This is the first volume in a new series, The Library of the Other Antiquity, that will be part of the ‘Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften’. The present collection of papers is the result of two colloquia in Leeds (2010) and Berlin (2011) dedicated to the eponymous topic. The contributions are written in German, French, Italian and English and either look at past receptions of Late Antiquity as ‘décadence’ and/or re-read the texts with the hermeneutical tools provided by their history of reception. The fifteen papers are introduced by a short preface and Formisano's valuable theoretical paper, ‘Reading Décadence – Reception and the Subaltern Late Antiquity’. The texts are divided in five larger sections (‘Décadence in Antiquity’; ‘Imagining Late Antiquity: Décadence and Modernity’; ‘The Fertility of Décadence’; ‘Reception: Late Antique Poetics’; ‘Décadence: Good to Think With?’) and followed by an index locorum and an index nominum et rerum.

Though discussing late-antique literature somewhat provocatively under the headings of decadence, and decline and fall, the editors, of course, do not interpret Late Antiquity as an era of epigonism as has been done in past centuries. Instead, they use the allegedly obsolete concept of decadence to show its ongoing power as a source of inspiration – not only for scholars. As it was the predominant mode of reception, the lens of decadence became to some extent inseparable from the original literature. The basic question in this volume is, therefore, how a long-lasting prejudice can be made productive for contemporary research. The convincing idea of integrating the main line of reception has been similarly used in other fields before, for example in analysing the literary genre of ancient encyclopedia that has been shaped through later concepts of encyclopedism (cf. e.g. A. Doody, Pliny's Encyclopedia. The Reception of the Natural History [2010], pp. 1–10; 42–58).

The aim of the volume – to serve as ‘a laboratory of new ideas’ (p. 4) – is achieved in several articles. Especially contributing to the overall subject of decadence are two papers of the first and second section: ‘Das Interesse am menschlichen Scheitern – Antike Konstruktionen des “Niedergangs” einer Kultur’ and ‘“Under the Full Impact of a Catastrophic End” – Augustine and the Fall of Rome in Hannah Arendt's Reading’. Both texts highlight Augustine's use of ancient scenarios of decline, known from ancient historians, and their subsequent changing through the eschatological perspective. In the former paper Fuhrer shows that the concept of decline is already rooted in antiquity and later receives some new impulses through Christian philosophy and theology. In the latter, K. Schlapbach discusses Arendt's lifelong occupation with Augustine and their common concept of an individual's life as a new beginning (called ‘natality’ by Arendt).

A different but equally fruitful approach is taken by two papers of the third section: H. Harich-Schwarzbauer, ‘Die “Lust” der Poesie – “Décadence” in den spätantiken Epithalamien’, and D. Shanzer, ‘Incest and Late Antiquity – Décadence?’. Both authors focus on a particular thematic subject and investigate its peculiarity in late-antique literature. They show that erotic themes – sensuality in Sidonius’ and Claudianus’ epithalamia as well as incest in several late-antique texts – were understood as phenomena which are characteristic of decadence.

The papers of the fourth section are dedicated to late-antique poetics. Two study the cento, a genre of widespread vogue in Late Antiquity, that has been criticised for its creative degeneration and detraction of antique authors. S. Hinds, ‘The Self-conscious Cento’, focuses on the allusive weight of certain verses in Proba's and Ausonius’ centones and suggests a centonic self-consciousness with ideas of decline. S. Schottenius Cullhed, ‘Proba and Jerome’, looks at Jerome's letter 53.7, in which he criticises centonic literature in general and, as has been suggested by several scholars in the past, especially Proba's cento. Cullhed raises the question whether there is an allusion to Proba at all, and how this passage has been perceived by Jerome's contemporaries and later readers. The two other papers in this section explore how individual authors were received in subsequent ages. É. Wolff, ‘Quelques jalons dans l'histoire de la réception de Sidoine Apollinaire’, traces the reception of Sidonius Apollinaris as an author of decadence. J. Stenger, ‘Der “barocke” Stil des Ammianus Marcellinus – Vom heuristischen Nutzen eines folgenreichen Verdikts’, analyses the ‘decadent’ formulation of narration and style in two passages of Ammianus Marcellinus’ Res gestae (15.7.1–5; 26.6.15–18). Because nearly every author of Late Antiquity has a custom of being detracted in later scholarship, the analysis of one single writer as decadent, though relevant for the history of the individual author, does not add to the volume's general question of decline.

The last section takes decadence as a tool to interpret modern ideas or authors. A. Zanker, ‘Decline and Kunstprosa – Velleius Paterculus and Eduard Norden’, compares the rhetoric of decline in Velleius Paterculus’ description of Rome and Norden's history of artistic prose writing. Despite the obvious differences between the two authors Zanker claims a shared dedication to the aesthetic representation of decline and thus a basic affinity. The last section profits especially from C. Markschies's paper, ‘Décadence? Christliche Theologen der Spätantike über den Verfall von Moral und Glauben seit Kaiser Konstantin’. Markschies analyses how theologians of Late Antiquity enjoyed a rhetoric of decadence. On the basis of Hieronymus’ De Monacho Captivo he establishes ties to the Protestant model of decadence.