Millennium-Studien / Millennium Studies

The momentous political and social changes that affected the Near East following the death of the prophet Muhammad have traditionally been framed as ‘conquests’. But what did ‘conquest’ mean, if anything, to contemporary and later medieval observers in the Byzantine and Islamicate worlds, beyond the told and retold stories of battles and sieges? What should it or can it mean for today’s historian and area scholar? This volume aims, on the one hand, to record aspects of the wide-ranging conversation around the topic of ‘conquest’ that took place at a conference held in Tübingen in 2017, intersecting the trajectory of the many revisions which have affected Byzantine and Early Islamic historiography in recent decades. On the other hand, by including surveys that deal with interdisciplinary, general and theoretical issues and studies that engage in greater detail with the literary and archaeological source material, the book offers readers a guide to some of the most significant problems that face the historian of every extraction when approaching the events of the seventh century CE.

Over the last 30 years, many books, conferences and volumes have been devoted to the relationship between text and image in the Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. But there has been little space for poetic texts, which, in addition to the direct or mediated message, also demand the attention of the analyst through the impact of the intertext of the entire Latin poetic tradition, multiplying the levels of meaning and therefore the possibilities of interpretation. In relation to the recognition of the need to consider texts (mental or written) as sources of inspiration for images, we are now in a position to take a further step by applying to medieval culture the concept of iconotext developed by Liliane Louvel (2018) for modern literature. In this vein, the Versus ad picturas conference therefore aims to contribute to the study of the relationship between the images we now call artistic, painted on walls, fabrics, stained glass or parchments, and the verses that often accompany them materially or ideally, and which are now increasingly recognised as essential to their cultural understanding and social framing, in the hope of bringing us closer to the meaning hidden in their combination and the meaning perceived by the commissioners, executors and viewers of the time.

This volume is the result of a first attempt to explore the phenomena of social marginalization and marginal groups in the context of a pre-modern society situated at the crossroads between East and West and between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, namely Byzantium between the fourth and fifteenth centuries, using as examples three different but functionally and spatially closely related types of marginal occupations, namely female prostitutes, actors, and tavern keepers. Although it is impossible to cover all aspects of such a multifaceted topic as marginalization and marginal groups in one volume, an attempt has been made to cover several key elements as they occurred throughout the Byzantine millennium and to take an interdisciplinary approach to the subject by examining a large body of written sources in conjunction with pictorial representations and archaeological material. A contribution on the medieval West highlights similarities and differences between the Latin and Byzantine spheres. The book consists of a theoretical and methodological introduction and four thematic sections devoted to prostitutes and prostitution, tavern keepers and innkeepers, actors and performers, and the narratological analysis of texts dealing with these three groups. This volume breaks new ground in the field of Byzantine Studies, with a special emphasis on the social history of the Eastern Mediterranean world in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, with a strong interdisciplinary focus on the use of analytical tools and methods of modern social sciences.

Research was long dominated by the view that the once omnipotent senate became a meaningless institution in late antiquity. However, this systematic analysis of its activities shows that it continued to be active in the executive, legislature, and judiciary, and exerted political influence through its very wealthy members. Moreover, this book inquires into whether it continued to exist in the Carolingian period.

Herodian (active c. 250 CE) was the author of an eight-book Greek history of the Empire from the reign of Commodus (180-192) to the civil wars of the year 238. It has always been a vital historical document, but recent scholarship also recognizes its importance for the development of Greek historiography. As part of this new interest, this collection of articles by leading and emerging scholars addresses important new questions about Herodian’s work and cultural context. These include literary studies of his generic identity, his relationship to earlier and later authors and his techniques of creating time and space; applications of communication and memory theory to his narrative; exploration of his cultural attitudes to the heritage of Greek paideia; his cultural identity and evocation of iconic figures from the past; and his political ideology and conception of the Empire’s functioning and dysfunction. Herodian emerges as a revealing witness of his own times, but also a talented literary artist and a perceptive analyst of the political upheavals through which he lived. These studies will be valuable to all scholars interested in the literary and cultural aspects of Rome’s transition from the High Empire to Late Antiquity.

Gregory of Nazianzus and Ephrem the Syrian are both regarded as foundational poets for their respective literary traditions. They wrote in the same period, the 4th Century, and they both devoted a cycle of poems to a debated theme of the time: bishops.

Aim of this work is enhancing the appreciation of these cycles (Gregory’s carmina II, 1, 10; 12; 13; 17 and Ephrem’s carmina nisibena 13-21) as works of literature embedded in the performance and reading practices of the time, in theological debates on the episcopal office and in their respective communities. The book compares performance and transimission methods of the two corpora, the word choice and imagery describing the episcopal office and how portraits of real-life bishops are influenced by theological expectations on what a bishop should be. Two chapters are devoted to literary phenomena peculiar to each author.

This book, the first extensive comparison of these two authors from a literary point of view, will interest scholars of Late Antique poetry and literature, Church history and Patristic theology. A new English translation of both corporas constitutes the appendix.

One change in late antiquity was the emergence of a trend toward a minor historiography in the form of lists and chronicles that were regularly edited and continued in a decentralized manner. This study gives a historical panorama of this largely overlooked phenomenon of cultural and literary history, systematically drawing out problem areas and fields of knowledge in the complex record while reflecting on modern text-critical practices.

This volume examines collections of pseudonymous letters, that is, fictitious letters that were written under the names of famous historical personalities. It therefore navigates the intersection between studies of ancient letters and ancient fiction. The genre is well-suited for exploring the relationship between letters and power, as the central focus of these collections is reflecting on and portraying power and powerlessness.

Procopius of Caesarea was one of the last authors of classical antique historiography. His major volume on Justinian’s wars is the most important historical source on the sixth century. This new interpretation of, above all, his manifold explorations reveals Procopius to have been a versatile author who was familiar with all facets of contemporary Roman society and served the various interests of his audience.

Public games shaped urban life in the Roman Empire up into late antiquity. This study is the first to systematically examine the legal texts pertaining to gladiator battles and animal baiting (munera), as well as athletic competitions (agones). They provide information about the measures taken by Roman emperors to maintain the games under the changing conditions of late antiquity.

The Lives of the Caesars by Latin biographer C. Suetonius Tranquillus is one of the central texts for our understanding of the early imperial history of Rome as well as a work full of unique literary features. In eight connected chapters, this edited volume provides a narratological examination of the diverse range of narrative techniques that can be discovered in De vita Caesarum, from the micro to the macro level.

