Peter Brown (1) (1935–)

An intellectual autobiography, at the same time a historiographical survey, covering the field of late antiquity, a field that Brown helped shape. One of the emphases of Brown’s scholarly work, dating back to his first book, the acclaimed biography of Augustine of Hippo, is that history as practiced when he began allowed little room for anything other than external events, ignoring the inner life. This autobiography mirrors that theme: Beneath the externalities of life is a complex inner show more world and connection to a common breath of life.
Nor are the journeys purely mental. He traveled to Iran, Egypt, Turkey, and other places important for shaping the late antique world, picking up languages—ancient and modern—as he went. He is also sensitive to how the institutional setting in which a scholar works—whether Oxford, London, Rome, Berkeley, or Princeton— shapes his research and writing. Brown calls this the social aspect of scholarship. Through generous mentions of the work of other scholars whose work inspired and challenged him, Brown demonstrates the importance of this social aspect.
Given that Brown had such a long and productive career and published many groundbreaking studies, it was heartening to read repeatedly how his views on this or that topic had changed based on further research, whether his own or that of others. Brown writes clearly; this book should be accessible for any interested layperson (such as his two aunts—“folk of few books”—he had in mind as he wrote). The book is long and sometimes wanders in the telling, yet it more than repaid the time I invested in reading it. show less

Peter Brown set out to describe how many changes converged to produce a very distinctive period of European civilization from about 200 C.E. to about 700 C.E.; how it differed from the classic period of Greek and Roman dominance; and how it helped shaped the Europe of the Middle Ages. Ancient institutions simply disappeared: the Roman Empire had vanished from western Europe by 476 and the Persian Empire had vanished by 655. Europe became Christian and the Near East became Muslim.

One of the show more main problems of the period was how to maintain a style of life and culture based on the slender coastline of the Mediterranean studded with classical city-states. It was a world always on the brink of starvation. It cost less to transport a cargo of grain from one end of the Mediterranean to the other than to carry it another 75 miles inland. Cultured men of any part of the empire felt more in common with others of their class than to their neighbors, an underdeveloped peasantry. The center of gravity of the empire gradually shifted from Rome eastward to Constantinople.

Even after the sack of Rome by Goths in 410, the western provinces remained a recognizably “sub-Roman” civilization for centuries. But when Islam overran the eastern provinces after 640, they took on an oriental flavor.

Between 240 and 300, the empire faced barbarian invasions and political instability. For many years prior, the area close to the Mediterranean was quite safe and peaceful. But after Persia rose in 224, the Goths in 248, and other war bands along the Rhine after 260, all frontiers of the empire collapsed. The empire was saved by a military revolution. The dead wood of the upper classes was excluded, and men of talent like Diocletian came to the fore.

After the conversion of Constantine to Christianity, most of the civil service was Christian. Notably, they instituted solid money, the solidus.

Christianity, the author posits, extended its appeal after 200 by helping to assuage the anxieties and uncertainties from increasing cosmopolitanism and social change that came with the Roman Empire. Most of all people felt a lack of belonging, and Christianity stepped aggressively into that gap. It filled the need for society so successfully that Christianity expanded exponentially rather than gradually. Christianity offered an exclusive cult, a sense of belonging, and a prescription for living. It offered steady relationships that were - at least professedly - egalitarian. It offered answers and stability where there were none, took on important social roles (such as food supplies for the needy and burial of the dead) and provided an assurance of loving kindness both on earth and for eternal life as a reward for faith. Importantly, Christianity also offered an enemy to explain the problem of evil and to provide a way to overcome it: i.e., the devil and his demon minions. The devil, as Christianity explained it, was “an all-embracing agent of evil in he human race; but he had been defeated by Christ and could be held in check by Christ’s human agents.” Thus, as the author asserts:

“However many sound social and cultural reasons the historian may find for the expansion of the Christian Church, the fact remains that in all Christian literature from the New Testament onwards, the Christian missionaries advanced principally by revealing the bankruptcy of men’s invisible enemies, the demons, through exorcisms and miracles of healing.” (p 55)

From 170 to 312 there was an active debate about religion. Christians were attacked because they neglected the rites of the old paganism. The new mood appealed to the concept of one God rather than to an array of lesser gods. Conversion was intimately connected to revelation. Revelation allowed the uneducated to “know” truths. Philosophers like Plotinus thought that bad because it skipped over serious education and allowed for second-rate counterfeit of traditional academic philosophy.

The 4th century was a time of revival. It is important to note that Christianity grew even more during prosperous times than catastrophic ones. More people participated in the empire in the East than in the West, so enthusiasm for the emperor was firmer.

Paganism survived much later in the East than in the West. The Hellenes in Athens and Alexandria “created the classical language of philosophy in the early Middle Ages, of which Christian, Jewish, and Islamic thought, up to the twelfth century, are but derivative vernaculars.”

Evaluation: This succinct and lucid account of social and cultural change in the Late Antique World maintains interest throughout. He is careful to explain that he cannot commit to “cause and effect” but only seeks to describe how “certain changes coincided in such a way that the one cannot be understood without reference to the other.” The book includes 130 illustrations.

(JAB) show less

This is my favourite kind of history book: not a succession of wars and kings, but the tracing of changes in culture, ideas, social structures. The period in question (150 to 750 AD) is one of my favourites, too. The mediterranean world underwent the metamorphosis from antiquity into middle ages; a pagan Europe changed into a deeply Christian Europe; world views shifted, a way of life vanished; a huge, centrally governed empire shattered. What remained? What disappeared in the transition to show more the so-called Dark Ages? Peter Brown does a marvellous job in writing about this fascinating period. He does not give us an exhaustive survey of the age, but rather a vivid impression, a bold interpretation, for which some basic knowledge of the classical world is a prerequisite. Brown's writing is imaginative and literary, with beautiful metaphors. He is very good both at picking telling details and making interesting connections in the larger whole. He brings the period to life and provides it with relief. show less

This learned and well-written book totally transformed my understanding of both the later Roman Empire and the early centuries of Christianity. To take one example, I knew Carthage was an important city, but I had no idea how important; it was essentially the Rome of North Africa, its hinterland was the source of Rome's grain supply after the grain of Egypt started going to Constantinople, and its loss to the Vandals was one of the biggest blows to the Empire in its slow collapse. As for the show more church, Brown brings to life personalities like Augustine, Jerome, and Pelagius and shows how their ideas interacted with the people and culture around them and with the situation of the Empire at the time. Anyone with even a slight interest in the period and topic should read it. show less