Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Ageof Arcadius and Chrysostom (review)Harry Rosenberg

Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 1, Number 2, Summer 1993,pp. 219-221 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/earl.0.0172

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BOOK REVIEWS 219

theless, in this study, R. does not propose anything new on how diversity achievesunity. Perhaps, in his next book, which I await.

Thomas M. Finn, Department of Religion, College of William and Mary,Williamsburg, Virginia

J. H. W. G. LiebeschuetzBarbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and Statein the Age of Arcadius and ChrysostomOxford: Clarendon Press, 1990Pp. xiv +312. $64.00.

The focus of this major contribution of the "transformation of society in LateAntiquity" is "Demilitarization and Christianization" (1). Professor Liebeschuetz,of the University of Nottingham, covers some well-known terrain, to be sure, but hedoes so with a meticulous review of the extant sources and the very large body ofscholarship. The result is a lucid exposition of the complicated scene involving theEastern and Western halves of the Late Roman Empire, or better now, the world ofLate Antiquity with the powerful and dynamic new elements: the Barbarians andChristianity.

With careful and nearly exhaustive documentation utilizing the extant printedsources and expanding body of scholarship, Liebeschuetz describes his theme inthree parts which include twenty-three chapters, plus a particularly useful mise aupointhis "Conclusion: The Historians' Post-Mortem." There are two appen-dices, a 24-page Bibliography and an adequate index. Finally a collection of platesillustrating the appendix on "Arcadius' Column" concludes the volume, whichis presented according to the traditional standards of the Oxford University/Clarendon Press. The bibliography, pp. 279-303, is devoted entirely to secondarystudies, and it demonstrates Liebeschuetz' command of the complex body of schol-arly studies devoted to Late Antiquity which range over Late Roman imperialgovernment, and the increasingly defined institution of the Church in the Western-Roman Latin Catholic half of the Empire and the Eastern-Roman Greek-Orthodoxhalf of the Empire, plus the Germanic-Barbarian factor within both the secular andreligious history of this era.

I have a few reservations concerning the bibliographical materials which aboundin the detailed footnotes as well as the formal list at the end of the volume. Sinceassessment of the historians and chronicles for the events and personalities includedin this study is a noteworthy feature of Liebescheutz' analysis, I am surprised at theomission of Glenn F. Chesnut, The First Christian Histories. Eusebius, Socrates,Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius, 2nd ed. rev. and enlarged (Macon, Georgia:Mercer University Press, 1986). In several instances, items listed in the bibliographyare not factored into the documentation adequately in my judgment, e.g. Jay Breg-man, Synesius ofCyrene. Philosopher-Bishop and Raymond Van Dam, Leadershipand Community in Late Antique Gaul.

In "Part I: An Army of Mercenaries and Its Problems," the author conciselyreviews the military history of the fourth-century empire by describing the role of

220 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

the "Barbarian Officers and Generals" and then the military and demographicrealities which necessitated the expanded effort at recruiting the Barbarians. Thestatus of the Barbarians in the Roman military establishment, especially after thedisaster at Adrianople, is then evaluated both from the Imperial and the Barbarianpoints of view; this brings Alaric and the Goths into clear view. Liebeschuetzprovides a most informative description and explanation of the role of Alaric andthe "Visigoths" in the historical development of both halves of the empire.

With "Part II: The Eastern Government and Its Army," Liebeschuetz addressesone of his major themes, the "Demilitarization" of the eastern half of the Empire.The conclusion he reaches is the triumph of the civilian over the military element atConstantinople, climaxing with what he describes as the "Arcadian Establishment,AD 392-412." There are many keen insights in these several chapters. Here andelsewhere, this study is enriched by the author's skillful use of prosopography andby his equally skillful and nuanced handling of secular and religious history. Theintertwining of profane and sacred developments has been a concern of historians atleast since Gibbon, of course, a topic I shall return to below when consideringLiebeschuetz' "Conclusion," but here I must underscore his masterful elucidationof the complexities of his subject.

In the concluding section, "Chrysostom and the Politicians," Liebeschuetz con-tinues his superb exposition: complicated religious issues and theological disputesas well as secular and personality factors are discussed with sensitivity and a senseof cool detachment. Revealing insights into the nature of Orthodoxy, the EasternChurch and its impact on the social milieu, including the role of women in imperialecclesiastical developments abound in Part III.