This study on post-Roman Europe is the first to systematically examine and compare the media of seals and coins for diverse cultures, such as the Franks, Lombards, Anglo-Saxons, and Visigoths, over a period of 500 years. It focuses on political communication by means of the ruler’s image and the question of how it developed in specific media, which took place in very different ways despite a common heritage.

The triumphal procession determined the thoughts and actions of the Romans to a great extent. This applies not only to the period of the late Republic, in which triumphal processions were fiercely contested, but also to the early imperial period, in which the ritual increasingly disappeared from everyday life.

In addition to texts that refer back to the Roman triumph, this volume examines above all those that inscribe the triumph as a model performatively or metaphorically: While Caesar immortalises his own campaign in De bello Gallico, Pliny the Elder presents his Naturalis Historia as a triumph of science. Cicero and Vitruvius transfer the concept to the intellectual realms of rhetoric and architecture, and the early imperial Laus Pisonis makes the life of an imperial aristocrat appear as a single triumphal procession. The notion of conceptual metaphor makes it possible to understand the triumph as an intertextual and intermedial model and to examine its actualisation in different contexts.

By systematising the heterogeneous texts, taking cultural studies concepts into account, this volume makes an important contribution to the study of ancient aesthetics and cultural identity.

This anthology is dedicated to the Roman epic poets Lucan, Valerius Flaccus, Statius and Silius Italicus. The contributions examine the contrast between genre theory and practice, the interplay of genre interference and intertextuality, and the tension between convention and innovation.

The focus is on the relationship of post-Augustan epic poetry to the earlier tradition, i.e. to authoritative predecessors such as Homer, Virgil and Ovid. The self-positioning of later poets in relation to the canon often goes hand in hand with an endeavour to reconfigure traditional elements: By omitting, varying or exaggerating aspects typical of the genre, their works enter into a dialogue with the earlier epics, permanently subverting the audience's horizons of expectation. The integration of non-genre discourses plays a central role here: modern literary concepts for analysing genre interference are critically evaluated in the anthology and incorporated into the interpretation in a reflective manner.

The methodological range and innovative approaches in this volume make an important contribution to deepening and expanding the current state of research.

Within the scope of the Greek-Latin Alexander romance, the Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis by Julius Valerius (early fourth century CE) stand out due to their high literary and stylistic standards. The eleven contributions in this edited volume primarily focus on issues of narrative technique, linguistic design, and intertextuality, thereby illustrating the unique features and rank of this often-neglected work in literary history.

Leon Schmieder looks at selected passages from Claudian, Prudentius, and Ausonius to examine the aesthetic and poetological dimensions of the late ancient art of description. In its development of literary tradition, this art form proves to be shaped by complex textual strategies that, in their interplay between distance and proximity, touch on aspects of intertextuality and intermediality, and the creation of literary spaces.

This volume focuses on twelve of the so-called Carmina minora by the late ancient poet Claudius Claudianus (ca. 370–404 CE), which describe of different kinds. Nature, art, and the concordia discors that characterises both play a special role in the textual analyses. Together with distinctive intra- and intertextual references, they are understood as key aspects of Claudian's poetics.

Although the relationship of Greco-Roman historians with their readerships has attracted much scholarly attention, classicists principally focus on individual historians, while there has been no collective work on the matter. The editors of this volume aspire to fill this gap and gather papers which offer an overall view of the Greco-Roman readership and of its interaction with ancient historians. The authors of this book endeavor to define the physiognomy of the audience of history in the Roman Era both by exploring the narrative arrangement of ancient historical prose and by using sources in which Greco-Roman intellectuals address the issue of the readership of history. Ancient historians shaped their accounts taking into consideration their readers’ tastes, and this is evident on many different levels, such as the way a historian fashions his authorial image, addresses his readers, or uses certain compositional strategies to elicit the readers’ affective and cognitive responses to his messages. The papers of this volume analyze these narrative aspects and contextualize them within their socio-political environment in order to reveal the ways ancient readerships interacted with and affected Greco-Roman historical prose.

When Emperor Constantine triggered the rise of a Christian state, he opened a new chapter in the history of Constantinople and Jerusalem. In the centuries that followed, the two cities were formed and transformed into powerful symbols of Empire and Church. For the first time, this book investigates the increasingly dense and complex net of reciprocal dependencies between the imperial center and the navel of the Christian world. Imperial influence, initiatives by the Church, and projects of individuals turned Constantinople and Jerusalem into important realms of identification and spaces of representation. Distinguished international scholars investigate this fascinating development, focusing on aspects of art, ceremony, religion, ideology, and imperial rule. In enriching our understanding of the entangled history of Constantinople and Jerusalem in Late Antiquity, City of Caesar, City of God illuminates the transition between Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Middle Ages.

Violence is a central topic in De mortibus persecutorum, one of the most significant sources on the Tetrarchy’s persecution of Christians. Gianna Zipp examines this piece of writing as a literary complete works and meticulously analyzes its conception using the method of close reading. She shows how Lactantius credibly portrays the violent Tetrarchs coming to their horrific end as determined by God.

The temporal inconsistencies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses are just as multifaceted and numerous as the image that has revealed itself in previous interpretations of these text phenomena – often referred to as "anachronisms" – is blurry and diverse. This volume looks at theories of fiction and language to carry out a systematic reevaluation of Ovid’s poem that does justice to its ambitious aesthetics both in terms of theory and text analysis.

This study examines the attitude of three important pre-Constantinian Church authors on the issue of military service by Christians. During their era, there were growing numbers of Christians in the army, and discussions began in their communities as to whether this was consistent with Christian beliefs. Many positions and arguments emerged. At the same time, the study shows how Christianity struggled to find its position within the Roman Empire.

The late antique and early medieval Mediterranean was characterized by wide-ranging cultural and linguistic diversity. Yet, under the influence of Christianity, communities in the Mediterranean world were bound together by common concepts of good rulership, which were also shaped by Greco-Roman, Persian, Caucasian, and other traditions. This collection of essays examines ideas of good Christian rulership and the debates surrounding them in diverse cultures and linguistic communities. It grants special attention to communities on the periphery, such as the Caucasus and Nubia, and some essays examine non-Christian concepts of good rulership to offer a comparative perspective. As a whole, the studies in this volume reveal not only the entanglement and affinity of communities around the Mediterranean but also areas of conflict among Christians and between Christians and other cultural traditions. By gathering various specialized studies on the overarching question of good rulership, this volume highlights the possibilities of placing research on classical antiquity and early medieval Europe into conversation with the study of eastern Christianity.

This study inquires into the political and social significance ascribed to the urban Roman senatorial aristocracy and the senate in the first half of the fifth century CE. This volume therefore examines a topic of central significance in the history of the Roman West and Christianization, connecting research perspectives from ancient history and archaeology.

