BiblioVault - Books about Later Roman Empire

Justinian and the Later Roman Empire

John W. Barker, Jr.

University of Wisconsin Press, 1975

The eastern half of the Roman Empire, economically the stronger, did not "fall" but continued almost intact, safe in the new capital of Constantinople. This empire is the subject of John Barker Jr.'s book and the central focus of his examination of questions of continuity and change.

[more]

The Later Roman Empire

AD 284–430

Averil Cameron

Harvard University Press, 1993

Marked by the shift of power from Rome to Constantinople and the Christianization of the Empire, this pivotal era requires a narrative and interpretative history of its own. Averil Cameron, an authority on later Roman and early Byzantine history and culture, captures the vigor and variety of the fourth century, doing full justice to the enormous explosion of recent scholarship.

After a hundred years of political turmoil, civil war, and invasion, the Roman Empire that Diocletian inherited in AD 284 desperately needed the radical restructuring he gave its government and defenses. His successor, Constantine, continued the revolution by adopting—for himself and the Empire—a vibrant new religion: Christianity. The fourth century is an era of wide cultural diversity, represented by figures as different as Julian the Apostate and St. Augustine. Cameron provides a vivid narrative of its events and explores central questions about the economy, social structure, urban life, and cultural multiplicity of the extended empire. Examining the transformation of the Roman world into a Christian culture, she takes note of the competition between Christianity and Neoplatonism. And she paints a lively picture of the new imperial city of Constantinople. By combining literary, artistic, and archaeological evidence. Cameron has produced an exciting record of social change. The Later Roman Empire is a compelling guide for anyone interested in the cultural development of late antiquity.

[more]

Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire

Peter Brown

Brandeis University Press, 2001

In three magisterial essays, Peter Brown, one of the world's foremost scholars of the society and culture of late antiquity, explores the emergence in late Roman society of "the poor" as a distinct social class, one for which the Christian church claimed a special responsibility. It is the story of how a society came to see itself as responsible for the care of a particular class of people -- a class that had not previously been cared for -- and of who benefited from that shift in interests. In his characteristically elegant and lucid prose, Brown seeks to recover the pre-Christian status of poor people, the actual nature of the relations between the Christian church and the poor, and the true motivations -- sometimes sincere, sometimes self-serving -- behind Christian rhetoric of love for the poor. He draws not only on the standard Greek and Latin sources for the later Roman Empire, but also on Jewish sources to document the interactions between Middle Eastern provincial societies and classical Roman traditions. Brown gracefully illuminates a crucial transition from classical to Christian culture: the emergence of a new understanding of what society -- and the Church -- owes to the poor that continues to resonate.

[more]

Ruling the Later Roman Empire

Christopher Kelly

Harvard University Press, 2006

In this highly original work, Christopher Kelly paints a remarkable picture of running a superstate. He portrays a complex system of government openly regulated by networks of personal influence and the payment of money. Focusing on the Roman Empire after Constantine's conversion to Christianity, Kelly illuminates a period of increasingly centralized rule through an ever more extensive and intrusive bureaucracy.

The book opens with a view of its times through the eyes of a high-ranking official in sixth-century Constantinople, John Lydus. His On the Magistracies of the Roman State, the only memoir of its kind to come down to us, gives an impassioned and revealing account of his career and the system in which he worked. Kelly draws a wealth of insight from this singular memoir and goes on to trace the operation of power and influence, exposing how these might be successfully deployed or skillfully diverted by those wishing either to avoid government regulation or to subvert it for their own ends. Ruling the Later Roman Empire presents a fascinating procession of officials, emperors, and local power brokers, winners and losers, mapping their experiences, their conflicting loyalties, their successes, and their failures.

This important book elegantly recaptures the experience of both rulers and ruled under a sophisticated and highly successful system of government.

[more]

Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire

Ramsay MacMullen

Harvard University Press

The peacetime aspects of the Roman army have never had their historian, Ramsay MacMullen points out. Yet these aspects of military activity became, in the period A.D. 200–400, more and more important and diverse, and drew the army and civilians closer together. The result was militarization of the empire; and, in a lively account of garrison life, army engineering, and similar subjects, MacMullen shows how the process went on. He draws on inscriptions, papyri, and literary sources, and includes relevant illustrations to accompany the discussion of military architecture, equipment, and the social standing of soldiers.

[more]