Memories of Utopia These essays examine how various communities remembered and commemorated their shared past through the lens of utopia and its corollary, dystopia, providing a framework for the reinterpretation of rapidly changing religious, cultural, and political realities of the turbulent period from 300 to 750 CE. The common theme of the chapters is the utopian ideals of religious groups, whether these are inscribed on the body, on the landscape, in texts, or on other cultural objects. The volume is the first to apply this conceptual framework to Late Antiquity, when historically significant conflicts arose between the adherents of four major religious identities: Graeco-Roman ‘pagans’; newly dominant Christians; diaspora Jews, who were more or less persecuted, depending on the current regime; and the emerging religion and power of Islam. Late Antiquity was thus a period when dystopian realities competed with memories of a mythical Golden Age, variously conceived according to the religious identity of the group. The contributors come from a range of disciplines, including cultural studies, religious studies, ancient history, and art history, and employ both theoretical and empirical approaches. This volume is unique in the range of evidence it draws upon, both visual and textual, to support the basic argument that utopia in Late Antiquity, whether conceived spiritually, artistically, or politically, was a place of the past but also of the future, even of the afterlife. Memories of Utopia will be of interest to historians, archaeologists, and art historians of the later Roman Empire and those working on religion in Late Antiquity and Byzantium. Bronwen Neil , FAHA, is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University, Australia, and Research Associate of the Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies at the University of South Africa. She is director of the Centre for Ancient Cultural Heritage and Environment (CACHE) at Macquarie University. Her publications on Late Antiquity include studies of letter-writing, gender, bishops of Rome, dream interpretation, and hagiography. Kosta Simic (PhD Australian Catholic University, 2018) is a sessional lecturer and postdoctoral researcher in the School of Theology at the Australian Catholic University, Brisbane. He has published two books and several articles on Byzantine hymnography. Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies Titles include Fantasy in Greek and Roman Literature Graham Anderson Piracy, Pillage, and Plunder in Antiquity Appropriation and the Ancient World Edited by Richard Evans and Martine de Marre Romans at War Soldiers, Citizens, and Society in the Roman Republic Edited by Jeremy Armstrong and Michael P. Fronda The Discourse of Kingship in Classical Greece Carol Atack Emotional Trauma in Greece and Rome Representations and Reactions Edited by Andromache Karanika and Vassiliki Panoussi The Representation of Slavery in the Greek Novel Resistance and Appropriation William M. Owens Memories of Utopia The Revision of Histories and Landscapes in Late Antiquity Edited by Bronwen Neil and Kosta Simic The Making of Identities in Athenian Oratory Edited by Jakub Filonik, Brenda Griffith-Williams and Janek Kucharski For more information on this series, visit: www.routledge.com/classicalstudies/ series/RMCS Memories of Utopia The Revision of Histories and Landscapes in Late Antiquity Edited by Bronwen Neil and Kosta Simic First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Bronwen Neil and Kosta Simic; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Bronwen Neil and Kosta Simic to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Neil, Bronwen, editor. | Simić , Kosta, editor. Title: Memories of utopia : the revision of histories and landscapes in Late Antiquity / edited by Bronwen Neil and Kosta Simic. Identifiers: LCCN 2019038122 (print) | LCCN 2019038123 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138328679 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429448508 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Utopias—Religious aspects. | Utopias—History—To 1500. | Utopias—Byzantine Empire. | Byzantine Empire—Civilization. Classification: LCC HX807 .M46 2020 (print) | LCC HX807 (ebook) | DDC 335/.02093709015—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038122 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038123 ISBN: 978-1-138-32867-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-44850-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents List of figures viii List of contributors ix Acknowledgements xii Abbreviations xiv Map of the Byzantine Mediterranean 