This volume investigates the literary depiction of prison as a liminal space in early and middle Byzantine martyrs’ Passions. Prison proves to be a transitional space where both the formation of corporeal endurance and the spiritual maturation of the protagonists take place, contributing to their identity as martyrs. The aspects examined here include terminology, narrative structure, gender, emotions and the senses.

Focusing on the rule of Heraclius (610–643), this study examines the development of the Byzantine monarchy at the threshold between antiquity and the Middle Ages. It shows how the reigning Emperor responded to the domestic and external political challenges that endangered his rule and brought the Byzantine Empire to the brink of collapse.

Aulus Gellius’ Noctes Atticae is a collection of short texts that pursues an aesthetic of variation. Beer’s study is an appraisal of the texts and the collection in general. The author analyzes Noctes Atticae based on narratological criteria, develops associative links between the sections, and illuminates the agonal relationship between narrator and implicit reader.

One of the most traumatic experiences of Late Antique Christians was the Great Persecution, begun by Emperor Diocletian and his Tetrarchic colleagues in 303 CE. Here Aaltje Hidding unites research of traditional memory studies with work done by cognitive scientists to examine how they remembered the Persecution. The resulting methodological framework, the ‘cognitive ecology’, systemically studies all what can be covered by this term - social surroundings, cognitive artefacts and the physical environment - and bridges the gap between individual and collective memory. The author analyses the remembrance of the Persecution in three different regions along the Nile river. In Oxyrhynchus, the thousands of papyrus fragments found at the city’s rubbish dump give a vivid image of the martyrs in the daily lives of the Oxyrhynchites. In Antinoopolis, known for the cult of the physician saint Colluthus, she zooms in on the rituals and practices at a martyr’s sanctuary. Finally, in Dandara, the rich hagiographical dossier of the anchorite Paphnutius shows how old memories of the Persecution became mixed with new monastic experiences. The Bohairic and Greek Passion of Paphnutius appear in their first complete English translations.

This volume examines for the first time the most important methodological issues concerning Christian poetry – i.e. biblical and theological poetry in classical meters – from a diachronic perspective. Thus, it is possible to evaluate the doctrinal significance of these compositions and the role that they play in the development of Christian theological ideas and biblical exegesis.

This volume covers the transition period stretching from the reign of Justinian I to the end of the 8th century, focusing on the experience of individuals who lived through the last decades of Byzantine rule in Egypt before the arrival of the new Arab rulers. The contributions drawing from the wealth of sources we have for Egypt, explore phenomena of stability and disruption during the transition from the classical to the postclassical world.

During the Imperial Rome Age and late antiquity, Euripides was considered a tragic dramatist par excellence, and, alongside Homer, was the most frequently cited poet. This book examines the reception of complete and partially transmitted Euripidean tragedies into the Greek language vis-à-vis key authors and literary genres of the Imperial Rome Age and late antiquity, situating them in the cultural and literary-historical context of the times.

In this study, Till Stüber analyzes loyalty conflicts between bishops and kings in post-Roman Gaul. He examines the political or social factors that resulted in these conflicts, and also explores the solutions that were found to avoid them. His approach offers fresh insights into the relationship between kings and bishops in this period.

The essays collected in this volume apply an interdisciplinary approach to explore aspects of the relationship between animal and human in late antiquity. With a focus on ways that anthropozoological connections were defined in the emergent Christian religious discourse of the epoch, the authors contribute to our understanding of a thematic area largely neglected in previous research.

This study in cultural history addresses the value of past relations in Gallo-Roman and Italian discourses on social status in late antiquity. The volume examines how senatorial figures referred back to ancestors and ancient times to better position themselves in relation to their peers. At a broader level, it describes the negotiative processes surrounding the establishment of rank.

The Wonders Beyond Thule by Antonius Diogenes uniquely combines a range of themes, including aspects of a love story, fantastic journeys, and Pythagorean philosophy. The author reassembles this work, which has only been preserved through papyrus fragments as well as later authors’ accounts, into a new edition that offers detailed philological and interpretive commentary on all of the surviving descriptions and fragments.

To honor the 20^th year of his reign, Emperor Constantine was given what may be the most precious gift of his lifetime: a codex of artistic panegyrics and odes dedicated to him by the poet Optatianus. Optatianus’ poems showcase the poetic talent of their creator and go beyond the classical confines of a panegyric: they form a literary invitation to an intellectual bond between laudator and laudandus.

Often noticed, frequently criticized, the descriptions of physical violence in Seneca’s philosophical work De ira and Lucan’s civil war epic De bello civili irritate until today. Only looking at the theory of rhetoric, the use of exempla and the staging of violence allows an approach to ancient reception attitudes and reveals the connections between enumeration and visualizability, violence and the the arousal of the emotions.

During the transition from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, the geographical space of Europe was Christian and Christianity was “European.” The essays present the major theological discourses and decisions of that epoch that helped shape Church and society – from political regents to Church catechesis.

In detailed case studies, Helge Baumann analyzes how Martial and Statius presented, integrated, and functionalized the epic into small poetic formats. These authors associated different situations, cultural practices, and actors with the epic. In the literary communication between poet and patron, the small format became an effective medium of role construction for authors and for their audiences.

The letters preserved under the name of Ignatios of Antiochia remain a contentious topic to this day among scholars of early Christianity. The essays collected in this volume discuss issues about their origins and cultural context, their function and intention, their theological content and transmission, and their form and composition as an epistolary collection.

Although the long reign of Emperor Justinian I (527–565 CE) and the military history of late antiquity have been frequent subjects of ancient historical research, the emperor’s military policy has not been closely studied until now. This study contributes to our understanding the specific course of decision-making and the intentions of imperial activity in the military sector.

The various phases of life and their manifestations in theory and social reality constitute a well-established area of research in the fields of western medieval studies and ancient history. In this respect the Byzantine East has been widely neglected. This volume will focus on the Byzantine experience of adolescence, which may be defined as the biological transition from childhood to adulthood as well as the social and psychological experience of leaving the care of parents, guardians and family groups and the gradual integration into adult society. The contributions gathered therein treat seven subtopics that correspond to crucial questions in the current research on adolescence: the legal status of adolescents; the mechanisms of transition from childhood to adolescence; the socialisation and gradual integration into adult society; adolescents in Byzantine art; psychological aspects of adolescence from medieval to modern times; illnesses of adolescents; adolescents in the western medieval world.The focus is on the Middle and Late Byzantine Period, where historical, hagiographical,legal and medical sources offer rich material for an investigation of these aspects. The book contributes to a better understanding of all these questions and to show future trajectories for research.

