Constantinople: Ritual, Violence, and Memory in the Making of a Christian Imperial Capital 9780520973183

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Constantinople

ChrIstIanIt y In Late antIqUIt y the OFFICIaL B O Ok serIes OF the nOrth amerICan PatrIstICs sO CIet y editor: Christopher a. Beeley, Duke University associate editors: David Brakke, Ohio state University robin Darling young, The Catholic University of america International advisory Board Lewis ayres, Durham University • John Behr, st Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological seminary, new york • Brouria Bitton-ashkelony, hebrew University of Jerusalem • marie-Odile Boulnois, École Pratique des hautes Études, Paris • kimberly D. Bowes, University of Pennsylvania and the american academy in rome • Virginia Burrus, syracuse University • stephen Davis, yale University • elizabeth DePalma Digeser, University of California santa Barbara • mark edwards, University of Oxford • susanna elm, University of California Berkeley • Thomas Graumann, Cambridge University • sidney h. Griffith, Catholic University of america • David G. hunter, University of kentucky • andrew s. Jacobs, harvard Divinity school • robin m. Jensen, University of notre Dame • annemarie Luijendijk, Princeton University • Christoph markschies, humboldt-Universität zu Berlin • andrew B. mcGowan, Berkeley Divinity school at yale • Claudia rapp, Universität Wien • samuel rubenson, Lunds Universitet • rita Lizzi testa, Università degli studi di Perugia 1. Incorruptible Bodies: Christology, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity, by yonatan moss 2. Epiphanius of Cyprus: A Cultural Biography of Late Antiquity, by andrew s. Jacobs 3. Melania: Early Christianity through the Life of One Family, edited by Catherine m. Chin and Caroline t. schroeder 4. The Body and Desire: Gregory of Nyssa’s Ascetical Theology, by raphael a. Cadenhead 5. Bible and Poetry in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Ephrem’s Hymns on Faith, by Jeffrey Wickes 6. Self-Portrait in Three Colors: Gregory of Nazianzus’s Epistolary Autobiography, by Bradley k. storin 7. Gregory of Nazianzus’s Letter Collection: The Complete Translation, translated by Bradley k. storin 8. Jephthah’s Daughter, Sarah’s Son: The Death of Children in Late Antiquity, by maria Doerfler 9. Constantinople: Ritual, Violence, and Memory in the Making of a Christian Imperial Capital, by rebecca stephens Falcasantos 10. The Life of the Syrian Saint Barsauma: Eulogy of a Hero of the Resistance to the Council of Chalcedon, translated by andrew n. Palmer

Constantinople Ritual, Violence, and Memory in the Making of a Christian Imperial Capital

rebecca stephens Falcasantos

UnIVersIt y OF CaLIFOrnIa Press

University of California Press Oakland, California © 2020 by rebecca stephens Falcasantos

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data names: Falcasantos, rebecca stephens, author. title: Constantinople : ritual, violence, and memory in the making of a Christian imperial capital / rebecca stephens Falcasantos. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2019045923 (print) | lccn 2019045924 (ebook) | isbn 9780520304550 (hardback) | isbn 9780520973183 (ebook) subjects: lcsh: Christianity and other religions—roman—Political aspects. | Christianity and culture—history—early church, ca. 30-600. | Istanbul (turkey)—history—to 1453—religious aspects. Classification: lcc br170 .f35 2020 (print) | lcc br170 (ebook) | ddc 270.2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019045923 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019045924

manufactured in the United states of america 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

19

c ontents

List of Maps Acknowledgments Abbreviations

vii ix xi

Introduction

1

1. religion in Late antiquity

15

2. The Founding of a City

46

3. Violence and the Politics of memory

74

4. Cult Practice as a technology of social Construction

110

5. Imperial Piety and the Writing of Christian history

143

Conclusion: The making of a Christian City Selected Bibliography Index

179 191

215

maps

1. Constantinople in 337 c.e. 50 2. Constantinople, ca. 400 c.e. 109

vii

acknowled gments

During the course of this project I have accrued many debts; I can only begin to discharge them here. I must first thank several institutions that have supported the project. The andrew W. mellon Foundation and Brown University’s Cogut Center for humanities provided a generous two-year grant for a dissertation workshop, which provided a fruitful space to develop the core arguments of this book. The trustees of harvard University and the Dumbarton Oaks research Library and Collection granted me a summer fellowship in 2017. I have also benefited greatly from a postdoctoral fellowship at the Florida state University, where I have found beloved colleagues who were not only generous with their encouragement but also jealously protected my time for research and writing, especially during those moments when I was tempted otherwise. I especially thank Christopher Beeley, eric schmidt, and the editorial board for the Christianity in Late antiquity series for their help and guidance through the publication process, as well the anonymous readers for their invaluable comments and critiques as I prepared the manuscript for publication. This book would not have become what is it is without the hands of numerous mentors, colleagues, and friends. Foremost, I owe susan ashbrook harvey a deep debt of gratitude. she saw this project at its genesis and has been unwavering in her support, recommendations on literature, and loving critique. It is no exaggeration to say that I cannot thank her enough. ross kraemer, stratis Papaioannou, and Jonathan Conant provided substantial guidance throughout the project. a number of colleagues have provided comments on the manuscript, in whole or in part, at its various stages: Christine shepardson, robin Darling young, michael Penn, nicole tilford, scott DiGiulio, andrew tobolowsky, reyhan Durmaz, Fotini ix

x

acknowledgments

kondyli, sarah Insley, megan mcBride, sonja anderson, mark Letteney, russell mcCutcheon, and more I cannot name. Dana robinson, Dina Boero, and erin Galgay Walsh kindly workshopped an early draft of chapter 1 with me over breakfast at the north american Patristics society annual meeting. alan ross provided valuable bibliographic suggestions on the conventions of imperial rhetoric. I offer particular thanks to Daniel Picus and sam Caldis, who both read (and reread) drafts of the project and provided much-needed encouragement on the darkest days. Finally, I have received immeasurable support and encouragement from my family, particularly Brian and kiara. kiara, this book is dedicated to you, who are my light and inspiration. you have grown alongside the book, and I cannot wait to see where you go and what you do.

abbreviations

AAAH AB ACO AJA am AYRS AzK ByzZ CFhB CH CI CIG CIJ CIL CPh CQ CsCO CseL CshB CTh DOP EThL GCs

Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia Analecta Bollandiana Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum American Journal of Archaeology anno mundi, year notation used by the Byzantine empire Antigüedad, religiones y sociedades Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte Byzantinische Zeitschrift Corpus fontium historiae Byzantinae Church History Codex Iustinianus Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum Corpus Inscriptionem Judaicarum Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum Classical Philology Classical Quarterly Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae Codex Theodosianus Dumbarton Oaks Papers Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses Die Giechischen Christlichen schriftsteller der ersten [drei] Jahrhunderte xi

xii

Abbreviations

GRBS Historia HSCP HTR HTS IGLSyr IJO ILS JAAR JBL JECS JHS JRS JTS (n.s.) LCL OCP OLa PG PO REB sC SEG SP T&MByz tth VC

Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte Harvard Studies in Classical Philology Harvard Theological Review Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies Inscriptiones grecques et latines de la Syrie Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, ed. David noy, 3 vols. tübingen: mohr siebeck, 2004. Inscriptiones latinae selectae Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Early Christian Studies Journal of Hellenic Studies Journal of Roman Studies Journal of Theological Studies Loeb Classical Library Orientalia Christiana Periodica Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta Patrologia Graeca Patrologia Orientalis Revue des études byzantines sources Chrétiennes Supplementus epigraphicum Graecum Studia Patristica Travaux et mémoires du centre de recherche d’histoire et civilisation byzantines translated texts for historians Vigiliae Christianae

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Joan Palevsky Imprint in Classical Literature.

Introduction

sokrates of Constantinople, in his Ecclesiastical History, reports a skirmish that broke out on the streets of his native city one night at the end of the fourth century c.e.1 For some time, two competing factions of Christians had been gathering for nocturnal vigils. That night, tensions between the groups had finally culminated in one group attacking the other shortly before dawn. The choirmaster of one of the vigils was struck on the forehead with a stone, and participants from both sides were injured or killed. The emperor arkadios responded swiftly to the incident. not only had the city’s peace and order been disturbed, but the imperial household had been offended, for the man who had been struck was the eunuch of arkadios’s wife, the empress eudoxia. The offense could not go unpunished. The emperor forbade the guilty party from holding its vigils or singing its hymns in public— indeed, it could no longer be tolerated even to assemble within the city walls. We know nearly nothing of the demographic composition of the groups involved in this episode. Possibly the participants were neighbors, perhaps even extended families. It is just as likely that these two groups represented different social classes. also possible is that one vigil consisted primarily of foreigners, for there was a noticeable community of Goths in late fourth-century Constantinople, who practiced their rituals apart from the rest of the city’s population.2 These were 1. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.8. 2. For more on the Gothic population in Constantinople in the late fourth century and the conflicts between this population and other groups in the city, see J. h. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 190–91, 277–78; for Chrysostom’s interaction with the Goths of Constantinople, see ibid., 169– 70; J. n. D. kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom, Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (Ithaca, ny:

1

2

Introduction

a foreign people that had moved into roman territory on the northeastern peripheries of the empire over the fourth and fifth centuries. While regarded as a distinct population legally, culturally, and linguistically, members of the Gothic tribes served in the roman army, with some rising to high-ranking imperial posts (including in the imperial court).3 In Constantinople, this population was largely associated with “arian” Christianity, although their separation from the rituals of the predominantly Greek-speaking population of the city was likely more complicated. Whatever the precise demographics, however, the two vigils were in some ways indistinguishable. Both involved public processions with prayers and hymns, and both groups likely carried candles, crosses, and incense. They even occurred within the same space and time. In the jostling cacophony, the night lit only by candles, how easy would it have been to distinguish between the two groups? We can imagine quite a chaotic scene as the two groups mixed and mingled, perhaps joining in song or attempting to shout one another down. There was, however, one very clear marker that distinguished the two groups: claims to orthodoxy supported by the imperial court. sokrates identifies one group as “arianizers,” suggesting that these were individuals who had actively turned to the teaching of arios that God the son is not co-eternal with God the Father.4 Decades before, their bishops had enjoyed imperial favor and had possession of the most important churches in Constantinople. But that was nearly thirty years past. now they were considered heterodox—“heretics”—and were forbidden from holding eucharistic sacrifices within the city walls. even so, the arianizers had continued to gather in the colonnaded streets near Constantinople’s gates, where they sang hymns and processed to churches located outside the city walls. The other group was composed of nicene Christians, who held the son to be coeternal and of the same substance as God the Father. These were led by their bishop, John Chrysostom. In contrast to the arianizers, they enjoyed the patronage and support of the imperial household, but they had only recently begun performing vigils of their own. as sokrates explains, John had organized his vigil processions in direct competition with the arianizers, out of the fear that “the most simple-minded [τῶν ἁπλουστέρων]” would be lured into the arms of heretics.5 The empress had provided him with funds for the acquisition of silver proCornell University Press, 1995), 142–43; Chris De Wet, “John Chrysostom and the mission to the Goths: rhetorical and ethical Perspectives,” HTS 68, no. 1 (2012): 3–6. 3. averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity: AD 395–700, 2nd ed. (London: routledge, 2012), 42–44. 4. sokrates uses the term “arianizer” rather than arian (the latter term is how sokrates’s language is translated by a. C. Zenos in the 1890 nicene and Post-nicene Fathers series), just as he uses “Christianize” elsewhere to signal an active performance of being or becoming a member of a ritual group rather than as a marker of static identity. 5. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.8.4.

Introduction

3

cessional crosses, and a member of the imperial court was appointed to lead the processions. although the arianizers, who were already in a vulnerable position, were blamed for the attack, John and his clergy may well have been the instigators here. sokrates, who clearly held no great love for John, insinuates as much, in fact, commenting that while “John’s objective appeared fitting, he accomplished his goal with unrest and battle.”6 The incident recounted by sokrates points to three key dynamics of the late antique religious environment upon which this study focuses. The first and most obvious is the intensity of the contention surrounding cult practices. even at the end of the fourth century, at a moment when Christianity is assumed to be the official religion of the empire, the religious environment of late antique Constantinople remained highly competitive. at times this competition led to conflict, even open violence, as in the incident related by sokrates. John Chrysostom could have held his vigils elsewhere. But he did not. Instead, he chose to combat the supposed arianizers within the same physical space, with the same ritual actions. he sought to gain sole control of that space, and he succeeded. The violence of the vigil was an opportunity to forcefully distinguish “orthodoxy” from “heresy.” as the anthropologist neil Whitehead has argued, part of violence’s efficacy as a strategy for social containment is that it defines the “highly unstable border” of cultural order and marks what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable by members of social groups (in this case, those involved in the two processions).7 moreover, the incident was far from a meaningless incident of violence; rather, it was a performative, relational act involving the instigators, their victims, and any witnesses (including those reading about it) in the construction of cultural meaning, namely, the clear demarcation between the two ritual assemblies and imperial support for John Chrysostom and the nicene church.8 similar dynamics were clearly at work in many instances of violence in late antique Constantinople. second, this incident illustrates the importance of communal ritual action in creating a sense of the civic community as a cohesive, well-ordered social unit. Theorists of ritual like Catherine Bell have shown how ritualized actions aid in 6. Ibid. 6.8.5: ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν σκοπὸς Ἰωάννου ἐδόκει εἶναι χρηστός, σὺν ταραχῇ δὲ καὶ κινδύνοις τὸ τέλος ἐδέξατο. For another account of the incident, see sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.8, who does not share sokrates’s dislike of John Chrysostom. For sokrates’s negative portrayal of John, see Wendy mayer, “The making of a saint: John Chrysostom in early historiography,” in Chrysostomosbilder in 1600 Jahren: Facetten der Wirkungsgeschichte eines Kirchenvaters, ed. martin Wallraff and rudolf Brändle, azk 105 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 40–45. Unless otherwise noted all translations are the author’s. 7. neil Whitehead, “Introduction: Cultures, Conflicts, and the Poetics of Violent Practice,” in Violence, ed. neil Whitehead (sante Fe: school of american research Press, 2004), 9. 8. For more on violence as a social performance that produces meaning, see David riches, “The Phenomenon of Violence,” in The Anthropology of Violence, ed. riches (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 8–9.

