13 For orientation, see Luke Lavan and William Bowden, eds., Theory and Practice in Late
Antique Archaeology (Leiden: Brill, 2003) the fi rst volume in an important series, Late Antique
Archaeology, in which seven volumes have so far appeared.
14 J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer. The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph: the Art
of the Roman Empire AD 100–450 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); see also Eunice
Dauterman Maguire and Henry Maguire, Other Icons. Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).
15 Luke Lavan, Ellen Swift and Toon Putzeys, eds., Objects in Context, Objects in Use. Material
Spatiality in Late Antiquity, Late Antique Archaeology 5 (Leiden: Brill, 2007) presents mate-
rial culture in a more dynamic relation to its contexts.
16 See on all these writers A.H. Merrills, History and Geography in Late Antiquity (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005); on Jordanes, W. Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian His-
tory (AD 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede and Paul the Deacon (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1988).
17 See W. Treadgold, The Early Byzantine Historians (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007);
Theophylact: Michael and Mary Whitby, The History of Theophylact Simocatta, trans. with
introd. and notes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); Michael Whitby, The Emperor Maurice
and his Historian: Theophylact Simocatta on Persian and Balkan Warfare (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1988).
18 It becomes important in the later part of the period to know the religious orientation of our
sources. ‘Chalcedonian’ indicates someone in the tradition of the Council of Chalcedon,
451; the term Miaphysite (also Monophysite) refers to those who emphasised the divine
nature of Christ rather than the two equal natures: divine and human.
19 The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, translated and with an introduction by Richard Price and
Michael Gaddis, Translated Texts for Historians 45, 3 vols. (Liverpool: Liverpool Uni-
versity Press, 2005); The Acts of Constantinople 553, with related texts from the Three Chapters
Controversy, translated with an introduction and notes by Richard Price, Translated Texts for
Historians 51, 2 vols. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009).
20 See, for instance, Hannah M. Cotton, Robert G. Hoyland, Jonathan J. Price and David L.
Wasserstein, eds., From Hellenism to Islam. Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
21 This is the title of chapter 5 of Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome, which provides a graphic
description. Liebeschuetz, The Decline and Fall of the Roman City also argues forcefully for
‘decline’ in the west at an earlier stage than in the east (where according to him it was also
happening by the later sixth century).
22 Michael McCormick, The Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce,
AD 300–900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), and cf. P. Horden and
N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea. A Study of Mediterranean History, vol. I (Oxford: Blackwell,
2000), 153–60.
23 See Alan Walmsley, Early Islamic Syria. An Archaeological Assessment (London: Duckworth,
2007), and below, Chapter 9.
24 See Andrew Marsham, ‘The early Caliphate and the inheritance of late antiquity (c. AD
610–c. AD 750)’, in Philip Rousseau, ed., A Companion to Late Antiquity (Chichester: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2009), 479–92.
25 See especially Harris, ed., Rethinking the Mediterranean; Brent D. Shaw, ‘Challenging Braudel:
a new vision of the Mediterranean’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 14 (2001), 419–53; further,
Conclusion.
26 The fourth century is covered in much more detail in D. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay AD
180–395 (London: Routledge, 2004), and see Stephen Mitchell, History of the Later Roman
Empire AD 284–641 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); more briefl y, Averil Cameron, The Later
Roman Empire AD 284–430 (London: Fontana Press, 1993). The post-Constantinian period
is covered in Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey, eds., The Late Empire, AD 337–425, Cam-
bridge Ancient History XIII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). See also
NOTES TO INTRODUCTION