This volume includes 17 studies that present aspects of the Prosopography of the Middle Byzantine Period. The book’s thematic focus is on structural developments, major personalities, and the Byzantine Empire’s relations with the West.

'Space and time' have been key concepts of investigation in the humanities in recent years. In the field of Classics in particular, they have led to the fresh appraisal of genres such as epic, historiography, the novel and biography, by enabling a close focus on how ancient texts invest their representations of space and time with a variety of symbolic and cultural meanings. This collection of essays by a team of international scholars seeks to make a contribution to this rich interdisciplinary field, by exploring how space and time are perceived, linguistically codified and portrayed in the biographical and philosophical work of Plutarch of Chaeronea (1st-2nd centuries CE). The volume’s aim is to show how philological approaches, in conjunction with socio-cultural readings, can shed light on Plutarch’s spatial terminology and clarify his conceptions of time, especially in terms of the ways in which he situates himself in his era’s fascination with the past. The volume’s intended readership includes Classicists, intellectual and cultural historians and scholars whose field of expertise embraces theoretical study of space and time, along with the linguistic strategies used to portray them in literary or historical texts.

In the prologues and epilogues to his Fables, Phaedrus – despite the low reputation of the genre – develops a complex if at times inconsistent poetics. The ambivalences and contradictory nature of his poetics are part of the fabulist’s self-presentation, whereby certain figures, such as Aesop the trickster, the donkey, and even divine figures such as Prometheus play central role.

This volume investigates Proclus' own thought and his wide-ranging influence within late Neoplatonic, Alexandrine and Byzantinian philosophy and theology. It further explores how Procline metaphysics and doctrines of causality influence and transition into Arabic and Islamic thought, up until Richard Hooker in England, Spinoza in Holland and Pico in Italy. John Dillon provides a helpful overview of Proclus' thought, Harold Tarrant discusses Proclus' influence within Alexandrian philosophy and Tzvi Langermann presents ground breaking work on the Jewish reception of Proclus, focusing on the work of Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (1591-1655), while Stephen Gersh presents a comprehensive synopsis of Proclus' reception throughout Christendom. The volume also presents works from notable scholars like Helen Lang, Sarah Wear and Crystal Addey and has a considerable strength in its presentation of Pseudo-Dionysius, Proclus' transmission and development in Arabic philosophy and the problem of the eternity of the world. It will be important for anyone interested in the development and transition of ideas from the late ancient world onwards.

This study examines from multiple disciplinary perspectives the phenomenon of how knowledge was transformed and transmitted between late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The essays explore the ways that excerpting, compiling, and selective transmission resulted in a reduction of complexity.

This volume addresses Jewish, Christian and Muslim future visions on the end of the world, focusing on the respective allies and antagonists for each religious society. Extensive lists of murderous end-time peoples, whether for good or evil, and those who merit salvation hold variably defined roles in end-time scenarios. Spanning late Antiquity to the early modern period, the collected papers examine distinctive aspects represented by each religion’s approach as well as shared concepts.

The Ampelos episode is a critical scene in the Dionysiaca of Nonnos, the Late Antique poet. The death and transfiguration of the satyr Ampelos lends Dionysus his principal attributes – the grapevine and wine. The book uses a detailed literary analysis of the Nonnos episode to present the forms of poetic language in the Dionysika and put them in the context of the literary-aesthetic forms of Late Antiquity.

The highly metaphorical language that is used in the dream narratives of the Hieroi Logoi written by the Mysian orator Aelius Aristides has hitherto hardly been assessed in a manner adequate to its depth. In her interpretation of this text that turns out to be heavily loaded with religious meaning, the author of the present monograph deploys an allegorical approach that emerges from her analyses of relevant oneirocritical texts and literature.

Lucius Cornelius Sulla led his army against Rome, devastated Athens, and, as dictator, took bloody revenge on his enemies after his victory in the Civil War. His iconoclasm was infused in the collective memory of Greeks and Romans for many generations. Based on the concepts of cultural trauma and cultural memory, this book presents the first comprehensive study on the ancient memory of Sulla, covering a period of almost 400 years.

With his religious politics and his self-representation as the vicar of God on Earth, Justinian I (527-565) had an enduring impact on Late Antiquity. What part did monks, believed to be heavenly angels, play in promoting this notion? This book offers the first exhaustive investigation of Justinian’s personal relations to monkhood and the role of monks in religious and legislative politics.

Many sermon manuscripts were created around 800 CE over the course of the Carolingian reform movement, but until now, historical researchers have largely overlooked them. The presentation analyzes selected sermon collections to reveal their importance as a medium for implementing reforms at the local level, thereby making them an important instrument of Carolingian rule.

The book examines the origins, development, and the role of the monastic movement in the capital of Byzantium. It was in the 5th century that a certain pattern of the functioning of monastic circles evolved within the specific framework of the ecclesiastical structures of Constantinople, which was a political and ecclesiastical centre of the Eastern Roman Empire. The bulk of the book is devoted to an analysis of the written accounts of the lives of the four Constantinopolitan holy men: Hypatios, Alexander Akoimetos, Daniel the Stylite, and Markellos Akoimetos. The analysis proves that the model of relationship between the holy man and the secular authority would change less than the one between the holy man and the ecclesiastical authority. The authors often cast the holy man in the role of "father", who was a kind of patron to the Emperor and his apparatus of government. On the other hand, one can observe a gradual change of the model of the relationship between the holy man and the ecclesiastical authorities from the initial opposition to a fully harmonious partnership. All the "Lives" focus on the idea of the third kind of authority existing alongside the two others; this type of authority is called religious and charismatic.

The shepherd metaphor is widely diffused in many civilizations. Using this metaphor Pope Gregory introduced a successful leadership model which, as the Author shows, was further developed by the clergy and the kings in Carolingian times. This book sheds new light on politics in the Early Middle Ages, depicting it less as a form of power legitimated by divine right, than as social discourse between leadership groups.

Late Antiquity witnessed enormous cultural changes, affecting all areas of intellectual life. Historiography is one of the most characteristic genres of this period and perhaps one of the most innovative ones. This volume seeks to understand how historiography both responded to the cultural changes and shaped these at the same time. Indeed, a historiographical work aims at providing its readers with experiences from the past and at interpreting these in a meaningful way and often seeks to integrate this type of knowledge into a wider body of knowledge. This theme is explored from six angles in the present volume: 1) the relationship between historiography and rhetoric; 2) the transmission of classical rhetorical culture to areas beyond the Roman Empire 3) the circulation of information, traditions and documents in the whole area of the Roman Empire and frontier areas; 4) the role played by intellectual groups (clerical and lay) in this process 5) the social, cultural, and religious variety of audiences; 6) the impact of difference in genre on the engagement with forms of knowledge.

