Late antiquity is the time of transition from
classical antiquity
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
to the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
and adjacent areas bordering the
Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this
periodization
In historiography, periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified, and named blocks of time for the purpose of study or analysis.Adam Rabinowitz. It's about time: historical periodization and Linked Ancie ...
in English has generally been credited to historian
Peter Brown, after the publication of his seminal work ''
The World of Late Antiquity'' (1971). Precise boundaries for the period are a continuing matter of debate, but Brown proposes a period between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Generally, it can be thought of as from the end of the
Roman Empire's
Crisis of the Third Century
The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as the Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis (AD 235–284), was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed. The crisis ended due to the military victories of Aurelian and with the ascensio ...
(235–284) to the
early Muslim conquests (622–750), or as roughly contemporary with the
Sasanian Empire (224–651). In the West its end was earlier, with the start of the
Early Middle Ages typically placed in the 6th century, or earlier on the edges of the
Western Roman Empire.
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
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
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
Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of Medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the ''lingua franca'' (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, the ...
became more pronounced. The
Diocletianic Persecution of Christians in the early 4th century was
ended by
Galerius and under
Constantine the Great,
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
was
made legal in the Empire. The 4th century
Christianization of the Roman Empire
The growth of Christianity from its obscure origin 40 AD, with fewer than 1,000 followers, to being the majority religion of the entire Roman Empire by AD 350, has been examined through a wide variety of historiographical approaches.
Un ...
was extended by the conversions of
Tiridates the Great
Tiridates III ( Armenian: Գ ''Trdat III''; – c. 330), also known as Tiridates the Great ( hy, Տրդատ Մեծ ''Trdat Mets''), or Tiridates IV, was the Armenian Arsacid king from c.298 to c. 330.
In 301, Tiridates proclaimed Christiani ...
of
Armenia,
Mirian III
Mirian III ( ka, მირიან III) was a king of Iberia or Kartli (Georgia), contemporaneous to the Roman emperor Constantine the Great ( r. 306–337). He was the founder of the royal Chosroid dynasty.
According to the early medieval Geo ...
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
The original Nicene Creed (; grc-gre, Σύμβολον τῆς Νικαίας; la, Symbolum Nicaenum) was first adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325. In 381, it was amended at the First Council of Constantinople. The amended form is ...
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 -long
Aqueduct of Valens
The Aqueduct of Valens ( tr, Valens Su Kemeri, grc, Ἀγωγὸς τοῦ ὕδατος, translit=Agōgós tou hýdatos, lit=aqueduct) was a Roman aqueduct system built in the late 4th century AD, to supply Constantinople – the capital of the ...
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
The Ostrogothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of Italy (), existed under the control of the Germanic Ostrogoths in Italy and neighbouring areas from 493 to 553.
In Italy, the Ostrogoths led by Theodoric the Great killed and replaced Odoacer, ...
ruling Rome from
Ravenna. The resultant cultural fusion of
Greco-Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions formed the foundations of the subsequent
culture of Europe
The culture of Europe is rooted in its art, architecture, film, different types of music, economics, literature, and philosophy. European culture is largely rooted in what is often referred to as its "common cultural heritage".
Definition
T ...
.
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
The Byzantine Papacy was a period of Byzantine domination of the Roman papacy from 537 to 752, when popes required the approval of the Byzantine Emperor for episcopal consecration, and many popes were chosen from the '' apocrisiarii'' (liaisons ...
. 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
Vault may refer to:
* Jumping, the act of propelling oneself upwards
Architecture
* Vault (architecture), an arched form above an enclosed space
* Bank vault, a reinforced room or compartment where valuables are stored
* Burial vault (enclosure ...
of unreinforced
brickwork
Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called ''courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall.
Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by si ...
in the world and the triumph of
Sasanian architecture
Sasanian architecture refers to the Persian architectural style that reached a peak in its development during the Sasanian era. In many ways the Sasanian Empire period (224–651 CE) witnessed the highest achievement of Iranian civilization, and ...
.
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
The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (541–549 AD) was the first recorded major outbreak of the first plague pandemic, the first Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. The dis ...
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
The Byzantine Empire was ruled by emperors of the dynasty of Heraclius between 610 and 711. The Heraclians presided over a period of cataclysmic events that were a watershed in the history of the Empire and the world.
Heraclius, the founder of ...
began the
middle Byzantine period, and together with the establishment of the later 7th century
Umayyad Caliphate
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by th ...
, generally marks the end of late antiquity.
Terminology
The term ''Spätantike'', literally "late antiquity", has been used by German-speaking historians since its popularization by
Alois Riegl
Alois Riegl (14 January 1858, Linz – 17 June 1905, Vienna) was an Austrian art historian, and is considered a member of the Vienna School of Art History. He was one of the major figures in the establishment of art history as a self-sufficient a ...
in the early 20th century. It was given currency in English partly by the writings of
Peter Brown, whose survey ''The World of Late Antiquity'' (1971) revised the
Gibbon view of a stale and ossified Classical culture, in favour of a vibrant time of renewals and beginnings, and whose ''The Making of Late Antiquity'' offered a new paradigm of understanding the changes in Western culture of the time in order to confront Sir
Richard Southern
Sir Richard William Southern (8 February 1912 – 6 February 2001), who published under the name R. W. Southern, was a noted English medieval historian based at the University of Oxford.
Biography
Southern was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne o ...
's ''The Making of the Middle Ages''.
The continuities between the
later Roman Empire
The Later Roman Empire spans the period from 284 AD (Diocletian's proclamation as emperor) to 641 (death of Heraclius) in the history of the Roman Empire.
Evidence
Histories
In comparison with previous periods, studies on Later Roman history a ...
, as it was reorganized by
Diocletian (r. 284–305), and the
Early Middle Ages are stressed by writers who wish to emphasize that the seeds of medieval culture were already developing in the
Christianized
Christianization ( or Christianisation) is to make Christian; to imbue with Christian principles; to become Christian. It can apply to the conversion of an individual, a practice, a place or a whole society. It began in the Roman Empire, conti ...
empire, and that they continued to do so in the Eastern Roman Empire or
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
at least until the
coming of Islam. Concurrently, some migrating
Germanic tribes
The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and e ...
such as the
Ostrogoths and
Visigoths saw themselves as perpetuating the "Roman" tradition. While the usage "Late Antiquity" suggests that the social and cultural priorities of
Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
endured throughout
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
into the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, the usage of "Early Middle Ages" or "Early Byzantine" emphasizes a break with the classical past, and the term "
Migration Period" tends to de-emphasize the disruptions in the former Western Roman Empire caused by the creation of Germanic kingdoms within her borders beginning with the ''
foedus
''Foederati'' (, singular: ''foederatus'' ) were peoples and cities bound by a treaty, known as ''foedus'', with Rome. During the Roman Republic, the term identified the ''socii'', but during the Roman Empire, it was used to describe foreign stat ...
'' with the
Goths in Aquitania in 418.
The general decline of population, technological knowledge and standards of living in Europe during this period became the archetypal example of
societal collapse
Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of socioeconomic complexity, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible cause ...
for writers from the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
. As a result of this decline, and the relative scarcity of historical records from Europe in particular, the period from roughly the early fifth century until the
Carolingian Renaissance (or later still) was referred to as the "
Dark Ages". This term has mostly been abandoned as a name for a historiographical epoch, being replaced by "Late Antiquity"
in the periodization of the late West Roman Empire, the early Byzantine empire and the Early Middle Ages.
[Gilian Clark, ''Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction'' (Oxford 2011), pp. 1–2.]
Religion
One of the most important transformations in Late Antiquity was the formation and evolution of the
Abrahamic religions
The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran.
Jewish tradition ...
:
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
,
Rabbinic Judaism and, eventually,
Islam.
