Mitchell Stephen, Greatrex Geoffrey (eds.) Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity

Classical Press of Wales, 2000. — 342 p.The period AD 300-600 saw huge changes. The Graeco-Roman city-state was first transformed then eclipsed. Much of the Roman Empire broke up and was reconfigured. New barbarian kingdoms emerged in the Roman West. Above all, religious culture moved from polytheistic to monotheistic. Here, twenty papers by international scholars explore how group identities were established against this shifting background. Separate sections treat the Latin-speaking West, the Greek East, and the age of Justinian. Themes include religious conversion, Roman law in the barbarian West, problems of Jewish identity, and what in Late Antiquity it meant to be Roman.Stephen Mitchell is Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the University of Exeter and a Fellow of the British Academy. He is also the author of Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor (1993), Cremna in Pisidia (1996), and Pisidian Antoch (1998).Geoffrey Greatrex is associate professor at the University of Ottawa and author of several books, including The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars, A.D. 363-630.