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Document Details : Title: Elder and New Romes Subtitle: Constantinople and its Predecessor in Late Antique Historiography Author(s): BAGHOS, Mario Journal: Ancient West & East Volume: 24 Date: 2025 Pages: 69-100 DOI: 10.2143/AWE.24.0.3295109 Abstract : The purpose of this article is to explore the tension between the elder and new Romes addressed in the Byzantine historians – Philostorgius of Borrisus, Socrates of Constantinople, Sozomen of Bethelia, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus – as well as Latin pagan and Christian historians – Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Ammianus Marcellinus, and Paulus Orosius – in order to account for the shift of emphasis from the first Rome in Italy to the New, Constantinople, within them in the 4th-5th centuries. It is demonstrated that this shift involved the appropriation of motifs borrowed from Eusebius of Caesarea’s description of the reign of Constantine the Great and its relationship to the old Rome – which was paradigmatic in the emergent Christendom of Late Antiquity – to reflect the current circumstances in Constantinople in the 5th century. These motifs were deployed differently by Latin authors, who still clung to the elder Rome even as Byzantine authors extolled the New as the capital of the empire. Finally, it will be made clear that Alaric’s sack of Rome – despite the mitigation of its severity by authors such as Paulus Orosius – set the wheels in motion for the final eclipse of that city by Constantinople in Late Antiquity. |
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