This edited volume on Italy in Late Antiquity, with a timeframe of 250 to 500 c.e., comes out of a conference held at Ghent University in January 2019. It is a substantial book at more than five hundred pages and seventeen chapters, in addition to a short introduction and epilogue. This size is all the more impressive considering the COVID-19 pandemic must have heavily impacted the writing and editorial process for everyone involved, a combination of academics of all career stages from PhD to Professor, based in the UK, Europe and the USA. The central premise is, in the words of Mark Humphries, ‘to put Italy back at the centre of the analysis’ (63), with studies on a range of aspects of this region as it underwent significant political and socio-cultural changes.
The editor, Jeroen Wijnendaele, sets the scene with a brief introduction highlighting themes in scholarship and sketching out key developments whose impact will be traced, such as the transformation of Italy into a tax-paying province like any other in the Roman empire. The volume is divided into five parts. The first covers key political developments in chronological order, starting with Umberto Roberto on the period from Gallienus until the Tetrarchy. Its discussion of the attitudes of the Illyrian emperors towards Italy and its inhabitants is valuable, but the treatment of literary source material a little credulous. The second chapter, by Noel Lenski, is a fantastic study of the impact of Italy’s reorganisation from the late third century onwards, when it was split into two spheres: Italia Annonaria in the north, where imperial presence and the administrative apparatus were concentrated, and Italia Suburbicaria to the south, with Rome as its focal point. Lenski covers these complex details with characteristic clarity and nuance. However, the chapter sits a little awkwardly with the other three in this section, stepping out of the chronological structure and retreading some of the same ground as the previous chapter. In my opinion, it would have fitted the start of section two (‘Institutions’) far better. Mark Humphries then takes the story from the emperor Gratian’s accession in 375 until the murder of Valentinian III in 455, with particularly effective use of legal evidence. Finally, Wijnendaele continues to the end of the book’s period of focus, through the western empire’s final rulers until the showdown between Odoacer and Theoderic. He emphasises Italy’s surprising resilience amidst these upheavals, a theme that runs throughout.
Section two contains three chapters on administration and governance. The first, by Daniëlle Slootjes, considers the impact of the provincialisation on Italy and its inhabitants, above all the imposition of governors on its urban communities for the first time. This is complemented by Stuart McCunn’s excellent examination of the evolution of local government from the third century until 500. McCunn traces the fortune of Italy’s municipal elites amidst the imposition of a range of centrally appointed officers and the rise of new local rivals, such as bishops. In the final chapter, Philip Rance offers a substantial and meticulously researched study of armed forces in Italy from the 270s to 470s.
The third part, ‘Society, Economy and Environment’ is, as its title suggests, the most diverse in its contents. The first chapter, co-authored by Ulriika Vihervalli and Victoria Leonard, examines how elite women were the victims of gender-based violence in late antique Italy. This angle complements the book’s earlier discussions nicely, reminding the reader of the human costs of the upheavals of the third to fifth centuries, especially on those who were most vulnerable. The next contribution, by Niels Arends, examines another overlooked group — free small-holding farmers in Italy — arguing that they held a greater degree of agency than might be expected. While accomplished in its theoretical framework and use of evidence, the chapter is three times the size of most others in the book, resulting in imbalance where it covers far too much when others provide succinct overviews. A firmer editorial hand was needed here. Edward Schoolman then introduces an ecological angle, using archaeobotanical data to shed light on environmental changes in three Italian regions from 250 to 500. Again, the findings emphasise local resilience and continuity against a background of political disturbances. Neil Christie ends the section with an excellent study of what we might learn from the changing built landscapes of Italian cities in Late Antiquity.
Section four tackles religion, with two chapters on Christian bishops and one on Jewish communities. For the first two, limitations of evidence test the volume’s claim (9) that its focus is on late antique Italy, not Rome. However, both authors make efforts to bring Italian bishops out of the shadow of their Roman counterparts, or at least account for their relative invisibility. Bronwen Neil provides an accomplished summary of the evolution of ecclesiastical power from the third to fifth centuries, before Samuel Cohen examines the violence that accompanied many episcopal elections, arguing that it was employed strategically by perpetrators. Jessica van ʼt Westeinde’s contribution is a fascinating study of Jewish communities outside of Rome, using the scant epigraphic sources to argue that lines between Jews and non-Jews could blur in urban contexts, such as the city of Venosa in Italia Suburbicaria. A chapter on evidence for the persistence of traditional cults in contexts outside Rome would have been a welcome addition to finish off this section.
The volume’s fifth and final part contains three chapters under the heading of ‘Culture’. The topics are a little random, prioritising, it seems, the research specialisms of the contributors, with one on visual material (Christian sarcophagi) and two on aspects of literary culture (panegyric and historiography). However, the section provides a thoughtful end point for the book by expanding on one of its key themes: the tension between Italy and the gravitational pull of Rome. Miriam Hay pays close attention to the volume’s priority of examining Italian material in its own right, discussing the ways in Christian sarcophagi from smaller Italian cities made innovative use of biblical motifs. Adrastos Omissi considers the curious absence of Italy from the surviving panegyrical corpus, again underlining the important point that Italy and Rome were distinct entities (‘though Rome is in Italy, in the Roman conceptual landscape it was not of Italy’, 455). Finally, Peter Van Nuffelen ends the section with a thoughtful analysis of Italy’s position within the tradition of history-writing and how this shifted with the socio-political transformations of Late Antiquity, ending with its reframing as a ‘promised land for the Goths’ (486) with Theoderic’s kingdom. Giusto Traiana then brings the volume’s threads together nicely in a succinct epilogue.
The image quality does not do the book justice. The crucial map of late Roman Italy (fig. 1.1) is presented awkwardly over two pages, scalping Italia Suburbicaria and rendering the province’s northern boundary and cities difficult to distinguish. Four chapters make excellent use of images, all of which are presented in black and white. However, the authors are let down by images so small as to be illegible (e.g. fig. 11.2), fuzzy reproductions and numerous instances of vertical printing lines, at least in the hardback copy I reviewed. The copy-editing, by contrast, is almost perfect. Despite its size and broad range of topics, it is an admirably accessible volume. Most texts are presented in translation, with original languages in the footnotes, and the contributors do an excellent job in explaining the wide range of complex topics they cover. Many of these chapters will be top recommendations on my undergraduate and postgraduate reading lists. Overall, the volume is an impressive piece of work that makes a valuable and fresh contribution to the field.
