The Later Roman Empire

by Averil Cameron

A comprehensive study which introduces the reader to the vigour and variety of the fourth century AD.


After being beset by invasion, civil war and internal difficulties for a century, the Roman Empire that Diocletian inherited in AD 284 desperately needed the organizational drive he brought to the task of putting its administration and defences on a newly secure footing. His successor, Constantine, sustained this consolidation of imperial strength by adopting a vibrant new religion, Christianity.


The fourth century AD was a decisive period; its many new challenges and wide cultural diversity are reflected in the pages of its chief historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, and represented by figures as different as Julian the Apostate and St Augustine.


Not only providing a vivid narrative of events, this book also draws on archaeological and artistic evidence to illuminate such central issues as economy, social structure, defence, religion and culture.


‘The Later Roman Empire’ is indispensable to students, and a compelling guide for anyone interested in the cultural development of late antiquity, or in the structure, evolution and fate of empires more generally.

Genres: History, Ancient History, Nonfiction, Roman History, Classics, Ancient, Roman

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Dame Averil Millicent Cameron, Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine History at the University of Oxford.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

8th of sept. 2020 review after 2nd (?) reading

Unlike The Fall of the Roman Empire , or The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization , let alone The World of Late Antiquity 150-750 this volume was intended to be an introductory survey history, and so unlike those other books it is not driven on by an eager argument or obvious desire to make points by jabbing you in the chest repeatedly. Cameron is a bit more gentle than that, though she does have a thesis that she draws attention to a few times during the book and that is that the idea of a sharp division between 'early' and 'late' Rome or Pagan and Christian Rome is overdrawn, all these supposed opposites in her view really shade gently into one another, there is always continuity and change is rarely if ever dramatic or entirely new.

For her Diocletian and Constantine are not Men of Vision and determination implementing massive structural changes but your typical politicians responding to events with temporary fixes to immediate problems that in hindsight and thanks to both overly positive and negative commentary by writers appear far more organised and thought through than they probably were.


Signs and sighs that the book was written with silly sinful students in mind are the repetitive repetitions for example that military units were increasingly moved into towns because they were paid partly in produce and partly with money and it is always easier to move the men to the food than the food to the men and the army was also used for internal security, she does not exactly tell us readers that in every chapter, but it certainly feels like it, I sensed she was motivated by profound compassion to think of the student sweating with fear in preparation for their exams and so like a politician being interviewed repeating one or two key ideas almost irrespective of context to try and fix them into the audience's head. This is a bit of a pity in a book that is less than 200 pages long in comfortable font .

Signs and sighs that it was written in the 1990s are her attempt to link the corn dole to the idea of welfare dependency, I know still popular in certain quarters, but it does not make much sense to me when the Roman dole was hereditable and saleable, the right to an allowance of grain, oil, pork, and discounted wine can not have been something that was sold cheaply so I can imagine that over time most people who received the dole were probably relatively well off. Was the point of the dole in any case to relieve poverty or to demonstrate Imperial munificence or civic euergetism? This role was one which the Christian church was increasing taking on probably for much the same reasons as it was practised by Emperors and civic authorities, to demonstrate power and to reward supporters.

Also the tendency of the later Roman empire to hire, or engage, or perhaps simply use barbarian peoples to fight Roman enemies looks contemporary, similar to the habit of the world's contemporary great powers to train or pay the security forces or non-state groups to fight their own enemies. It is a bit uncomfortable when the contemporary world looks like the later Roman Empire.

I think reading with a slightly sideways glance there is a view of Christianity not just as syncretistic in its religious practises but also in its practical applications which might come across as unduly cynical to faithful readers, then again the Christian of that time were of their time and as accepting of slavery, child marriage, anti-Semitism, and renting 'mobs' to riot and destroy the holy places of their rivals as their non-Christian contemporaries.

Cameron makes an interesting lange duree point that 'the west' was mostly a region of large villa based estates with legally free but increasingly tied labour whose population was perhaps steady while in 'the east' the population was expanding bringing new areas into cultivation, and the economy was typified by large villages of peasant farmers which seems to have been far more resilient.

This is a book that covers around a century from the reign of Diocletian (from 284 AD) to Saint Augustine writing The City of God (427 AD). It is quite a fun introduction that makes some sharp points. I would though prefer to press Peter Brown's The World of Late Antiquity 150-750 into the hands of the the absolute curious beginner, if only because it is so richly illustrated.


first review
Survey history of the later Roman Empire from Diocletian down to roughly the end of Roman political authority in the west. The book ends with the survival of the empire in the east and Augustine's reflections on the ancient world in The City of God.