Professor Liebeschuetz' "Conclusion: The Historians' Post-Mortem," is an espe-cially rewarding bonus, so to speak. It is an enormously valuable discussion of thehistoriography on Late Antiquity from Montesquieu to Liebeschuetz with particu-lar attention to Gibbon, A. H. M. Jones' magnum opus, The Later Roman Empire284-602: an economic survey (1964), and G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, who dealt withthe issue of Christianity in the concluding portion of his massive The Chss Strugglein the Ancient Greek World (1981). As Liebeschuetz notes, he, like de Ste. Croix,"starts from Jones' analysis of the Later Empire. But instead of focusing on the slavesystem of production, or indeed production at all. [sic] I have gone back to Montes-quieu and concentrated on the military system" (245). The analysis of militarismand of the role of Christianity in the Later Empire includes emphasis on the com-plexity of the Churches' impact on society, particularly the "ideal of charity," andasceticism with its emphasis on chastity. Indeed as Liebeschuetz observes in hisunderstated yet compelling manner, "The impact of Christianity on Late Romansociety . . . calls for comprehensive analysis and mapping. But for this one has togo to historians of another school." And footnote 69 here (250) refers the reader ton. 58 in this same summary chapter (249) where one finds among others N. H.Baynes, Peter Brown, Averil Cameron, and E. Patlagean. To this roster I would addProfessor Robert Markus, Liebeschuetz' esteemed emeritus colleague at Not-tingham, whose most recent contribution The End of Ancient Christianity (1990)is germane to the task of "analysis and mapping," and most assuredly I would addProfessor Liebeschuetz himself whose splendid monograph must be read by all who

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wish to understand the complex and challenging historical terrain of the crucialdecades of the late fourth and early fifth centuries.

Harry Rosenberg, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado

Giulia SissaGreek VirginityArthur Goldhammer, translatorRevealing Antiquity, 3Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1990Pp. 240. $25.00.

In this intriguing study of the connection between virginity and inspiration, illus-trated by the figure of the Pythia, the prophetess of Apollo at Delphi, Giulia Sissatakes on not merely one but several formidable tasks. In order to understand howthe virginal body of the priestess, filled with the spirit of the deity, becomes thedeity's "voice," and how that "breath" of the deity is received, Sissa cautions thatone must understand the entire "structure of enthusiasm" in the antique world, andproceeds to delineate that structure. Interpreting metaphors, symbols, and "signs"of the virgin body throughout the text, Sissa claims that "Sexuality is . . . implicitin divinatory speech" (4).

Sissa shows how the body, and especially the female body, in classical Greece wasused as a metaphor for inspiration, alternating "closed" or "open" representa-tions: either as a vessel (container) or as a "perforated jar or leaking sieve" (5).These alternations between closure and penetrability, openness and vulnerability,find their mythic and cultic expressions in the role of the Pythia, in the language ofthe mysteries of Eleusis, and in the myth of the Danaides. The image of the femalebody in ancient Greece as an empty vessel that can be "filled" through conception,through its analogue, inspirationin sum, as a "vehicle" for the conveyance ofspiritual or physical "insemination"is not unique to Sissa (cf. Page du Bois,Sowing the Body [Chicago, 1988]). Nor is Sissa's carefully-drawn relationshipbetween religious and philosophical views of the inspired female and the presenta-tion of the female body in ancient medical literature unique (cf. Aline Rousselle,Porneia [Basil Blackwell, 1988]).

Nevertheless, Sissa does make a unique contribution, through her analysis of theconcept of virginity in classical Greece, to the study of perceptions of the femalebody in its "closed" or "open" state. She continues this analysis by pointing outsignificant contradictions between the Greek view and that of the early Christians,who nevertheless partially shared it, and were certainly influenced by it. For exam-ple, Christians like Origen and Chrysostom praised virginity as understood in thespecifically Christian ascetic sense, while casting aspersions on the source of the"inspiration" of the virgin Pythia. In explaining the anomaly of the Christian"virginal conception," she shows how a woman might be regarded as a "virgin" inthe ancient pagan Greek world, even though penetrated by a male, if the "evi-dence" in the form of an out-of-wedlock child (i.e., Danae and Perseus) was not afactor.