商品簡介
Late Antiquity is the somewhat unsatisfactory name for the period in Europe roughly from the fourth to the eighth century. It was a time of transition from Roman hegemony to a largely Christian society. Kelly (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) and his colleagues take exception to the notion that Classical history and education were thrown out with conversion. Each of the articles puts the Classical art of history writing in a different light Beginning with Eusebius, who reorganized history to incorporate Biblical testimony, Late Antique writers were at pains to use the rules of classical rhetoric along with references to Greek and Latin authors to make their points. The bishop Ambrose, the patrician Ausonius, the Greek ascetic Basil, the imperial bureaucrat Festus, all were aware of historical traditions and expert enough to play with them to their own ends. Even forms that seem quintessentially Christian, such as liturgies and the lives of saints, still bore the mark of their classical ancestry. Taken together, the essays make a good case for Late Antiquity to be a time, not of stagnation but metamorphosis. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)