4

Introduction

creating seemingly homogeneous social groups, regardless—and often, in spite of—of any diversity or disagreement within those groups.9 additionally, these theorists have argued that the body is not simply something that engages in ritualized action; it is a political field upon which a cultural system’s values and social hierarchies are mapped through repeated ritual engagement.10 In other words, the body participates with its social environment in a process of mutual formation: the environment shapes and is shaped by the body; the body internalizes and replicates the power structures of its environment. For John, like many of his contemporaries, a paramount concern was ensuring that the people of his city were engaging in what he regarded to be the correct rituals, worshipping the true God and adhering to the correct understanding of Christ. Concerned that what he viewed to be a heretical group would exercise undue influence on the weaker members of his flock, not only endangering their souls but also fragmenting the civic community, John devised a new ritual (his own ritual procession) that looked like the old one (the processions of the arianizers). The form had not changed: the participants would not miss the abandoned practices, because they had not truly been abandoned, only reoriented and replaced by “orthodoxy.” here it is important to recognize that this was a population deeply accustomed to engaging in ritual actions, not only to demonstrate their relationship with the divine entities who protected their city, but also as forms of entertainment and performances of social inclusion. For many among such a population, it would have been completely natural to engage in the ritual events around them, not because they were associated with one group or another, but because they were ritual events—a possibility that clearly disquieted John, but also made his own vigils such an effective tool. Thus, the pull of ritual habit made it easier for individuals to move between supposedly distinct ritual groups, a phenomenon that adds depth to the potential for conflict, but also points to the need for mechanisms, including speech-acts and violence, to force distinctions between these groups, even while allowing those habits to work to one’s own advantage. The third element here is memory, specifically, the skillful curation of memory that privileges certain elements in a social group and vilifies others. Our sources for this period carefully craft their narratives about intra-group conflict, highlighting incidents that support their own ideological commitments and often neglecting those that would undermine their claims. such curation is particularly apparent in the histories that survive from the fifth century, namely, those of Philostorgios, sokrates, sozomenos, and evagrios, among others, who pulled their accounts from earlier sources and arranged them into coherent narratives. From 9. For the role of ritualized action in creating the perception of a homogeneous group, see Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 189–91, 210–11. 10. Ibid., 83–84.

Introduction

5

this perspective, the immediate effects of the incident, while important at the time, fade into the background, supplanted by the potential consequences this act of redaction has for a new social context. In this instance, it is important to note not only that sokrates is our first source for this episode of violence, but also that he is writing about it nearly a half century after the fact. not once does John Chrysostom allude to the events of that night in his own writings, nor does it appear in the earliest biographical accounts of him, produced shortly after his death.11 Presumably, sokrates relied on reports of the incident from an archive or from personal recollection (either his own or that of his elders).12 If so, these sources are lost to time. What sokrates offers to his readers is in any case a memory of past events, redacted to communicate a particular understanding of history. But memory, even when presented as the objective facts of history, is a tricky thing. Between the vigils and the time sokrates was writing, circumstances had changed considerably. John Chrysostom had fallen out of favor and twice been exiled; his most devoted followers had protested by rioting and then refusing to participate in the rituals of the imperial church until his memory was rehabilitated. This rehabilitation occurred a few decades later, when his name was restored to the diptychs of Constantinople’s Great Church in 423 and his remains were translated to the city in 438.13 at this point, there was a new emperor, Theodosios II, who had been an infant, or perhaps not even born yet, at the time of the incident. By then Constantinople had been through no fewer than six bishops, and Theodosios’s court was now embroiled in conflict between nicene and nicene, rather than Christian and pagan or nicene and non-nicene. sokrates’s narrative reflects these successive conflicts, and his view of history not only supports the values and structures of his day, but also reflects mid-fifth-century questions and conflicts about episcopal authority and imperial power.14 But sokrates also reveals continued opposition to John and the rehabilitation of his memory, insinuating that he was a schismatic and a tyrant.15 11. In his Dialogus de vita Joannis (5), Palladios recounts Chrysostom’s institution of vigils in Constantinople, but does not mention this incident. There is allusion to the refrain sung by the arianizers, however, in John’s Homiliae in Epistolam ad Hebraeos 1.1. 12. Wendy mayer suggests that the episode is from an anti-Johannite source that no longer survives. see mayer, “making of a saint,” 39–41. It is hard to imagine that sokrates is fabricating this incident, given that he relies so heavily on earlier literature throughout his history, but I admit my own suspicion that he occasionally invents episodes that support his narrative agenda. 13. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.25.2; Theophanes, Chronographia am 5912. 14. In fact, sokrates’s narrative of John Chrysostom’s episcopate displays parallels to the controversies of the younger Theodosios’s court, particularly evident in the actions of his own bishop, nestorios. see discussion in teresa Urbainczyk, Socrates of Constantinople: Historian of Church and State (ann arbor: University of michigan Press, 1997), 22–23. 15. mayer, “making of a saint,” 40–44.

6

Introduction

This book examines the confluences of these three dynamics—conflict, communal ritual, and memory—as they contributed to changes in Constantinople’s religious structures from the city’s founding until the death of Theodosios II (330– 450 c.e.). Constantinople occupies a unique position in the history of late antique religious change during the fourth and early fifth centuries c.e., both as a recent imperial foundation and in its growing influence as an administrative and cultural center. The emperor Constantine had founded the city as his dynastic capital in november 324, but even at the time of his death in may 337, it was not an obviously Christian city. Its public and imperial spaces were still largely traditional (or “pagan”) in their resonances, and Constantine’s building program only included one clearly identifiably Christian cult site.16 Over the course of the fourth century, however, various individuals asserted their presence in the city’s cultic landscape and attempted to control the interpretation of monuments and rituals. These processes accelerated under the Theodosian dynasty (379–453 c.e.), when the institution of the imperial church that is called “Theodosian Christianity” in this book was advanced. at first glance, Theodosian Christianity aligns with trinitarian Christianity as defined by the Council of nicaea, which nicene bishops regarded as orthodoxy. But in the contestations preceding the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the definitional boundaries of nicene Christianity were undetermined (or underdetermined), as is evident from the shifting political networks and the continual doctrinal debates among those who claimed nicene orthodoxy.17 and even after Chalcedon, the contours of orthodoxy remained contested. In using the term “Theodosian Christianity” to describe the clergy supported by the imperial court after 381, my emphasis is on imperial patronage, not doctrinal definition. as I argue in subsequent chapters, doctrinal debates in Constantinople were as much manifestations of political maneuvering as they were about disagreements in theology.18 however, my aim here is not so much to provide a history of Constantinople’s physical and institutional development in the fourth century c.e., which has been extensively studied, particularly in the foundational surveys of raymond Janin,

16. see my arguments below in chapter 2. 17. The heated debates about Christology were as much disagreements over doctrine as manifestations of political networks attempting to position themselves against each other and draw concrete boundaries in the face of fluid social relations. 18. We should also allow that the visions of Christian orthodoxy taking shape elsewhere, especially in the Western empire, might be inflected in different ways than those emerging from Constantinople, even when these visions intersect, overlap, and resonate with the Theodosian Christianity centered on Constantinople. In other words, while Christian “orthodoxy” in rome and elsewhere may seem consistent with Theodosian Christianity, referring to it as Theodosian Christianity might obscure important contestations that were occurring between agents in various locations.

Introduction

7

Gilbert Dagron, Cyril mango, and others.19 rather, I am interested in the opportunity the processes occurring in Constantinople offer to consider the factors, contingent circumstances, and social interactions that contributed to large-scale social change. The city’s accelerated development and ties to the imperial court refracted related contestations and redefinitions, not only of Christianity, but also of religion per se that were occurring elsewhere in the empire. The heightened nature of these debates in Constantinople consequently illustrates a civic and ritual environment changing over time as people interacted with, negotiated, and interpreted it. These interactions were messy and complex, often contentious, and occasionally violent. Change in religious structures sometimes resulted from calculated alterations of authority or practice, but it was often the accidental by-product of political or social maneuvering. additionally, an examination of the development of late antique Constantinople allows us to consider what happens when individuals with strong commitments to 19. Gilbert Dagron, “Les moines et la ville: Le monachisme à Constantinople jusqu’au concile de Chalcédoine (451),” T&MByz 4 (1970): 229–76, Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1974), and Dagron, “Constantinople. Les sanctuaires et l’organisation de la vie religieuse. topographie chrétienne,” Actes du XIe Congrès international d’archéologie chrétienne: Lyon, Vienne, Genève et Aoste (21–28 septembre 1986), ed. noël Duval, François Baritel, and Philippe Pergoa (Vatican City: Pontificio instituto de archeologia cristiana; rome: École française de rome, 1989), 1069–84; raymon Janin, Constantinople byzantine: Développement urbain et répertoire topographique, 2nd ed. (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 1964) and Janin, La géographie ecclésiastique de l’Empire byzantin, pt. 1, Le siège de Constantinople et le patriarcat oecuménique, vol. 3 : Les églises et les monastères (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 1969); and Cyril mango, “The Development of Constantinople as an Urban Centre,” in The 17th International Byzantine Congress: Major Papers, ed. aristide D. Caratzas (new rochelle, ny: aristide D. Caratzas, 1986), 177–36; and mango, Le développement urbain de Constantinople, IVe–VIIe Siècles (Paris: De Boccard, 2004). Other significant studies include sarah Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Franz alto Bauer, Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in der Spätantike: Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung des öffentlichen Raums in den spätantiken Städten Rom, Konstantinopel und Ephesos (mainz am rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1996), and Bauer, “Urban space and ritual: Constantinople in Late antiquity,” AAAH 15, n.s., 1 (2001): 27–61; albrecht Berger, “streets and Public spaces in Constantinople,” DOP 54 (2000): 161–72, and Berger, Konstantinopel: Geschichte, Topographie, Religion (stuttgart, anton hiersemann, 2011); Peter hatlie, The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350–850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Vasiliki Limberis, Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople (London: routledge, 1994); marlia mundell mango, “The Commercial map of Constantinople,” DOP 54 (2000): 189–207; Thomas mathews, The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy (University Park: Pennsylvania state University Press, 1971); and Wolfgang müller-Wiever, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls: Byzantion–Konstantinupolis–Istanbul bis zum Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts (tübingen: Deutsches archäologisches Institut, 1977). The modern study of the city’s topography begins with Pierre Gilles’s four-volume De topographia Constantinopoleos, et de illius antiquitatibus libri quator (Lyon: Guillaume rouillé, 1561), a study of the city’s mythical foundations, history, and topography, using Greek sources to reconstruct the monuments that had been lost to the Ottoman city he encountered. Gilles’s work was followed by that of Charles Du Fresne Du Cange’s Historia Byzantina duplici commentario illustrata (Paris: Billaine, 1680), based on Gilles and literary sources.

8

Introduction

a rather exclusive system gain a certain degree of legitimacy and backing from those in power. In this case, such individuals presented themselves as representatives of particular social groups (doctrinal factions, Christians, hellenes, Jews, etc.), and it is easy to rely on these identifications when describing Constantinople’s social landscape. however, as political scientists and sociologists remind us, social categories of this sort are rarely—if ever—accurate descriptions of social configurations. rather, they are “imagined communities” (to use Benedict anderson’s term) or the products of “groupist rhetoric” ( as rogers Brubaker puts it).20 Brubaker argues that individuals invested in the existence of an imagined group develop already-existing social categories (e.g., ethnicity, religion) in order to distinguish members of these categories from those of other categories. This type of activity facilitates the establishment of a recognizable group identity as seen from both inside and outside that group, even when the group itself is not a bounded entity, and supposed members identify themselves in any number of ways, depending on social situation or circumstances.21 In our case, the individuals developing the social categories were frequently Christian bishops and rhetors, particularly those who had the support of the imperial court. Their efforts to establish and enforce group commitments depended on rhetoric about violence and civic memory, attempts to control ritual space, and the legislative censure of particular groups. By taking these considerations into account, we can analyze more fully the range of strategies utilized by influential persons in the city (e.g., Christian bishops, traditionalist rhetors, emperors) to produce new interpretive frames for those interactions and reshape habits. Ultimately, the combination of these factors allowed these individuals to present Constantinople as a thoroughly Christian city where orthodoxy reigned under the protection of the emperor. Unfortunately, the material culture of late antique Constantinople is barely recognizable in the modern city, a fact that makes the literary evidence all the more important. By far the most immediate evidence for Constantinopolitan public cults is to be found in the literary records of public speech-acts of Christian bishops (i.e., orations, homilies, and lectures) that survive from the period, especially those of Gregory of nazianzos, John Chrysostom, nestorios, and Proklos, as well as orations by elite non-Christians such as the rhetorician Libanios and the emperor Julian. Important, too, are the histories produced by both Christians and nonChristians during the fourth and fifth centuries and the legislation of the Theodosian Code. Of course, these sources are far from neutral. as productions of the educated elite, they direct our attention to the activities and social positioning of 20. Benedict anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 2016), 5–7; rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 2004), 19. 21. Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups, 7–10, 68–69.

