Monarchy and mass communication: Antioch A.D. 362/3 revisited

The A.D. 362/3 crisis in Antioch is usually interpreted as an economic or ideological crisis, and Julian's Misopogon as a 'festive satire' or 'edict of chastisement'. This article situates the root of the problem in a crisis of communication: Julian's failure to communicate publicly as expected in a situation that was tense because of the food shortage led to a short-circuit between emperor and subjects. Whilst the Misopogon is Julian's extraordinary post-factum attempt to explain away this failure of ritualized communication on his part, Libanius' speeches on the topic seek to give a positive twist to the extraordinary nature of Julian's reply, which posed serious problems for emperor, city, and sophist alike

Episcopal succession in Constantinople (381-450 C.E.): the local dynamics of power

Research on episcopal succession has tended to focus on the social background of bishops, the role played by individual charisma, and church canons governing elections. Such studies have identified regional differences, especially between the eastern and the western parts of the Roman Empire. Through a comparison of three communities in Theodosian Constantinople (Novatians, Eunomians, and Nicenes), this paper argues that succession patterns also reflect the sociological structure of each community and the local balance of power, two factors that are shown to be closely interlocked. Especially the role of the local church establishment, which attempts to keep control over succession against imperial intervention and popular opinion, is shown to be vital. The form this establishment takes depends on the specific social and political situation each community finds itself in, as well as its theological views. Such a local perspective is an important corrective to generalizations about episcopal successions in late antiquity

Literature and society in the fourth century A.D.: performing Paideia, constructing the present, presenting the self

Late Antiquity is often assumed to have witnessed the demise of literature as a social force and its retreat into the school and the private reading room: whereas the sophists of the Second Sophistic were influential social players, their late antique counterparts are thought to have been overshadowed by bishops. Literature and Society in the Fourth Century AD argues that this presumed difference should be attributed less to a fundamental change in the role of literature than to different scholarly methodologies with which Greek and Latin texts from the second and the fourth century are being studied. Focusing on performance, the literary construction of reality and self-presentation, this volume highlights how literature continued to play an important role in fourth-century elite society