BOOK: Jeroen W.P. WIJNENDAELE (ed.), Late Roman Italy. Imperium to Regnum (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2023), 520 p. ISBN 9781399518024, 195 USD

 

(image source: Edinburgh UP)

Abstract:

This research volume reassesses one of the most fundamental transformations in Late Antiquity, centered on a pivotal region: the transition from ‘Empire’ to ‘Kingdom’ in Italy c. 250-500. During the first quarter of the first millennium, Italy was still the heart of the Roman Empire; the only political superstructure ever managing to encompass the entire Mediterranean world and its European hinterland. Yet during the second quarter of this millennium, Italy underwent dramatic evolutions from demotion to a provincialized region (c. 285-395), to a new imperial hub kept afloat by cannibalizing other provinces’ resources (c. 395-476), to an autonomous regnum governed by non-Roman rulers as part of an Eastern Roman ‘Commonwealth’ (c. 475-535).

Table of contents:

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

List of Contributors

Introduction: Italy and Its Place in the Roman Empire of Late Antiquity

Jeroen W. P. Wijnendaele

Part I: Political Developments

1. Italy from the Crisis of the Third Century to the Tetrarchy

Umberto Roberto

2. New Paths to Power: The Bipartite Division of Italy and Its

Realignment of Society and Economy in the Fourth Century

Noel Lenski

3. Court, Crisis and Response: Italy from Gratian to Valentinian III

Mark Humphries

4. The Final Western Emperors, Odoacer and Late Roman Italy’s Resilience

Jeroen W. P. Wijnendaele

Part II: Institutions

5. Administering Late Roman Italy: Geographical Changes and the

Appearance of Governors

Daniëlle Slootjes

6. How the West Was Run: Local Government in Late Roman Italy

Stuart McCunn

7. Armed Forces in Late Roman Italy

Philip Rance

Part III: Society, Economy and Environment

8. Elite Women and Gender-Based Violence in Late Roman Italy

Ulriika Vihervalli and Victoria Leonard

9. Land of the Free? Considering Smallholders and Economic Agency in

Late Antique Italy

Niels P. Arends

10. The Human Landscape and Palaeoecology of Late Roman Italy

Edward M. Schoolman

11. Cities and Urban Life in Late Roman Italy: Transformations of the Old,

Impositions of the New

Neil Christie

Part IV: Religion

12. From Local Authority to Episcopal Power: The Changing Roles of

Roman and Italian Bishops

Bronwen Neil

13. Violence and Episcopal Elections in Late Antique Rome, ad 300–00

Samuel Cohen

14. Religious Minorities in Late Roman Italy: Jewish City-Dwellers and

Their Non-Jewish Neighbours

Jessica van ’ Westeinde

Part V: Culture

15. Christian Sarcophagi in Late Roman Italy: Culture and Connection

Miriam A. Hay

16. Late Roman Italy in Latin Panegyric: From the Panegyrici Latini to Ennodius

Adrastos Omissi

17. Stepping Out of the Shadows: Italy in Late Antique Historiography

Peter Van Nuffelen

Epilogue: Late Roman Italy –Paths Explored and Paths to Explore

Giusto Traina

Index

On the editor:

Dr. Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele is a Senior Fellow of the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies. He is the author of The Last of the Romans. Bonifatius, warlord and comes Africae (Bloomsbury Academic 2015), and has published various articles and book-chapters on the political and military history of the Late Roman Empire. Dr. Wijnendaele was guest-editor of the Journal of Late Antiquity’s 2019 theme-issue on ‘Warfare and Food-Supply in the Late Roman Empire’. At the moment, he is preparing a new monograph on Rome’s Disintegration. Violence, War, and the End of Empire in the West for Oxford University Press.

 Read more here.