THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD IN LATE ANTIQUITYsome women may have gained more status than they had had before. At least
we can say that Christianization brought with it distinct changes in conscious-
ness and new possibilities for individual and group identity. In some ways the
constraints on women, which were great, actually intensifi ed, but even within
the constraints of contemporary moral and religious teaching, the inner self
was not exclusively defi ned as male. But it was not only women whose lives
and consciousness was affected by Christianization. Men too faced adjust-
ments and were presented with dilemmas and opportunities. As we have seen,
many adapted enthusiastically, but others, especially elite men of the Roman
senatorial class, found more diffi culty.^69 Late antiquity was also a time when
eunuchs became established at court and in the higher administration, a fea-
ture began early and persisted into the Byzantine period. There were eunuch
generals, such as Narses and Solomon in the sixth century, and later even
eunuch patriarchs. They were found useful by emperors as a ‘third sex’, and
some families saw prospects of advancement in castrating their sons. Some
rose high and became very powerful, as in the early fi fth century, but they
were also suspected and at times feared, and gave rise to a persistent strain of
disapproval and distaste.^70
Material cultureCulture is not of course solely about mentalities and intellectual life. Material
objects and material culture are part of what we mean by the overall term, and
the incorporation of the study of material culture (including, but not limited
to, art history) is a feature of the recent historiography on late antiquity.^71
Weights, lamps, textiles, pottery are all types of object that appear alongside
luxury items in exhibitions, museum displays and illustrated books, and which
feature in discussions of ‘daily’ or ‘everyday’ life. Wanting to avoid the asso-
ciations of an emphasis on spirituality or on theological issues, some art his-
torians also cast their subject in terms of material culture.^72 In this regard
several issues present themselves during our period. They include the ques-
tion already mentioned of how far ethnicity can be deduced from assemblages
of archaeological material, and the related issue of what material culture can
tell us about religious sensibility. In our period, material culture also changed
alongside social changes, and as Christianity developed the cults of relics and
religious images. Material culture also became highly contentious as these prac-
tices were questioned, both by Christians themselves and under the impact of
Islam (Chapter 9). What the impact was on individuals of the material culture
which they experienced is a question that is being addressed for other periods
but which still needs to be asked about late antiquity and Byzantium.^73
In many ways this was a tumultuous period, when many existing social bar-
riers were weakened, if not actually broken, and others formed. One of the
most marked features of the period is clearly the progress of Christianization,
which involved social change and the development of an authoritarian ideol-
ogy.^74 But the fragmentation of Roman society in the west, the advent of bar-