Recent publications on urbanism and the rural environment in Late Antiquity, most of which explore a single region or narrow chronological niche, have emphasized either textual or archeological evidence. None has attempted the more ambitious task of bringing together the full range of such evidence within a multiregional perspective and around common themes. Urban Centers and Rural Contexts seeks to redress this omission.
While ancient literature and the physical remains of cities attest to the power that urban values held over the lives of their inhabitants, the rural areas in which the majority of imperial citizens lived have not been well served by the historical record. Only recently have archeological excavations and integrated field surveys sufficiently enhanced our knowledge of the rural contexts to demonstrate the continuing interdependence of urban centers and rural communities in Late Antiquity. These new data call into question the conventional view that this interdependence progressively declined as a result of governmental crises, invasions, economic dislocation, and the success of Christianization.
The essays in this volume require us to abandon the search for a single model of urban and rural change; to reevaluate the cities and towns of the Empire as centers of habitation, rather than archeological museums; and to reconsider the evidence of continuous and pervasive cultural change across the countryside. Deploying a wide range of material as well as literary evidence, the authors provide access not only into the world of élites, but also to the scarcely known lives of those without a voice in the literature, those men and women who worked in the shops, labored in the fields, and humbled themselves before their gods. They bring us closer to the complexity of life in late ancient communities and, in consequence, closer to both urban and rural citizens.
ContentsEditors and ContributorsPrefaceIntroductionURBAN CENTERSDifficillima tempora: Urban Life, Inscriptions, and Mentality in Late Antique RomeAlföldyGézaAutun and the Civitas Aeduorum: Maintaining and Transforming a Regional Identity in Late AntiquityYoungBailey K.Alexandria and the Mareotis RegionHaasChristopherThe Case of Late Antique Berytus: Urban Wealth and Rural Sustenance—A Different Economic DynamicHallLinda JonesUrban Space in Caesarea Maritima, IsraelPatrichJosephByzantine Petra—A ReassessmentFiemaZbigniew T.TOWN AND COUNTRYWomen and Horses and Power and WarDrinkwaterJ. F.The Interdependence of Town and Country in Late Antique SpainKulikowskiMichaelTowns, Vici and Villae: Late Roman Military Society on the Frontiers of the Province ValeriaVisyZsoltArchaeological Perspectives on Rural Settlement in Late Antiquity in the Rhine and Danube AreaBenderHelmutPeasants as “Makeshift Soldiers for the Occasion”: Sixth-Century Settlement Patterns in the BalkansCurtaFlorinTown and Countryside in Roman Arabia during Late AntiquityGrafDavid F.Rural Society and Economy in Late Roman CyprusRautmanMarcusCHRISTIANIZATIONPastoral Care: Town and Country in Late-Antique PreachingClarkE. G.The Continuity of Paganism between the Cities and Countryside of Late Roman AfricaRiggsDavidFrom Pagan to Christian in Cites of Roman Anatolia during the Fourth and Fifth CenturiesHarlKenneth“… Nec sedere in villam”: Villa Churches, Rural Piety and the Priscillianist ControversyBowesKimChristianizing the Syrian Countryside: An Archaeological and Architectural ApproachKidnerFrank L.