Introduction

9

that social class, and even more so to the positions of the individuals and groups later generations considered to be compatible with Theodosian Christianity. moreover, these texts are embedded in ideological programs that often present prescriptions as though they were descriptions of actual events, hindering our access to how people engaged with public ritual practice and understood the relationship between those events and imperial patronage. nonetheless, these sources are still useful in exploring the Christianization of Constantinople, because they demonstrate a shared fear of competitors and anxiety over the potential influence of competitors in gaining control over the city’s religious frameworks. Consequently, we can approach these texts as the artifacts or residue of the contestations and competitions among the city’s cultural elite and as evidence of the various strategies used to advance different visions of normative imperial identities. While my analysis here often focuses on larger patterns of thought and social mechanisms, my ultimate goal is to produce a more nuanced analysis of public ritual activity in late antique Constantinople, and by extension, a model for analyzing similar activity in other late antique roman cities. Insofar as it examines how a civic community and imperial court came to be closely identified with Christianity, this book might appear to be a study of conversion. Fundamentally, however, it is not about conversion, which is an act or process undertaken by the individual and, at least within modern discourse, implies not only active, free choice between available religious options, but also a relatively high degree of autonomy and individuality. although the average late antique Constantinopolitan may often have had the agency to make such choices about cultic affiliations, a more complex set of dynamics was involved in late antique society, where individual, familial, and social ties dictated participation in particular cult practices, including those that appear to us to be clearly Christian. I would even venture to say that the confluence of factors necessary for the reconfiguration of religious frameworks during this period was often a matter of chance. saying this, however, does not deny the quite conscious efforts of some individuals to organize these frameworks in their favor. a n O U t L I n e O F t h I s st U Dy

The following chapters explore the mechanisms of social change and the performance of civic cult in Constantinople as they developed during the fourth and early fifth centuries. Chapter 1 outlines the broad habits of thought and practice that guided cultic expression into the mid-fourth century c.e. There was considerably more continuity in these habits than often assumed in studies of the religious changes that occurred during late antiquity. assumptions about religion and expectations about cult practice were communicated through multiple modes of cultural production, from public rhetorical performance and literary production

10

Introduction

to visual displays and even the technologies of cult practice. so, too, did the literature and techniques of rhetoric taught in the classrooms that trained the boys who would become priests, local magistrates, and imperial officials—that is, the members of the civic community who bore the greatest responsibility for ensuring that the demands of cult practice were fulfilled. This training formed a deep cultural memory that guided expectations about obligation to the gods and elite responsibility for civic cult observances. Consequently, it is not surprising that traditional paradigms continued to guide civic religion after the accession of Constantine, even as Christian bishops, who now frequently came from elite families and had received traditional educations, gained control of civic priesthoods and attempted to impose new discourses about the nature of the divine. This discussion provides a foundation for analyzing the changes of the following century, both in considering how the religious structures of early Constantinople fit within existing patterns and for seeing the distance between those patterns and the developments that occurred by the middle of the fifth century. Chapter 2 turns to the manifestation of these cultic patterns in Constantinople during the reign of Constantine the Great, who refounded Byzantium in 324 with a decidedly imperial armature. While the emperor granted Christian cult sites a place within this rapidly developing landscape, we should not imagine that Christianity had supplanted traditional cults. rather, traditional paradigms of imperial religion, including the centrality of the emperor as both an agent and object of cult, continued to govern the frameworks of civic cults. Christian leaders sought to recast the traditional landscape they encountered into one that could solidify their new, but still insecure, position within imperial religious structures. The chapter concludes by exploring one instance of this type of reinterpretation, namely, eusebios of Caesarea’s ekphrasis of the apostoleion, Constantine’s mausoleum, in which he dictates that the viewer should experience the monument as a Christian temple, stripped of any traditional resonances of emperor cult. eusebios’s reinterpretation of the mausoleum elided Christian and imperial practices in a prominent, highly charged physical location and thus provided a focal point for normative understandings of Christianity as a cult with close imperial ties. During the reign of Constantine’s successor, Constantius, Christian bishops gained firm control over the cultic structures of Constantinople. however, the boundaries between social groups and their associated practices and cult sites remained remarkably fluid. In order to strengthen these boundaries, Christian bishops took advantage of moments that provided the illusion of a group’s existence and in doing so redefined the contours of civic religion more broadly. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the ways in which these imagined communities were articulated and their boundaries enforced, first through moments of conflict and physical violence and then through ritual engagement. Chapter 3 examines the physical violence that arose between the supporters of two prominent Christian bishops, makedonios (identi-

Introduction

11

fied as a “Pneumatomachos,” someone who taught that the spirit is not God) and Paul (a proponent of nicene Christianity). Within their initial political context, these confrontations strengthened the imagined boundaries between social groups by performatively marking the limits of sanctioned religious configurations. at the same time, they enforced existing social hierarchies, especially in the public exercise of imperial authority. But this violence also had an afterlife. The second half of the chapter examines the politics of transmitting the historical memory of these confrontations in the writings of the fifth-century historians sokrates and sozomenos. These authors drew on narratives of earlier violence, both weaving them together into larger narratives that accentuated accounts of mutilation and trauma and emplotting crucial events in Constantinople. This curation of history had a double effect: it subverted and vilified the previous regime, while situating Constantinople firmly at the center of ecclesiastical politics. Chapter 4 approaches the formation of imagined communities in terms of ritual performance. two dynamics are crucial here: the highly performative nature of ritual action and the relationship between the various ritualized actions found in the late antique city. The chapter focuses on John Chrysostom’s understanding of the effects of habit, especially habits of ritual, on the soul and his anxiety over the disastrous consequences of engaging in the wrong types of practice. For John, individuals were never simply passive witnesses to ritualized behaviors. Their mere presence at a public communal ritual brought them into a drama of scripted behavior and marked their implied consent to the meanings, hierarchies, and commitments communicated within that drama. moreover, as argued in the second half of the chapter, despite the fact that our sources construct and seek to impose clear distinctions between the rituals of different groups, they also reveal that the communal rituals of late antique Constantinople cited each other. That is, these events loosely followed and improvised on a script or shared vocabulary of action in ways that created, reinforced, and shifted meanings. Consequently, public rituals were critical spaces for John and others interested in shaping understandings about the composition of the civic community. By exploiting habits of ritual and imposing his own formulations on the ritual action through homilies and hymns, John could actively reshape perceptions of the ritual group and social identifications. Chapter 5 explores the continued development of Constantinople’s religious structures under Theodosios II (408–50 c.e.). It is during this period that we see Theodosian Christianity come to fruition as the imperial administration orchestrated a series of legislative and ecclesiastical moves aimed at homogenizing civic and imperial cult under the formulations of nicaea as represented through communion with the bishop supported by the emperor. While such moves were no doubt welcomed by clergy who received imperial support, they were likely not motivated (or at least not entirely motivated) by court concern for advancing the

12

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dominance of nicene Christianity. Theodosios II became the sole augustus in the east at the young age of seven, and when he attained his majority, he faced the challenge of asserting his authority within the structures of imperial administration, a challenge quite similar to those of earlier “child emperors” (and one that had only rarely been navigated successfully). Consolidating imperial religion was one way for the young emperor to address this challenge, and supporting nicene bishops helped bolster Theodosios’s legitimacy by drawing on the legacy of his father and grandfather. Indeed, the increasing monopoly of Theodosian Christianity over the cult structures of Constantinople coincided with key points in the young emperor’s maturation, namely, the attainment of his legal majority in 415/16, his marriage and the birth of his first child in 421/22, and his “full adulthood” from 428 on. These moves also coincided with the development of a rhetoric about Christian orthodoxy that tied the authority of Theodosios II and the bishop of Constantinople to their perceived affirmation of the Council of nicaea. as it pertains to Constantinople, this rhetoric is perhaps seen most clearly in three histories written by authors living in the city during Theodosios’s reign: Philostorgios, sokrates, and sozomenos. to make sense of complicated phenomena, scholarly analysis often reduces complex social interactions to uncomplicated narratives, and my analysis here risks doing the same.22 But we should always keep in mind that these interactions were extremely messy and rife with conflict and competing interests. The various strategies examined—rhetorical reshaping of landscape and memory, emphasis on violent incidents, and ritual engagement—defined legitimate expressions of religion, eliminating deviant groups from the city. none of these strategies on their own accomplished the remarkable changes that occurred in Constantinople. Ultimately, the transformation of the city’s cultic landscape was due to the successful, if haphazard, efforts of individuals—some known, others forgotten—to gain control of discourses about ritualized communal action, violence, and institutional memory. •

•

•

Finally, a quick note is in order regarding the conventions I have adopted for Greek names and toponyms. In general, I have chosen to transliterate Greek names rather than use their Latin (or english) variants. hence, I refer to the apostoleion rather than the Church of the holy apostles and transliterate the names of Theodosios, sokrates, nestorios, and so forth. In some important instances, this practice has 22. Jaś elsner has discussed the imperative for scholarly narratives to synthesize complex social phenomena as they relate to late antique pilgrimage. his comments on methodology serve as a caution to scholars more broadly. see elsner, “Piety and Passion: Contest and Consensus in the audiences for early Christian Pilgrimage,” in Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods, ed. elsner and Ian rutherford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 411–34.

Introduction

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the benefit of defamiliarizing certain agents or locations in a way that allows for a greater conceptual range to appear. For example, when we refer to the edifice in which the bodies of Constantine and subsequent emperors were entombed as the apostoleion, its simultaneous resonances as an imperial mausoleum, a Christian cult site, and a locus of traditional imperial cult emerge in tension with each other. however, perfect consistency is not possible. The english renderings of latinized toponyms like Constantinople, Chalcedon, Constantine, nicaea, and Thessalonica, for example, are so familiar that transliteration would be distracting, so I have retained them. all translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

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religion in Late antiquity

The reign of Constantine has often been presented as a significant rupture in the religious life of the roman mediterranean world, when the traditional gods that had dominated civic life for centuries were forced from view and cities increasingly turned to the Christian God as their patron.1 This narrative creates the illusion of a chronological and imaginative gap between “pagan rome” and the new, enlightened “Christian empire,” any continued traditional ritual representing the death throes of a disappearing religion.2 But this is not how many contemporaries would have viewed the world that confronted them. They lived in a world deeply shaped by memory, where men of a certain social position were trained into the responsibilities of maintaining proper relations with the gods who protected their 1. although sometimes conceding that he continued to meet imperial expectations, treatment of Constantine’s reign as such a rupture is common. notable examples include andreas alföldi, The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome, trans. harold mattingly (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 28– 32, 82–90; timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1981), 247–50, 255–58, and Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire (Chichester, england: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 7–13; and David Potter, Constantine the Emperor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Challenges can be found in h. a. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore: Johns hopkins University Press, 2000), esp. 187–91; Jill harries, “Constantine the Lawgiver,” in From the Tetrarchs to the Theodosians: Later Roman History and Culture, 284–450 CE., ed. scott mcGill, Christiana sogno, and edward Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 79–81; and raymond Van Dam, Remembering Constantine and the Milvian Bridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 4–14. 2. David engels and Peter Van nuffelen, “religion and Competition in antiquity: an Introduction,” in Religion and Competition in Antiquity, ed. engels and Van nuffelen (Brussels: Latomus, 2014), 9–10.

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cities, and where failure to do so could have dire consequences for magistrate, city, and even the empire. Their expectations were informed by a long tradition, preserved and reinforced through the educational structures that trained this same class of individuals. even the Christian authors and bishops who sought to reframe this landscape participated in the deeply established habits that governed the relationships between the human and divine members of roman society. even so, late antiquity was a period of significant changes in the civic and ritual environment—and in the horizons of cultural expectation with them. These changes occurred over generations, as people constantly interacted with, negotiated, and interpreted their social and physical environment.3 But they also occurred because of, and via, the existing cultural structures and the associated logic of thought and practice in which those engagements occurred. as noted in the Introduction and explored in the chapters below, these changes were sometimes the result of intentional maneuvering and reframing, but were just as often the consequences of experimentation and happenstance, as Christian agents negotiated their new positions in the civic landscape and attempted to slot themselves and their practices into traditional patterns of civic cult. This chapter considers those structures, focusing on how continuity facilitated creative reshuffling. In what follows, I outline the general principles that governed religion in the roman mediterranean, along with some corollary observations, before turning to the social practices that contributed to the perpetuation of these principles in the late antique city. The survey provided depends heavily on important studies produced by scholars of religion in the roman empire.4 By highlighting important cultural habits in the late roman mediterranean world, I seek here to shed light on the way Christians were deeply embedded in its traditional religious system, as well as on how they negotiated its assumptions.

3. edward Watts, The Final Pagan Generation (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 4–7. 4. see esp. Clifford ando, The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008); mary Beard, John north, and simon Price, Religions of Rome, vol. 1: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Fritz Graf, Roman Festivals in the Greek East from the Early Empire to the Middle Byzantine Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), esp. 61–101; simon Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Luke Lavan and michael mulryan, eds., The Archaeology of Late Antique ‘Paganism,’ Late antique archaeology 7 (Leiden: Brill, 2011); James rives, “The Decree of Decius and the religion of the empire,” JRS 89 (1999): 144–47, and rives, Religion in the Roman Empire (malden, ma: Blackwell, 2007); Jörg rüpke, Pantheon: A New History of Roman Religion (Princeton, nJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), esp. 5–23, 296–310; and John scheid, Gods, the State, and the Individual: Reflections on Civic Religion in Rome, trans. Clifford ando (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).

