Parergon

Exploring the evolution of civic identity and civic participation from the late classical period through to the early medieval period, editors Cédric Brélaz and Els Rose have collated some fourteen articles into a volume focusing on the evolving political identity of urban communities in a Roman and post-Roman landscape as impacted by profound political transition. Moving from imperial authority (and its attached offices) and conceptions of universal Roman citizenship (introduced in 212 ce) to the increasing emphasis on Christian bishops as political representatives and mediators of the urban landscape, the volume charts the transition of civic identity and participation in four parts: the imperial background (first to third centuries ce); an urban transition (fourth to seventh centuries ce); a period of political and religious reconfiguration (fourth to seventh centuries ce); and the early medieval city (sixth to eleventh centuries ce). Claudia Rapp provides a short postscript.

In the introduction to the volume, Brélaz and Rose chart the issues explored by the volume: how did cities (as political communities within a political community) adapt to a profound political transition often characterised by ‘urban decline’, and what role did these urban communities (as ‘the people’) play in this transition? Setting the scene in this teleological approach, Clifford Ando investigates Roman citizenship in the late classical period and its impact on the West in particular. Noting that the West was essentially urbanised by Rome, he argues that its civic culture was primarily imperial in nature, with imperial offices being of key importance in the urban landscape. Brélaz follows up with an examination of urban political expression in the East, where urbanisation predated the establishment of Roman authority. Countering arguments that urban identity was redundant after the introduction of universal Roman citizenship, Brélaz shows [End Page 238] that local identity and its political expression was still important within an imperial landscape that had set aside the Greek term ‘democracy’.

Moving into late antiquity, Anthony Kaldellis continues the eastern focus with an examination of civic identity in Constantinople. Moving from conceptions of a ‘fossilized’ Roman citizenship dominated by imperial authority, he advocates against the concept of a ‘manipulated mob’ to one where citizens actively intervened in the urban political landscape and, moreover, had the right to intervene. Avshalom Laniado expands this investigation to the broader urban environment in the East. Working against the notion of a decline in municipal councils in the early Byzantine Empire, he argues that imperial authority and lay notables still dominated the political urban landscape, against a perception of acclamation as representing meaningful popular participation. Picking up on popular participation, Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira investigates twentieth-century assumptions that acclamation was merely decorative in a North African context in the fourth and early fifth centuries. He examines case studies of expressions of popular will in civic forums such as the amphitheatre, as well as some ecclesiastical elections, to emphasise that the urban plebeians could and would bypass their town councils. Pierfrancesco Porena moves to a similar context in late antique Italy. In a context where provincial authority was increasingly under threat, he posits that the Diocletian reforms ushered in a split in Italian consciousness—as represented by an ‘imperial’ Milan and a ‘traditional’ Rome— to create a situation where civic identity trumped provincial authority before diminishing with the decline of the Italian cities themselves. Rounding off this late antique context, Michael Kulikowski moves the lens to a late Roman and early Visigothic Spain. He charts uncertainty in urban curial identity in the fourth century, a shift to urban military identity in the fifth century (as urban sites moved to higher ground), with civic identity being predominantly mediated by the bishop in the sixth century...