Late Antiquity witnessed a major transformation in the authority and power of the Episcopate within the Church, with the result that bishops came to embody the essence of Christianity and increasingly overshadow the leading Christian laity. The rise of Episcopal power came in a period in which drastic political changes produced long and significant conflicts both within and outside the Church. This book examines these problems in depth, looking at bishops' varied roles in both causing and resolving these disputes, including those internal to the church, those which began within the church but had major effects on wider society, and those of a secular nature.

Mithras explores the history and practices of Mithraism, examining literary and material evidence for Mithras and the reception of his mysteries today. It offers the latest research on the figure of Mithras and provides a comprehensive overview of Mithraism.

Mithras explores the history and practices of Mithraism, examining literary and material evidence for Mithras and the reception of his mysteries today. It offers the latest research on the figure of Mithras and provides a comprehensive overview of Mithraism.

Great statesmen and gentlemen, men of honor and rank, seem to be phenomena of a bygone Aristocratic era. Aristocracies, which emphasize rank, and value difference, quality, beauty, rootedness, continuity, stand in direct contrast to democracies, which value equality, autonomy, novelty, standardization, quantity, utility and mobility. Is there any place for aristocratic values and virtues in the modern democratic social and political order? This volume consists of essays by political theorists, historians, and literary theorists that explore this question in the works of aristocratic thinkers, both ancient and modern. The volume includes analyses of aristocratic virtues, interpretations of aristocratic assemblies and constitutions, both historic and contemporary, as well as critiques of liberal virtues and institutions. Essays on Tacitus, Hobbes, Burke, Tocqueville, Nietzsche, as well as some lesser known figures, such as Henri de Boulainvilliers, John Randolph of Roanoke, Louis de Bonald, Konstantin Leontiev, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Richard Weaver, and the Eighth Duke of Northumberland, explore ways of preserving and adapting the salutary aspects of the aristocratic ethos to the needs of modern liberal societies.

Universal History attempts to explain the world beyond the immediate surroundings of the author. It reflects a desire to synthesise the mass of written and oral knowledge about the past and to introduce a systematic interpretation. This collection re-examines the notion of Universal Historiography with a focus on its appearance in the Greek and Roman world and on the legacy that ancient authors offered to later generations. Fifteen new essays by a diverse set of international scholars tackle questions of definition, illustrate the diversity of its forms, structures, themes and analyses, the historical and intellectual contexts which gave rise to universalist thought, and its reputation and reception in antiquity and beyond.Contributors: Errietta Bissa; Tim Cornell; Allegra de Laurentiis; Marco Di Branco; Jackie Elliott; Johannes Engels; John Farrenkopf; Andrew Fear; Marta Garcia Morcillo; Francois Hartog; Peter Liddel; Clemence Schultze; Brian Sheridan; Peter Van Nuffelen; Liv Yarrow.

This book is a new annotated translation of Orosius's Seven Books of History against the Pagans. Orosius's History, which begins with the creation and continues to his own day, was an immensely popular and standard work of reference on antiquity throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Its importance lay in the fact that Orosius was the first Christian author to write not a church history, but rather a history of the secular world interpreted from a Christian perspective. This approach gave new relevance to Roman history in the medieval period and allowed Rome's past to become a valued part of the medieval intellectual world. The structure of history and methodology deployed by Orosius formed the dominant template for the writing of history in the medieval period, being followed, for example, by such writers as Otto of Freising and Ranulph Higden. Orosius's work is therefore crucial for an understanding of early Christian approaches to history, the development of universal history, and the intellectual life of the Middle Ages, for which it was both an important reference work and also a defining model for the writing of history.

Late Antiquity witnessed a major transformation in the authority and power of the Episcopate within the Church, with the result that bishops came to embody the essence of Christianity and increasingly overshadow the leading Christian laity. The rise of Episcopal power came in a period in which drastic political changes produced long and significant conflicts both within and outside the Church. This book examines these problems in depth, looking at bishops' varied roles in both causing and resolving these disputes, including those internal to the church, those which began within the church but had major effects on wider society, and those of a secular nature.

This book is a new annotated translation of Orosius's Seven Books of History against the Pagans. Orosius's History, which begins with the creation and continues to his own day, was an immensely popular and standard work of reference on antiquity throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Its importance lay in the fact that Orosius was the first Christian author to write not a church history, but rather a history of the secular world interpreted from a Christian perspective. This approach gave new relevance to Roman history in the medieval period and allowed Rome's past to become a valued part of the medieval intellectual world. The structure of history and methodology deployed by Orosius formed the dominant template for the writing of history in the medieval period, being followed, for example, by such writers as Otto of Freising and Ranulph Higden. Orosius's work is therefore crucial for an understanding of early Christian approaches to history, the development of universal history, and the intellectual life of the Middle Ages, for which it was both an important reference work and also a defining model for the writing of history.

These five seventh-century religious texts cast light not only on the development of the church in Visigothic Spain and its internal politics, but also on its, at times troubled, relationship with the Visigothic state and the history of that state itself, particularly in the period when the Visigoths changed their adherence from Arian to Trinitarian Christianity.