Benjamin SuchardThe end of Antiquity
It’s becoming apparent that I have an above-average interest in oversimplified schemes of historical periodization. Recently, it’s been on overdrive, kicked off by a pretty practical question. It would be convenient if I could tell a couple of students in a course I’m teaching soon that the Nabataean script is from Classical Antiquity, while the Nabataeo-Arabic and Paleo-Arabic scripts are from Late Antiquity. Are they?
The issue here is “Late Antiquity”. As we know, the idea of the Middle Ages is that they’re in between (Classical) Antiquity, traditionally held to end with the deposition of the last Western Roman emperor in 476, and the Modern period or specifically the Renaissance, the rebirth of Classical culture and learning. Historians have put forward the concept of Late Antiquity to point out that 476 is a random-ass watershed and that the centuries on both sides of it resemble each other a lot, more than they do their more distant Ancient predecessors and Medieval successors. There’s no clear break from an obviously Ancient fifth century (up to 476) and an obviously Medieval world right after it. Late Antiquity is supposed to emphasize the gradual transformation from the Roman Empire to Early Medieval Europe (and the same in the Near/Middle East, I guess). The real Middle Ages then start sometime in the eighth century, probably the second half, when we’ve got Charlemagne in Western Europe and Abbasids in the Middle East—good Medieval stuff.
The problem I’ve been running into is that both schemes kind of suck to me. The late fifth and sixth centuries feel decidedly un-Medieval in many ways, with Roman generals fighting barbarian tribes in Italy and Africa and Spain and so on, while the seventh and early eighth don’t have all that much Antiquity left in them. Especially the seventh century feels like a fish nor fowl situation: so much is changing all over the place at the same time.
So, after long but not necessarily thorough consideration, I’ve tentatively reached the following, vibes-based scheme, which splits Late Antiquity up into two or three different periods. I give some of the main characteristics of each period so you can see if they pass the vibe check for you as well. Cut-off dates are rounded for convenience.
- 30 BCE–200 CE: Early Roman Empire. Pax Romana, most of the time. Julio-Claudian, Flavian, Nerva-Antonine dynasties. Gladiator is shot. Paganism. Stoic philosophers. Jewish revolts. Transitions from Second Temple Judaism to early Rabbinic Judaism (Mishnah codified ca. 200) and early Christianity. Parthians.
- 200–400: Middle Roman Empire. Constant shifts in governance type: militaristic soap opera dynasty (Severans), Crisis of the Third Century, Tetrarchy, back to single emperors to co-emperors to single emperors. Finally, definitive split into East and West. Rome (the city) replaced as capital by Milan and Nicomedia/Constantinople early on in this period. Massive expansion of Roman citizenship (Constitutio Antoniniana). Christianity goes from proscribed to persecuted to tolerated to state religion. Fights over the Trinity. Neoplatonist philosophers. Both Talmuds mostly written, Palestinian Talmud redacted. Sasanian Persians.
- 400-600: Late Roman Empire. Huns! Goths! Migration Period more generally. Bad times for the Romans, most of the time. Western capital moved to Ravenna. Western Empire breaks up into Germanic-ruled kingdoms. Transition from de facto Germanic shogunate to a de jure Germanic kingdom in Italy means no more Western “Emperors”. “Last of the Romans” figures like Aetius, Belisarius, and Boethius both before and after 476. Towards the end of this period, Lombards and Pannonian Avars play at Ostrogoths and Huns 2.0. Fights over Christology. Neoplatonist academies. Babylonian Talmud completed and redacted, still in Sasanian Persia.
- 600-720: Nascent Middle Ages. End of Justinian’s dynasty. Islam! Lombards and Avars fully entrenched in Italy and Pannonia, respectively. Slavic and early Turkic expansions. Pippinids. Last known act of the Roman Senate in 603. Gregory I “the Great”, first Pope with a monastic background, one of the last from a Roman senatorial family. Visigoths, Anglo-Saxons, Lombards, and remaining pagan and Arian Franks convert to Catholicism. First Geonim. Apocalyptic war between the baby Byzantine Empire and Sasanian Persia followed by Islamic conquest of (large parts of) both of them.
- 720-1000: Early Middle Ages. 720ish as cutoff date: early Islamic conquests run out of steam (failed siege of Constantinople 717-18; conventional start of Reconquista in 722; Battle of Tours 732). Introduction of Arabic as chancery language and widespread conversion in newly Islamic territories. Charles Martel consolidates power in soon-to-be Carolingian Francia. Isaurian dynasty in Byzantium, Iconoclasm. Byzantine emperors stop using the nomen Flavius, putting an end to Roman naming conventions. Avars settle down. Pope Gregory II distances Rome from Byzantines; arrangement with Liutprand, Lombard king of Italy, gives rise to Papal State. Bede, the “first medieval scholar”. Old Irish, Old English (in Latin script).
Enough significant events cluster around 600 and 720 that I think it makes sense to take these as big cutoff points. We’ve got enough Ancient things going on up to 600 and Medieval things after 720 that we can say that Antiquity ended around 600 and the Middle Ages proper started around 720. The intermediate long seventh century could go either way, but it feels more like everything is being put into place for the Middle Ages than that there is so much lingering Antiquity being cleaned up. So I’m going with Nascent Middle Ages to reflect that.
The Harran Inscription, Paleo-Arabic and Greek, from 562.That places Nabataean (Early Roman Empire), Nabataeo-Arabic (Middle Roman Empire), and Paleo-Arabic (Late Roman Empire) scripts in Antiquity and the unhyphenated Arabic one in the (Nascent) Middle Ages. Something I can work with.
Happy New Year!