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r e L IG IO n I n t h e a n C I e n t r Om a n WO r L D

toward the beginning of the final book of his Ecclesiastical History, sokrates of Constantinople describes what appears to have been a mass conversion in synnada, Phrygia: [a bishop named] Theodosios was intensely prosecuting heretics there (many there happened to be of the religion [θρησκεία] of the makedonians), expelling them not only from the city but also from the surrounding countryside. he did this neither according to the custom of the orthodox church [ὀρθοδόξῳ ἐκκλησίᾳ] nor out of zeal for the correct faith [πίστεως] but, being enslaved to avarice, was eager to confiscate the heretics’ property. . . . [he] traveled to Constantinople and begged for a prefectural verdict [to this effect]. While Theodosius was delayed in Constantinople because of these things, agapetos [the makedonian bishop], who, I said, led the religion [θρησκείας] of makedonios, greatly despaired. having deliberated with all his clergy and summoned the people under him, he persuaded them to receive the homoousian faith [τὴν τοῦ ὁμοουσίου πίστιν; i.e., the nicene Creed]. and having presented this, he immediately set out for the church with as great a crowd as he had—rather, with all the people—and having prayed, he assumed the chair in which Theodosios customarily sat. having united the people, and from that time teaching the homoousian faith [πίστιν], he [thus] gained control of the churches in synnada.5

This highlights what, at first glance, appear to be defining characteristics of late antiquity: an intense concern over religious identity and debates about belief and faith. In the fourth century (and even into the fifth, although less so), people in the roman empire were categorized according to religion—they were pagans, Christians, and Jews (or members of other religious groups, such as the samaritans and manichaeans). These assertions appear frequently in the literature throughout the period. The orator Libanios and the emperor Julian complain about those who have adopted the Christian faith or converted to new beliefs.6 ammianus 5. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.3.1–2, 4–9: Θεοδόσιός τις ἐπίσκοπος ἦν, ὃς τοὺς ἐν αὐτῇ αἱρετικούς (πολλοὶ δὲ ἐν αὐτῇ ὄντες ἐτύγχανον τῆς Μακεδονιανῶν θρησκείας) συντόνως ἐδίωκεν, ἐξελαύνων αὐτοὺς οὐ μόνον τῆς πόλεως, ἀλλὰ δὴ καὶ τῶν ἀγρῶν. Καὶ τοῦτο ἐποίει οὐκ εἰωθὸς διώκειν τῇ ὀρθοδόξῳ ἐκκλησίᾳ, οὔτε μὴν ζήλῳ τῆς ὀρθῆς πίστεως, ἀλλὰ φιλαργυρίας πάθει δουλεύων ἐκ τῶν αἱρετικῶν χρήματα συλλέγειν ἐσπούδαζε . . . ἀναδραμὼν ἐπὶ τὴν Κωνσταντινούπολιν ἐπαρχικῶν προσταγμάτων ἐδέετο. Ἐν ὅσῳ οὖν ὁ Θεοδόσιος ἐν τῇ Κωνσταντινουπόλει διὰ ταῦτα παρεῖλκεν, ὁ Ἀγαπητός, ὃν προεστάναι τῆς Μακεδονίου θρησκείας ἔφην, ἐπὶ ἀγαθὴν ἦλθεν ἀπόνοιαν. Βουλευσάμενος γὰρ ἅμα τῷ αὐτοῦ κλήρῳ παντὶ καὶ προσκαλεσάμενος τὸν ὑφ’ αὑτῷ λαὸν πείθει τὴν τοῦ ὁμοουσίου πίστιν προσδέξασθαι. Καὶ τοῦτο καταστήσας εὐθὺς ὡς εἶχε σὺν πλήθει πολλῷ, μᾶλλον δὲ σὺν παντὶ τῷ λαῷ ἐπὶ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ὥρμησεν, εὐχήν τε ἐπιτελέσας καταλαμβάνει τὸν θρόνον ἐν ᾧ εἰώθει ὁ Θεοδόσιος προκαθέζεσθαι. Ἑνώσας δὲ τὸν λαὸν καὶ τοῦ λοιποῦ τὴν τοῦ ὁμοουσίου πίστιν διδάσκων τῶν ὑπὸ Σύνναδα ἐκκλησιῶν ἐγκρατὴς ἐγένετο. 6. see, e.g., Libanios, Oratio 30.28; Julian, Contra Galilaeos 43a, 306a, 343C, and Epistula 48 (443B).

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marcellinus commends Christian martyrs who refuse to abandon their religion for their great faith.7 and if we focus on the Christian polemic and theological treatises of the period, we are inundated with arguments over the definition of faith. Gregory of nyssa claims that these arguments even spilled into the streets of Constantinople, where one could not buy clothing or bread without being caught up in a discussion concerning beliefs about the nature of Christ.8 This language of religion, faith, and belief makes sense within a historical narrative that accepts certain assumptions about the exceptionalism and exclusivity of Christianity. It does not, however, adequately convey how these notions operated within late antique discourse or how such a large population could so readily agree to a new religious system. The intense focus on belief and faith imposes modern ideas about the nature of religion, in which religions (in the plural) are definable, exclusive, totalizing systems centered around intellectual propositions about the divine and individuals’ inner disposition toward those propositions.9 In this context, the quintessential definitional markers of belonging to one of these religious systems are belief and faith (and note that these two terms are often used interchangeably and without much elaboration).10 Consequently, these discourses tend to conflate religion with belief and faith in ways that create exclusive categories— even if people interact with multiple religious communities in ways that frustrate that exclusivity (for example, attending both synagogue and church services). 7. ammianus marcellinus, Res gestae 22.11.10. 8. Gregory of nyssa, De deitate filii et spiritus sancti (GnO X/2: 121 = PG 46: 557b). 9. a vast bibliography exists for the theorization of religion, as well as for the distinctions between religion in modern discourse and religion in the ancient world, which I will not repeat here. Instead, I point the reader to talal asad, Genealogies of Religion (Baltimore: Johns hopkins Press, 1993); saba mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report (Princeton, nJ: Princeton University Press, 2015); Brent nongbri, Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (new haven, Ct: yale University Press, 2013); and the work of Jonathan Z. smith. 10. Belief tends to concern conscious assent of a cognitive nature, whereas faith tends to indicate an interior emotional reaction. significant slippage occurs between these terms, however, and in many cases they are relatively empty categories that can mean whatever is most expedient to the speaker and his or her audience: doctrinal teachings, emotions, trust in God’s beneficence, personal opinion. speakers also use these terms to delegitimize opponents (e.g., “I don’t believe those accusations” and “academic arguments about the composition of an ancient text offend my beliefs”). see robert audi, “Belief, Faith, and acceptance,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 63, no. 1 (February 2008): 89–90; Donald s. Lopez Jr., “Belief,” in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. mark taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 21–35; robert Orsi, “Belief,” Material Religion 7, no. 1 (2011): 12–14. For critiques of the language of belief in the ancient world, see John north, “Pagan ritual and monotheism,” in One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire, ed. stephen mitchell and Peter Van nuffelen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 43; Carlin Barton and Daniel Boyarin, Imagine No Religion: How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities (new york: Fordham University Press, 2016), 80; rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 47–50. I also thank russell mcCutcheon for discussing these distinctions via personal correspondence.

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Individuals might easily be sorted into various groups by criteria such as their shared attendance at services in churches, synagogues, or mosques, but this is done on the assumption that those locations are places where prior systems of belief are manifested, demonstrated, and reinforced. even atheism and the somewhat awkward but now popular “spiritual but not religious” and “none” have become subcategories of religious affiliation, insofar as they are defined by a person’s belief, whether by rejection (i.e., unbelief) or by assertions of faith in a deity absent sectarian affiliation.11 Following this, and as a practical example of this discourse, ritual practice (or nonpractice) is regarded as an expression of those beliefs, and perhaps as a performative way to differentiate groups and individuals from one another. however, practices are almost always seen as secondary to, and motivated by, prior belief. These modern notions of belief and faith do not adequately convey how people in the roman mediterranean world engaged with religion, despite the way some historians discuss religion in antiquity, and even despite how frequently late antique sources use words that are translated in these terms. For the vast majority of people living around the ancient mediterranean, “believing” in the various powerful nonhuman entities that they knew existed was not in question.12 The more pressing issue was where, when, and how the community should interact with those beings, whom they saw, not as distant entities, but as members of the community.13 The gods were consulted regularly on matters of political and military significance; imperial ceremony included recognitions (including incense offerings) to honor and retain divine patronage; hymns, processions, and blood sacrifices were a common feature of civic life (although the frequency of blood sacrifice seems to have begun to decline in the mid-third century).14 Governing officials and priests shared responsibility for maintaining relationships with the gods through sacrifice, prayer, and divination, the organization of civic festivals and sacrifices, and the maintenance of cult sites, a tra11. see, e.g., the metrics and analysis of the Pew research Institute’s “america’s Changing religious Landscape” survey (may 12, 2015), www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape (accessed september 27, 2019). 12. Clifford ando, “Introduction: religion, Law and knowledge in Classical rome,” in Roman Religion, ed. ando (edinburgh: edinburgh University Press, 2003), 11, and ando, Matter of the Gods, 13– 15; Barton and Boyarin, Imagine No Religion, 80; m. Linder and John scheid, “quand croire c’est faire: Le problème de la croyance dans la rome ancienne,” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 83, no. 81 (January–march 1993): 55; rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 16–21; scheid, Gods, State, and Individual, 8; stanley stowers, “The religion of Plant and animal Offerings versus the religion of meanings, essences, and textual mysteries,” in Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice, ed. Jennifer Wright knust, and Zsuzsanna Várhelyi (new york: Oxford University Press, 2011), 36–39. 13. Linder and scheid, “Le problème de la croyance,” 57. 14. Jaś elsner, “sacrifice in Late roman art,” in Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice: Ancient Victims, Modern Observations, ed. Christopher a. Faraone and F. s. naiden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 160–61; Celia e. schultz, “roman sacrifice, Inside and Out,” JRS 106 (2016): 62–63.

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dition dating back to republican rome.15 ritual actions undertaken on behalf of a city were to be initiated and performed by a magistrate, whereas a priest oversaw the technologies of communication by determining the correct prayers and sacrificial procedures, among other matters. The holders of political office also competed for appointments to prestigious priesthoods.16 as members of the civic community, even speculatively atheist philosophers were expected to participate in ritual—and all the more so if they held a magisterial office with responsibilities for maintaining the cults of the city and empire.17 all this is not to say, however, that groups of people did not share teachings about the nature of the divine or commitments to particular deities that were assumed to set them off from others. Christian circles, especially, developed increasingly elaborate doctrinal systems in order to address the logical paradoxes and cognitive dissonance that arose from assertions that Jesus might be simultaneously human and divine, and that three divine persons could exist as one divine entity. Performative assent to the fundamental assertions of Christian teachings in baptism, whether through interrogation or the recitation of the symbolum (a simplified kerygmatic statement or, later, the creeds of nicaea or Constantinople) was integral to “becoming” Christian. But such performative actions were about neither faith nor belief in the way these terms are used in modern discourse. This is the case even if “faith” and “belief ” are used to translate the Greek πίστις and Latin fides, terms that also refer to Christian creeds, which is how the instances of πίστις in the passage from sokrates quoted above ought to be translated. more important for these contexts are the practices of social relation that they assume. These terms, along with related terms (in Latin, religio, pietas, superstitio; in Greek, θρησκεία, εὐσέβεια, and δεισιδαιμονία), were frequently employed in contexts marked today as religious, and consequently are often translated in ways that recall modern ideas of religion. But these terms also extended into what we would consider to be ordinary human relationships.18 For example, children ought to show pietas, reverence, toward their parents.19 Farmers and pilots needed to be religiosus,

15. For an overview of the priestly colleges and their duties in the late republic, see Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 18–30. 16. Ibid., 192, 206; rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 115–16; rüpke, Pantheon, 109–15, 122–25. 17. north, “Pagan ritual,” 39; Linder and scheid, “Le problème de la croyance,” 50–51. accusations of atheism could be deleterious for powerful men. see, e.g., apuleius’s accusations of atheism and impiety against sicinius amelianus, who had brought charges of practicing magic against him. apuleius, Apologia 56, with discussion, tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World (new york: knopf, 2015), 217–19. 18. Barton and Boyarin, Imagine No Religion, 15–16; scheid, Gods, State, and Individual, 55. 19. The classic example here is that of aeneas, as portrayed by Virgil. see discussion in Barton and Boyarin, Imagine No Religion, 67–68.