500–700 CE xv PART I Writing and rewriting the history of conflicts 1 1 Curating the past: the retrieval of historical memories and utopian ideals 3 BRONWEN NEIL 2 Julian’s Cynics: remembering for future purposes 20 PHILIP BOSMAN 3 Memories of trauma and the formation of a Christian identity 36 JONATHAN P. CONANT 4 Augustine’s memory of the 411 confrontation with Emeritus of Cherchell 57 GEOFFREY D. DUNN PART II Forging a new utopia: holy bodies and holy places 73 5 Purity and the rewriting of memory: revisiting Julian’s disgust for the Christian worship of corpses and its consequences 75 WENDY MAYER vi Contents 6 Constructing the sacred in Late Antiquity: Jerome as a guide to Christian identity 92 NAOKI KAMIMURA 7 Utopia, body, and pastness in John Chrysostom 107 CHRIS L. DE WET PART III Rewriting landscapes: creating new memories of the past 123 8 Memories of peace and violence in the late-antique West 125 BRONWEN NEIL 9 Two foreign saints in Palestine: responses to religious conflict in the fifth to seventh centuries 145 PAULINE ALLEN AND KOSTA SIMIC 10 Remembering the damned: Byzantine liturgical hymns as instruments of religious polemics 156 KOSTA SIMIC 11 Paradise regained? Utopias of deliverance in seventh-century apocalyptic discourse 171 RYAN W. STRICKLER 12 Ausonius, Fortunatus, and the ruins of the Moselle 189 CHRIS BISHOP PART IV Memory and materiality 205 13 Spitting on statues and shaving Hercules’s beard: the conflict over images (and idols) in early Christianity 207 ROBIN M. JENSEN 14 Athena, patroness of the marketplace: from Athens to Constantinople 232 JANET WADE Contents vii 15 Transformation of Mediterranean ritual spaces up to the early Arab conquests 251 LEONELA FUNDIC Epilogue 267 RAJIV K. BHOLA Scripture index 277 Index 278 Figures Map of the Byzantine Mediterranean 500–700 CE xv 13.1 Robert E. Lee statue, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. 208 13.2 Jefferson Davis statue, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. 209 13.3. Septimius Severus with Julia Domna, Caracalla and Geta (with erased face). Egypt, ca. 200 CE. 210 13.4 Colossal statue of Hercules, replica of the Farnese Hercules, found in the baths at Hippo Regius (Annaba, Algeria). 218 13.5 Silver double shekel of Carthage with obverse of Melqart and reverse of Hannibal. Issued by the Barcid family in Spain. From the Mogente Hoard, Valencia, Spain, around 230 BCE. Now in the British Museum, Inv. no. 1911,0702.1. 219 13.6 Marble statue of Hercules holding apples, inscribed with cross, ca. 100 CE, from Tralles (Turkey). 224 13.7 Bust of Germanicus with incised cross, originally made in Egypt, ca. 14–20 CE, now in the British Museum. 225 13.8 Four heads of the Kings of Judah, from the Gallery of Kings on the west façade of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, now in the Musée national du Moyen Age, Paris, France. 227 14.1 Athena steelyard weight currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number: 61.112. 234 14.2 A statue of Athena in front of the Austrian Parliament Building. 239 14.3 Steelyard weight currently held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number: 59.184. 240 15.1 St George in Zorava (Izraa), southwest Syria. 255 15.2 Theseion, Athens. 256 15.3 Basilica of Messene, Peloponnese, Greece. 258 15.4 Basilica of Messene, Peloponnese, Greece. 259 Contributors Pauline Allen , FBA, FAHA, is Professor of Early Christian Studies at the Aus- tralian Catholic University, Research Associate of the Department of Ancient and Modern Languages at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and Hon- orary Research Fellow of the Sydney College of Divinity, Australia. She has published widely on early Christianity, including books on letters, homilies, Severus of Antioch, Maximus the Confessor, and the churches of Antioch. Rajiv K. Bhola is a postdoctoral fellow on the ARC Discovery Project Memories of Utopia in Late Antiquity: Destroying the Past to Create the Future . He is a PhD graduate of the University of Ottawa’s Department of Classics and Reli- gious Studies. His current research project relates to Eusebius of Caesarea’s reception of Plato. Chris Bishop is a lecturer in the Centre for Classical Studies at the Australian National University where he teaches Latin, Ancient Greek, and History. Hav- ing previously edited Text and Transmission in Medieval Europe (2007), he has recently published a monograph on reception studies—Medievalist Com- ics and the American Century (2016)—as well as numerous articles on classi- cal and medieval poetry. Philip Bosman teaches ancient Greek language, literature, and history at Stel- lenbosch University, South Africa.