It is well known that classical mythology outlasted the Christianization of the Roman Empire. This volume undertakes a new investigation of the complex conditions under which it continued to exist and thrive in Late Antiquity. Particular attention is devoted to the polemical and educational contexts in which classical mythology was often used, and to strategies designed to neutralize or assimilate it.

Lucan’s Bellum Civile (Pharsalia) is traditionally read as a political critique of the Principate. However, several features of this text run counter to this interpretation. This study reexamines Lucan’s work using the model of the unreliable narrator to illuminate its portrayal of contradictory structures in Nero’s Principate. The interdisciplinary approach offers a new perspective on Lucan’s epic poem and its historical importance.

The notion that early Christianity was a “lower class religion” is surely outdated. Yet the extent to which members of the social elites turned to the new faith remains a matter of intense scholarly dispute. Many researchers argued against the idea that the social elites were already represented among early Christians. However, the sources give extensive evidence that senators and local officials were among the Christians of the 1^st century CE.

The new critical edition of Michael Psellos’ Chronographia takes into account the entire scholarly work on this text since 1874 in a critical apparatus and a separate text-critical commentary. Compared to previous editions, it provides an improved text, suggesting many new readings. Comprehensive indices facilitate the search within the Greek text. The German translation appears in the Sammlung Tusculum.

Plato in the Third Sophistic examines the influence and impact of Plato and Platonism in the era of Byzantine and Christian rhetoric. The volume brings together specially commissioned articles from leading scholars of late antique philosophy and literature. Their examinations show that Plato is the single most important and influential literary figure used to frame the literature of this time. Plato in the Third Sophistic will help scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines to better understand the development of Christian literature in this era as an essential link in the history of Platonism as well as that of Christianity.

During the first centuries of the Christian era, a large number of discrepant Latin translations of the Old and the New Testaments were in circulation. Rebekka S. Schirmer examines St. Augustine’s comments about the problems raised by these texts, both descriptive and normative, and the extent to which Augustine’s engagement with different versions of the Bible employed philological methods of biblical exegesis.

Daily life in Late Antiquity was heavily influenced by the tradition of Roman games. This is the first comprehensive study of the world of games in Late Antiquity, with special attention to specific forms of games in the provinces. Using both documentary and archeological sources, the author suggests new regional and chronological differentiations in the development of games.

During the VII-VIII centuries Byzantine historiography is supposed to have remained silent, since no source dating to that period has come down to us. West Syriac historiography is believed to have been quite scanty as well because, according to Lawrence Conrad's theory, the only source that later Syriac chroniclers had for this period was Theophilos of Edessa, whose chronicle is commonly thought to be Theophanes' "oriental source" as well.
A thourough study of the materials shared by Theophanes (IX cent.), Michael the Syrian (XII cent.), the anonymous chronicler of 1234 (XII-XIII cent.) and Agapius of Mabbug (X cent.) has led the author of this book to reconsider the theory of the "circuit of Theophilos of Edessa" and to look with new eyes at the whole question of the writing of history in Greek, Syriac and Arabic during the first two centuries after the Islamic conquests.
The present work delves into this conspicuous case of "intercultural transmission" with the aim of finding some tentative answers to the unspoken questions due to our scarce knowledge of historiography in such a crucial period: who kept memory of what, why, for whom? in which forms were records produced, preserved and transmitted? how did religious issues influence this practice and how did these materials cross denominational borders?

I secoli VII-VIII sono ritenuti una fase stagnante della storiografia bizantina. Questo libro indaga la scrittura della storia in greco e in siriaco in tale periodo attraverso lo studio di quattro cronache più tarde che hanno utilizzato fonti dei secoli VII-VIII ora perdute. Il materiale comune a questi quattro testi consente di gettare luce sulle fonti stesse e sulla pratica della "conservazione della memoria" fra i cristiani in un'epoca così cruciale.

Despite their rich tradition, the Carmina Anacreontea transmitted in the Palatine Anthology have received little scholarly attention. This neglect is linked to questions concerning their authenticity. Long read as poems by the ancient lyricist Anacreon, they are now regarded instead as imitations of Anacreontic lyricism. This volume presents the latest findings on the language, poetology, tradition, and reception of this lyrical collection.

The volume provides the first comprehensive presentation of imaginary phenomena such as dreams and visions in early Byzantine monastic literature. Drawing on a broad range of sources, it examines imaginary experiences according to their literary expression and the cultural historical background they reflect, thus offering profound insights into the diverse treatment of imaginary phenomena in monastic literature.

How did a Late Roman emperor stay on the throne? His position was always precarious, and in contrast to a modern hereditary monarch he could always lose power or even his life to a usurper. The Eastern emperors resided in Constantinople from 395 to 624 without a break. This book shows how they sought the support of the army, the populace, the clergy and the capital’s elite, how they gained it, and how they sometimes lost it. The result is a new picture of the socio-political system of Constantinople and of the Late Roman Empire in general.

The period from the 5th to the 7th century AD was characterised by far-reaching structural changes that affected the entire west of the Roman Empire. This process used to be regarded by scholars as part of the dissolution of Roman order, but in current discussions it is now examined more critically. The contributions to this volume of conference papers combine approaches from history and literature studies in order to review the changing forms and fields of the establishment of collective identities, and to analyse them in their mutual relationships.

In Byzantium, the central structure is considered archetypical. This study shows that this assumption is only partly true. It presents the basilicas of the 7th to 15th centuries, addressing questions of typology, appointments, function, and the relationship to longitudinal and central constructions. It shows that the Byzantines were more flexible in their approach to these construction types than previously assumed, a conclusion supported by theological evidence.

Ammianus is regarded as the greatest historian of late antiquity. Yet his geographic and ethnographic digressions were long underestimated as examples of feigned erudition and as undue interruptions to the historical narrative. The author of this volume believes that the key to understanding Ammianus’s work as a whole lies in his teaching of classical rhetoric, his metaphoric reading of landscapes, and the creation of spaces for memory and counterworlds to the Imperium Romanum. In this way, historical understanding and digressions concerning geographic knowledge must be viewed as interdependent features of the text. The author thus casts a new light on Ammianus’s literary achievements.

This collection of essays analyzes the construction of the “fall” of Rome from a range of perspectives native to different disciplines. Subjects addressed include comparable discourses dating from the earlier history of Rome, the perception of this historical moment by writers living at the time it occurred, and its reception in Byzantium and Western Europe during the Middle Ages.

