| Unit name | Transformation of the Classical Heritage in Late Antiquity |
|---|---|
| Unit code | CLASM0020 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Emeritus Professor. Gillian Clark |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
BA or equivalent |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Classics & Ancient History |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
'It was Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amid the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were signing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.' Edward Gibbon's assessment shaped awareness of late antiquity until the last decades of the twentieth century. Visual art and literature of the fourth and fifth centuries was dismissed as a decline from classical perfection. Political and administrative change was seen as an increasingly violent attempt to control an empire about to fall to barbarians. The triumph of Christianity and the rise of monasticism were understood either as moral and spiritual regeneration of a corrupt pagan society, or as joyless repression of a tolerant and guilt-free religious culture. This unit considers the changing interpretations of cultural transformation that have challenged all these claims.