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vigilant, to the signs of crop disease or shifts in tides and wind.20 subordinates should display θρησκεία, obeisance, to their superiors.21 (With this in mind, a better translation for sokrates’s reference to the θρησκεία of the makedonians would be the “rites” or “practices” marking the makedonians’ relationship with God.) These semantic ranges are crucial, for they remind us of the vast system of obligations that governed daily roman social interactions and the degree to which divine entities were an ordinary and natural part of a larger cultural system. Important to note, too, are the intersections that existed between systems of social hierarchy (including mechanisms of governance) and practices involving the divine. In other words, the activities and discourses that we might classify as religious did not constitute a circumscribed aspect of mediterranean culture; rather they were diffused throughout social interactions and inseparable from other daily activities. It is thus unsurprising that the words used to describe human relationships with the powerful nonhuman members of the community, but should be conflated with and extend across the various modes of “everyday social exchange.”22 While there is some notional overlap between the ancient terms and their modern translations, particularly in their function to signal participation in a group, the relationships signaled are distinct. The modern terms privilege the individual, even as they function to mark membership in a group; it depends on the fiction of individualism and inner dispositions. assertions of belief or faith, identification with a religion, are constructed as a matter of choice; notwithstanding external social pressures, the individual is imagined to be an autonomous agent who freely chooses what to believe and whether to have faith in God.23 In short, in modern neoliberal discourse, matters of religion, belief, and faith are highly personal. The ancient terms, in contrast, focus on social relationships; the individual is not a concern except insofar as she or he is a member of a group. In this regard, they are signals that the individual is bound in a social relationship and the obligations that come with that bond, not emotional attachment.24 to put it simply, religion did not exist in the roman mediterranean as a native, clearly bounded category of human activity. Consequently, there are good arguments for abandoning this category altogether in studies of the ancient world, although for the sake of analysis I do not do so here. rather, I employ religion as a second-order analytical category that considers, among other things, social practices, discourses about the gods (and, more important, about relationships with the 20. Ibid., 23. 21. Ibid., 133, with an example from athenaeus, Deipnosophistai 13.556, of the relationship between the Persian queen and concubines. 22. stowers, “religion of Plant and animal Offerings,” 36–37. 23. The assertion of individualism and autonomy remains even if they are ultimately fictions. 24. tessa morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 5–7.

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gods), and constructions of social boundaries related to these practices and discourses.25 If anything, current critical studies have stressed that modern assumptions about religion as a notionally distinct sphere of human activity—and one that many insiders (especially religious leaders and theologians) and cultural analysts often assert consists of discrete and relatively exclusive religions—cannot be mapped neatly onto antiquity.26 Our own analyses of the set of organizations and actions we group together as ancient religion must start from this recognition and allow for the myriad ways in which practices, habits of thoughts, and cultic structures intersected with formal and informal practices of social governance, economics, warfare, education, patronage networks, and familial obligations (and in no way is this an exhaustive list of possible intersections). We should also be particularly alert to the way people were sorted into social categories by the ritual practices or performative statements that marked their relationships with divine entities. Let me, then, be very explicit here. When I employ “religion” throughout this book, I do not understand it to be a universal aspect of all human cultures, nor do I regard it as having essential characteristics that can be mapped across cultures and times. neither do I treat it as a simple colonizing or genealogical translation of religio or θρησκεία. Indeed, because of the complex history of the term religio (including its usage in the medieval and early modern periods to refer to monastic orders, internal factions, and ritual observances), attempts to define religion by tracing the genealogy of the term, while interesting, are at times misleading, because in doing so we tend to excise a particular set of cultural practices from their context and erase their intersection with other practices.27 rather, I use religion solely as a category of scholarly analysis in order to consider the deep, underlying logic, habits of thoughts, and scripts that shaped and governed an interlocking set of social behaviors in the roman mediterranean world that formed basic assumptions about communal and individual interactions involving the divine. moreover, I would stress that my use of religion in this study should in no way be understood to imply a tidy and discrete category, since the practices, discourses, and behavioral patterns we might identify as religious bled into other types of social interactions and cultural activities. religion, whatever we today may commonly think about it, was not individualized or internal, even if individuals sometimes engaged in its technologies in domestic contexts (which were themselves to an extent public in the roman context) and internalized its discourses. These interactions were inherently communal and localized, and they were regulated by an extensive apparatus involving specialized objects, agents, specialists, and 25. Jonathan Z. smith, Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 193–94. 26. On this problem, see ibid., 179–86. 27. For examples of the first two usages, see nongbri, Before Religion, 21.

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technologies to understand and fulfill the needs and demands of the gods.28 Following previous studies of the period, I refer to this apparatus as cult.29 Unlike in modern discourse, both popular and academic, in which cult is often construed as a derivative, even deviant, antithesis of religion proper, cult was an integral part of religion in the ancient world. It was through cult that cities and smaller social units (e.g., neighborhoods, families, and ethnic groups) maintained their relationships with the powerful, often unseen members of the community (including Christian martyrs and sancti/ἅγιοι once they become part of the fabric of the late antique city). not only did cult facilitate communication with these entities, its public manifestations—in the form of ritual, the building of cult edifices, the display of and trade in special objects, and the distinctive dress of ritual specialists— contributed to the construction of normative civic and imperial identities by tying worship of particular gods to civic space and communal action.30 Where I differ most profoundly from many scholars of the late antique mediterranean is that I do not divide its social landscape into various discrete, competing religions.31 to do so obscures the elaborate social dynamics and networks of power that contributed to the cultural shifts at the center of this study. Consider, for example, the still common use of the terms “Christian” and “pagan” to mark what are portrayed as discrete religious identifications. For the period prior to Constantine the vast majority of cults—and, importantly, the recognized cults of the city and empire—were directed to a variety of deities and similar divine beings, practices often consolidated under the category “pagan.” a significant issue here is the inheritance of nomenclature from late antique authors with much at stake in asserting their authority of their own social configurations. The use of the Latin paganoi (and its troublesome Greek counterpart, Ἕλληνες) arose precisely at the moment when Christian cultural agents were attempting to strengthen group boundaries. Within Christian polemic of the mid-fourth century, this vocabulary unified what is in actuality a diverse and locally specific system in order to reify, tame, and disqualify it.32 a similar problem arises in referring to “the Church.” Like other cults, Christian cults were local in character, even as bishops pushed to 28. rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 27–28; scheid, Gods, State, and Individual, 105. I borrow the terminology of “technologies” from nongbri, Before Religion, 157. 29. see esp. rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 23–28. 30. Ibid., 110–13. 31. an approach similarly advocated by rives, ibid., 5. 32. The bibliography for these discussions is too extensive to include here. see esp. Douglas Boin, “hellenistic ‘Judaism’ and the social Origins of the ‘Pagan-Christian’ Debate,” JECS 22, no. 2 (summer 2014): 167–96; alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 15–16, 25–32; Christopher P. Jones, Between Pagan and Christian (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 2014), 6–7; Isabella sandwell, Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews and Christians in Antioch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 10–11.

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construct an image of the Church as a unifying and universalizing agent. But the Church, then, as now, was never fully realized—it was a discursive product that, in reifying essentializing claims, provides a strategically useful form of socially formative rhetoric.33 During late antiquity, there was no way to bring such claims to even an approximation of reality. The clear, well-organized ecclesiastical administrative apparatus necessary for this approximation would not be firmly set until the medieval period, even if we see its beginnings around the middle of the fifth century.34 (and it would always be only an approximation, since many contingent factors prevented total agreement among the ecclesiastical hierarchy, much less between that hierarchy and the laity.) For most of the fourth century, we see instead competing networks of bishops who held varying degrees of influence and formed alliances with other bishops, often through other lines of social relationship, for example, patronage, educational pedigree, and familial ties.35 Ultimately, administrative structures, ritual patterns, and calendars were determined by local traditions and regulated by the men who became bishops, men who themselves had to negotiate their specific geographic and social locations. second, “pagan” and “Christian” are not actually commensurate categories. Framing Christianity in opposition to paganism (or Judaism, manichaeanism, or other “-isms”) tends to highlight individual agency in choosing one’s “religion”— again, a quite modern engagement in a particular aspect of culture. Casting religious identification in terms of choice on the part of the self as a socially autonomous agent (again, a feature of modern discourse) privileges modern notions of belief; indeed, it demands conscious subscription to a belief system. The problem is that “paganism” is understood in terms of location and practice; Christianity in terms of belief. to be certain, by the later fourth century, some individuals, like the emperor Julian or the rhetors Libanios and Themistios, attempted to define hellenism as a distinct category of practice and intellectual commitment toward the traditional gods as a counterweight to Christianity. These discussions come closer to modern formulations of belief. nonetheless, they, too, present difficulties for placing the two categories on equal footing, because hellene ( Ἕλλην) is not

33. Compare the formation of the “nation,” which depends on the illusion that its members are a cohesive unit, despite their never interacting with every other individual who also identifies with that unit. see Benedict anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 2016), 15. 34. kristina sessa, The Formation of Papal Authority in Late Antique Italy: Roman Bishops and the Domestic Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 26–28. 35. David Gwynn, The Eusebians: The Polemic of Athanasius of Alexandria and the Construction of the ‘Arian Controversy’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 105–15; adam m. schor, Theodoret’s People: Social Networks and Religious Conflict in Late Roman Syria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 42–45.

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solely—or even primarily—a religious category; it represents a language and an ethnos.36 Uncritically adopting “pagan” (or “polytheist,” which is still sometimes proposed as a neutral alternative) reproduces the boundaries imposed by ancient polemic and imports modern assertions about discrete religious groups. “Paganism” becomes a category that flattens a remarkably textured religious landscape by obscuring the particular flavor produced by the existence of various cults in a specific location, even as certain cults within that location, for example, cult for the imperial family or the Capitoline triad, provided a sense of connection across regions.37 These configurations were constantly subject to variation, both in the technologies used (adjustments were necessary when the gods did not respond favorably) and in the cults recognized as public (in the sense that they received public funds). and we cannot forget that local cult configurations frequently included Christian sites. For this reason, cult is a more helpful nomenclature for our discussions, whether in referring to “traditional mediterranean cult” (in shorthand, “traditional cult”) or to “Christian cult,” language I use throughout this book. For related reasons, I refer to some Christian cult sites, particularly those associated most closely with structures of civic and imperial power, as “temples.” I recognize that using this vocabulary for Christian practice and sites is perhaps a bit jarring when we are habituated into thinking of these practices and spaces as fundamentally distinct from those of other cult groups. If, as I contend, the larger conceptual frameworks of religion were shared across the various social groups of the late ancient mediterranean, so, too, were their conceptions of sacralized space. a physical structure dedicated to Christ would have been seen in the same way as one dedicated to Zeus or apollo. moreover, Christian authors during late antiquity occasionally referred to their own sites as ναοί (temples), language that, however classicizing or biblicizing, situates these sites in direct spatial competition with traditional cult sites.38 extending the terminology of cult and temple to identifiably Christian sites in this way shifts the discussion from questions of internal disposition to analyses of practices and discourse. In turn, it allows us to consider how the

36. susanna elm, “hellenism and historiography: Gregory of nazianzus and Julian in Dialogue,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 504–7. 37. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 251. 38. see, e.g., Gregory of nazianzos, preserved in Anthologia Graeca 8.15; sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.33.4; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 2.2.1, 2.3.1, 7.10.4, 7.21.5, 9.2.6. This language also appears in a late-fourth century Jewish inscription from the synagogue in apamea (CIJ 2.805, reproduced in IJO 3.98), which refers to that structure as a ναός. This is not to say that ναός is used exclusively in synagogue inscriptions; see, e.g., aurelius elpidis’s dedicatory inscription for “τό πρόναου τῇ συναγωγῇ” (CIJ 1.720; see IJO 1.196–97).

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habits of ritual practice and civic engagement could benefit those who wanted to situate Christianity more firmly within the structures of civic cult. Ultimately, any study of late antique Christianity, including those attempting to account for the progressive hold of Christian elites on civic and imperial governance, must be situated firmly within the inherited structures of religion in the roman empire. These structures were not simply mental exercises or a collection of practices directed toward the gods and other divine beings. It was a complex system of interlocking principles, discourses, and practices that naturalized cultural assumptions and social constructions, including hierarchies, power structures, and civic and imperial identities. at its center was the assumption that the gods were members of the community and that the entire community was bound together in a system of mutual obligation.39 Individuals needed to know what the gods required and desired, whether they supported particular courses of actions, or when they were offended. They also needed to petition (and sometimes punish) these powerful, often unseen, members of the community to ensure the welfare of the community. The technologies and practices of civic cult, especially, were organized around the demands of this assumption. even as the contours of cult practice and technology fluctuated according to location and social group, not to mention adjusted in response to political, economic, and environmental contingencies, religion remained deeply implicated in the construction of social norms and systems of power. L I V I n G W I t h t h e G hO st s O F t h e Pa st: I n h e r I t e D r e L IG IOU s st rU C t U r e s

Belonging to a place involves intuitively understanding its daily rhythms and cycles, knowing where to go, who is in charge, and when to engage in particular actions. In the roman mediterranean world, each city, town, or estate had gods that it recognized as patrons and its own calendar, practices, and sites by which to interact with those entities.40 Deities honored by smaller social units (the estate, neighborhood, the gens, the household, groups of foreigners) could be related to the city’s official pantheon to varying degrees, but were also sometimes rejected or marginalized at higher levels of group organization. Cities of imperial status— rome, ravenna, trier, nikomedia, antioch, and eventually Constantinople—were more likely to share idioms, with local and regional variations. each of these cities 39. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 41; stowers, “religion of Plant and animal Offerings,” 37–40; Ullucci, End of Animal Sacrifice, 120–21. 40. susan Guettel Cole, Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 12–21; rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 23–28, 112–13; scheid, Pantheon, 3–4; and Christiane sourvinou-Inwood, “What Is Polis religion?” in Oxford Readings in Greek Religion, ed. richard Buxton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 13–37.