This book introduces and translates Sedulius Scottus' Prologue (to the entire Collectaneum in Apostolum) and commentaries on Galatians and Ephesians. The introduction outlines the historical context of composition, identifies Sedulius' literary model - Servius, discusses Sedulius' organizing trope for the Prologue - the septem circumstantiae, asserts for what purpose and for whom he composed the Collectaneum, explains pertinent philological and stylistic issues, such as formatting, existing (or lack thereof) traits of Hiberno Latin, and Sedulius' knowledge of Greek, and it explores his use of exegetical and theological sources - predominantly Jerome, Augustine, and Pelagius. Since the commentaries are based upon these formative religious authors (among many others), the introduction also surveys Sedulius' doctrinal stances on important theological and ecclesiastical issues of his own time with particular relation to his reception of these authors. Sedulius' Collectaneum in Apostolum reveals an erudite author familiar with the style of classical commentaries, which he uses to harmonize the sometimes discordant voices of patristic authors for the purposes of education in accordance with Carolingian programmatic aims.

Using the idea that church buildings are sacred spaces, this study seeks to examine a central figure of thought in medieval society, the “ecclesia”. Using normative, liturgical, and exegetic-theological sources, the book traces the profound transformational process that took place in the political and religious view of society from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. The study describes the dynamics that led to the development of a ecclesiology with a powerful impact on an entire epoch.

Although there have been many studies of childhood in Ancient Greece and Rome and in the Middle Ages in the West, there is no such study for the Byzantine world. To fill the gap, this book reconstructs the most important factors in childhood in Byzantium from the 6th through the 11th century. The main sources are the lives of the saints, which are of central importance for the analysis of the social history and daily life of the population. They also provide an insight into family, social and economic structures, as well as patterns of behaviour. This material is supplemented by legal, medical, theological and other sources.

The volume examines further questions on the early Byzantine mosaics in the metropolis, and in particular their problematic chronology. A number of mosaics from the entire Mediterranean, which have to date received little attention, are also taken into account.

The process of Christianisation brought with it a new form of violent conflict to the Roman world: religiously motivated attacks on places, objects or people. The most radical form of such conflicts were attacks on the sanctuaries of religious opponents ‑ on temples, synagogues and Church buildings. The results were dramatic and the attacks demanded a reaction from all institutions, from the Emperor to the urban elites. This volume analyses the role of the law, the imperial and local administrations, and the relationship between the institutions and the new regional and local communities which established themselves at the time.

The work Eikones (Imagines/Images) by Philostratus consists of 64 fictitious descriptions of images. Mario Baumann analyzes the aesthetic virtuosity which characterizes this text. The speaker who formulates the descriptions proves himself a master in interpreting the images. He creates a unique textual composition of images which continually surprises and challenges the reader due to its diversity. The text of Eikones takes up the tradition of literature and at the same time changes it through the creation of new combinations, always revealing the virtuosity of the author.

On September 28, 1009, Caliph al-Hakim had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem destroyed. How did it come to this? What did it mean for contemporaries? Why were Jews persecuted as a result? Did it interrupt the stream of pilgrims to Jerusalem? What do we know about al-Hakim's personality? How was the crisis mastered? How was the church rebuilt? These are the questions considered in an interdisciplinary discourse by scholars of Arabic, Byzantine, Jewish, medieval and Nordic studies, as well as art historians and experts on the Christian East.

The terms ‘logos of reason’ and ‘logos of belief’ refer to two important aspects of western culture at the beginning of the Christian era. On the one hand there is the classical tradition, with its comprehensive claim to be able to explain the truth about reality by means of the logos. On the other hand there is the Christian message, which proclaims the self-revelation of God in the form of the Son, and so also claims for itself the truth about God, mankind and the world. The semantic ambiguity of the term ‘logos’ provided the occasion for a controversy that unfolded among the educated.

The contributions to this volume present aspects of the controversy, and attempt to illuminate the connection between culture, belief and transmission against its historical background.

The Second Century occupies a central place in the development of ancient Christianity. The aim of the book is to examine how in the cultural, social, and religious efflorescence of the Second Century, to be witnessed in phenomena such as the Second Sophistic, Christianity found a peculiar way of integrating into the more general transformation of the Empire and how this allowed the emerging religion to establish and flourish in Graeco-Roman society. Hadrian’s reign was the starting point of that process and opened new possibilities of self-definition and external self-presentation to Christianity, as well as to other social and religious agencies. Differently from Judaism, however, Christianity fully seized the opportunity, thus gaining an increasing place in Graeco-Roman society, which ultimately led to the first Christian peace under the Severan emperors. The point at issue is examined from a multi-disciplinary perspective (including archaeology, cultural, religious, and political history) to challenge well-established, but no longer satisfactory, historical and hermeneutical paradigms. The contributors aim to examine institutional issues and sociocultural processes in their different aspects, as they were made possible on Hadrian’s initiative and resulted in the merge of early Christianity into the Roman Empire.

This volume presents a collection of essays on different aspects of Roman sarcophagi. These varied approaches will produce fresh insights into a subject which is receiving increased interest in English-language scholarship, with a new awareness of the important contribution that sarcophagi can make to the study of the social use and production of Roman art. The book will therefore be a timely addition to existing literature. Metropolitan sarcophagi are the main focus of the volume, which will cover a wide time range from the first century AD to post classical periods (including early Christian sarcophagi and post-classical reception). Other papers will look at aspects of viewing and representation, iconography, and marble analysis. There will be an Introduction written by the co-editors.

This volume contains twelve contributions on the urban development of the Near East and North Africa in Late Antiquity. On the one hand the authors consider historical and cultural aspects of the region. A comprehensive section of illustrations of new archaeological material and its interpretation then form the second focus of this volume of papers.

In his reconstruction of the process and motivation of Constantine’s adoption of Christianity, the author proposes a number of new individual aspects. He commences with an analysis of the earliest testimonials by the Emperor himself after his conversion, his massive moral and material support for the Christian clergy and ecclesiastic communities, and Constantine’s role as the first ruler of all Christendom up to his death in 337. Finally, it is shown that the Emperor wanted to suppress non-Christian religions and make Christianity the sole religion of the Empire and all humanity.

In the Chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg, the experiences and problems of the tenth and early eleventh centuries come together; they are taken up by Thietmar and formed into an epoch. This overall interpretation of the chronicle by the Bishop of Merseburg sees historical knowledge as a consistent product of a dynamic process, as an interplay of cultural and cognitive factors in a particular historical situation. On the basis of this dynamic concept of knowledge, it is possible to present a new interpretation of central episodes of Ottonian historiography and at the same time to demonstrate the future potential of images from the past.

