Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Antiquity
By Cody Franchetti
Introduction- Peter Browns influential book The World of Late Antiquity has had a formidable
impact on ancient historiography. Before it, historians who studied the period leading to the
deposition of Romolus Agustulusthe last Roman emperorin 476 AD considered themselves
classicists or ancient historians, while those who studied the subsequent period called
themselves medievalists; therefore before Browns book the collapse of the Roman Empire
remained the watershed date that brought upon the Middle Ages. It is not the task of this essay
to trace the history of this conception, but to examine the assertions, merits, and faults of Peter
Browns book. Brown magnified, or more precisely, outright invented a new epoch: [a number of
elements] converged to produce that very distinctive period in European civilizationthe Late
Antique world.
AnEverlastingAntiquityAspectsofPeterBrownsTheWorldofLate Antiquity
2014. Cody Franchetti. This is a research/review paper, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNoncommercial 3.0 Unported License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), permitting all non-commercial use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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I. Introduction
2014
Cody Franchetti
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2014
5
Ibid, p.466 [Roman civilization did not expire of its own accord. It
was assassinated.]
6
Brown, p.44
7
Brown, p.123
8
The very last time the quarries of Mons Porphyrus were used was for
the construction of Justinians Hagia Sophia (560) in Constantinople.
9
Brown, p.177
10
Ibid, p.177
11
Ibid, p.176
Ibid, p.173-174
13
Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City. (Boston: Lee and Sheppard,
1874), p.528
14
Ibid, p.521
15
Ibid, p.525
12
16
20
Marrou, p.275 [he came to conceive, and in large measure to
obtain, a knowledge that was quite different, entirely subordinated to
the needs of religious faitha Christian knowledge, which was ancient
in its components but already wholly medieval in inspiration.]
21
Marrou, p.364 [St. Augustine has not in effect ceased to define his
ideal by the same term of sapientia; and wisdom for him rests still on
the contemplation of truththe knowledge of God [] a knowledge
that is doubtlessly vision, contact, love, and participation; but above all
certitude. It is this is the whole doctrine of Augustinian knowledge: the
necessity of faith, an effort to reach an understanding of its truths,
contemplation, the triple aspect of the contemplative lifeprayer,
study, morals]
22
Marrou, p.663 [the incubation, which opens the path, in a
paradoxical way, to the medieval future]
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Mazzarino, p.56
29
Asher Ovadiah, The Peopled Scroll Motif in the Land of Israel in
Late Antiquity. The Metamorphosis of Marginal Images: from Antiquity
to Present Time. (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2001), p.8
30
Bernard Berenson, The Arch of Constantine. (London: Chapman &
Hall, 1954), p.30-31
31
Brown, p.22
32
Berenson, p.21
33
Brown, p.38
34
Ibid, p.38
Jean Hubert, Jean Porcher, W.F. Volbach, Europe of the Invasions.
(New York: George Braziller, Inc.), p.1
36
Brown, p.93
35
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40
Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: the Representation of Reality in Western
Literature. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953)
41
37
Brown, p.27-28
38
Augusto Fraschetti, La Conversione: da Roma Pagana a Roma
Cristiana. (Bari: Laterza Editori. 1999)
39
Fraschetti, p.63 [Rome and its senate, still mostly pagan, could not
be ignored. Nevertheless, Rome should be avoided as much as
possible.]
2014 Global Journals Inc. (US)
Justinians great church, Hagia Sophia (560 AD), is the last great
monument of Antiquity and doubtlessly belongs to that period in
several aspectsranging from architectural contrivances (the
invention of pendentives to carry the weight of the circular dome to the
square base) to the use of the materials employed in its construction.
42
See: Meyer Schapiro, Romanesque Art. (New York: George Braziller,
Inc.)
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43
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