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served periodically as a capital for emperors who traveled across the provinces with their armies. as such, they were centers of administration, law, and learning and thus attracted members of the cultural and governing elite, who moved from city to city to serve in a variety of administrative posts, provide their services as teachers, or simply be near the centers of power and influence. One of the consequences of this interconnectivity was the importation of cults—particularly those of the city of rome—between locations, which created a sense of continuity between local practice with the religious structures of rome.41 By the beginning of the fourth century, for example, capitolia, temples to the Capitoline triad of Jupiter, Juno, and minerva, could be found in many major cities.42 Cities across the empire adopted the roman celebrations of the kalends of January, the Parilia (the Natalis Urbis Romae or “birthday” of the city of rome), and the saturnalia.43 These festivals created a shared idiom of cult expression and a sense of connection between cities, even as each city retained its own local cults and calendars. Cult sites and practices directed toward the emperor, too, were unifying elements.44 By the beginning of Constantine’s reign, proskynēsis (ceremonial prostration) was commonly performed before the emperor and his image.45 emperors also received formalized, choreographed acclamation in a variety of settings, a practice that sometimes shaded into the more heightened action of proskynēsis.46 These practices 41. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 320–21, 328–39; rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 137–41. 42. William Van andringa, “religions and the Integration of Cities in the empire in the second Century aD: The Creation of a Common religious Language,” in A Companion to Roman Religion, ed. Jörg rüpke (malden, ma: Blackwell, 2007), 88–90; Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 333–36; Ingrid edlund-Berry, “archaeological evidence for roman Identity in ancient Italy,” in Attitudes towards the Past in Antiquity: Creating Identities, ed. Brita alroth and Charlotte scheffer (stockholm: Institutionen för arkeologi och antikens kultur, 2014), 165–67. 43. Graf, Roman Festivals, 72–77, 87–95. 44. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 352–53; Duncan Fishwick, The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire (Leiden: Brill 1991), 2: 509–17; richard Gordon, “The roman Imperial Cult and the question of Power,” in The Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians, ed. John north and simon Price (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 45–48; Ittai Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), esp. 97–102; Peter herz, “Der römische kaiser und der kaiserkult: Gott oder primus inter pares?” in Menschwerdung Gottes—Vergöttlichung von Menschen, ed. Dieter Zeller, novum testamentum et orbis antiquus 7 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 1998), 124–31; simon Price, “Between man and God: sacrifice in the roman Imperial Cult,” JRS 70 (1980): 29–30, 32–33, and Price, Rituals and Power, 156–62; rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 149–52. 45. andreas alföldi, Die Monarchische Repräsentation im römischen Kaiserreiche (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980), 46–79; John matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus (Baltimore: Johns hopkins University Press, 1989), 244–49; Jill harries, Imperial Rome AD 284 to 363: The New Empire (edinburgh: edinburgh University Press, 2012), 82; Barbara rodgers, “Divine Insinuation in the Panegyrici Latini,” Historia 35, no. 1 (1986): 73–75. 46. see, e.g., the extensive acclamations recorded for Theodosios II in CTh, “minutes of the senate,” 5. Proclaimed by the senate at rome, these acclamations are composed of twenty-two refrains, each

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were demonstrable ways of asserting fides or πιστίς to emperor and empire; refusal to do so could be regarded as an act of impiety or treason. much of a city’s ritual life occurred in public spaces, not only in processions that moved through its streets and highly visible festivals that included sacrifices of various kinds (blood sacrifice, as well as offerings of vegetation, incense, oil, and inedible items), but also in durable reminders of cult activity in the form of monumental temples, altars, iconography, and inscriptions.47 The city’s elite built and renovated cult sites, activities that not only fulfilled vows that they had made to particular gods, but also demonstrated their economic resources and provided a tableaux for engraving their name, quite literally, into the civic landscape.48 The practices of cult were highly visible and an integrated part of the performative space of everyday civic life. This space also included ludi (chariot races and other athletic games), processions of various sorts (imperial, wedding, funerary), theatrical productions, and panegyric, not to mention displays of benefaction. Importantly, these various modes of display and social interaction shaded into each other. many occurred in the same physical locations, gave prominent individuals opportunities to demonstrate their status in the city, and incorporated similar behaviors. any distinctions made between these various modes of civic interaction are our own artificial attempts to systematize a complex social landscape, which often seek to excise what have been seen as problematic elements for a population that was supposedly Christian (not to mention the emperors and civic elite who sponsored them). In this environment, individuals belonged to an assortment of intersecting, overlapping, and sometimes competing social categories: the family, the neighborhood, or deme, ethnic and occupational groups, economic and educational classes, the city, the empire. Inclusion in any of one of those categories was demonstrated in part by participating in its cult practices, even if tacitly or with some level of resistance.49 In practice, however, performative engagement with local cults depended upon one’s status in the community. segments of a city’s population, repeated from eight to twenty-eight times. magistrates also received acclamations, and in these instances, these actions did not carry the cultic overtones that they did when directed toward the emperor. The difference lay in the heightened sense of cult surrounding the emperor. see Charlotte roueché, “acclamations in the Later roman empire: new evidence from aphrodisas,” JRS 74 (1984): 182–84. 47. rudolf haensch, “Inscriptions as sources of knowledge for religions and Cults in the roman World of Imperial times,” in rüpke, Companion to Roman Religion, 176–87; katja moede, “reliefs, Public and Private,” in ibid., 164–75; schultz, “roman sacrifice,” 61–69. 48. a classic example is Julius Caesar’s construction of a temple for Venus Genetrix, fulfilling a vow taken before the battle of Pharsalus. The temple was dedicated in 46 b.c.e. in connection with a triumphal celebration. see appian, Historia Romana 14.10.68, 102; Dio Cassius, Historia Romana 43.22.1–3. For discussion see Beard et al. Religions of Rome, 123, 145; and rüpke, Pantheon, 126–30, with further examples. Of course, individuals also made vows for other reasons. 49. Linder and scheid, “Le problème de la croyance,” 50; scheid, Gods, State, and Individual, 39.

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particularly those in positions of authority were required by the sensus publicum to make an appearance at the city’s great festivals, sacrifices, and ludi (games).50 social pressure for the less visible or desirable portions of the population to appear at these occasions may have been significantly less. Occasionally, however, attendance at communal rituals mattered a great deal. War, civil unrest, disease, and natural disaster would heighten the pressure to demonstrably engage in the city’s rituals. Under such circumstances, those who refused to participate were marked as outsiders and threats to the community. If, for example, an individual of significant social standing performatively refused (that is, made a demonstration of that refusal rather than finding a convenient reason—say, illness—to be absent), tensions around the refusal to participate could increase. Our earliest evidence for the prosecution of Christians seems to suggest this: certain individuals had come to the attention of the governor Pliny, not simply because of they were worshipping a new god, but because they were no longer attending the city’s festivals.51 The pressure for ritual participation also increased when these actions demonstrated loyalty to the emperor, as happened in 249 c.e. under Decius. most likely, Decius’s order that citizens offer incense before his image was not targeting Christians specifically, but rather directed broadly at local populations during a period when he was facing dissent and challenges to his legitimacy (not an unreasonable concern, inasmuch as Decius usurped the imperial throne).52 Demonstrations of creedal assent from Constantius onward may be understood in a similar vein; such statements were as much performative utterances of loyalty to the reigning emperor as they were statements of doctrinal positions. One of the things the social performances of civic life did, then, was to construct the city and the empire as imagined, cohesive social units. But they also did more than this. The late antique person was socialized into his or her environment through an array of cultural practices: disciplinary measures, (sometimes) formal education, spectacles (games, theater productions, orations), civic and imperial ceremonies, and ritual events. sometimes this socialization was highly purposeful and theorized, but more often it was subtle and intuitive, imprinting the social cues and responses considered effective or appropriate in certain contexts or circumstances. By emulating the actions of others inhabiting the same social environments (including civic spaces and the formative spaces of social class), the person developed techniques, habits, and strategies—what marcel mauss and Pierre Bourdieu have referred to as habitus—by which to navigate social interactions. 50. rives, “Decree of Decius,” 135, 145–47; harries, Imperial Rome, 72–74. 51. Pliny the younger, Epistula 10.96–97. 52. see discussion in hartmut Leppin, “Old religions transformed: religions and religious Policy from Decius to Constantine,” in A Companion to Roman Religion, ed. Jörg rüpke (malden, ma: Blackwell, 2007), 100–101; Éric rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 2012), 38; rives, “Decree of Decius,” 137–43.

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These techniques were both visceral and culturally specific, and consequently impossible, or nearly so, to unlearn. Importantly, the process of learning was so deeply embedded in a self-perpetuating system, that subjects often did not realize that they were learning these cues, resulting in social structures appear natural.53 Consequently the ritualized, social activities of civic life—not only acts of worship explicitly directed toward the gods, but also spectacle and court ceremony— were essential tools for affirming a sense of the city as a uniform and unified collective and providing the populace with a forum in which to form and communicate a consensus through acclamations and, potentially, riots.54 The social interactions of this environment reproduced the hegemonic order by bringing the emperor, magistrates, priests, and other civic leaders into contact with the general populace through highly scripted interactions. moreover, the accretion of cultic performances, both time-bound ritualized events and durable representations that called attention to those actions, naturalized the ritual system and presented it as the normative expression of approaching the city’s gods.55 In pulling the social group together to honor the gods, ritual practice enabled individuals to mark territory, perform social hierarchy, and assert their legitimacy and that of the institutions they represented. a sacrifice, for example, involved a number of elements that performatively mapped the social order.56 The processions that publicly escorted the sacrificial offering to the altar marched a living index of society across the city: prestigious members of the city (magistrates, priests, donors, visiting dignitaries, and the emperor, if he was in the city), arranged according to rank, the most prominent riding in chariots or carts; officeholders of lesser rank walking in their own positions; the general populace of the city surrounding the primary action, some perhaps trailing behind at times. at the site of sacrifice, this visual hierarchy was reproduced in the positions afforded individual participants according to their rank and by who would be invited to consume the sacrificed meat. The spectacle itself demonstrated to the community that the god was worthy of respect, and commemorative inscriptions or statues marked the occasion for the sacrifice and 53. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. richard nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 78–79; marcel mauss, “Body techniques,” in Sociology and Psychology: Essays, trans. Ben Brewster (London: routledge & k. Paul, 1979), 99, 101–2. Bourdieu refers to the naturalization of learned social strategies as “genesis amnesia.” This is not to say that some individuals were completely unaware or uncritical of how these processes worked, but the position of critique is often the result of inhabiting a privileged space created by these very processes. 54. Jaclyn L. maxwell, Christianization and Communication in Late Antiquity: John Chrysostom and His Congregation in Antioch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 56–60; nathanael andrade, “The Processions of John Chrysostom and the Contested spaces of Constantinople,” JECS 18, no. 2 (summer 2010): 168. 55. see Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory: Ritual Practice Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 98–100, 107–8. 56. rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 114–15.

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reminded others of the donor’s (or donors’) importance. ritual, then, like other spectacles, allowed for the imposition of meaning, moral order, and social maps upon the embodied person.57 These structures, assumptions, and expectations were also continually constructed and reconstructed through the educational mechanisms that reproduced elite culture.58 as others have noted, the practices of ancient paideia fashioned its subjects into the habits of mind and social behaviors necessary to successfully fulfill the roles of magistrates, lawyers, orators, and teachers.59 Instruction varied, depending on location, resources, and need, although those who could afford it would send their sons to teachers in the premier centers of education—in the roman east, the cities of antioch, athens, and alexandria.60 schools in these cities had developed a general standardization of what raffaella Cribiore has referred to as a “taxonomy of learning,” that is, a set methods, techniques, and habits cultivated by students as they moved through the stages of their education.61 a central feature of this system was its reliance on earlier literature for transmitting multiple levels of cultural knowledge, from language acquisition and grammar to standards of behavior and the art of rhetoric (and for those pursuing more specialized training, law, mathematics, and philosophical theory). students would learn their letters by copying and sounding out aphorisms from homer, hesiod, euripides, and menander, later revisiting and building upon these passages as they learned

57. Bell, Ritual Theory, 83–84, 196. 58. Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), 39; raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton, nJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 8–9; C. m. Chin, Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 5–6, 16–17; ruth Webb, Demons and Dancers: Performance in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 2008), 157. 59. For an outline of paideia in the roman mediterranean world, see Brown, Power and Persuasion, 35–58; averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 73–84, 139–40; Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind; Cribiore, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch (Princeton, nJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); Peter Gemeinhardt, Lieve Van hoof, and Peter Van nuffelen, Education and Religion in Late Antique Christianity: Reflections, Social Contexts and Genres (London: routledge, 2016); robert kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); henri-Irénée marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb (madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956), esp. 265–98; and yun Lee too, ed., Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2001). 60. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 2, 18; Watts, Final Pagan Generation, 51–52. Only a small number of students, the most gifted and whose families had adequate resources, continued through the highest levels of education. see Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 178–84, 187, 224. For a summary of known schools, see marrou, History of Education, 296–98. 61. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 6–7.

