The generation in the book's title refers to that of elite Greek and Roman males born during Constantine's early reign and who lived to the 380s/mid-390s c.e. As Themistius (317–c. 390), Libanius (c. 314–392/3), Ausonius (c. 310–c. 395) and Vettius Agorius Praetextatus (c. 315–384), the four prominent men whose age cohort constitutes the core of this study, grew up, built careers, matured and became old men, the major changes that would fundamentally alter their world transformed them personally in particular and yet broadly commensurate ways. As imperial Christianity increasingly displaced the polytheistic matrix in which the men were raised, they were required to conform their public and private personae in such a manner as to meet the uncertainties and challenges of those times.
The book's explanandum is why this generation evolved into more moderate public figures in respect to religious partisanship than the one that followed 20 years later. It argues that, because these two age cohorts confronted different realities at the most critical juncture in their lives when careers and futures were most at stake, they emerged with outlooks which they shared with their group and differentiated them from the other generation. As Themistius, Libanius, Ausonius and Praetextatus came into their prime, they had to adjust to a nascent imperial Christianity. With much at risk, these men opted to go along to get along and fell back on the support of friends and family to protect and advance their careers. Their survivalist and careerist choices moulded them into a kind of moderate pagans. The younger cohort came of age in a Christianising world in which partisan religious identities had become entrenched and polarised. These men could therefore make informed decisions on which divergent life-paths they wished to follow from the outset rather than adopt compromise to cope when blindsided by circumstances in mid-life (p. 186). The temporal differential in how these two age groups experienced major challenges, W. argues, accounts for the final pagan generation's moderation in sectarian strife and the next generation's strident partisanship.
The book juxtaposes developments in politics, culture and religion and the men's responses as its principle of organisation and analysis. Chapters correlate developments during successive reigns and stages in the four men's lives. Chapters 1 and 2 describe the milieu in which these men were raised. Chapter 3 establishes how family and friends helped advance their early careers. Since they owed their rise more to networks of relationships than to merit, the men formed a lifelong conviction that preserving such ties was of the utmost importance. Chapter 4 discusses the reign of Constantius II, whose championship of the Christian cause challenged Libanius and Themistius to balance their ambition with their polytheistic upbringing. The prudence that helped them configure their panegyrics to please Constantius without stooping to sycophancy came to be rewarded by further advancement. Chapters 5 and 6 examine the dilemmas posed by the reigns of Julian and the Valentinians. Libanius and Themistius lukewarmly supported Julian's revolutionary pagan reforms due to their now habitual prudence, but were zealous in the defence of friends and allies – including Christian ones – even risking imperial displeasure for the sake of preserving time-proven networks. Chapter 7 turns to the children of the final pagan generation and their cohort. Ambrose of Milan, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa and Amphilochius of Iconium, are considered alongside Athanasius’ ‘Life of Antony’ as representative of novel life-paths available to elite males. Chapter 8 assesses the impact of the divergent partisan careers available to men of the younger generation. Chapter 9 argues that Libanius did not react forcefully to Christian attacks on traditional cult during the late 380s–390s because he was beset with other preoccupations and was moreover reluctant to damage ties with members of the elite. Chapter 10 contrasts standard narratives of Christianity's triumph with how the final pagan generation experienced the era in real ‘lived’ time as they grew old in a world that was still redolent with the scents and images of the gods at the century's close.
The concept of generation does not merely delimit the group under study but plays an explanatory role. By framing the history of the fourth century as the progress of a cohort, W. promotes an alternative paradigm for narrating the transformations of Late Antiquity. In arguing that the lived experiences of this cohort over time, as correlated with the major structures and events of the successive decades of the fourth century, best contextualise the men's often existential choices, he advances a sympathetic view of these self-seeking public men.
The book's approach to a human generation as a significant grouping and a unit of analysis borrows from the premise of longitudinal or cohort studies in the social sciences and natural and applied sciences. W. adduces the ‘Woodstock generation’ from the 1960s U.S. as a parallel construct of a cohort that was shaped by shared experiences and that also exercised a pronounced impact on posterity. This comparison raises the questions as to whether alterations in imperial regimes, religious affiliations and policies over the course of the fourth century produced pervasive effects comparable to the onset of the Vietnam War and the rise of counter-cultures in the 1960s and whether there was indeed a self-consciousness of belonging to a fourth-century cohort as with ‘baby-boomers’ whose identity was reified by shared experiences and media representations.
As a study of the late Roman elite, the volume adopts an empire-wide approach and as such contrasts with recent important studies, such as the contributions by M. Salzman (The Making of a Christian Aristocracy [2002]) and Al. Cameron (The Last Pagans of Rome [2011]), that focus on specific aristocratic networks, particularly in the west. Whether the benefits promised by its wider scope trump the value of being able to zoom in on specific aristocratic circles such as those of the ‘Romans of Rome’ remains open to debate. Furthermore, the generation in question is only a small subset comprising elite males who deployed their cultural habitus to gain upward social mobility; it excludes significant segments of the late Roman elite such as the Germanic military aristocracy. The volume therefore represents not quite a thorough-going generational study as one that focuses on the caste of late Roman elite who sought advancement in carrières ouvertes aux talents but who in reality relied on patronage for preferment. This selectivity begs the question as, by examining only individuals who continued to be successful into old age in close proximity to imperial power, to discover that they had as a shared trait the willingness to collaborate with (Christian) emperors occasions little surprise.
The book makes its case by cross-referencing individual profiles with major events and developments in the other lives. Yet biographical profiles are lacunose or shaped by topoi. While facts such as Praetextatus’ and Ausonius’ dynastic marriages can be ascertained (p. 74), their interpretation rests on surmise and correlation with observed stages in their subsequent cursus rather than on insight into the men's own views at the time. Even the most promising sources are suffused with rhetorical tropes and interested self-representations: for example, R. Cribiore and others have disavowed Libanius’ Autobiography (Or. 1) as a reliable source for historical reconstruction (R. Cribiore, Libanius the Sophist: Rhetoric, Reality, and Religion in the Fourth Century [2013], esp. pp. 38ff.). W. acknowledges the evidentiary and hermeneutical problems of his data in a standalone paragraph (p. 197), but sidesteps their implications. Might these evidentiary problems render this generational study a chiefly heuristic exercise?
W. has gifted us a thought-provoking study that combines able curation and analysis with a passionate advocacy for an under-utilised framework in the study of Late Antiquity. His book invites us to consider how certain elite males who had grown up in what for them appeared as a fixed and timeless culture only to face profound choices in their adult lives responded to their experienced vulnerability by forming prudent and moderate outlooks. Its advocacy for seeing the lived experiences of this group of flawed and far from heroic human beings as the interpretative key for understanding them and their world is timely and well-taken. The volume stands as a highly welcome addition to the historical literature for its sympathetic and illuminating approach to how actual historical personages experienced some of the major transformations of Late Antiquity.