A milestone in the
spread of Christianity was the conversion of Emperor
Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) in 312, as claimed by his Christian panegyrist
Eusebius of Caesarea, although
the sincerity of his conversion is debated. Constantine confirmed the legalization of the religion through the so-called
Edict of Milan in 313, jointly issued with his rival in the East,
Licinius (r. 308–324). By the late 4th century, Emperor
Theodosius the Great had made
Christianity the State religion, thereby transforming the Classical Roman world, which Peter Brown characterized as "rustling with the presence of many
divine spirits."
Constantine I was a key figure in many important events in
Christian history
The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, Christian countries, and the Christians with their various denominations, from the 1st century to the present. Christianity originated with the ministry of Jesus, a Jewish teach ...
, as he convened and attended the first ecumenical council of bishops at
Nicaea in 325, subsidized the building of churches and sanctuaries such as the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, and involved himself in questions such as the timing of
Christ's resurrection and its relation to the
Passover.
The birth of
Christian monasticism in the deserts of
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
in the 3rd century, which initially operated outside the episcopal authority of the Church, would become so successful that by the 8th century it penetrated the Church and became the primary Christian practice.
Monasticism was not the only new Christian movement to appear in late antiquity, although it had perhaps the greatest influence. Other movements notable for their unconventional practices include the
Grazers, holy men who ate only grass and chained themselves up; the
Holy Fool movement, in which acting like a fool was considered more divine than folly; and the
Stylites movement, where one practitioner lived atop a 50-foot pole for 40 years.
Late Antiquity marks the decline of
Roman state religion, circumscribed in degrees by edicts likely inspired by Christian advisors such as Eusebius to 4th-century emperors, and a period of dynamic religious experimentation and spirituality with many
syncretic
Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thu ...
sects, some formed centuries earlier, such as
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
or
Neoplatonism and the
Chaldaean oracles, some novel, such as
hermeticism
Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical system that is primarily based on the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus (a legendary Hellenistic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth). These teachings are containe ...
. Culminating in the reforms advocated by
Apollonius of Tyana being adopted by
Aurelian and formulated by
Flavius Claudius Julianus
Julian ( la, Flavius Claudius Julianus; grc-gre, Ἰουλιανός ; 331 – 26 June 363) was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplaton ...
to create an organized but short-lived pagan state religion that ensured its underground survival into the Byzantine age and beyond.
Mahāyāna Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...
developed in India and along the
Silk Road in
Central Asia, while
Manichaeism, a
Dualist faith, arose in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
and spread both East and West, for a time contending with Christianity in the Roman Empire.
Many of the new religions relied on the emergence of the
parchment ''codex'' (bound book) over the
papyrus ''volumen'' (scroll), the former allowing for quicker access to key materials and easier portability than the fragile scroll, thus fueling the rise of synoptic
exegesis,
papyrology
Papyrology is the study of manuscripts of ancient literature, correspondence, legal archives, etc., preserved on portable media from antiquity, the most common form of which is papyrus, the principal writing material in the ancient civilizations ...
. Notable in this regard is the topic of the
Fifty Bibles of Constantine.
Laity vs clergy
Within the recently legitimized Christian community of the 4th century, a division could be more distinctly seen between the
laity and an increasingly
celibate male leadership. These men presented themselves as removed from the traditional Roman motivations of
public and
private life marked by pride, ambition and kinship solidarity, and differing from the married pagan leadership. Unlike later strictures on
priestly celibacy, celibacy in Late Antique Christianity sometimes took the form of
abstinence from sexual relations after marriage, and it came to be the expected norm for urban
clergy
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
. Celibate and detached, the upper clergy became an elite equal in prestige to urban notables, the ''potentes'' or ''
dynatoi'' (Brown (1987) p. 270).
The rise of Islam
Islam appeared in the 7th century, spurring Arab armies to invade the Eastern Roman Empire and the
Sassanian Empire
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...
of
Persia, destroying the latter. After conquering all of
North Africa and
Visigothic Spain, the Islamic invasion was halted by
Charles Martel at the
Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers and, by Arab sources, the Battle of tiles of Martyrs ( ar, معركة بلاط الشهداء, Maʿrakat Balāṭ ash-Shuhadā'), was fought on 10 October 732, and was an important battle ...
in modern
France.
On the rise of Islam, two main theses prevail. On the one hand, there is the traditional view, as espoused by most historians prior to the second half of the twentieth century (and after) and by Muslim scholars. This view, the so-called "out of Arabia"-thesis, holds that Islam as a phenomenon was a new, alien element in the late antique world. Related to this is the
Pirenne Thesis, according to which the
Arab invasions marked—through conquest and the disruption of Mediterranean trade routes—the cataclysmic end of Late Antiquity and the beginning of the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
.
On the other hand, there is a more recent thesis, associated with scholars in the tradition of Peter Brown, in which Islam is seen to be a product of the Late Antique world, not foreign to it. This school suggests that its origin within the shared cultural horizon of the late antique world explains the character of Islam and its development. Such historians point to similarities with other late antique religions and philosophies—especially Christianity—in the prominent role and manifestations of piety in Islam, in Islamic asceticism and the role of "holy persons", in the pattern of universalist, homogeneous monotheism tied to worldly and military power, in early Islamic engagement with Greek schools of thought, in the apocalypticism of
Islamic theology
Schools of Islamic theology are various Islamic schools and branches in different schools of thought regarding '' ʿaqīdah'' (creed). The main schools of Islamic Theology include the Qadariyah, Falasifa, Jahmiyya, Murji'ah, Muʿtazila, Batin ...
and in the way the
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...
seems to react to contemporary religious and cultural issues shared by the late antique world at large. Further indication that Arabia (and thus the environment in which Islam first developed) was a part of the late antique world is found in the close economic and military relations between Arabia, the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
and the Sassanian Empire.
[Robert Hoyland, 'Early Islam as a Late Antique Religion', in: Scott F. Johnson ed., ''The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity'' (Oxford 2012) pp. 1053–1077.]
Political transformations
The Late Antique period also saw a wholesale transformation of the
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...
and
social basis of life in and around the
Roman Empire.
The Roman citizen elite in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, under the pressure of taxation and the ruinous cost of presenting spectacular public entertainments in the traditional ''
cursus honorum'', had found under the
Antonines that security could only be obtained by combining their established roles in the local town with new ones as servants and representatives of a distant Emperor and his traveling court. After Constantine centralized the government in his new capital of
Constantinople (dedicated in 330), the Late Antique upper classes were divided among those who had access to the far-away centralized administration (in concert with the
great landowners), and those who did not—though they were well-born and thoroughly educated, a classical education and the election by the Senate to magistracies was no longer the path to success. Room at the top of Late Antique society was more bureaucratic and involved increasingly intricate channels of access to the emperor: the plain toga that had identified all members of the
Republican senatorial class was replaced with the silk court vestments and jewelry associated with Byzantine imperial iconography. Also indicative of the times is the fact that the imperial cabinet of advisors came to be known as the ''
consistorium
The ''sacrum consistorium'' or ''sacrum auditorium'' (from la, consistere, "discuss a topic"; gr, θεῖον συνέδριον, theion synedrion, "sacred assembly") was the highest political council of the Roman Empire from the time of Constant ...
'', or those who would stand in courtly attendance upon their seated emperor, as distinct from the informal set of friends and advisors surrounding the ''
Augustus''.
Cities
The later Roman Empire was in a sense a network of cities. Archaeology now supplements literary sources to document the transformation followed by collapse of cities in the
Mediterranean basin. Two diagnostic symptoms of decline—or as many historians prefer, 'transformation'—are subdivision, particularly of expansive formal spaces in both the ''
domus'' and the public
basilica
In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's Forum (Roman), forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building ...
