In the Later Roman Empire (AD 300650), power seems to manifest itself mostly through legislation, bureaucracy, and an increasingly distant emperor. This book focuses instead on personal interaction as crucial to the exercise of power. It studies four social practices (petitions, parrhesia, intercession, and collective action) to show how they are much more dynamic than often assumed. These practices were guided by strong expectations of justice, which constrained the actions of superiors. They therefore allowed the socially inferior to develop strategies of conduct that could force the hand of the superior and, in extreme cases, lead to overturning hierarchical relations. Building on the analysis of these specific forms of interaction, the book argues for an understanding of late antique power rooted in the character and virtue of those invested with it.
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Argues that personal interaction between ruler and ruled were crucial for exercising justice and power in the Later Roman Empire.
Preface; List of abbreviations;
1. Introduction;
2. Petitions.
Bureaucracy and social practice;
3. Parrhesia. The inversion of hierarchy;
4.
Intercession. Moral and legal justice;
5. Riots. The virtue of the people;
6.
Ceremony and power; Postface.
Peter Van Nuffelen is Professor of Ancient History at Ghent University. He has published widely on ancient religions and Late Antiquity, including The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (AD 300620) (Cambridge, 2020) and The Fragmentary Greek Chronicles after Eusebius (Cambridge, 2024), both with Lieve Van Hoof. He is the recipient of two grants from the European Research Council, and he currently directs an Advanced Grant entitled 'New Polities: Political Thought in the First Millennium.'