The downside of this book for me is that at under two hundred pages (when you exclude footnotes and bibliography) it is terribly short and I would have enjoyed more. Cameron's book is very good at relating statements back to her sources, I appreciate knowing where she is pulling her information from.

There's a nice discussion of the economy and social issues that reflects some of the recent developments in the scholarship. On the whole it is a good little book on the period.

Some black and white illustrations in the text.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cameron's history of the "end" of the Roman Empire is, for me, a case of too many topics squeezed and pounded into her 200 pages. The time-hopping also disoriented me, although chronological history is by no means the only, or even the preferred, method of discussion. Nonetheless parts of her slim volume were most interesting, for instance her entire chapter on the sources for the later period of the empire, and deserved more than the two stars I gave the book in its entirety.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is by far the strongest of the three books that I've read in the series--the others being "The Roman Republic" and "The Roman Empire". I found it clear, readable and informative. Cameron does an excellent job showing the declining role of the Senate and the growing (political) role of the army. She also shows how more and more the Emperors and other figures came to be found outside of Rome.

[Pinko Palest · Rating 5 out of 5]

very concise and very truthful: if something is not known, the author makes it perfectly clear that it is not known. Still, has a pleasantly reformist touch to it. Very easy to read too

[Jorge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bueno para reconocer la diferencia entre el discurso histórico, y la disciplina historiográfica.

[Sebastian Rinken · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book basically with a view to spotting possible similarities between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the difficulties faced presently by Western civilization as coined by the Enlightenment and a string of subsequent economic, social and political revolutions. From such a high-flying perspective, there was little in store here; most of the author’s erudition was beyond my interests, honestly. That said, one aspect that I had not been aware of is the increasing tendency of Rome’s military to be stationed in cities, far away from frontiers that were subject to intensifying pressures and eventually, invasions. The reason for this appears to have been alien to military strategy, namely, the substitution of monetary payment of military staff by direct local supplies. A broader lesson deriving from this circumstance, which contributed to Rome’ vulnerability to debilitating attacks, is that practical constraints can have unintended impact of monumental scale.

[Ada Haynes · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this after finishing the 45 first chapters of Gibbon's massive work on the decline of the Roman Empire. As it's centered on the 4th century AD, I was expecting a moderner and more detailed explanation of this period.
While I did like the structure, first the major Emperors, then some major themes (economic, culture, military, cities), I was really disappointed by the content.
I think that if you read this book without knowing anything about the 4th century Roman empire, it'll give you a headache, because it mentions names or places without context or chronological structure.
If you read it with some background, it doesn't bring much info, and read as a messy collection of ideas.

[Sergio Armisén · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me compré este libro como continuación de "SPQR" de Mary Beard, ya que recoge el hilo más o menos donde lo dejó ésta.

No pueden ser más diferentes: mientras "SPQR" es eminentemente divulgativo, para todos los públicos, "El Bajo Imperio Romano" es más académico, más enfocado a un público universitario.

Con esto no quiero decir que sea malo o inaccesible, está muy bien y la autora hace una gran tarea sintetizando en 200 páginas un periodo especialmente convulso, pero clave en la génesis de lo que hoy llamamos "occidente"

[Louis Boyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hardly a lucid overview. Very dense and not very engaging. There is better material on this subject elsewhere.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well written and researched academic book on the Roman Empire focused on the end of the third century crisis to the early 5th century.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cameron states in her preface that there is no basic text in English on the later Roman empire, and that she wrote this work to fill that gap. I believe it fits that description very well. Based on her intent, the book ranges from the end of the 3rd century to the early fifth century A.D., and manages to frame the period in a way that, while broad, gives the reader a firm grasp of major trends in politics, economics, culture and military developments. Each chapter summarizes the state of scholarship for that particular area, and also presents the primary and major secondary sources which serve as a basis for her conclusions. Cameron also includes a fairly robust bibliography, separated by chapter, which provides a good place to start for further inquiry. While it was difficult to tease many concrete conclusions from her narrative, this is a textbook, as she stated in her preface, and textbooks walk a fine line between presenting information and breaking new scholarly ground. Overall, this is a good, broad overview of issues and trends in late antiquity, and an ideal starting place for those who wish to read more deeply on the period.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

What can I say? it's a history book. The author knows her stuff but makes zero effort to make this an engaging read. It's very informative if you have an interest in the era though.

[Alison]

Averil Cameron tackles the "crises" of the third century and beyond.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful introduction to the study of the later Roman Empire by one of the field's more eminent scholars.