The process of transformation which saw the Byzantine Empire and the world of the Early Middle Ages develop from the Late Antique Imperium Romanum led to changes in all areas of life. The central topic of this volume of international contributions is the question of how the historiography of the period confronted these changes.

The struggle with the Donatists in North Africa dominated Augustine’s term of office as bishop. In order to disprove their views, in his writings not only did he employ theological arguments, he also referred to events which occurred at the time of the origins of the schism. Augustine’s aim was to use historical documents to prove that the Donatists had no right to claim that they represented the pure Church, free of “traditores”.

The Donatists reacted to this challenge by developing their own version of the history of the schism. This study draws on Augustine’s anti-Donatist writings to analyse and assess the historical arguments and views of both groups.

Christa Frateantonio follows a new line of research in this study of Pausanias’ Periegesis, his historical and geographical description of Greece. Her underlying premise is that it is in fact concealed praise (or criticism) of cities, and supports this view by drawing attention to intention “riddles” in the Periegesis. These she expounds in detailed textual analyses, and explains the structures of the work, some of which are unexplained, as the result of rhetorical principles of description, which she considers in their relationship to the cultural context of the Second Sophistic.

The present study is concerned with sources for the history of the dioceses of Reims and Trier since the 8th century. It starts with essential information on the history of these dioceses in the Early Middle Ages which can be traced back mainly to accounts by the influential Archbishop Hinkmar of Reims (845-882). The problems of Hinkmar’s accounts and their continued influence are brought out against the contemporary background of the age of their composition, and their later deformations are followed over time. By taking up the trail of these deformations, the contingency of historical information and transmission becomes clear.

During his short reign in the 4th century, Emperor Julian II, known as the Apostate, attempted to combat Christianity philosophically and to set up a pagan Neo-Platonic doctrine as a counter-programme. The volume presents a collection of papers on the general relationship between Platonism and Christianity, on Julian's character and his philosophical programme and on individual writings in which the Emperor sets out his own position and his critique of Christian thought.

From the 6th to 11th centuries, the prohibition of marriage between relatives (incest) often headed the agenda of legislative assemblies and can be seen as a key topic of this age. The reasons for this unique development have occupied ethnologists, sociologists and historians for quite some time. This book is the first to trace the radical expansion of marriage prohibitions across epochs and advances the thesis that this development came about as a result of the decline of power in Antiquity and the changing functions of legislation.

This volume of collected essays explores the premise that Plutarch’s work, notwithstanding its amazing thematic multifariousness, constantly pivots on certain ideological pillars which secure its unity and coherence. So, unlike other similar books which, more or less, concentrate on either the Lives or the Moralia or on some particular aspect(s) of Plutarch’s œuvre, the articles of the present volume observe Plutarch at work in both Lives and Moralia, thus bringing forward and illustrating the inner unity of his varied literary production.

The subject-matter of the volume is uncommonly wide-ranging and the studies collected here inquire into many important issues of Plutarchean scholarship: the conditions under which Plutarch’s writings were separated into two distinct corpora, his methods of work and the various authorial techniques employed, the interplay between Lives and Moralia, Plutarch and politics, Plutarch and philosophy, literary aspects of Plutarch’s œuvre, Plutarch on women, Plutarch in his epistemological and socio-historical context. In sum, this book brings Plutarchean scholarship to date by revisiting and discussing older and recent problematization concerning Plutarch, in an attempt to further illuminate his personality and work.

The land walls of Constantinople are one of the largest and most important defensive fortifications from Late Antiquity. The subject of this book are the history and topography of the Theodosian Land Walls and the Walls of Blachernae (the so-called walls of the XIVth region, the Komnenian Walls, the section between the Komnenian Walls and the Golden Horn). The central topics are the conception and planning of the Theodosian Walls, the chronology of the Walls of Blachernae, the date of the Golden Gate and the actual gateway of the outer gate, an investigation into the Byzantine names for the gates north of the re-discovered Romanos Gate, the identification of the Mermerkule castle and other localities, as well as an analysis and documentation of the structure itself.

The “Events after Homer”, described by Quintus Smyrnaeus in the third century AD in his Greek epic Posthomerica, are an attempt to bridge the gap between the Iliad and the Odyssey , and to combine the various scattered reports of the battle for Troy into a single tale: the fate of Achilles, Ajax, Paris and the Amazon Penthesileia, the intervention of Neoptolemos and the story from the Trojan horse to the destruction of the city. The volume presented here summarizes the results of the first international conference on Quintus Smyrnaeus.

In this volume, leading scholars examine the ideas of the last days of the world held in Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. They discuss the mutual influence of these ideas together with their intended and actual political effect at the time. They open up a significant source for political and intellectual history, because apocalyptic writings are always to be found among the powerful.

Key Features:

• overview of the latest research findings, presented in the form of a handbook
• successful interdisciplinary dialogue
• particular focus on the political history and intellectual history of this epoch

Ennodius lived during the reign of the Ostrogothic King Theoderic. When he wrote his various works he was deacon in Milan, later becoming Bishop of Pavia. This study is an introduction to his life and works, and reveals how the deacon promoted the ‘worldly’ culture of languages and rhetoric. Particular attention is paid to the letters which he sent to secular and ecclesiastic officials (including the Pope), as well as relatives. Among other things, he demanded that the Roman ruling classes crown their privileged position by dedicating themselves to cultural matters.

Who was Tertullian, and what can we know about him? This work explores his social identities, focusing on his North African milieu. Theories from the discipline of social/cultural anthropology, including kinship, class and ethnicity, are accommodated and applied to selections of Tertullian’s writings. In light of postcolonial concerns, this study utilizes the categories of Roman colonizers, indigenous Africans and new elites. The third category, new elites, is actually intended to destabilize the other two, denying any “essential” Roman or African identity. Thereafter, samples from Tertullian’s writings serve to illustrate comparisons of his own identities and the identities of his rhetorical opponents. The overall study finds Tertullian’s identities to be manifold, complex and discursive. Additionally, his writings are understood to reflect antagonism toward Romans, including Christian Romans (which is significant for his so-called Montanism), and Romanized Africans. While Tertullian accommodates much from Graeco-Roman literature, laws and customs, he nevertheless retains a strongly stated non-Roman-ness and an African-ity, which is highlighted in the present monograph.

