Week 13: Decline & Fall? The Western Empire after Constantine

Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire: Destruction (New York, 1833–6) I. The Long Shadow of Gibbon

Edward Gibbon, The History of Henri Pirenne (d. 1935), the Decline and Fall of the Mohammed & Charlemagne Roman Empire (1776–88) Medieval Cities Continuity or Catastrophe?

The Enlightenment

The Renaissance Classical Antiquity The Middle Ages (“Dark Ages”) G. B. Tiepolo, Zenobia before the Emperor Aurelian (1717) II. The Empire & the Church

Baptism of Constantine mosaic, Santi Quattro Coronati, Rome (13c) Hagia Sophia, St John Lateran, Rome Old St Peter’s, Rome Imperial Basilica, Trier (NOT built as a church)

St John Lateran, Rome Imperial Basilica, Trier Donatist Schism Arian Heresy

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Council of Nicaea, 324

“an iota of difference”:

homoousios (ὁμοούσιος) vs. homoiousios (ὁμοιούσιος)

Orthodox Christian icon depicting the Council Apse mosaic of Santa Pudenziana, Rome (ca. AD 384) The Age of Bishops! Gregory the Great Augustine (354–430) Ambrose (340–97) Jerome (347–420) (ca. 540–604)

Carlo Braccesco, The Four Fathers of the Church (late 15c) …and Monks

Early medieval relief of Simeon Stylites on his pillar Hieronymus Bosch, Temptation of St eremitic monasticism (hermits!) vs. … Anthony (ca. 1500, Prado) Pachomius & Basil Benedict of Nursia (in the East, 4c) (in the West, late 5c) communal monasticism III. The Ossification of Imperial Society

Late antique Constantinople

Constantius II finally visits Rome in 357 in the 20th year of his reign… 1) Decline of curiae (city councils) 2) Less focus on civic affairs

Curia (Senate House), Rome 3) Depopulation & Urban Recession

Campus Martius, Rome: schematic drawings of 2nd (left) vs. 5th (right) centuries Tours (France) in : Roman city recenters on shrine of St Martin IV. The Völkerwanderung Diptych of the half-Vandal general Flavius Stilicho (ca. AD 395)

>> problem of non-Roman foederati (allies/mercenaries) Melodramatic modern rendering of sack of Rome by Alaric & the Visigoths in 410 , deposed 476, as depicted in (2007) Theodoric & the Ostrogoths

(475–526) Ravenna Theodoric’s officials:

Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, &

Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator Syagrius (deposed 485), Childeric, Clovis, & the Franks

Franks Casket (8c): combines Roman, Christian, Germanic imagery

Merovingian dynasty The Visigoths Ataulf m. Galla Placidia, 414 “Vandal” horseman mosaic: North Africa, 5/6c

Purse lid from the Sutton Hoo treasure Anglo-Saxon England, 6c IN WEST: 1) States weaker (although “tribal” kings maintain continuity) 2) Trade simpler, less voluminous, more localized 3) Urban decline SO: 4) East & West increasingly divided The Pentarchy vs. Roman Primacy Peter, Paul, & the Primacy of Rome (?)

pope = papa, bishop Pope Stephen I (r. 254–7)

Pope Leo I (r. 440–61) & Attila the Hun (painting by Raphael in the Vatican) Pope St Gregory the Great (r. 590–604): Dialogues, letters, Pastoral Care Europe & the Roman Empire in the early 6th century AD The Rhetoric of Gibbonesque Catastrophe…

Jared Diamond, Collapse (2005)

Albrecht Dürer, Saint Jerome (1521)

“In a single city, the whole world perished.” (St Jerome)