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grammar.62 Those who progressed to rhetorical training composed practice progymnasmata (rhetorical exercises) and declamationes (practice orations) in response to a variety of hypothetical situations, often developed from these same texts.63 The literature used in the schoolroom did more than provide linguistic and literary models to emulate, however. mastery of the techniques and modes of performance taught in the classroom, not to mention the ability to engage and manipulate a rich body of literature, positioned the student within elite cultural circles, enabling him to demonstrate his cultural superiority to those with less training and to compete with others of his social and educational class.64 Classroom instruction also instilled particular habits of thought and patterns of behavior.65 Included in collections of early writing and grammar exercises are maxims about ethical behavior and proper dispositions. Libanios, for example, includes in his Progymnasmata fables, myths, and anecdotes that stress the proper care of the dead, respect for one’s social superiors (including, conveniently, teachers), and self-control.66 more advanced exercises included hypothetical cases involving discussions of roman law, while simultaneously exploring roman cultural values. In his Controversiae, for example, seneca the elder (late first century b.c.e.–early first century c.e.) presents a case in which a magistrate had a criminal beheaded at a dinner party at the request of a prostitute.67 The ensuing discussion touches on issues of magisterial authority and dignity, mores of gender and class, and the maiestas of the empire. among these texts, too, are passages that engage with matters concerning the gods and cult practice. The rhetorician hermogenes of tarsos (later second century) sprinkles maxims about the gods throughout his Progymnasmata, which remained a popular classroom text even in late antiquity. These include lines from poets regarding the gods (“The gods put sweat before virtue”; “the gods sell all 62. While the curriculum was by no means uniform in terms of their texts and content, certain texts—homer’s Iliad, the plays of euripides, and the orations of Demosthenes, for example—were particularly popular and formed the basis of a loosely structured school canon. among the texts utilized in Greek schools, rafaela Cribiore has identified a number of standard authors: homer (primarily the Iliad), euripides, aeschylus, menander, Demosthenes, hesiod, aristophanes, Pindar, socrates, and Plato. In Latin schools, such authors include Virgil (esp. the Aeneid), Plautus, Varro, Propertius, Priscian, terence, Cato the elder, Ovid, statius, and Juvenal. For the Greek school ‘canon’, see Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 194–201, and Cribiore, The School of Libanius, 150–59; for the Latin context, see marrou, History of Education, 278, Chin, Grammar and Christianity, 15–35. 63. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 231–38; marrou, History of Education, 201–204, 286; ruth Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice (abingdon: ashgate, 2009), 42–47. 64. Brown, Power and Persuasion, 39. 65. Brown, Power and Persuasion, 43–45; Chin, Grammar and Christianity, 34–35. 66. see Libanios, Progymnasmata, narration 13, 14, and 19, anecdote 2 and 4. 67. seneca the elder, Controversiae 9.2.

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good things to us for toils”) and statements declaring the importance of maintaining proper relations with the gods (“The laws have provided for worship of the gods, have set up altars, have adorned them with offerings, have honored them with sacrifices, festive assemblies, and processions,” and “the gods’ goodwill preserves cities, and if it were otherwise, cities would necessarily be destroyed”).68 The gods also make regular appearances throughout Libanios’s Progymnasmata in adaptations of myth and epic. The gods’ omnipresence in common educational texts made them a natural feature of student’s world.69 The school curriculum also included more explicitly specialized religious texts. For example, the Codex-Calendar of 354 may have been employed as a didactic text, providing boys in fourth-century Latin classrooms with a list of the festivals of rome dating as far back as the republic to memorize.70 On the one hand, the practice of memorization was viewed both as mental exercise and a way of building a useful repository of knowledge for later exercises in literary studies and public speaking.71 But there was another benefit to memorizing such a text. These same boys were future magistrates; they would become the men entrusted with safeguarding the sacred rhythms and rites of civic cult and ensuring that city’s continuing relationship with the divine. even in the fifth century, when many of the traditional rituals existed only in a past that was slipping further away, aristocratic families continued to teach their children these rhythms. This was an intentional preservation of the past, yes, but also a way of transmitting the sense of responsibility and obligation that was so integral to roman society. Like the performances of cult, this literature formed a deep cultural memory that emphasized elite responsibility for maintaining proper relations with the gods of the city and empire.72 and those who benefited most from this educational system were the same individuals who claimed guardianship over the empire’s governing structures—including matters concerning the gods: those whose parents hoped would enter into decurial roles and the imperial bureaucracy, those who would serve as advocates and prosecutors, as rhetors and ambassadors, as educators for the next generation of these same families.

68. hermogenes, Progymasmata 3 (citing hesiod, Opera et dies 289, and epicharmus, frag. 287) and 6. see also Libanios, Progymnasmata, anecdote 2.1. 69. see Libanios, Progymnasmata, Fable 3, narrations 5, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 34, 36, 38, 39, and 41, anecdotes 1.18–21 70. michele renee salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 14–16, 58. 71. salzman, On Roman Time, 15–16, 58. 72. Lieve Van hoof and Peter Van nuffelen, “The social role and Place of Literature in the Fourth Century aD,” in Literature and Society in the Fourth Century AD: Performing Paideia, Constructing the Present, Presenting the Self, ed. Lieve Van hoof and Peter Van nuffelen (Leiden: Brill, 2015) 10–11.

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Following the legalization of Christianity, notional distinctions between political and cultic authority became progressively stronger, particularly as emperors issued legal exemptions from the obligation to serve on municipal councils (the curia) for men who served among the Christian clergy.73 In practice, however, the logic of cultic responsibility, centered on the obligations shared by the emperor, officials, and priests for preserving the empire’s and its cities’ relationship with its divine protectors, were much the same as they had been for centuries. and, it should be noted, even as the ranks of the curiales, and with them the taxes paid by its members, were apparently depleted from the later fourth century on, Christian bishops—many of whom came from this same social stratum—often worked alongside the local curia as public benefactors and civic leaders.74 The emperor’s entanglement in matters of cult did not cease, for example, after Christianity had become part of the fabric of civic life. Constantine and his successors continued to see part of their responsibility as pater patriae to be ensuring that the correct gods were honored, a role made most visible in their acceptance of the title of pontifex maximus.75 This office was one of the city of rome’s ancient priesthoods, dating back to the republic, and had been held by emperors since the time of augustus.76 Constantine’s convening of and insistence on sitting on the Council of nicaea fits within the purview of this office as it had developed during the previous centuries, as do his directives against animal sacrifice and the establishment of sunday as a festal day.77 his immediate successors continued to exercise this same authority, as is evident in Constantius’s direct appointments of bishops, as well as in Julian’s dismissal of those same bishops and the measures he took to reinvigorate traditional cults. Jovian and Valens followed suit, replacing bishops appointed by their predecessors with their own.78 With varying degrees of success, each of 73. see, e.g., CTh 16.2.1, 16.2.2, 16.2.3, 16.2.6, 16.2.7, 16.2.9, 16.2.10; and discussion in Claudia rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 279–83. 74. Brown, Power and Persuasion, 119; averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity: AD 395–700, 2nd ed. (London: routledge, 2012), 160–61; rapp, Holy Bishops, 288–89. 75. stéphane Benoist, “Du pontifex maximus à l’élu de Dieu: l’empereur et les sacra (Ier s. av. n. e.– Ve s. de n. e.),” in Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire: Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Heidelberg, July 5–7, 2007), ed. Olivier hekster et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 43–47. 76. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 188–92. 77. eusebios, Vita Constantini 2.45.1, 3.5.3–6.1, 4.18.2–3; 4.23, 4.25.1; CTh 16.10.2 (with the caveat that this law was issued under Constans and Constantius II in 341); sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 1.8.11–12; CI 3.12.2. 78. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 4.2, 4.9; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 6.10, 6.13, 6.18; 7.2; John malalas, Chronographia 13.27.

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these emperors asserted their authority in dictating the contours of the empire’s authorized cults, as made visible in officially recognized civic priesthoods. One of the underlying responsibilities tied to this office in late antiquity was the maintenance of proper relationships with the god(s) to ensure the security of the empire, especially in the face of political instability and military campaigns against Persia and on the German frontier.79 and even after the apparent abandonment of the title of pontifex maximus in the later fourth century, emperors continued to fulfill this role.80 a prominent example here is an imperial pronouncement issued by Theodosios I on February 28, 380, commonly referred to as the Cunctos Populos edict.81 There, Theodosios constructs the normative citizen of the empire in terms of assent to the theological formulae of nicaea and koinonia with Damasus of rome and Peter of alexandria. as a programmatic policy statement regarding legitimate civic cult, the edict’s directives fit the traditional jurisdiction of the pontifex maximus. at the local level, responsibility for civic cults (often, but not always, directed toward Christ and Christian sancti/ἅγιοι) was shared between city magistrates and officially recognized priests, who were now Christian bishops. It is notable how frequently the infrastructure necessary for the practice of cult remained the domain of what we might consider secular authorities. In rome, for example, the urban prefect was entrusted with the preservation of cult sites and organizing festivals, including sacrifices at the temple of Castor and Pollux under Constantius.82 among the monuments repaired under the prefecture’s authority during the mid-fourth century were temples of apollo (357/59), Isis at Portus (367/68), and Venus Verticordia (or alternatively Flora, since the attesting source is unclear; mid-to-late fourth century).83 even in the later fifth century, well after the focus of preservation had shifted toward 79. The irony, of course, is that opponents of each of these men could point toward their deaths as proof that their decisions had done the precise opposite of what they had intended. 80. The evidence for the abandonment of the title following the reign of Valentinian (364–75) is unclear. see further discussion in alan Cameron, “The Imperial Pontifex,” HSCP 103 (2007): 355–56, 363–65; Barnes, Dynasty, Religion and Power, 25. 81. CTh 16.1.2, issued to the people of Constantinople from Thessalonica. see also the subsequent promulgation on January 10, 381 (CTh 16.5.6), this time from Constantinople. 82. ammianus marcellinus, Res gestae 19.10. The most complete study of the urban prefecture in rome, including religious responsibilities attached to the office, remains andré Chastagnol, La préfecture urbaine à Rome sous le Bas-Empire (Paris: Presses universitares de France, 1960), see esp. 137–77. a more recent, but significantly briefer, summary of the roman prefecture in the late antique period can be found in michelle renee salzman, The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 2002), 118–20. 83. For attestation for these restorations, see ILS 3222 and the “Carmen Contra Paganos” (Carmen Codex Parisini 8084) ll. 112–14. Discussion in Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 382; michael mulryan, “The temple of Flora or Venus by the Circus maximus and the new Christian topography: The ‘Pagan revival’ in action?” in The Archaeology of Late Antique “Paganism,” ed. Luke Lavan and michael mulryan, Late antique archaeology 7 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 211–14.

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Christian monuments, the roman prefecture allotted funds for maintaining traditional temples and images, including an image of minerva in the 470s or early 480s.84 The organization of Constantinople’s festivals and rituals, too, fell under the auspices of local magistrates. In the early fifth century, simplicius (urban prefect, 403) organized the festivities celebrating the dedication of eudoxia’s statue.85 according to the early seventh-century Chronicon pachale, when the emperor arkadios processed the relics of the prophet samuel into the city in the early fifth century, he did so accompanied, not by a bishop, but by the praetorian prefect and the urban prefect.86 If this source accurately records some of the circumstances of the procession, perhaps these were the magistrates who funded or coordinated the transfer of the relics. even adjudications over matters of cult were entrusted to high-ranking officials in imperial administrative structures. It was the prefect honoratus who oversaw the trial of aetios regarding the latter’s theological teachings in 359.87 Domitius modestus, during his tenure as praetorian prefect of the east under Valens, oversaw the trials of officers who had practiced divination (not simply a “religious” matter—if there is ever such a thing—in this case, for they were attempting to identify Valens’s successor).88 Theodosios II had appointed the comes kandidianos to oversee the trial of nestorios at ephesus, even if Cyril, the bishop of alexandria, appears to have usurped kandidianos’s authority (perhaps partly why Cyril was also arrested following the council).89 a few decades later, the magister militum Flavius anatolius, along with other imperial officials, oversaw the proceedings of the Council of Chalcedon.90 additionally, the vast majority of the legislation deal84. ILS 3132; Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 382. 85. The identity of simplicius as both the prefect who organized the event and the statue’s dedicator is attested by the dedicatory inscription for the statue, discovered in 1848. see CIL 03.736 ( = ILS 822, CIG 8614). The conflict surrounding the dedication is mentioned by sokrates (Historia ecclesiastica 6.18) and sozomenos (Historia ecclesiastica 8.20), although neither author mention the prefect. The ninth-century chronicler Theophanes comments that an (unnamed) urban prefect, whom he identifies as a manichaean and supporter of paganism, organized the events (Chronographia am 5898). Whether the prefect was a manichaean, however, cannot be determined. It is quite possible that Theophanes or his source cast the prefect in these terms in order to discredit the action and thus distance “proper” imperially sponsored Christianity from such events. see discussion in Dagron, Naissance, 294; Vasiliki Limberis, Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople (London: routledge, 1994), 44, 46. For the archaeological remains of the statue’s inscription, see Cyril mango “The Byzantine Inscriptions of Constantinople: a Bibliographical survey,” AJA 55, no. 1 (1951): 63. 86. Chronicon paschale 406 (P 308b). 87. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.23.3–4. see Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1974), 292–94; Fergus millar, A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408–450) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 10. 88. ammianus marcellinus, Res gestae 29.1. 89. millar, Greek Roman Empire, 232. 90. ACO II.1.2.

