New Rome: The Empire in the East

by Paul Stephenson

Overview

A Times of London Book of the Year
Longlisted for the Runciman Award

“The most compelling fusion yet of narrative history with the recent findings of environmental research and scientific data. It will change the way we understand key events and transformations in the Eastern Empire.”—Anthony Kaldellis, author of Romanland

“[A] major contribution…Brings the world of New Rome alive with exceptional learning and a magnificent openness to modern scientific methods that breathe life into conventional narratives of political and social history.”—Peter Brown, New York Review of Books

“A sweeping survey of the disintegration of the western Roman empire and the emergence of Byzantium…This impressive chronicle offers an eye-opening perspective on a period of dramatic change.”—Publishers Weekly

Long before Rome fell to the Ostrogoths in 476 AD, a new city had risen to take its place as the beating heart of the empire, the glittering Constantinople, known as New Rome. In this strikingly original account of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and emergence of Byzantium, Paul Stephenson offers a new interpretation of the forces that coalesced—dynastic, religious, climactic—to shift the center of power to the east. His novel, scientifically minded interpretation of antiquity's end presents evidence found not only in parchments and personalities, but also in ice cores and DNA.

From 395 to 700 AD, the empire in the east was subjected to a series of invasions and pandemics, confronting natural disasters and outbreaks in pathogens previously unknown to the empire’s densely populated, unsanitary cities. Politics, war, and religious strife sparked by the rise of Islam drove the transformation of Eastern Rome, but they do not tell the whole story. Deftly braiding the political history of the empire together with its material, environmental, and epidemiological history, New Rome offers a surprising new explanation of why Rome fell and how the Eastern Empire became Byzantium.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674294042
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	11/14/2023
Series:	History of the Ancient World , #6
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	266,855
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Paul Stephenson is a historian of late antiquity and the author of Constantine: Roman Emperor, Christian Victor.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vi

List of Illustrations viii

List of Maps xii

Introduction 1

Part I Life in the Later Roman World 5

1 Life at the End of the 'Lead Age' 7

2 Family and Faith 30

3 An Empire of Cities 51

4 Culture, Communications and Commerce 75

5 Constantinople, the New Rome 94

Part 2 Power and Politics 127

6 The Theodosian Age, AD 395-451 129

7 Soldiers and Civilians, AD 451 165

8 The Age of Justinian, AD 517-601 192

9 The Heraclians, AD 602-c. 700 236

Part 3 The End of Antiquity 275

10 The End of Ancient Civilisation 277

11 Apocalypse and the End of Antiquity 303

12 Emperors of New Rome 330

Bibliography 355

Notes 357

Index 407

Editorial Reviews

Centers on the Byzantine world in the period 395–700 A.D., combining modern scientific methods with traditional history to explain which parts of Rome migrated east and what became of them.

New Criterion

Stephenson…has a wonderfully sharp eye for data and detail…Anyone who has shrugged at the suggestion that the weather had anything to do with the demise of such a mighty empire will, I think, come away from this book persuaded that climate change and natural disasters provide an important part of the answer. Far from being moralistic and attempting to apply the examples of the past as a warning, Stephenson lays down the evidence unemotionally, and lets it speak for itself…A sobering but fascinating history. Not for a long time has a book surprised me as much as this one did…I have been quoting passages and surprising facts to everyone around me ever since putting it down.

The Critic - Daisy Dunn

A genuinely new way of looking at later Late Antiquity, firmly anchoring the old stories of emperors and barbarians in their physical and environmental context. Stephenson’s gift for narrative is matched by an eye for arresting images and quirky anecdotes that will surprise and delight even jaded readers.

Michael Kulikowski

Casts brilliant shafts of light on the material conditions and spiritual quests of the ruling and the ruled in the Mediterranean world of Late Antiquity. Long-studied monuments and texts are fused with Egyptian papyri and fresh scientific data on habitats and climate change to present a masterly synthesis.

Jonathan Shepard

The eastern Mediterranean witnessed major turbulence and transformation between the fifth and seventh centuries: climate change, wars, plague, religious strife, the end of classical antiquity, and the rise of Islam. In this striking new history, Stephenson gives us a portrait of Byzantium that is informed by environmental science and the material records left behind by the men and women of New Rome. Conventional histories of the last days of the Roman Empire will no longer suffice after you read this book.

Averil Cameron

[A] major contribution to our knowledge of the sheer richness and importance of the world of East Rome in its initial headlong centuries…Brings the world of New Rome alive with exceptional learning and a magnificent openness to modern scientific methods that breathe life into conventional narratives of political and social history…Stephenson’s approach takes us directly into the heart of East Roman society.

New York Review of Books - Peter Brown

This early history of Byzantium is sure to be enjoyed by a wide audience.

Choice

How did the Eastern Roman Empire of late antiquity become the civilization known as Byzantium? Stephenson’s New Rome is the most compelling fusion yet of narrative history with the recent findings of environmental research and scientific data. It will change the way we understand key events and transformations in the Eastern Empire.

Anthony Kaldellis

11/08/2021

Historian Stephenson (Constantine) delivers a sweeping survey of the disintegration of the western Roman empire and the emergence of Byzantium, the Christian empire centered in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). Covering the period from the division of the Roman empire between eastern and western rulers in 395 CE to the Muslim conquests of the seventh century, Stephenson draws on the “new science of Roman history” to reveal how climate change, pandemics, invading tribes, and near-constant warfare led to the decline of ancient cities whose culture and tax revenues underpinned the imperial system. For example, radionuclide and cave mineral deposits reveal that the empire experienced a long period of declining sunlight and less rain beginning in the middle of the fourth century, which contributed to a loss in cultivable land and the disruption of trade networks. Stephenson also delves into doctrinal disputes within Christianity, details rulers’ efforts to ban “public spectacles and entertainments” that often led to riots, explains how the “existential” war between Rome and Persia weakened both empires’ abilities to withstand Arab invasions, and notes the rise in apocalyptic literature as the western Roman empire broke apart. Skillfully interweaving economic, environmental, and social history, this impressive chronicle offers an eye-opening perspective on a period of dramatic change. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly