all students, if only in part. Not only do Augustine’s writings throw great light on his age, but he is also one of the few figures from antiquity whom we can hope to know as an individual. The key work on North Africa in late antiquity is the book by C. Lepelley (see above, on Chapter 8).
For complex societies, see J. A. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge, 1988), especially Chapter 5, where the late Roman empire is taken as a test case, and Chapter 6 (general conclusions). Any attempt by a general theorist to deal with a specialized area or topic is liable to attract criticism from professional specialists, and the fact that Tainter’s analysis relies on a variety of modern works without for the most part attempting to differentiate between their reliability inevitably undermines his credibility in detail. Yet as a general model it offers a new way of thinking about an old problem. For the broad sweep, seen through archaeological evidence, see K. Randsborg, The First Millennium AD in Europe and the Mediterranean (Cambridge, 1991); for the ‘end of the Roman empire’, see especially 166–85. See also C. Wickham, ‘The other transition: from the ancient world to feudalism’, Past and Present 103 (1984), 3 ff.
The period from AD 395 to c. 600 is treated in Averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, Routledge History of Classical Civilization (London, 1993); the student is referred to that for further reading.