Second only to Rome in the ancient world, Alexandria was home to
many of late antiquity's most brilliant writers, philosophers, and
theologians -- among them Philo, Origen, Arius, Athanasius,
Hypatia, Cyril, and John Philoponus. Now, in Alexandria in Late
Antiquity, Christopher Haas offers the first book to place these
figures within the physical and social context of Alexandria's
bustling urban milieu.
Because of its clear demarcation of communal boundaries,
Alexandria provides the modern historian with an ideal opportunity
to probe the multicultural makeup of an ancient urban unit. Haas
explores the broad avenues and back alleys of Alexandria's
neighborhoods, its suburbs and waterfront, and aspects of material
culture that underlay Alexandrian social and intellectual life.
Organizing his discussion around the city's religious and ethnic
blocs -- Jews, pagans, and Christians -- he details the fiercely
competitive nature of Alexandrian social dynamics. In contrast to
recent scholarship, which cites Alexandria as a model for peaceful
coexistence within a culturally diverse community, Haas finds that
the diverse groups' struggles for social dominance and cultural
hegemony often resulted in violence and bloodshed -- a volatile
situation frequently exacerbated by imperial intervention on one
side or the other.
Eventually, Haas concludes, Alexandrian society achieved a
certain stability and reintegration -- a process that resulted in
the transformation of Alexandrian civic identity during the crucial
centuries between antiquity and the Middle Ages.
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