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Late antiquity

Late antiquity is sometimes defined as spanning from the end of classical antiquity to the local start of the Middle Ages, from around the late 3rd century up to the 7th or 8th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin depending on location.[1] The popularisation of this periodization in English has generally been credited to historian Peter Brown, who proposed a period between 150–750 AD.[2] The Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity defines it as "the period between approximately 250 and 750 AD".[3] Precise boundaries for the period are a continuing matter of debate. In the West, its end was earlier, with the start of the Early Middle Ages typically placed in the 6th century, or even earlier on the edges of the Western Roman Empire.

Period history[edit]

The Roman Empire underwent considerable social, cultural and organizational changes starting with the reign of Diocletian, who began the custom of splitting the Empire into Eastern and Western portions ruled by multiple emperors simultaneously. The Sasanian Empire supplanted the Parthian Empire and began a new phase of the Roman–Persian Wars, the Roman–Sasanian Wars. The divisions between the Greek East and Latin West became more pronounced. The Diocletianic Persecution of Christians in the early 4th century was ended by Galerius and under Constantine the Great, Christianity was made legal in the Empire. The 4th century Christianization of the Roman Empire was extended by the conversions of Tiridates the Great of Armenia, Mirian III of Iberia and Ezana of Axum, who later invaded and ended the Kingdom of Kush. During the late 4th century reign of Theodosius I, Nicene Christianity was proclaimed the state church of the Roman Empire.


The city of Constantinople became the permanent imperial residence in the East by the 5th century and superseded Rome as the largest city in the Late Roman Empire and the Mediterranean Basin. The longest Roman aqueduct system, the 250 km (160 mi)-long Aqueduct of Valens was constructed to supply it with water, and the tallest Roman triumphal columns were erected there.


Migrations of Germanic, Hunnic, and Slavic tribes disrupted Roman rule from the late 4th century onwards, culminating first in the Sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 and subsequent Sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455, part of the eventual collapse of the Empire in the West itself by 476. The Western Empire was replaced by the so-called barbarian kingdoms, with the Arian Christian Ostrogothic Kingdom ruling Rome from Ravenna. The resultant cultural fusion of Greco-Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions formed the foundations of the subsequent culture of Europe.


In the 6th century, Roman imperial rule continued in the East, and the Byzantine-Sasanian wars continued. The campaigns of Justinian the Great led to the fall of the Ostrogothic and Vandal Kingdoms, and their reincorporation into the Empire, when the city of Rome and much of Italy and North Africa returned to imperial control. Though most of Italy was soon part of the Kingdom of the Lombards, the Roman Exarchate of Ravenna endured, ensuring the so-called Byzantine Papacy. Justinian constructed the Hagia Sophia, a great example of Byzantine architecture, and the first outbreak of the centuries-long first plague pandemic took place. At Ctesiphon, the Sasanians completed the Taq Kasra, the colossal iwan of which is the largest single-span vault of unreinforced brickwork in the world and the triumph of Sasanian architecture.


The middle of the 6th century was characterized by extreme climate events (the volcanic winter of 535–536 and the Late Antique Little Ice Age) and a disastrous pandemic (the Plague of Justinian in 541). The effects of these events in the social and political life are still under discussion. In the 7th century the disastrous Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 and the campaigns of Khosrow II and Heraclius facilitated the emergence of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula during the lifetime of Muhammad. Subsequent Muslim conquest of the Levant and Persia overthrew the Sasanian Empire and permanently wrested two thirds of the Eastern Roman Empire's territory from Roman control, forming the Rashidun Caliphate. The Byzantine Empire under the Heraclian dynasty began the middle Byzantine period, and together with the establishment of the later 7th century Umayyad Caliphate, generally marks the end of late antiquity.

Byzantine Empire

Peter Brown

Henri Pirenne

Fall of the Western Roman Empire

Early Middle Ages

Migration Period

Roman–Persian Wars

Church of the priest Félix and baptistry of Kélibia

Perry Anderson, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, NLB, London, 1974.

The World of Late Antiquity: from Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad (CE 150–750), Thames and Hudson, 1989, ISBN 0-393-95803-5

Peter Brown

Peter Brown, Authority and the Sacred : Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World, Routledge, 1997,  0-521-59557-6

ISBN

Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity 200–1000 CE, Blackwell, 2003,  0-631-22138-7

ISBN

Henning Börm, Westrom. Von Honorius bis Justinian, 2nd ed., , 2018, ISBN 978-3-17-023276-1. (Review in English).

Kohlhammer Verlag

The Later Roman Empire: CE 284–430, Harvard University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-674-51194-8

Averil Cameron

Averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity CE 395–700, Routledge, 2011,  0-415-01421-2

ISBN

Averil Cameron et al. (editors), The Cambridge Ancient History, vols. 12–14, Cambridge University Press 1997ff.

Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-954620-6

Gilian Clark

John Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century, Clarendon Press, 2000.

Alexander Demandt, Die Spätantike, 2nd ed., Beck, 2007

Peter Dinzelbacher and Werner Heinz, Europa in der Spätantike, Primus, 2007.

Mateusz Fafinski, and Jakob Riemenschneider. . Elements in Late Antique Religion 2. Cambridge: Camabridge University Press, 2023.

Monasticism and the City in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Fabio Gasti, , Pavia University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-88-96764-09-1.

Profilo storico della letteratura tardolatina

Tomas Hägg (ed.) "SO Debate: The World of Late Antiquity revisited," in Symbolae Osloenses (72), 1997.

Scott F. Johnson ed., The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity, Oxford University Press, 2012,  978-0-19-533693-1

ISBN

Arnold H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602; a social, economic and administrative survey, vols. I, II, University of Oklahoma Press, 1964.

(1977). Byzantine art in the making: main lines of stylistic development in Mediterranean art, 3rd–7th century. Faber & Faber. ISBN 0-571-11154-8.

Kitzinger, Ernst

Rome in Late Antiquity: CE 313–604, Routledge, 2001.

Bertrand Lançon

Noel Lenski (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

and Dominic Montserrat (eds.), From Constantine to Julian: Pagan and Byzantine Views, A Source History, Routledge, 1996.

Samuel N.C. Lieu

Josef Lössl and Nicholas J. Baker-Brian (eds.), A Companion to Religion in Late Antiquity, Wiley Blackwell, 2018.

Michael Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Michael Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila, Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Robert Markus, The end of Ancient Christianity, Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Christianizing the Roman Empire C.E. 100–400, Yale University Press, 1984.

Ramsay MacMullen

Stephen Mitchell, A History of the Later Roman Empire. CE 284–641, 2nd ed., Blackwell, 2015.

Michael Rostovtzeff (rev. P. Fraser), The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, Oxford University Press, 1979.

Johannes Wienand (ed.), Contested Monarchy. Integrating the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century CE, Oxford University Press, 2015.

Gasper, Giles (2024). "On the Six Days of Creation: The Hexaemeral Tradition". In Goroncy, Jason (ed.). T&T Clark Handbook of the Doctrine of Creation. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 176–190.

a Catholic website with English translations of the Early Fathers of the Church.

New Advent – The Fathers of the Church

from ORB

ORB Encyclopedia's section on Late Antiquity in the Mediterranean

from ORB

Overview of Late Antiquity

a collaborative forum of Princeton and Stanford to make the latest scholarship on the field available in advance of final publication.

Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics

source documents from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook

The End of the Classical World

from the University of Pennsylvania

Worlds of Late Antiquity

from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Age of spirituality : late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century