Medieval Archaeology | 2019
Reviews
Abstract
Late Antiquity can mean very different things and university-level courses on that topic may vary enormously. The chronological limits are famously fluid, of course, as is the geographical focus, but so too are broader narrative patterns and methodological issues. Is this a period of the triumphant monotheisms? Of Roman political decline and rebirth? Of social or economic transformation? These two introductory textbooks adopt a more or less conventional temporal and spatial framework: both concentrate on the Mediterranean between roughly 250–600 CE and focus more on the ‘later Roman’ world than on territories beyond, or on the first successor kingdoms of the West; yet, in other ways, their presentations of Late Antiquity are startlingly different. Boin’s A Social and Cultural History of Late Antiquity is perhaps the more conventional of the two. Intended as the last in a proposed series of introductory textbooks on the Ancient World, it focuses primarily on religious transformation, particularly the wider triumph of Christianity in the 4th century. While separate chapters cover law, social change, urban life, the economy, the household and so on, the Church’s growth is ever present: ‘Social Change’, for example, includes sections on both persecution and Christian evangelism, and ‘Law and Politics’ has a long section on the Edict of Milan. Generous boxed texts cover specific points for classroom discussion on general themes (‘Can we ever really know what happened?’; ‘When did Christianity split from Judaism?’); political issues (‘Gladiators, Chariot Races and the Laws of the Christian Emperor Constantine’); and other important topics (‘The Grain Industry, Free Bread and the Bakers at Ostia’). A penultimate chapter on South Asia and China in the 6th and 7th centuries, and a final chapter reflecting on the rise of Islam provides a welcome broadening of the canvas. The volume has been thoughtfully assembled, is presented in manageable chunks and is tidily illustrated. Sessa’s Daily Life in Late Antiquity, by contrast, examines the same period from the bottom up: indeed, her fine discussion of urban life includes illuminating discussions of toilets (communal and private), waste disposal and the role that disease had in shortening the life of town-dwellers. Hers is a genuine attempt to introduce Late Antiquity from the lived experience of its inhabitants, and she succeeds magnificently. The book includes a (very) succinct introductory overview of key political events, but the chapters are otherwise thematically arranged. Strikingly, the first of these relates to ‘Rural Life’ — something of an afterthought in many overviews of the period, but absolutely central to at least 80% of the inhabitants of this world, as Sessa points out. There are crisp introductions to the four basic staples of the late ancient diet (grain, grape, olive and pig), and a clear overview of the economic processes by which they were exploited. Later chapters cover ‘Urban Life’ (which neatly sidesteps