This volume presents 22 studies on aspects of rhetorical culture from Late Antiquity to the last years of the Byzantine Empire. Many of them concentrate on the effects and social relevance of the art of public speaking, above all in the Greek speaking world, and particular attention is paid to the performative character of rhetoric. The contributions deal both with individual authors, as well as general phenomena of medieval literature.

Theodoric the Great is one of the most fascinating characters among the rulers from the time of the migrations of the Germanic peoples. Like no other Germanic king, this East Goth polarised the world of his time and made an impression on posterity. Opinions on him range from glorifying him as the ideal ruler to condemning him as a tyrant and heretical persecutor. Andreas Goltz examines the many-faceted image of Theoderic in the early centuries after his death (5th–9th centuries), analyzes the reasons behind the different views of him, and thus helps us to understand Theoderic, his age, and the history of his reception and influence.

Between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD Rome underwent a process of transformation which profoundly marked the urban, social, and religious structure of the city. Examing the memory of saints, this study inspects a central field in which this structural change took place. The main themes are, on the one hand, the connection between memoria and various group identities, and, on the other, the specific Christian concept of remembrance, which in turn formed an important prerequisite for the change from a city of late Classical Antiquity to an early medieval city.

This collected volume contributes to the discussion among ancient historians of the character and form of political action in Imperial Rome. It concentrates on the East of the Imperium Romanum for the whole duration of the Imperial Era, including Late Antiquity. Using concrete examples, the individual papers explore the question of how much latitude and freedom of action was exercised by the emperors - and by other authorities, such as governors and cities - and whether their actions display a political strategy which went beyond merely reacting to impulses from their subjects and subordinates.

The author examines the historical context of instructions for the everyday conduct of prosperous Christians and the authors of these instruction manuals from 200 AD and links this examination with a study of attitudes towards the human body as revealed in the instructions. The volume shows how, far from denying the body, the standards relating to health display a legitimate concern for bodily well-being. At the same time, however, there is a fear of the body, which makes it necessary to keep it constantly under control.

Key Features

• it makes a contribution to the intensive research at present being conducted into the “Second Sophistic”
• it combines historical, philological, and theological methods and insights
• it is also of relevance for the history of medicine.

The Isaurians, a mountain people from Asia Minor, challenged Roman rule for over 600 years. Though one Isaurian did make it onto the Eastern imperial throne, they were never successfully integrated. Karl Feld's study brings together, and critically assesses, all the available documentation on the Isaurians and presents it systematically in chronological order.

In the late 10^th century, an anonymous author wrote the fictitious account of a religious dialogue between Archbishop Gregentios and the Jewish scribe Herban and included it in a life of Gregentios based on earlier sources, which indicate that he was a missionary in Yemen in pre-Islamic times. Albrecht Berger examines and translates these texts, and he presents a critical edition.

Key Features

• first edition of a large proportion of the extant texts
• critical edition using all known manuscripts, including those which only recently have been discovered

This is the first systematic study of literary formulae (topoi) in Greek medieval lives of the saints. Thomas Pratsch compiles a comprehensive collection of material, including a systematic catalogue of the topoi. In his evaluation of them he provides new insights into the genesis, transmission and historical development of the genre of Greek saints’ vitae. He traces the gradual development of the vitae from various other literary forms and, working from a new perspective, lends support to the thesis that a canon of Greek lives of the saints became established from the end of the 10^th century and into the 11^th century. This study is a valuable reference work on Byzantine hagiographic literature.

In this collection leading international authorities analyse the structures and economic functions of non-agrarian centres between ca. 500 and 1000 A.D. – their trade, their surrounding settlements, and the agricultural and cultural milieux. The thirty-one papers presented at an international conference held in Bad Homburg focus on recent archaeological discoveries in Central Europe (Vol.1), as well as on those from southeastern Europe to Asia Minor (Vol. 2).

What role did biographies play for the intelligentsia of the 2nd century AD? What literary forms were used by contemporary authors in their personal portrayals? These two questions have led to this cross-genre investigation of the personal portraits in the letters of Pliny the Younger, in the miscellaneous work of Gellius, and in the Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius. Among the common features which can thus be observed are the normative potential of historical figures, the commemoration of contemporaries, and the interaction with communicative conditions of the Roman Empire. Such a functional and historical perspective further demonstrates that many of the characteristics of the featured authors, which to date have been seen as deviations from the genre tradition, are, in actuality, conscious developments, closely related to the authors' common social and cultural background.

The Donation of Constantine is the most outrageous and powerful forgery in world history. The question of its precise time of origin alone kept generations of researchers occupied. But, what exactly is the Donation of Constantine? To find the answer, it is necessary to approach the question on two different semantic levels: First, as the Constitutum Constantini, a fictitious privilege, in which, among other things, rights and presents were bestowed on the catholic church by a grateful Emperor Konstantin. Secondly, as a reflection of the Middle Age mindset, becoming part of the culture landscape midway through 11^th century A.D. The author not only reinterprets the origin of this forgery (i.e. puts it down to the Franks’ opposition of Emperor Louis the Pious), but retells, as well, the history of its misinterpretation since the High Middle Ages.

In an appendix, all relevant texts are printed in the original language, an English translation is provided.

In the World of the Second Sophistic, education, paideia, was a crucial factor in the discourse of power. Knowledge in the fields of medicine, history, philosophy, and poetry joined with rhetorical brilliance and a presentable manner became the outward appearance of the elite of the Eastern Roman Empire. This outward appearance guaranteed a high social status as well as political and economical power for the individual and major advantages for their hometowns in interpolis competition. Since paideia was related particularly to Classical Greek antiquity, it was, at the same time, fundamental to the new self-confidence of the Greek East. This book presents, for the first time, studies from a broad range of disciplines on various fields of life and on different media, in which this ideology became manifest. These contributions show that the Sophists and their texts were only the most prominent exponents of a system of thoughts and values structuring the life of the elite in general.

"As a statesman a genius of the first order" was Theodor Mommsen's verdict in 1886 on Diocletian, the Dalmatian whose career took him from a released slave to Emperor. Diocletian stabilised the Imperium after it had been thrown into turmoil in the imperial crisis of the period of military anarchy. After his abdication in 305, he retired to the magnificent palace of Spalato (Split, Croatia) built for his old age. Although his arrangements for the succession, his price controls and his anti-Christian policies were not a lasting success, his comprehensive reforms created the basis for Constantine and the transition to the Late Classical Age.

Renowned scholars from Germany, Great Britain, Croatia, Slovenia and Switzerland contributed to an international conference held in Split in 2003. Their papers collected here show the present state of research on the Tetrarchy in its political, social, economic, ideological, historico-religious and archaeological aspects and on the reception of Diocletian up to modern times.