Religion & City Life in the Later
Roman Empire
CLAH266 – lecture 6/ seminar 3
2nd November 2012
Dr Jamie Wood

Aims
• To help you to start preparing
essay over reading week
• To provide you with an overview
of religion in the later Roman
Empire, especially in relation to
social and political history
• To introduce you to some key
themes and sources related to
urban life in the later Roman
Empire City

Structure
• Essay writing workshop
• Religion in the later Roman Empire
▫ Religion to Constantine’s conversion
▫ Impact of the conversion
 Christian triumph: church and state or a state
church
 Christians and pagans/ polytheists
 Christians and Jews
 Rise of the bishop
• Seminar on city life in the later Roman Empire

Essay-writing workshop
• For homework, you should have chosen an
essay question and done some thinking
about it
▫ (see handout for questions and ideas for
breaking them down)
• Task:
▫ If you have not done the above, spend some
time on your own thinking about the
questions
▫ If you have thought about a question, find
someone who has done a different question
and…
 Explain your thoughts to one another, offering
feedback and suggestions
 Take notes and think about their suggestions
▫ Then - repeat

Last week: Rise of monotheism and
henotheism in 2nd and 3rd Cs
• Increasing congruence between Christian beliefs
and practices and Roman elite
▫ Theology – philosophy – monotheism (Neo-
Platonism and ‘the One’)
▫ Religion – politics – henotheism (political
implications, esp. for emperors)
• Emperors start to promote one dominant god
within the pantheon
▫ Elagabalus (Sol Invictus); Diocletian (Jupiter)
• Punishment of deviance from traditional cult
▫ Use of bureaucracy (e.g. Decian ‘Persecution’)

Conversion of Constantine
• Christian God as a successful
god of war
▫ Proves his (sorry girls)
superiority on the battlefield
• Problems with our sources
▫ Eusebius may have put a
theological ‘spin’ on his
account(s) of Constantine’s
conversion (see Price)
▫ He also presents earlier
attempts to enforce conformity
as targeted persecutions of
Christians when they may not
have been

Church-state relations after Constantine
• Note: both ‘church’ and ‘state’
anachronistic terms in this period
• But: religion does continue to be
a state matter from Constantine
onwards (seminar last week)
▫ Investment of resources into the
Christian communities
▫ Local conflicts within cities over
who is bishop
▫ Theological disputes
 Patronage of cult and resolution of
disputes are both part of
traditional role of Roman emperors

Defining the relationship
• Patronage from emperor to a new cult = Christianity
(among others)
▫ But C continues to connect himself to other cults (e.g. coins)
• Caesaropapism?
▫ Not yet – this is very early stages
▫ State does not control the church (or vice versa)
 Some Christians are not keen on increasingly close connection to
the emperor
 Donatists in Africa – hardliners who don’t want to compromise;
schism with those who have done so
 Others think that to engage with the ‘world’ too much undermines
the purity of the church (imperial government is essence of worldly
affairs)
• Still trying to figure out how the relationship works

Heretics as emperors
• 4th century: an Arian century?
▫ Arian emperors after Constantine
(Arian?)
 Constantius II (337-361)
 Valens (364-378)
• Not until end of 4th century do we
see triumph of ‘orthodoxy’ with
Theodosius I (week 9)
▫ Creation of a back story by later
‘orthodox’ historians Missorium of Kerch depicting
Constantius II on horseback with a
▫ Various theological disagreements spear. He is preceded by victory
and accompanied by a
in East and between East and West guardsman. Notice also the Chi-
Rho symbol.
lead to questioning of ‘orthodoxy’ of
nearly every emperor

