Full Description
Late Antiquity (ca. 250-600 CE) was a world at war: barbarian migrations, civil wars, raids, and increasingly porous frontiers affected millions of its inhabitants. While military and political historians have long grappled with this history, scholars of late antique society and culture rarely interrogate the consequences of near constant warfare on civilian populations, fighting forces, and the built environment. War and Community in Late Antiquity responds to this oversight by assembling archeologists, art historians, social historians, and scholars of religion to examine the impact of war on communities (households, cities, religious groups, elites and non-elites) and their reactions to ongoing stressors. Topics include the violence of everyday life as backdrop to that of war; the rhetoric of warfare and its significance for Christian authors; the effects of captivity and billeting on households; communal agency and the fortification of civilian spaces; and the challenges of articulating Christian imperial power in wartime.
Contents
List of figures; List of tables; List of contributors; Introduction: looking for war in late antiquity Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa; Part I. What is War?: 1. Everyday violence Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa; 2. From urbs to ecclesia capta: reimagining urban warfare in late antiquity Kristina Sessa; 3. The 'Law of War': Augustine on the captured city (urbs capta) and sexual violence against men and women in the City of God (Book 1) Susanna Elm; 4. Wartime effects: Synesius of Cyrene and the sentiments of on kingship Ellen Muehlberger; Part II. War and Agency: 5. Monks, barbarians, and soldiers: monastic communities and armed conflict in late ancient Egypt, Palestine, and the Sinai David Brakke; 6. Warfare, communities, and landscapes in late antique North Africa Tommaso Giuliodoro and Anna Leone; 7. 'Feasts and harlots, baths and idleness': the geography of billeted troops in late antiquity Sarah E. Bond; 8. Redemptio captivorum: the ransom of war prisoners in late antiquity Rita Lizzi Testa; 9. Elite women and war: new opportunities for agency in the fifth- and sixth-century wester empire Michele Renee Salzman; Part III. Civil War and Christian Roman Emperors: 10. 'By divine inspiration and the greatness of his mind': Augustan and Christian messaging on Constantine's triumphal arch Diliana Angelova; 11. Apocalyptic ideology during civil war: the archangel Michael and Constantine's Christian subjects Elizabeth DePalma Digeser; 12. A martyr of civil wars: Ambrose on the death of Valentinian II Flavio Santini; Epilogue: what is an enemy made of? Catherine Michael Chin; List of abbreviations and acronyms.
