Historiography and Space in Late Antiquity

Description

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 vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction: From Imperial to Post-Imperial Space in Late Ancient Historiography / Peter Van Nuffelen 1 1. Constantinople.s Belated Hegemony / Anthony Kaldellis 14 2. Beside the Rim of the Ocean: The Edges of the World in Fifth- and Sixth-Century Historiography / Peter Van Nuffelen 36 3. Armenian Space in Late Antiquity / Tim Greenwood 57 4. Narrative and Space in Christian Chronography: John of Biclaro on East, West and Orthodoxy / Mark Humphries 86 5. The Roman Empire in John of Ephesus's 'Church History': Being Roman, Writing Syriac / Hartmut Leppin 113 6. Changing Geographies: West Syrian Ecclesiastical Historiography, AD 700–850 / Philip Wood 136 7. Where Is Syriac Pilgrimage Literature in Late Antiquity? Exploring the Absence of a Genre / Scott Johnson 164 Bibliography 181 Index 213