, and encroachment, in which artisans' shops invade the public thoroughfare, a transformation that was to result in the ''
souk'' (marketplace). Burials within the urban precincts mark another stage in dissolution of traditional urbanistic discipline, overpowered by the attraction of saintly shrines and relics. In Roman Britain, the typical 4th- and 5th-century layer of
dark earth
Dark earth in geology is a substratum, up to 1 meter (3.1 feet) thick, that indicates settlement over long periods of time. The material is high in organic matter, including charcoal, which gives it its characteristic dark colour; it may also co ...
within cities seems to be a result of increased gardening in formerly urban spaces.
The city of Rome went from a population of 800,000 in the beginning of the period to a population of 30,000 by the end of the period, the most precipitous drop coming with the breaking of the
aqueducts
Aqueduct may refer to:
Structures
*Aqueduct (bridge), a bridge to convey water over an obstacle, such as a ravine or valley
*Navigable aqueduct, or water bridge, a structure to carry navigable waterway canals over other rivers, valleys, railw ...
during the
Gothic War. A similar though less marked decline in urban population occurred later in Constantinople, which was gaining population until the outbreak of the
Plague of Justinian
The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (541–549 AD) was the first recorded major outbreak of the first plague pandemic, the first Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. The dis ...
in 541. In Europe there was also a general decline in urban populations. As a whole, the period of late antiquity was accompanied by an overall population decline in almost all Europe, and a reversion to more of a subsistence economy. Long-distance markets disappeared, and there was a reversion to a greater degree of local production and consumption, rather than webs of commerce and specialized production.
Concurrently, the continuity of the Eastern Roman Empire at
Constantinople meant that the turning-point for the
Greek East
Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of Medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the ''lingua franca'' (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, the ...
came later, in the 7th century, as the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire centered around the
Balkans, North Africa (
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
and
Carthage), and
Asia Minor. The degree and extent of discontinuity in the smaller cities of the Greek East is a moot subject among historians. The urban continuity of Constantinople is the outstanding example of the Mediterranean world; of the two great cities of lesser rank,
Antioch was devastated by the Persian sack of 540, followed by the
plague of Justinian
The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (541–549 AD) was the first recorded major outbreak of the first plague pandemic, the first Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. The dis ...
(542 onwards) and completed by earthquake, while
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
survived its Islamic transformation, to suffer incremental decline in favour of
Cairo in the medieval period.
Justinian rebuilt his birthplace in
Illyricum, as ''Justiniana Prima'', more in a gesture of ''imperium'' than out of an urbanistic necessity; another "city", was reputed to have been founded, according to
Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gen ...
' panegyric on Justinian's buildings, precisely at the spot where the general
Belisarius
Belisarius (; el, Βελισάριος; The exact date of his birth is unknown. – 565) was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire under the emperor Justinian I. He was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean terr ...
touched shore in North Africa: the miraculous spring that gushed forth to give them water and the rural population that straightway abandoned their ploughshares for civilised life within the new walls, lend a certain taste of unreality to the project.
In mainland Greece, the inhabitants of
Sparta,
Argos and
Corinth abandoned their cities for fortified sites in nearby high places; the fortified heights of
Acrocorinth
Acrocorinth ( el, Ακροκόρινθος), "Upper Corinth", the acropolis of ancient Corinth, is a monolithic rock overseeing the ancient city of Corinth, Greece. In the estimation of George Forrest, "It is the most impressive of the acropolis ...
are typical of Byzantine urban sites in Greece. In Italy, populations that had clustered within reach of
Roman roads began to withdraw from them, as potential avenues of intrusion, and to rebuild in typically constricted fashion round an isolated fortified promontory, or ''
rocca''; Cameron notes similar movement of populations in the Balkans, 'where inhabited centres contracted and regrouped around a defensible
acropolis, or were abandoned in favour of such positions elsewhere."
In the western Mediterranean, the only new cities known to be founded in Europe between the 5th and 8th centuries were the four or five
Visigothic "victory cities".
Reccopolis in the
province of Guadalajara
Guadalajara () is a province of Spain, belonging to the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. As of 2013 it had a population of 257,723 people. The population of the province has grown in the last 10 years. It is located in the centre of ...
is one: the others were ''Victoriacum'', founded by
Leovigild
Liuvigild, Leuvigild, Leovigild, or ''Leovigildo'' (Spanish and Portuguese), ( 519 – 586) was a Visigothic King of Hispania and Septimania from 568 to 586. Known for his Codex Revisus or Code of Leovigild, a law allowing equal rights between th ...
, which may survive as the city of
Vitoria, though a 12th-century (re)foundation for this city is given in contemporary sources; ''Lugo id est Luceo'' in the
Asturias
Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous community in northwest Spain.
It is coextensiv ...
, referred to by
Isidore of Seville, and ''Ologicus'' (perhaps ''Ologitis''), founded using
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
labour in 621 by
Suinthila
Suintila, or ''Suinthila'', ''Swinthila'', ''Svinthila''; (ca. 588 – 633/635) was Visigothic King of Hispania, Septimania and Galicia from 621 to 631. He was a son of Reccared I and his wife Bado, and a brother of the general Geila. Under Suintil ...
as a fortification against the Basques, modern
Olite. All of these cities were founded for military purposes and at least Reccopolis, Victoriacum, and Ologicus in celebration of victory. A possible fifth Visigothic foundation is ''Baiyara'' (perhaps modern
Montoro), mentioned as founded by Reccared in the 15th-century geographical account, ''
Kitab al-Rawd al-Mitar''. The arrival of a highly urbanized Islamic culture in the decade following 711 ensured the survival of cities in the ''Hispaniae'' into the Middle Ages.
Beyond the Mediterranean world, the cities of
Gaul withdrew within a constricted line of defense around a citadel. Former imperial capitals such as
Cologne and
Trier lived on in diminished form as administrative centres of the
Franks. In
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
, where the break with Late Antiquity comes earliest in the 5th and the 6th century, most towns and cities had been in rapid decline during the 4th century during a time of prosperity until the last decades of the century, well before the withdrawal of Roman governors and garrisons; historians emphasizing urban continuities with the
Anglo-Saxon period depend largely on the post-Roman survival of Roman
toponymy. Aside from a mere handful of its continuously inhabited sites, like
York and
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and possibly
Canterbury, however, the rapidity and thoroughness with which its urban life collapsed with the dissolution of centralized bureaucracy calls into question the extent to which
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered wa ...
had ever become authentically urbanized: "in
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered wa ...
towns appeared a shade exotic," observes
H. R. Loyn, "owing their reason for being more to the military and administrative needs of Rome than to any economic virtue". The other institutional power centre, the
Roman villa
A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions.
Typology and distribution
Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas n ...
, did not survive in Britain either.
[Loyn 1991:16.] Gildas
Gildas ( Breton: ''Gweltaz''; c. 450/500 – c. 570) — also known as Gildas the Wise or ''Gildas Sapiens'' — was a 6th-century British monk best known for his scathing religious polemic ''De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae'', which recount ...
lamented the destruction of the twenty-eight cities of Britain; though not all in his list can be identified with known Roman sites, Loyn finds no reason to doubt the essential truth of his statement.
Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
can generally be defined as an age of cities; the Greek
polis and Roman
municipium were locally organised, self-governing bodies of citizens governed by written constitutions. When Rome came to dominate the known world, local initiative and control were gradually subsumed by the ever-growing Imperial bureaucracy; by the
Crisis of the Third Century
The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as the Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis (AD 235–284), was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed. The crisis ended due to the military victories of Aurelian and with the ascensio ...
the military, political and economic demands made by the Empire had crushed the civic spirit, and service in local government came to be an onerous duty, often imposed as punishment. Harassed urban dwellers fled to the walled estates of the wealthy to avoid taxes, military service, famine and disease. In the Western Roman Empire especially, many cities destroyed by invasion or civil war in the 3rd century could not be rebuilt. Plague and famine hit the urban class in greater proportion, and thus the people who knew how to keep civic services running. Perhaps the greatest blow came in the wake of the
extreme weather events of 535–536
The volcanic winter of 536 was the most severe and protracted episode of climatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 2,000 years. The volcanic winter was caused by an eruption, with several possible locations proposed in various contin ...
and subsequent
Plague of Justinian
The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (541–549 AD) was the first recorded major outbreak of the first plague pandemic, the first Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. The dis ...
