Envoi: On Taking Leave Of Antiquity(By Henry Chadwick)The ancient classical world is a large entity to take leave of. How did it all end? Or should one ask how
it survived so long? What principally distinguishes 'ancient' history from that which we label medieval
or modern? One obvious difference is that the available sources, though massive enough, are on a far
smaller scale, so that the writing of ancient history is a distinct operation from writing modern history
where the quantity of documents overwhelms the student. But that is of the accidents rather than the
substance of what makes ancient classical studies a special and unique discipline. The rock whence
western civilization is hewn is the old Mediterranean world, beginning with high achievements at the
eastern end in the Nile valley, in the Assyrian and Persian worlds, in Judaea, but then seeing the centre
of gravity move westwards: first to the Greeks, with a high peak of excellence in the fifth and fourth
centuries BC, then to the Romans, whose power ultimately yields to the energy of the despised, crude,
bibulous barbarians of the north and north-west.
Yet even the barbarian invasions of the fifth century AD fail to mark a decisive ending to the structures
and values of classical Greece and Rome. If by 'the end of the ancient world' we mean the loss of a
uniquely privileged position for Greek and Latin classics in western education and culture, then the shift
cannot be described as decisive until the twentieth century, an age in -which powerful forces are inimical
to the very notion of a 'classic' of the past providing a model or criterion of judgment over the present.
Even as the twentieth century draws to a close, the continued centrality of Rome and of the old
Mediterranean world retains at least one living and undiminished symbol in the Papacy, presiding over a
community of more than 700 million people, most of whom do not live in Europe. Until very recent
times the renewal of high culture in the West has been linked with some direct contact with the prime
sources of this culture in antiquity: in Greek philosophy, in Roman law and administration, in the
universal-ism stemming from biblical monotheism.
That is not to say that these three main sources are, or were at the time felt to be, wholly harmonious and
co-operative friends. The Romans, from Cicero to Pope Gregory the Great, regarded the Greeks as too
clever to be honest. The Greeks, as is clear from Plutarch, admired the Romans, but did not greatly
appreciate being conquered by them and would have preferred their own incompetent government to
Roman efficiency and justice. Christian monotheism represented a disruptive challenge to immemorial
local cults and social customs throughout the Empire, and was met by vigorous resistance in the form of
philosophic criticism and state harassment.
It is astonishing that the Roman Empire survived the crisis of the third century A.D. Already by 200 a
serious trade recession had begun to hit the Mediterranean world, and people spoke anxiously of a
falling birth-rate. In the middle years of the century the legions suffered fearful defeats from Persians,
Goths, and other Germanic tribes; and the ferocity of internal civil wars brought the enterprise of
imperial government to the verge of disintegration. This was averted by the new deal imposed first by