Reviews

058

Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World

G.W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar, eds.
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1999) 780 pp., $49.95.

This lavishly and lovingly compiled volume signals the coming of age of an exciting scholarly field: Late Antiquity, the period spanning the mid-third to late eighth century C.E.

When we knew it as the “Dark Ages,” this epoch remained veiled in obscurity, a featureless intermission between the shining classical and pious medieval worlds. It was often considered “merely a violent and hurried prelude to better things,” write the editors, “a corpse to be dragged quickly offstage so that the next great act of the drama of the Middle Ages should begin.”

The work of historians since the late 1960s, however, has changed that myopic view. Much credit is due to Princeton historian Peter Brown, whose The World of Late Antiquity, A.D. 150–750 (1971) drove home the singularity and complexity of this historical era. Now, 30 years later, Brown has produced Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World with co-editors Glen Bowersock and Oleg Grabar, both with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. More than 200 experts in Roman, Byzantine, Sasanian (early Iranian) and Islamic cultures have contributed to this volume. Its mixture of classical history, art, religion, literature and architecture is as dazzling as the sixth-century C.E. mosaic of the Empress Theodora that graces the book’s cover.

Eleven introductory essays explore historical topics ranging from the predictable (war, religious communities, barbarians) to the unexpected (luxury, the self, sacred landscapes). The breadth of these essays is daunting at times: In the space of a single 20-page article, we are hurtled across centuries, languages and geographic regions from the tip of Gibraltar to the far eastern borders of the Persian empire.

Some of these essays read, despite the editors’ assurances to the contrary, like introductory surveys designed to familiarize the reader with the basics of Late Antiquity. Other essays, such as Garth Fowden’s “Religious Communities,” posit intriguingly fresh hypotheses about life in Late Antiquity. Fowden argues that in this period religious communities assumed a new and central importance. Before Late Antiquity, people in the Mediterranean region and Near East thought of themselves primarily as Romans, Greeks, Persians or Arabs—as belonging to some political or ethnic group. In our period, however, many people began to consider themselves as first and foremost Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Manicheans or Muslims. This new sense of religious identity forever changed the ways in which individuals and groups viewed each other, and we still feel its effects powerfully today.

The second section of the volume contains over 500 encyclopedia-style entries, from “Abbasids” (the second major Islamic dynasty, based in Baghdad) to “Zurvan” (a primeval deity of Zoroastrian mythology). The reader can learn the difference between dendrites (monks who lived in trees) and stylites (monks who lived on pillars), or find out who ate pork and who didn’t. Long involved entries on large subjects like “agriculture” are balanced by shorter entries on things like “belts” and 061“eroticism.” Each entry is equipped with a short, up-to-date bibliography.

One quibble with the book’s format: Entries aren’t cross-referenced, making it difficult for the general reader to connect different cultural and historical currents.

But this is a minor complaint—an isolated, damaged tessera in a brilliant scholarly mosaic. Late Antiquity, with the closer scrutiny this book affords, proves to be extremely complex and resistant to any attempt at tidy characterization. When and where does Late Antiquity begin, and when does the classical world end? When does Late Antiquity metamorphose into the Byzantine and medieval worlds? The value of this work, beyond its stunning amount of information, lies in its ability to raise such questions outside the confines of the university classroom and the conference center. Brown, Bowersock, Grabar and the contributors to this volume understand why Late Antiquity begins to fascinate both scholar and lay person alike: “Much of what was created in that period still runs in our veins.”

Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World