, when the remaining trade networks ensured the Plague spread to the remaining commercial cities. The impact of this outbreak of plague has recently been disputed. The end of
Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
is the end of the Polis model, and the general decline of cities is a defining feature of Late Antiquity.
Public building
In the cities the strained economies of Roman over-expansion arrested growth. Almost all new public building in Late Antiquity came directly or indirectly from the emperors or imperial officials. Attempts were made to maintain what was already there. The supply of free grain and oil to 20% of the population of Rome remained intact the last decades of the 5th century. It was once thought that the elite and rich had withdrawn to the private luxuries of their numerous
villas and town houses. Scholarly opinion has revised this. They monopolized the higher offices in the imperial administration, but they were removed from military command by the late 3rd century. Their focus turned to preserving their vast wealth rather than fighting for it.
The
basilica
In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's Forum (Roman), forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building ...
, which had functioned as a law court or for imperial reception of foreign dignitaries, became the primary public building in the 4th century. Due to the stress on civic finances, cities spent money on walls, maintaining baths and markets at the expense of amphitheaters, temples, libraries, porticoes, gymnasia, concert and lecture halls, theaters and other amenities of public life. In any case as Christianity took over many of these building which were associated with pagan cults were neglected in favor of building churches and donating to the poor. The Christian basilica was copied from the civic structure with variations. The bishop took the chair in the apse reserved in secular structures for the magistrate—or the Emperor himself—as the representative here and now of
Christ Pantocrator
In Christian iconography, Christ Pantocrator ( grc-gre, Χριστὸς Παντοκράτωρ) is a specific depiction of Christ. ''Pantocrator'' or ''Pantokrator'', literally ''ruler of all'', but usually translated as "Almighty" or "all-po ...
, the Ruler of All, his characteristic Late Antique
icon. These ecclesiastical basilicas (e.g.,
St. John Lateran
The Archbasilica Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist in the Lateran ( it, Arcibasilica del Santissimo Salvatore e dei Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista in Laterano), also known as the Papa ...
and
St. Peter's in Rome) were themselves outdone by Justinian's
Hagia Sophia, a staggering display of later Roman/Byzantine power and architectural taste, though the building is not architecturally a basilica. In the former Western Roman Empire almost no great buildings were constructed from the 5th century. A most outstanding example is the
Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna constructed circa 530 at a cost of 26,000 gold
solidi or 360
Roman pound
The ancient Roman units of measurement were primarily founded on the Hellenic system, which in turn was influenced by the Egyptian system and the Mesopotamian system. The Roman units were comparatively consistent and well documented.
Length
T ...
s of gold.
City life in the East, though negatively affected by the plague in the 6th–7th centuries, finally collapsed due to Slavic invasions in the Balkans and
Persian destructions in Anatolia in the 620s. City life continued in Syria, Jordan and Palestine into the 8th. In the later 6th century street construction was still undertaken in
Caesarea Maritima in Palestine, and
Edessa was able to deflect
Chosroes I with massive payments in gold in 540 and 544, before it was overrun in 609.
[M. Whittow, "Ruling the late Roman and early Byzantine city: a continuous history", ''Past and Present'' 129 (1990:3–29).]
Sculpture and art
The stylistic changes characteristic of Late Antique art mark the end of classical
Roman art
The art of Ancient Rome, and the territories of its Republic and later Empire, includes architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Luxury objects in metal-work, gem engraving, ivory carvings, and glass are sometimes considered to be min ...
and the beginnings of
medieval art. As a complicated period bridging between Roman art and later medieval styles (such as
that of the Byzantines), the Late Antique period saw a transition from the classical idealized
realism tradition largely influenced by Ancient Greek art to the more iconic, stylized art of the Middle Ages. Unlike classical art, Late Antique art does not emphasize the beauty and movement of the body, but rather, hints at the spiritual reality behind its subjects. Additionally, mirroring the rise of Christianity and the collapse of the western Roman Empire, painting and freestanding sculpture gradually fell from favor in the artistic community. Replacing them were greater interests in mosaics, architecture, and relief sculpture.
As the soldier emperors such as
Maximinus Thrax (r. 235–238) emerged from the provinces in the 3rd century, they brought with them their own regional influences and artistic tastes. For example, artists jettisoned the classical portrayal of the human body for one that was more rigid and frontal. This is markedly evident in the combined
porphyry Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs
The Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs is a porphyry sculpture group of four Roman emperors dating from around 300 AD. The sculptural group has been fixed to a corner of the façade of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy since the Middle Ages. It p ...
in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
. With these stubby figures clutching each other and their swords, all
individualism,
naturalism, Roman
verism, and Greek
idealism diminish. The
Arch of Constantine in Rome, which re-used earlier classicising
reliefs together with ones in the new style, shows the contrast especially clearly. In nearly all artistic media, simpler shapes were adopted and once natural designs were abstracted. Additionally hierarchy of scale overtook the preeminence of perspective and other classical models for representing spatial organization.
From around 300
Early Christian art began to create new public forms, which now included
sculpture, previously distrusted by Christians as it was so important in pagan worship.
Sarcophagi
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...
carved in relief had already become highly elaborate, and Christian versions adopted new styles, showing a series of different tightly packed scenes rather than one overall image (usually derived from Greek
history painting) as was the norm. Soon the scenes were split into two registers, as in the
Dogmatic Sarcophagus or the
Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (the last of these exemplifying a partial revival of classicism).
Nearly all of these more abstracted conventions could be observed in the glittering mosaics of the era, which during this period moved from being decoration derivative from painting used on floors (and walls likely to become wet) to a major vehicle of religious art in churches. The glazed surfaces of the
tesserae sparkled in the light and illuminated the basilica churches. Unlike their
fresco predecessors, much more emphasis was placed on demonstrating a symbolic fact rather than on rendering a realistic scene. As time progressed during the Late Antique period, art become more concerned with biblical themes and influenced by interactions of Christianity with the Roman state. Within this Christian subcategory of Roman art, dramatic changes were also taking place in the
Depiction of Jesus
The depiction of Jesus in pictorial form dates back to early Christian art and architecture, as aniconism in Christianity was rejected within the ante-Nicene period.Philip Schaff commenting on Irenaeus, wrote, 'This censure of images as a Gnos ...
. Jesus Christ had been more commonly depicted as an itinerant philosopher, teacher or as the "Good Shepherd", resembling the traditional iconography of Hermes. He was increasingly given Roman elite status, and shrouded in purple robes like the emperors with orb and scepter in hand — this new type of depiction is variously thought to be derived from either the iconography of
Jupiter or of classical philosophers.
As for luxury arts, manuscript illumination on vellum and parchment emerged from the 5th century, with a few manuscripts of Roman literary classics like the
Vergilius Vaticanus and the
Vergilius Romanus, but increasingly Christian texts, of which
Quedlinburg Itala fragment (420–430) is the oldest survivor. Carved ivory
diptych
A diptych (; from the Greek δίπτυχον, ''di'' "two" + '' ptychē'' "fold") is any object with two flat plates which form a pair, often attached by hinge. For example, the standard notebook and school exercise book of the ancient world w ...
s were used for secular subjects, as in the imperial and
consular diptych
In Late Antiquity, a consular diptych was a type of diptych intended as a de-luxe commemorative object. The diptychs were generally in ivory, wood or metal and decorated with rich relief sculpture. A consular diptych was commissioned by a ''consu ...
s presented to friends, as well as religious ones, both Christian and pagan – they seem to have been especially a vehicle for the last group of powerful pagans to resist Christianity, as in the late 4th century
Symmachi–Nicomachi diptych. Extravagant
hoards of silver plate are especially common from the 4th century, including the
Mildenhall Treasure,
Esquiline Treasure
The Esquiline Treasure is an ancient Roman silver treasure that was found in 1793 on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. The hoard is considered an important example of late antique silver work from the 4th century AD, probably about 380 for the major pi ...