Powerful pagans
• Julian, emperor 361-363 (week 8)
▫ Attempted revival of paganism (termed Hellenism), but along
highly ‘Christian’ lines
• Eugenius, usurper in West 394-396
▫ Christian, but had pagan supporters and offered renewed
patronage to traditional cults (e.g. Altar of Victory restored to
Senate House)
▫ Divine intervention at Battle of Fridigus leads to his defeat by
Theodosius I
• Aristocracy
▫ Pleas for tolerance, e.g. Symmachus vs. Ambrose on Altar of
Victory
▫ Bloch, H. (1963), ‘The Pagan Revival in the West at the End of the Fourth
Century’, in: A. Momigliano, ed., The Conflict Between Paganism and
Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford), pp. 193–218.
• Army
▫ Possibly more conservative in religious terms than other groups
▫ Esp. important to them that god(s) bring victory

Imperial attitudes to pagans
• Overall: dwindling support during 4th C
• Reign of Julian a turning point
▫ Christians recognise how precarious
their position was/ their dependence on
imperial patronage
• Theodosian Dynasty (from late 4th C):
triumph of Christian orthodoxy
▫ Imperial support for militant monks Juliam, depicted on bronze
coin from Antioch, minted
(Hypatia: week 10) 360-363; note the
philosopher’s pose
▫ Destruction of pagan temples and
shrines
▫ Legal actions

‘Superstition shall cease’
(Codex Theodosianus, 16.10.2)
• “Superstition shall cease; the madness of
sacrifices shall be abolished. For if any man in
violation of the law of the sainted Emperor, Our
father, and in violation of this command of Our
Clemency, should dare to perform sacrifices, he
shall suffer the infliction of a suitable
punishment and the effect of an immediate
sentence.”
▫ (date of law is 341; but the code was promulgated
under Theodosius II in 438)

Christians and Jews
• Tension during the age of ‘persecutions’
▫ Jewish crowds often cited as instigating
persecution of Christians by Roman
authorities
• Tension continued
▫ Mob violence in cities
 E.g. Alexandria; the synagogue at
Callinicum
▫ Imperial matter
 Jews as another deviant group that needed
to be policed
 Keeping peace in the cities (Codex
Theodosianus 16.8.1, 9)
▫ Theology and polemic
 Jews as murderers of Jesus
 Converting the Jews and the Second
Coming
 The Jews and Christian history

The rise of the
bishop
• A sought after office
▫ Conduit for imperial investment in the local church/ city
▫ Legal roles as judges (see week 4)
▫ Represent and protect cities to outside authorities
 E.g. Pope Leo I (440-61) and Attila the Hun in 452
▫ Bishops together in council bring forth Holy Spirit)
• Attracts highly trained individuals away from
traditional career paths
▫ E.g. Ambrose of Milan (week 4) and Augustine of Hippo

Christianity and the Fall of the Roman
Empire
• Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire:
▫ Movement of elite males into
monasteries and office as
bishop is a primary reason for
the fall of the Roman Empire in
the West
▫ Formerly they would have
joined (or led) the legions
▫ Decline of Roman masculinity
and take-over by German
barbarians

Conclusion on Religion
• Religion and politics still inextricably linked
▫ Christian God as a god of war and the god of the
emperors
▫ Fear about subversives/ non-conforming groups now
focussed on non-Christians
• Relations between emperor and church in many ways
traditional
▫ Sponsorship and resolving disputes; policing deviance
• Relations between Church and Empire being worked
out during 4th century
▫ ‘Victory of orthodoxy’ a projection backwards, like
‘victory of Christianity’

So, what happened?
• Revolution?
• Evolution?
• A change in management?
• A change in name?
• Gradual christianisation of imperial household,
aristocracy and religious leadership
• But basic functioning of society-politics and role
of religion within them remains the same

Seminar on City Living in the Later
Roman Empire

Homework: more on the essay
• Prepare 2-sides of A4 plan for your essay, including:
1. An outline of the structure of your essay
2. Details of 1 relevant primary source, with some
relevant quotations picked out
3. Details of 1 relevant journal article or book chapter,
with some relevant points picked out
4. An idea for an argument [= a direct answer to the
question set, key point(s), no fence sitting]
 If you send this to me by 5pm on Wednesday of week 8 (14th
November), then I will read through and provide you with
feedback
 If you print this off and bring it to the class on 16th
November, I will bring it back the following week