CLST 277-16-016: The World of Late Antiquity

Midterm Study Guide

Literary Texts Under Consideration (see also Schedule of Reading Assignments and Topics)

• Selections from Historia Augusta Life of Carus, Numerian, and Carinus
• Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius, Galerius, Preamble to the Edict on Maximum Prices (handout)
• Lactantius, On the Manner in which the Persecutors Died
• The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas
• Selection from Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 27-32: vision and conversion
• Selection from the Panegyric of 313 (handout, discussed in class)
• Selection from Nazarius, Panegyric (handout, discussed in class)
• Selection from Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History 2.3: the foundation of Constantinople
• Constantine, Select Laws about Christian concerns
• Constantine, Selection from letter to the bishops about Easter
• Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire, Selections:
  • Gallus and Constantius, Bk. 14.1-15.6
  • Autobiography of a Soldier, Bk. 15.5; 18.4-19.9; last paragraph of 31.16
  • When at Rome..., Bk. 14.6; 15.7; 16.10; 17.4; 19.10
  • Julian Caesar, Bk. 15.8; 16.1-8; 16.11-12
  • Julian Becomes Augustus, Bk. 20.4-5, 20.8-10, 21.1-5

Important Themes (see also Study Questions)

• What do our literary sources have to say about these issues?
• Think of key passages, and be prepared to explain what points they are making, how they go about making them, and what they illustrate about the author or work.
• Also be able to compare and contrast what different works say about related topics.
  • Qualities and characteristic actions of a good ruler
  • Qualities and characteristic actions of a bad ruler
  • Relationships between the individual and the community
  • Relationships between competing communities
  • Relationships between the author and the audience(s) of the text
  • Personal experience as forging an empathetic connection with the reader
  • Personal experience in relationship to society-wide events
  • Religious choice as changing relationships between individuals
  • Religious choice as changing relationships between the individual and society
  • Martyrdom and persecution: what do the parties want?
  • Memory and the future: how do literary texts connect them?
  • Techniques of telling a story

Facts: be able briefly to identify

• the authors of our literary texts (who they were, what they wrote, brief context)
• the emperors and major usurpers from Diocletian to Julian (who they were, brief significance)
• the titles Augustus, Caesar (what jobs they designated, what past persons and events the terms recall)
• Rome, Constantinople (where they are, why they matter)
• the Third-century Crisis (what the problems were, why they mattered)
• the Great Persecution (what happened, why)
• Donatism (what the problem was, where, who cared)
• Arianism (what the problem was, who cared)
• the Nicene Council (how it met, what it did, why it matters)
• the Massacre of 337 (what happened, whom it affected)
• Neoplatonism (basic principles, major figures)

Essay questions

• You will be asked to write one essay as part of the exam, your choice between two questions I will select from the following list.
• Back up your points with concrete, specific evidence from our literary texts.
• Be sure to explain clearly how your evidence supports your arguments.
• Organize your essay as a whole, so your arguments build up your conclusions logically and persuasively.

  • Compare and contrast the ways in which the Tetrarchs on the one hand, and on the other hand Constantine, acted with concern for the religious practices of their citizens. What did they want people to do? Why: what did they think people's religion had to do with their own jobs taking care of the whole empire? What did they do in support of their objectives? How did people react (literarily and otherwise)?

  • Perpetua (and the people who supplemented and published her account) and Lactantius both write about persecutions as Christians, for Christian audiences, but their writings differ significantly, too. Compare and contrast the ways they each tell their stories. What impact do they set up their stories to have on their readers? How? How does the style of storytelling they each use affect the meaning late antique Christians could draw from their stories? (N.b.: consider The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas as a whole.)

  • Perpetua about her experiences leading up to martyrdom and Ammianus about the revolt of Silvanus and the siege of Amida both use first-person narrative to tell stories of public interest. Analyze the techniques they each use to bring their readers close to what they themselves did and perceived. Compare and contrast: do they use similar techniques? do they achieve similar effects? how do similarities or differences relate to the types of public interest they are each addressing?

  • Compare and contrast the literary techniques with which Lactantius demonizes Galerius (whom he often calls Maximian) and Ammianus demonizes Gallus, as bad rulers. Why is each author concerned to portray these rulers as bad? How do they each make reference to conventional ideals (such as other portrayals we have seen this term) about good rulership, in order to denigratre them? What other ideas also enter in? How do these evil characters function in the overall literary dynamics of their histories?