,
Hoxne Hoard
The Hoxne Hoard ( ) is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within the former Roman Empire. It was found by ...
, and the imperial
Missorium of Theodosius I.
Literature
In the field of literature, Late Antiquity is known for the declining use of
classical Greek and
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, and the rise of literary cultures in
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
,
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
,
Georgian,
Ethiopic,
Arabic, and
Coptic. It also marks a shift in literary style, with a preference for encyclopedic works in a dense and allusive style, consisting of summaries of earlier works (anthologies, epitomes) often dressed up in elaborate allegorical garb (e.g., ''De nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae''
he Marriage of Mercury and Philologyof
Martianus Capella
Martianus Minneus Felix Capella (fl. c. 410–420) was a jurist, polymath and Latin prose writer of late antiquity, one of the earliest developers of the system of the seven liberal arts that structured early medieval education. He was a nati ...
and the ''De arithmetica'', ''De musica'', and ''
De consolatione philosophiae'' of
Boethius—both later key works in medieval education). The 4th and 5th centuries also saw an explosion of
Christian literature
Christian literature is the literary aspect of Christian media, and it constitutes a huge body of extremely varied writing.
Scripture
While falling within the strict definition of literature, the Bible is not generally considered literature. Ho ...
, of which Greek writers such as
Eusebius of Caesarea,
Basil of Caesarea,
Gregory of Nazianzus and
John Chrysostom and Latin writers such as
Ambrose of Milan
Ambrose of Milan ( la, Aurelius Ambrosius; ), venerated as Saint Ambrose, ; lmo, Sant Ambroeus . was a theologian and statesman who served as Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. He expressed himself prominently as a public figure, fiercely promot ...
,
Jerome and
Augustine of Hippo are only among the most renowned representatives. On the other hand, authors such as
Ammianus Marcellinus (4th century) and
Procopius of Caesarea
Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gen ...
(6th century) were able to keep the tradition of classical Hellenistic
historiography alive in the Byzantine empire.
Poetry
Greek poets of the Late Antique period included
Antoninus Liberalis,
Quintus Smyrnaeus,
Nonnus
Nonnus of Panopolis ( grc-gre, Νόννος ὁ Πανοπολίτης, ''Nónnos ho Panopolítēs'', 5th century CE) was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Imperial Roman era. He was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Theb ...
,
Romanus the Melodist and
Paul the Silentiary
Paul the Silentiary, also known as Paulus Silentiarius ( el, , died AD 575–580), was a Greek Byzantine poet and courtier to the emperor Justinian at Constantinople.
Life
What little we know of Paul's life comes largely from the contemporary ...
.
Latin poets included
Ausonius
Decimius Magnus Ausonius (; – c. 395) was a Roman poet and teacher of rhetoric from Burdigala in Aquitaine, modern Bordeaux, France. For a time he was tutor to the future emperor Gratian, who afterwards bestowed the consulship on him ...
,
Paulinus of Nola
Paulinus of Nola (; la, Paulinus Nolanus; also Anglicized as Pauline of Nola; – 22 June 431) born Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus, was a Roman poet, writer, and senator who attained the ranks of suffect consul () and governor of Campan ...
,
Claudian,
Rutilius Namatianus,
Orientius,
Sidonius Apollinaris
Gaius Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius, better known as Sidonius Apollinaris (5 November of an unknown year, 430 – 481/490 AD), was a poet, diplomat, and bishop. Sidonius is "the single most important surviving author from 5th-century Gaul ...
,
Corippus and
Arator.
Jewish poets included
Yannai,
Eleazar ben Killir
Eleazar ben Kalir, also known as Eleazar HaKalir, Eleazar ben Killir or Eleazar Kalir (c. 570c. 640) was a Byzantine Jew and a Hebrew poet whose classical liturgical verses, known as '' piyut'', have continued to be sung through the centuries dur ...
and
Yose ben Yose.
Timeline
* 284:
Diocletian, becomes emperor and bringing an end to the
Crisis of the Third Century
The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as the Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis (AD 235–284), was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed. The crisis ended due to the military victories of Aurelian and with the ascensio ...
.
* 285:
Emperor Diocletian splits the Roman Empire into
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
and
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
halves. Beginning of the
Tetrarchy.
* 298: Eastern Emperor
Galerius defeats Sasanian king
Narseh
Narseh (also spelled Narses or Narseus; pal, 𐭭𐭥𐭮𐭧𐭩, New Persian: , ''Narsē'') was the seventh Sasanian King of Kings of Iran from 293 to 303.
The youngest son of Shapur I (), Narseh served as the governor of Sakastan, Hind and ...
at the
Battle of Satala, capturing
Ctesiphon and forcing the
Peace of Nisibis upon Persia, ending hostilities between the Roman and Sasanian Empires.
* 311: The emperor
Galerius issues the
Edict of Serdica, ending the
Diocletianic Persecution of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
* 313:
Constantine I
Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to Constantine the Great and Christianity, convert to Christiani ...
defeats the ''augustus''
Maxentius at the
Battle of the Milvian Bridge and becomes ''augustus'' of the West. Constantine and
Licinius issued the
Edict of Milan.
* 324: Constantine I and
Crispus defeat Licinius and
Licinius II
Licinius II, also called Licinius Junior or Licinius Caesar (Latin: ''Valerius Licinianus Licinius''; – ), was the son of the Roman emperor Licinius I. He held the imperial rank of '' caesar'' between March 317 and September 324, while his fat ...
at the Battles
of Chrysopolis and
of the Hellespont.
* 325:
First Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea (; grc, Νίκαια ) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325.
This ecumenical council was the first effort ...
is convened by Constantine I.
* 330: 11 May dedication of the
Column of Constantine
The Column of Constantine ( tr, Çemberlitaş Sütunu; el, Στήλη του Κωνσταντίνου Α΄; la, Columna Constantini) is a monumental column built for Roman emperor Constantine the Great to commemorate the dedication of Consta ...
at
Constantinople marks the inauguration of the new city,
New Rome
New Rome (Greek: Νέα Ῥώμη, ''Nea Rhomē''; ; Latin: ''Nova Roma''; ) was the original name given by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great in 330 CE to his new imperial capital, which was built as an expansion of the city of Byzantium o ...
.
* 363: The pagan emperor
Julian attacks the
Sasanian Empire in his
Persian War and is decisively defeated by
Shapur II.
Jovian becomes the new emperor and cedes lands in a
Perso-Roman Peace Treaty.
* 376: The
Thervingi
The Thervingi, Tervingi, or Teruingi (sometimes pluralised Tervings or Thervings) were a Gothic people of the plains north of the Lower Danube and west of the Dniester River in the 3rd and the 4th centuries.
They had close contacts with the G ...
under
Fritigern
Fritigern (fl. 370s) was a Thervingian Gothic chieftain whose decisive victory at Adrianople during the Gothic War (376–382) led to favourable terms for the Goths when peace was made with Gratian and Theodosius I in 382.
Name
''Fritigern'' appe ...
, fleeing the
Hunnic Invasion, are allowed to cross the
Danube into
Moesia.
* 378: At the
Battle of Adrianople
The Battle of Adrianople (9 August 378), sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis, was fought between an Eastern Roman army led by the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens and Gothic rebels (largely Thervings as well as Greutungs, non-Gothic A ...
