The City in the Classical and Post-Classical World

Changing Contexts of Power and Identity

Claudia Rapp, H. A. Drake

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781107032668
• eBook ISBN:
  9781139898751
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This volume examines the evolving role of the city and citizenship from classical Athens through fifth-century Rome and medieval Byzantium. Beginning in the first century CE, the universal claims of Hellenistic and Roman imperialism began to be challenged by the growing role of Christianity in shaping the primary allegiances and identities of citizens. An international team of scholars considers the extent of urban transformation, and with it, of cultural and civic identity, as practices and institutions associated with the city-state came to be replaced by those of the Christian community. The twelve essays gathered here develop an innovative research agenda by asking new questions: what was the effect on political ideology and civic identity of the transition from the city culture of the ancient world to the ruralized systems of the middle ages? How did perceptions of empire and oikoumene respond to changed political circumstances? How did Christianity redefine the context of citizenship?

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Dedication
• Table of contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Half-title
• Polis – Imperium – Oikoumenē: A World Reconfigured
• One A “Covenant” between Gods and Men: Hiera kai hosia and the Greek Polis
• Two Hellenistic Imperialism and the Ideal of World Unity
• Three Lawyers and Citizens from Republic to Empire: Gaius on the Twelve Tables and Antonine Rome
• Four Laws’ Empire: Roman Universalism and Legal Practice
• Five A Most Unusual Empire: Rome in the Fourth Century
• Six Mobility and Identity between the Second and the Fourth Centuries: The “Cosmopolitization” of the Roman Empire
• Seven City and Citizenship as Christian Concepts of Community in Late Antiquity
• Eight Church – Festival – Temple: Reimagining Civic Topography in Late Antiquity
• Nine Leo the Great: Responses to Crisis and the Shaping of a Christian Cosmopolis
• Ten The Battle of the Maps in a Christian Empire
• Eleven Topographies of Power in Late Antiquity and Beyond
• Postscript: Cities, Citizenship, and the Work of Empire
• Index
• Plates