J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz

J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz compares the personalities and the respective careers of two of the greatest of the early Christian Fathers, Ambrose and John Chrysostom. While the statesmanlike Ambrose ended his life as a pillar of the Western establishment, Chrysostom, the outspoken idealist, died in exile. However, their views and ideals were remarakably similar: both bishops were concerned with the social role of the Church, both were determined opponents of what they called the Arian heresy, and each attracted a dedicated following among his urban congregation. This similarity, Liebeschuetz argues, was due not to the influence of one on the other, but was a consequence of their participation in a Christian culture which spanned the divide between the Eastern (later Byzantine) and Western parts of the Roman Empire. The monastic movement figures throughout the book as an important influence on both men and as perhaps the most dynamic development in the Christian culture of the fourth century.

The essays in this second collection of articles by Professor Liebeschuetz deal with several aspects of the history of Late Antiquity. One theme is the prehistory of Late Antique ethical monotheism, which is illustrated by studies of pagan cults, Mithraism and Judaism. Several essays discuss the nature of the people who took over large areas of the Western Roman Empire, especially the Visigoths and the Vandals. The author insists that the continuing 'ethnogenesis' of these groups was made possible by customs and traditions, some of them going back before the entry of these peoples into the Empire. It is argued that the fact that formal possession of Roman citizenship became unimportant, helped the barbarian settlers to expand their groups and to consolidate their ethnic solidarity. Other papers deal with the historiography of Late Antiquity, and, more generally, with the writings of historians from Thucydides to A.H.M. Jones and Peter Brown. The anxiety of today's historians to reject the concept of decline is linked to current political concerns, especially to the ideology of multiculturalism. A recurring theme is the relationship between the historian's own background and his or her writing.

Professor Liebeschuetz examines what happened to the cities of the Roman world in the years when the Roman Empire disintegrated. He traces the end of classical political culture, the impact of Christianisation, and a progressive simplification of lifestyles in the lands, both East and West, that had been the Roman Empire.

This book discusses the changes which occurred in the cities of the Roman world in the period AD 400- 750. The cities of the Middle Ages, both in the East and Western parts of the old Roman Empire, differed from classical cities in fundamental ways. Professor Liebeschuetz concludes that this suggests a decline and fall in the Roman cities. At the centre of this book is an account of the decline of cities as political organizations: the replacement of government in accordance with constitutional rules by a looser and much more informal kind of oligarchical control which was paralleled by the rise of the bishop. Professor Liebeschuetz argues that among the factors that transformed and undermined the Roman city the most conspicuous were related to the state of the Empire, economic developments which were consequences of the breaking up of the imperial structure, as well as more localized regional circumstances. The decline and fall of the Roman city was accompanied by very great changes in life style which can be summarized as simplification and localization. Further he concludes that Christianity by teaching people to despise the things of this world helped them to come to terms with the deterioration of their worldly circumstances.

This is a survey of the religious attitudes reflected in Latin literature from the late Republic to the time of Constantine. Its main theme is the development of the Roman public religion in that period. Within this theme the most pervasive issue is the relationship between Roman religion and morality. Though the link between the two is shown to be closer than is often supposed, it was also the case that the rise of such systems as Stoicism and Christianity contributed to a sense of morality more detached from traditional conceptions of the collective well-being of the Roman state. Nevertheless, the old religion continued to flourish and to contribute in numerous ways to the working of Roman society until it was fatally weakened by the political and social crisis of the third century. This crisis, and the tendency of the Roman Empire to depend upon and encourage new sources of support, prepared the way for the emergence of Christianity, first as the religion of the Emperor, and then, after a period in which Christians and pagans were able to co-operate by emphasizing their common beliefs, as the official religion of the Empire.

Oxford Scholarly Classics is a new series that makes available again great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in uniform series design, the reissues will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.