, Eastern Roman Emperor
Valens
Valens ( grc-gre, Ουάλης, Ouálēs; 328 – 9 August 378) was Roman emperor from 364 to 378. Following a largely unremarkable military career, he was named co-emperor by his elder brother Valentinian I, who gave him the eastern half of ...
is defeated and killed by
Gothic rebels. First
Siege of Constantinople
The following is a list of sieges of Constantinople, a historic city located in an area which is today part of Istanbul, Turkey. The city was built on the land that links Europe to Asia through Bosporus and connects the Sea of Marmara and the ...
by the Goths.
* 380:
Theodosius I,
Gratian, and
Valentinian II issue the
Edict of Thessalonica
The Edict of Thessalonica (also known as ''Cunctos populos''), issued on 27 February AD 380 by Theodosius I, made the Catholicism of Nicene Christians the state church of the Roman Empire.
It condemned other Christian creeds such as Arianism ...
, establishing
Nicene Christianity
The original Nicene Creed (; grc-gre, Σύμβολον τῆς Νικαίας; la, Symbolum Nicaenum) was first adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325. In 381, it was amended at the First Council of Constantinople. The amended form is ...
as the
state church of the Roman Empire.
* 381:
First Council of Constantinople
The First Council of Constantinople ( la, Concilium Constantinopolitanum; grc-gre, Σύνοδος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in AD 381 b ...
is convened by Theodosius in the
Church of Hagia Irene.
* 382: Influenced by Saint Ambrose, Roman Emperor
Gratian persecutes paganism, removing the
Altar of Victory.
* 394: At the
Battle of the Frigidus
The Battle of the Frigidus, also called the Battle of the Frigid River, was fought between 5 and 6 September 394 between the army of the Roman emperor Theodosius the Great and the army of the rebel ''augustus'' Eugenius (), in the eastern bor ...
, Theodosius I defeats
Eugenius, last pagan Roman ''augustus''.
* 395: The Huns
invade Persia.
* 395: Roman Emperor
Theodosius I outlaws all
pagan religions in favour of
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
.
* 405: The
Vulgate Bible
The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.
The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels us ...
is completed, mostly by the theologian
Jerome. The Vulgate will be the only Bible widely used in the Latin West until the
Reformation.
* 406: The
Crossing of the Rhine by a confederacy of
Germanic tribes
The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and e ...
marks a turning point in the
Migration Period.
* 410:
Alaric I sacks Rome for the first time since 390 BC.
Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon
The Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, also called the Council of Mar Isaac, met in AD 410 in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian Sassanid Empire. Convoked by King Yazdegerd I (399–421), it organized the Christians of his empire into a ...
convoked by
Yazdegerd I
Yazdegerd I (also spelled Yazdgerd and Yazdgird; pal, 𐭩𐭦𐭣𐭪𐭥𐭲𐭩) was the Sasanian King of Kings () of Iran from 399 to 420. A son of Shapur III (), he succeeded his brother Bahram IV () after the latter's assassination.
Yazde ...
, organizing the
Church of the East. Final
Roman departure from Britain.
* 413:
Theodosian Walls around Constantinople are completed, as the largest system of fortifications in Europe. Constantinople as a result will not be conquered by a siege until 1204.
* 415:
Hypatia
Hypatia, Koine pronunciation (born 350–370; died 415 AD) was a neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker in Alexandria where ...
of Alexandria, pagan female mathematician is murdered by a Christian mob. The murder of an academic was unusual, and sent shock waves through the
Roman Empire.
* 431:
Council of Ephesus is convened by
Theodosius II
Theodosius II ( grc-gre, Θεοδόσιος, Theodosios; 10 April 401 – 28 July 450) was Roman emperor for most of his life, proclaimed ''augustus'' as an infant in 402 and ruling as the eastern Empire's sole emperor after the death of his ...
.
* 432:
Saint Patrick begins his conversion of Ireland to Christianity, Ireland becomes the first European nation outside of Roman territory to be converted.
Celtic Christianity, otherwise known as insular Christianity begins to set traditions and customs unique to speakers of Celtic languages, while still venerating the Pope.
* 451:
Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, the
Hunnic Confederation and an alliance of
Western Romans and
Visigoths fight to a draw.
Council of Chalcedon convened by
Pulcheria and
Marcian.
* 453:
Attila the Hun dies.
* 454:
Battle of Nedao
The Battle of Nedao was a battle fought in Pannonia in 454 between the Huns and their former Germanic vassals. Nedao is believed to be a tributary of the Sava River.
Battle
After the death of Attila the Hun, allied forces of the subject peoples u ...
: Various germanic vassals rebel against and defeat Attila son:
Ellac
Ellac (died in 454 AD) was the oldest son of Attila (434–453) and Kreka. After Attila's death in 453 AD, his Empire crumbled and its remains were ruled by his three sons, Ellac, Dengizich and Ernak. He ruled shortly, and died at the Battle of Ne ...
. End of the
Hunnic Empire in Western Europe
* 455:
Vandals under
Genseric
Gaiseric ( – 25 January 477), also known as Geiseric or Genseric ( la, Gaisericus, Geisericus; reconstructed Vandalic: ) was King of the Vandals and Alans (428–477), ruling a kingdom he established, and was one of the key players in the di ...
sack Rome.
* 476:
Romulus Augustus, last
Western Roman Emperor is forced to abdicate by
Odoacer, a half
Hunnish and half
Scirian chieftain of the
Germanic Heruli
The Heruli (or Herules) were an early Germanic people. Possibly originating in Scandinavia, the Heruli are first mentioned by Roman authors as one of several " Scythian" groups raiding Roman provinces in the Balkans and the Aegean Sea, attacking ...
; Odoacer returns the imperial regalia to
Eastern Roman Emperor
This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as l ...
Zeno in
Constantinople in return for the title of ''dux'' of
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
; this marks the end of the Western Roman Empire and is often taken as marking the end of Classical Antiquity.
* 486: In the
Battle of Soissons,
Clovis I defeats the Roman
rump state
A rump state is the remnant of a once much larger state, left with a reduced territory in the wake of secession, annexation, occupation, decolonization, or a successful coup d'état or revolution on part of its former territory. In the last case ...
of
Soissons
Soissons () is a commune in the northern French department of Aisne, in the region of Hauts-de-France. Located on the river Aisne, about northeast of Paris, it is one of the most ancient towns of France, and is probably the ancient capital o ...
, establishing
Merovingian Francia.
* c.500:
Battle of Badon
The Battle of Badon /ˈbeɪdən/ also known as the Battle of Mons Badonicus ( la, obsessio isBadonici montis, "Blockade/Siege of the Badonic Hill"; ''Bellum in monte Badonis'', "Battle on Badon Hill"; ''Bellum Badonis'', "Battle of Badon"; Old W ...
: Major victory of the
Celtic Britons upon the
Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
in Britain.
* 502: Beginning of the
Anastasian War between Rome and Sasanid Persia, lasting until 506.
* 507:
Battle of Vouillé
The Battle of Vouillé (from Latin ''Campus Vogladensis'') was fought in the northern marches of Visigothic territory, at Vouillé, near Poitiers (Gaul), in the spring of 507 between the Franks, commanded by Clovis, and the Visigoths, comman ...
:
Clovis I of the Franks conquers Gallia Aquitania after defeating the Visigoths.
* 526-532:
Iberian War between Eastern Rome and Sasanid Persia.
Iberia becomes a Sasanid vassal.
* 529: The Eastern Roman Emperor
Justinian I orders the prominent philosophical schools of antiquity throughout the Eastern Roman Empire (including the famous
Academy in Athens, among others) to close down—allegedly, because Justinian frowned upon the pagan nature of these schools.
