Art and Social Identities in Late Antiquity

The next speaker in our lecture series will be Amelia Brown (University of California Berkeley).

Wednesday 14 November 3 pm
University of Aarhus, building 1414, auditorium 407

“Angels and Sinners in the Cities of Late Antique Greece”

Abstract below the fold.

Up until recently, urban life in Greece was practically invisible in Late Antiquity. The texts were written far away, either by critical Christians or pagans obsessed with the past; the archaeological ruins were rubbish, suitable only for passing mention, usually of removal. Scattered references to barbarians and earthquakes and what little archaeologists did record yielded a story of decline and destruction for most cities in the third or at the latest the fourth century. But in Thessaloniki, several monuments still in use and a growing number of rescue excavations made the late antique city impossible to deny. Athens had numerous temple-to-church conversions, and a strong tradition of philosophical education. And while only a few churches have been found on the very periphery of Corinth, the sculpture, epigraphy and architecture of the city center all testify to the vigor of urban life and pagan religion there throughout Late Antiquity. Thus all three cities can contribute to a new reconstruction of active civic life in late antique Greece. Pagan religion and Christianity, local benefactors and imperial visitors, gladiator games and grand new constructions were all guided by civic elites interacting in these ancient city centers. This new picture of vigorous cities in Late Antique Greece has important implications for ancient urbanism, the development of Christianity and the transition to the Byzantine world.

Amelia will also give a seminar on “Headless in Corinth? Context and Comparanda for the Chlamydati of Late Antique Greece” on Tuesday 13 November 3 pm in building 1412, room 431.

Over the last century excavations at Ancient Corinth in central Greece have discovered the remains of at least eight chlamydati, late antique portrait statues of civic honorands wearing the long cloak (or chlamys) and insignia of imperial office. The author uncovered the most recent statue in 2005, and here places him in context with those from Corinth and other city centers of the eastern Mediterranean. New insights into both sculpture and society arise from the first assembly of these chlamydati in print together, and their comparison with the relevant portrait heads, inscriptions and civic spaces of Corinth itself. Despite the significance of such statues for the history of Corinth and Greece, their publication to date has been largely descriptive. Viewed by most scholars as a degenerate final chapter in the sculptural production of Antiquity, these figures are rather one of the best bodies of evidence still in existence for the politics, culture and economy of the city of Corinth and Greece in the fourth through sixth centuries after Christ.