* 532:
Battle of Autun (532): Fall of the
Kingdom of the Burgundians
The Kingdom of the Burgundians or First Kingdom of Burgundy was established by Germanic Burgundians in the Rhineland and then in eastern Gaul in the 5th century.
History
Background
The Burgundians, a Germanic tribe, may have migrated from the ...
to the Franks.
* 533-534:
Vandalic War: The Eastern Roman General
Belisarius
Belisarius (; el, Βελισάριος; The exact date of his birth is unknown. – 565) was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire under the emperor Justinian I. He was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean terr ...
reconquers Africa and destroys the
Vandal Kingdom.
* 534: The ''
Corpus Juris Civilis
The ''Corpus Juris'' (or ''Iuris'') ''Civilis'' ("Body of Civil Law") is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Byzantine Emperor. It is also sometimes referred ...
'', otherwise known as the ''Code of Justinian'' is completed. The new law code will influence Medieval European Law and the
Napoleonic Code.
* 535-536: A volcanic explosion (presumably in Central America) causes the
Extreme weather events of 535–536
The volcanic winter of 536 was the most severe and protracted episode of climatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 2,000 years. The volcanic winter was caused by an eruption, with several possible locations proposed in various contin ...
: For 18 months a veil of dust and ash darkens the sky, causing unseasonable weather, crop failures, and famines worldwide.
* 536:
Belisarius
Belisarius (; el, Βελισάριος; The exact date of his birth is unknown. – 565) was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire under the emperor Justinian I. He was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean terr ...
captures Rome during the
Gothic War (535–554). Beginning of the
Byzantine Papacy
The Byzantine Papacy was a period of Byzantine domination of the Roman papacy from 537 to 752, when popes required the approval of the Byzantine Emperor for episcopal consecration, and many popes were chosen from the '' apocrisiarii'' (liaisons ...
.
* 537: The
Hagia Sophia, the largest Christian building ever created, is built in Constantinople, becoming a center of Byzantine society for the next millennium.
* 539/540: Another eruption in the tropics causes another volcanic winter and the
Late Antique Little Ice Age.
* 541-562: Long
Lazic War
The Lazic War, also known as the Colchidian War or in Georgian historiography as the Great War of Egrisi was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire for control of the ancient Georgian region of Lazica. The Lazic War lasted f ...
between Eastern Rome and Persia.
* 542:
Plague of Justinian
The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (541–549 AD) was the first recorded major outbreak of the first plague pandemic, the first Old World pandemic of plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. The dis ...
arrives in Constantinople and spreads throughout the
Mediterranean Basin and Europe in the 540s, beginning the
First plague pandemic which lasted until the 8th century.
* 546:
Ostrogoths under
Totila
Totila, original name Baduila (died 1 July 552), was the penultimate King of the Ostrogoths, reigning from 541 to 552 AD. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of the Gothic War, recovering by 543 almost all the t ...
sack Rome.
* 547: Final volcanic winter of the
Late Antique Little Ice Age.
* 550: Justinianic
Church of the Holy Apostles
The Church of the Holy Apostles ( el, , ''Agioi Apostoloi''; tr, Havariyyun Kilisesi), also known as the ''Imperial Polyándreion'' (imperial cemetery), was a Byzantine Eastern Orthodox church in Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman E ...
is consecrated in
Constantinople.
* 553:
Second Council of Constantinople is convoked by Emperor
Justinian I and presided over by
Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople.
* c. 560:
Battle of Gol-Zarriun
The Battle of Gol-Zarriun, also Battle of Bukhara, took place in c. 560 when the Sasanian Empire allied with the First Turkic Khaganate against the Hephthalite Empire.
Context
In 484, Peroz I, the grandfather of Khosrow I Anushirvan (), was k ...
: The
Hephthalite Empire is dissolved into minor kingdoms by a combined attack of Persia and the
Western Turkic Khaganate.
* 567:
Lombard–Gepid War (567)
In 566, Lombard king Alboin concluded a treaty with the Pannonian Avars, to whom he promised the Gepids' land if they defeated them. The Gepids were destroyed by the Avars and the Lombards in 567. Gepid King Cunimund was killed by Alboin himself. T ...
: The
Gepid kingdom in Pannonia is destroyed by the Lombards and Avars. The Lombards will invade Italy the following year.
* 572-591:
Byzantine–Sasanian War of 572–591: Long conflict in the Caucasus.
* 575/578:
Sasanian reconquest of Yemen.
* 582-602:
Maurice's Balkan campaigns are the last defense of the Danube frontier.
* 585: The
Kingdom of the Suebi
The Kingdom of the Suebi ( la, Regnum Suevorum), also called the Kingdom of Galicia ( la, Regnum Galicia) or Suebi Kingdom of Galicia ( la, Galicia suevorum regnum), was a Germanic post-Roman kingdom that was one of the first to separate from ...
in Gallaecia is destroyed by the Visigothic King
Liuvigild.
* 602: The beginning of the final
Byzantine-Sassanian War, lasting until 628. War encompasses entire Near East, exhausting both combatants.
* 609: The emperor
Phocas gives the
Pantheon, Rome to
Pope Boniface IV
Pope Boniface IV ( la, Bonifatius IV; 550 – 8 May 615) was the bishop of Rome from 608 to his death. Boniface had served as a deacon under Pope Gregory I, and like his mentor, he ran the Lateran Palace as a monastery. As pope, he encouraged m ...
and it becomes a church.
* 622: The
Hijrah:
Muhammad and
Abu Bakr
Abu Bakr Abdallah ibn Uthman Abi Quhafa (; – 23 August 634) was the senior companion and was, through his daughter Aisha, a father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, as well as the first caliph of Islam. He is known with the honor ...
flee
Mecca
Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...
for
Medina
Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the second-holiest city in Islam, and the capital of the ...
and begin the
Islamic community.
* 626:
Avar,
Slav
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
, and
Sasanian Siege of Constantinople
The following is a list of sieges of Constantinople, a historic city located in an area which is today part of Istanbul, Turkey. The city was built on the land that links Europe to Asia through Bosporus and connects the Sea of Marmara and the ...
.
* 626:
Slav
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
tribes in Moravia and Pannonia, led by the Frankish merchant
Samo
Samo (–) founded the first recorded political union of Slavic tribes, known as Samo's Empire (''realm'', ''kingdom'', or ''tribal union''), stretching from Silesia to present-day Slovakia, ruling from 623 until his death in 658. According to ...
rebel against the Avar khagan, establishing the
Samo's Empire
Samo's Empire (also known as Samo's Kingdom or Samo's State) is the historiographical name for the West Slavic tribal union established by King (" Rex") Samo, which existed between 623 and 658 in Central Europe. The centre of the union was most ...
, the first Slavic state.
* 630: In the Pontic steppes, the
Khazar Khaganate
The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...
is formed, after the disintegration of the
Western Turkic Khaganate.
* 634: The
Battle of al-Qaryatayn: beginning of the
Arab conquest of Syria.
* 636:
Battle of al-Qadisiyyah: Conquest of Mesopotamia by the
Rashidun Caliphate.
* 636:
Battle of the Yarmuk: Conquest of Levant by the Arab general Khalid ibn al-Walid.
* 640:
Battle of Heliopolis: Arab general
Amr ibn al-A'as begins
the Muslim conquest of Egypt.
* 641:
Battle of Nahavand: Near collapse of the Sasanian Empire.
* 650s:
Battle of Balanjar (650s): Khazar Turks defeat the armies of the Rashidun Caliphate. Beginning of the
Arab–Khazar wars
The Arab–Khazar wars were a series of conflicts fought between the armies of the Khazar Khaganate and the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid caliphates and their respective vassals. Historians usually distinguish two major periods of conflict, th ...
* 651:
Muslim conquest of Persia results in the
Fall of the Sasanian Empire with the defeat, flight, and death of its last emperor
Yazdegerd III after the
Battle of the Oxus.
* 654:
Abu'l-Awar
Abu al-A'war Amr ibn Sufyan ibn Abd Shams al-Sulami ( ar, أبو الأعور عمرو بن سُفيان بن عبد شمس السلمي, '), identified with the Abulathar or Aboubacharos ( el, Ἀβουλαθάρ, Ἀβουβάχαρος) of the ...
defeats
Constans II at the
Battle of the Masts. First decisive naval victory of the
Arab–Byzantine wars.
* 661:
First Fitna ends with the
Hasan–Muawiya treaty between
Hasan ibn Ali and
Muawiyah I, recognizing the latter as the first
Umayyad Caliph.
* 663:
Constans II removes the bronze tiles from the
Pantheon, Rome.
* 674:
First Arab Siege of Constantinople, lasting until 678.
* 680:
Second Fitna begins after the death of Muawiyah I and lasts twelve years.
Husayn ibn Ali is defeated by
Yazid I at the
Battle of Karbala
The Battle of Karbala ( ar, مَعْرَكَة كَرْبَلَاء) was fought on 10 October 680 (10 Muharram in the year 61 AH of the Islamic calendar) between the army of the second Umayyad Caliph Yazid I and a small army led by Husayn ...
.
Third Council of Constantinople is convened by
Constantine IV
Constantine IV ( la, Constantinus; grc-gre, Κωνσταντῖνος, Kōnstantînos; 650–685), called the Younger ( la, iunior; grc-gre, ὁ νέος, ho néos) and sometimes incorrectly the Bearded ( la, Pogonatus; grc-gre, Πωγων ...
and
Patriarch George I of Constantinople.
* 681:
First Bulgarian Empire is established under ''
khan''
Asparuh
Asparuh (also ''Ispor''; bg, Аспарух, Asparuh or (rarely) bg, Исперих, Isperih) was а ruler of Bulgars in the second half of the 7th century and is credited with the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire in 681.
Early life
...
by treaty with
Constantine IV
Constantine IV ( la, Constantinus; grc-gre, Κωνσταντῖνος, Kōnstantînos; 650–685), called the Younger ( la, iunior; grc-gre, ὁ νέος, ho néos) and sometimes incorrectly the Bearded ( la, Pogonatus; grc-gre, Πωγων ...
.
* 688:
Battle of Mamma: The Umayadd general
Zuhayr ibn Qays defeats the berber king
Kusaila
Kusaila (Arabic: Kusaila Ibn Malzam, Latin: Caecilius) was a 7th-century Berber Christian ruler of the kingdom of Altava and leader of the Awraba tribe, a Christianised sedentary tribe of the Aures of the Imazighen and possibly Christian king o ...
. Collapse of the
Kingdom of Altava
The Kingdom of Altava was an independent Berber kingdom centered on the city of Altava in present-day northern Algeria. The Kingdom of Altava was a successor state of the previous Mauro-Roman Kingdom which had controlled much of the ancient Roman ...
* 691: Construction of the
Dome of the Rock on the
Temple Mount in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
begins under Umayyad caliph
Abd al-Malik.
* 698:
Roman Carthage
After the destruction of Punic Carthage in 146 BC, a new city of Carthage (Latin '' Carthāgō'') was built on the same land in the mid-1st century BC. By the 3rd century, Carthage had developed into one of the largest cities of the Roman Empir ...
is razed by
Hassan ibn al-Nu'man
Hassan ibn al-Nu'man al-Ghassani ( ar, حسان بن النعمان الغساني, Hassān ibn al-Nuʿmān al-Ghassānī) was an Arab general of the Umayyad Caliphate who led the final Muslim conquest of Ifriqiya, firmly establishing Islamic rule ...
after the
Battle of Carthage. End of the
Exarchate of Africa
The Exarchate of Africa was a division of the Byzantine Empire around Carthage that encompassed its possessions on the Western Mediterranean. Ruled by an exarch (viceroy), it was established by the Emperor Maurice in the late 580s and survive ...
.
See also
*
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
*
Peter Brown
*
Henri Pirenne
*
Fall of the Western Roman Empire
*
Early Middle Ages
*
Migration Period
*
Roman–Persian Wars
The Roman–Persian Wars, also known as the Roman–Iranian Wars, were a series of conflicts between states of the Greco-Roman world and two successive Iranian empires: the Parthian and the Sasanian. Battles between the Parthian Empire and the ...
Notes
References
* Perry Anderson, ''Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism'', NLB, London, 1974.
*
Peter Brown, ''The World of Late Antiquity: from Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad (CE 150–750)'', Thames and Hudson, 1989,
* Peter Brown, ''Authority and the Sacred : Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World'', Routledge, 1997,
* Peter Brown, ''The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity 200–1000 CE'', Blackwell, 2003,
* Henning Börm, ''Westrom. Von Honorius bis Justinian'', 2nd ed.,
Kohlhammer Verlag
W. Kohlhammer Verlag GmbH, or Kohlhammer Verlag, is a German publishing house headquartered in Stuttgart.
History
Kohlhammer Verlag was founded in Stuttgart on 30 April 1866 by . Kohlhammer had taken over the businesses of his late father-in-l ...
, 2018, .
Review in English.
*
Averil Cameron
Dame Averil Millicent Cameron ( Sutton; born 8 February 1940), often cited as A. M. Cameron, is a British historian. She was Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine History at the University of Oxford, and the Warden of Keble College, Oxford ...
, ''The Later Roman Empire: CE 284–430'', Harvard University Press, 1993,
* Averil Cameron, ''The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity CE 395–700'', Routledge, 2011,
* Averil Cameron et al. (editors), ''The Cambridge Ancient History'', vols. 12–14, Cambridge University Press 1997ff.
*
Gilian Clark, ''Late Antiquity: A Very Short Introduction'', Oxford University Press, 2011,
* 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.
* Fabio Gasti,
Profilo storico della letteratura tardolatina', Pavia University Press, 2013, .
* 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,
* Arnold H.M. Jones, ''The Later Roman Empire, 284–602; a social, economic and administrative survey'', vols. I, II, University of Oklahoma Press, 1964.
*
*
Bertrand Lançon
Bertrand Lançon (born 1952, Le Mans) is a French historian and novelist, a specialist of late Antiquity.
Career
After studying with the Jesuits, he went on to study higher education at the University of Maine, where he discovered late Antiquity ...
, ''Rome in Late Antiquity: CE 313–604'', Routledge, 2001.
* Noel Lenski (ed.), ''The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine'', Cambridge University Press, 2006.
*
Samuel N.C. Lieu and
Dominic Montserrat
Dominic Alexander Sebastian Montserrat (2 January 1964 – 23 September 2004) was a British egyptologist and papyrologist.
Early life and education
Montserrat studied Egyptology at Durham University and received his PhD in Classics at Universit ...
(eds.), ''From Constantine to Julian: Pagan and Byzantine Views, A Source History'', Routledge, 1996.
* 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.
*
Ramsay MacMullen
Ramsay MacMullen (March 3, 1928 – November 28, 2022) was an American historian who was Emeritus Professor of History at Yale University, where he taught from 1967 to his retirement in 1993 as Dunham Professor of History and Classics. His scholar ...
, ''Christianizing the Roman Empire C.E. 100–400'', Yale University Press, 1984.
* 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.
External links
New Advent – The Fathers of the Church a Catholic website with English translations of the Early Fathers of the Church.
ORB Encyclopedia's section on Late Antiquity in the Mediterraneanfro
ORB fro
ORB a collaborative forum of Princeton and Stanford to make the latest scholarship on the field available in advance of final publication.
source documents from the
Internet Medieval Sourcebook
Worlds of Late Antiquity from the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
*
Age of spirituality : late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century' from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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