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ing with matters of cult in the Theodosian Code, our primary legal source for the period, is addressed to civic officials—to prefects, comites, and governors.91 There is, of course, a fine line between being responsible for the organization of ritual events and other mechanisms in the apparatus of civic cult and being an authorized ritual agent. magistrates were neither priests nor bishops. still, this was a select group of men, those who came through the circles of imperial administration, that oversaw the logistics of late antique cult. The particulars of a city’s festival calendar, the deities held in regard by its ruling elite, and the specific configurations of ritual technologies differed significantly from the early imperial period (as they did between cities and regions). nonetheless, the fundamental joint responsibility between civic official and priest remained well into the fifth century. These men were fulfilling the expectations they had been taught from childhood, both formally through their educations and through the constant performances of civic life. The men who became bishops of major cities during the fourth century—and who took on the role of civic priests in many cities in the decades after Constantine’s reign—increasingly came from the same families who expected to fill the ranks of the magistracies and priesthoods of the empire’s cities.92 Gregory of nazianzos, Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory of nyssa were from curial backgrounds; so, too, were evagrios, John Chrysostom, synesios of Cyrene, augustine, and alypius. some of the men who became bishops—ambrose, Paulinus of nola, and sidonius apollinaris—even held senatorial rank.93 When competition for the episcopacy of Constantinople came to an impasse in 381, Theodosios I appointed nektarios, who had served in the Constantinopolitan senate and, like ambrose and synesios, had not been baptized before his election to the episcopate. he had, however, previously served as the city’s prefect.94 91. Legislation pertaining to matters of religion are collected primarily in book 16 of the Theodosian Code. 92. J. h. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 299; Claudia rapp “Imperial Ideology in the making: eusebius of Caesarea on Constantine as ‘Bishop,’” JTS, n.s., 49, no. 2 (October 1998): 182–95; michelle renee salzman, “The evidence for the Conversion of the roman empire to Christianity in Book 16 of the ‘Theodosian Code,’” Historia 42, no. 3 (1993): 365–66; salzman, Making of a Christian Aristocracy, 97; and Peter Van nufffelen, “episcopal succession in Constantinople (381–450 c.e.): The Local Dynamics of Power,” JECS 18, no. 3 (Fall 2010): 426–27. many, but not all, of the men who became bishops had risen from the ranks of local clergy, which may have been a more diverse lot. similarly, the bishops and clergy of smaller towns would frequently be of lower status than those found in more prestigious cities, although they likely were from families of standing within their own communities. 93. Frank Gilliard, “senatorial Bishops in the Fourth Century,” HTR 77, no. 2 (april 1984): 154–59; rapp, Holy Bishops, 185–86. Of those bishops whose backgrounds are known, the majority came from the curiales. 94. John matthews, Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, A.D. 364–425 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 125–26.

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These men were educated in the institutions that had for centuries trained the governing elite in their duty of securing the empire, which necessarily included maintaining relations with the gods. They also participated in the high literary culture that informed the imaginative horizons and cultural expectations of the governing elite.95 This point cannot be overemphasized. trained within the traditional system of paideia, their Christian exegetical habits drew on the techniques employed in reading homer, Plato, and Demosthenes.96 Their rhetorical and literary productions were peppered with the stock characters, topoi, allusions, and citations (from both classical and biblical texts) of rhetoric. Thus it is no surprise that we find a preacher like John Chrysostom relying on the same techniques learned through declamation to construct a speech between Paul and his jailer (acts 16) or an ekphrasis on the courage displayed by the mother of the maccabees.97 John also models his program for educating Christian children on paideia, substituting the account of Cain and abel and other biblical stories for the fables and myths found in traditional introductory exercises and even urging rereading these biblical accounts as the student advances in his education.98 Continuity with existing patterns of religion was also apparent in ritualized behavior. as Christian festivals became those of the city, many of their ritual actions occurred on city streets, in squares, and outdoor shrines. Certainly, Christian cult continued to include practices that had developed during the first three centuries c.e., most notably baptism, semi-public recitation of scriptural texts, and eucharistic synaxis. But these ritualized actions, occurring largely within Christian temples and baptisteries, were only one aspect of Christian cult practice.99 Outside the confines of these spaces, Christian cult utilized the same vocabulary of ritual action as other cults. ample documentation attests to the processions of Christians in cities throughout the mediterranean world, particularly in antioch, Jerusalem, rome,

95. Brown, Power and Persuasion, 4; Chin, Grammar and Christianity, 72; al. Cameron, Last Pagans, 2011; Van hoof and Van nuffelen, “social role and Place of Literature,” 5; sara rappe, “The new math: how to add and to subtract Pagan elements in Christian education,” in Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity, ed. yun Lee too (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 408; Watts, Final Pagan Generation, 150–53. 96. Brown, Power and Persuasion, 75–77, 122–23; rapp, Holy Bishops, 180–82; rappe, “new math,” 406–7. 97. see John Chrysostom, In Acta apostolorum 36.2 (PG 60.260–261) and De Maccabeis 1.6–7 (PG 50.620–621). 98. John Chrysostom, De inani gloria 39–46. 99. see esp. the crucial contributions of John Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy (rome: Pontificium Institutum studiorum Orientalium, 1987); robert F. taft, Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding, 2nd rev. and enlarged edition (rome: edizioni Orientalia Christiana, Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1997), and taft, Through Their Own Eyes: Liturgy as the Byzantines Saw It (Berkeley: InterOrthodox Press, 2006).

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and Constantinople.100 These processions marked important annual festivals and welcomed the relics of martyrs and saints into the city. In Constantinople, emperors and bishops led spontaneous processions to the city walls and the hebdomon, a western suburb, to offer penance following earthquakes in 398, 427, and 438; similar supplications supposedly were offered when a snowstorm descended on the city during a celebration of games.101 Commemorations for martyrs included hymns and orations in the form of homilies in the spaces around their shrines.102 By the mid-fourth century, Christians were also burning incense, including before the emperor’s image and during processions.103 traditional votive practices in the dedications of cult buildings and implements also continued throughout the late antique period. The building of churches, particularly by members of the imperial family, would have been easily recognizable to earlier generations as votive acts.104 While Christians, like Jews, professed to no longer perform animal sacrifice during late antiquity, discourse about the eucharist was infused with the language of blood sacrifice.105 at the same time, however, our sources provide scattered refer100. notable studies of Constantinopolitan processional liturgies include andrade, “Processions of John Chrysostom,” 161–189; Baldovin, Urban Character, 167–226; raymond Janin, “Les processions religieuses à Byzance,” Revue des etudes byzantines 24 (1966): 69–88; Vasiliki manolopolou, “Processions in Byzantine Constantinople” (PhD diss., newcastle University, 2015); and Wendy mayer, “The sea made holy: The Liturgical Function of the Waters surrounding Constantinople,” Ephemerides Liturgicae 112 (1998): 459–68. 101. John Chrysostom, De terra motu (PG 50.713–16); sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.22.15–18; nestorios, The Bazaar of Heracleides 499 (Bedjan = Driver/hodgson 364); John malalas, Chronographia 14.22; Chronicon paschale 447 (P317a–b); Theophanes, Chronographia am 5930. annual commemorations for these occasions are preserved in Constantinople’s calendar. see Bauer, Urban Space, 52–55; Brian Croke, “two early Byzantine earthquakes and Their Liturgical Commemoration,” Byzantion 51, no. 1 (1981): 125–32, 139–40. 102. While homilies are generally regarded to have occurred within the confined space and time of the eucharistic synaxis, we should consider a wider range of venues and occasions in which these speech-acts could have occurred. 103. susan ashbrook harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 75–83. 104. examples of imperial temple building in late antiquity include Constantine’s building of the holy sepulcher in Jerusalem, hagia eirene in Constantinople, and st. Peter’s in rome. similar activity is suggested (but not necessarily made explicit) in building inscriptions. such activity is not confined to Christian sites. at least twelve mosaic inscriptions in the synagogue at apamea record donations made explicitly in fulfillment a vow (εὐξάμενος); others in this location could be understood on similar grounds, even if their votive nature is not stated as explicitly. see CIJ 2.805, 806, 807, 808, 809, 810, 811, 812, 817, 818, and IGLSyr 4.1336 (reproduced in IJO 3.84–113). Cf. SEG 32.1451 (IJO 3.35), an apse inscription, dated by David noy to the early sixth century, found at han halde commemorating the benefaction of Joses and Benjamin made “ἐ(πὶ) σωτερίας.” 105. note that our earliest Christian sources do not reject animal sacrifice in itself, but rather animal sacrifice to gods other than their own. The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem made animal sacrifice impossible under these restrictions, and the adamant rejections of animal sacrifice appeared

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ences to banquets, a common feature of traditional festivals, in festal contexts identified as Christian. In a hymn for the anniversary of st. Felix, for example, Paulinus of nola describes three instances of animal slaughter, accompanied by banquets, at the saint’s tomb.106 Paulinus himself does not refer to these as sacrifices, and other Christian authors would likely produce strong arguments distinguishing them from the blood sacrifices that they had condemned (as have modern interpreters).107 even so, the martyr commemorations described by Paulinus look very much like traditional cult activity: slaughter in fulfillment of vows at a site dedicated to the cult of a saint (not a god himself, to be sure, but an entity regarded as a closely connected with the divine nonetheless), overseen by a priest and followed by a banquet for those attending. Far from their causing a scandal for the bishop, Paulinus presents these actions as a quite natural part of local ritual. and while Paulinus uses these tales to rearticulate shared elite behavioral expectations in an explicitly Christian ritual space, any distinctions between the offerings for the saint and traditional blood sacrifice are produced through rhetoric, not practice. another continuing element were the practices traditionally associated with imperial cult. statues of Constantine were erected in temples across the empire, where they would receive proskynēsis and acclamations.108 Themistios describes the rituals of proskynēsis honoring Constantius, wherein those of highest standing could approach the emperor’s person more closely and touch his garments.109 Gregory of nazianzos attacks Julian for continuing the practice, claiming that the emperor had tainted it by adding images of the gods to his own.110 But in the same breath, Gregory of nazianzos endorses the ritual of proskynēsis for other, “Christian,” emperors, arguing that the emperor must receive public honors both in person and in effigy.111 The continued importance attached to such ritualized reverence is further apparent in Theodosios I’s violent reaction in 387 when the antiochenes destroyed the statues of the imperial family.112 Late antique emperors also continued to receive traditional funeral rites, including declarations of the later. see Daniel Ullucci, The Christian Rejection of Animal Sacrifice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 12–13, 69–117. 106. Paulinus of nola, Carmen 20.62–300, 301–87, and 388–444. see, too, Paulinus’s praise of Pammachius for inviting the poor to participate in the refrigerium he had hosted; Epistula 13.11–14. 107. Dennis trout, “Christianizing the nolan Countryside: animal sacrifice at the tomb of st. Felix,” JECS 3, no. 3 (Fall 1995): 292–96. 108. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.18.1; Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 2.17. 109. Themistios, Oratio 1.2a. 110. Gregory of nazianzos, Oratio 4.81. 111. Ibid. 4.80. 112. see the collection of John Chrysostom’s twenty-one homilies (De statuis) on the events surrounding the riots, as well as Libanios, Orationes 19–23. see also the later account in Theophanes, Chronographia am 5883. For discussion, see sandwell, Religious Identity, 137–39, 173–76.

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emperor’s apotheosis.113 according to the late fourth-century historian eutropios (writing ca. 370), Constantine, Constantius, and Julian were each apotheosized, as were Constantine’s father (Constantius Chlorus) and Jovian.114 moreover, the vocabulary of divinity (divinus, divi, deus, numen, θέος, θεῖος, etc.) was frequently employed in both imperial titulature and imperial rhetoric.115 Interpretations of these actions have varied, both among the late antique authors who report them and in modern studies. For modern scholars, the primary issue is whether the ritualized actions surrounding the deceased emperor constituted emperor-worship, rather than functioning as metaphors that situated the imperial court in relation to a “celestial prototype” or simply followed the dictates of panegyric and ceremonial convention.116 But if, as I am arguing, the habits of bodily practice and speech have any influence in shaping how people interact with their social environments, then we cannot dismiss the practices surrounding the emperor as merely convention. rather, convention provides an important social tool, a means of ensuring the efficacy of an action or supporting a claim. here, for example, the proper observance of imperial funeral rites marked the relationship between the new emperor and his predecessor and thus were crucial for demonstrating the legitimacy of the new emperor. It was partly for this reason that Gregory of nazianzos presented Julian’s supposed unwillingness to offer due honor to Constantius as evidence of his impiety.117 But the naturalization that occurs through habituation is also the reason that particular individuals in positions of cult leadership (namely, bishops) were concerned about how these actions were understood. It is highly questionable whether most people during the fourth century, or even the fifth century, would have 113. ammianus marcellinus, Res gestae 25.5.1, 25.9.12–13; Libanios, Orationes 18, 120, 306; Zosimos, Nova historia 3.29.2, 3.34.3. Discussion in susanna elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 457. For a summary of imperial funeral practices, see mark J. Johnson, The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 11–13. 114. eutropios, Breviarium 10.1, 10.8, 10.15, 10.16, 10.18. eutropios served as the magister epistolarum under Constantius (sometime before 361) and later as the magister memoriae under Valens (369). 115. Douglas Boin, “Late antique Divi and Imperial Priests of the Late Fourth and early Fifth Centuries,” in Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome: Conflict, Competition, and Coexistence in the Fourth Century, ed. michele renee salzman et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 143–44. For a possible example of this language in literature, see sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.23.2, in reference to honorius. 116. see, e.g., Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change, 238–39; Limberis, Divine Heiress, 35; Johannes straub “Constantine as ΚΟΙΝΟΣ ΕΠΙΣΚΟΠΟΣ: tradition and Innovation in the representation of the First Christian emperor’s majesty,” DOP 21 (1967): 53. 117. Gregory of nazianzos, Oratio 5.16–17. Cf. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 3.1.50; Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 6.6. Cf. the account of ammianus marcellinus (Res gestae 21.16.20–21), who claims that it was Jovian who carried out the proper honors and escorted the body to Constantinople, with no mention of Julian’s role in the funeral rites.

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understood the rituals surrounding the emperor as only metaphors, if they took them as metaphors at all. rather, the person of the emperor was a place where the lines between human and divine had long been blurred.118 The emperor was represented throughout the empire, not only in temples and through celebrations of his dies natalis (birthday) and dies imperii (anniversary of accession), but also on city streets in the form of statues, inscriptions, and even images on the coins that exchanged hands in the market.119 he stood there, a static, durable presence among the images of other gods, heroes, and dignitaries.120 Certainly, fourth-century Christian bishops were anxious to reframe traditional practices surrounding the person of the emperor. In his condemnation of Julian, for example, Gregory of nazianzos attempts to purify proskynēsis of its traditional resonances, claiming that Julian had intentionally mixed the poison of idolatry with an otherwise supposedly innocuous act.121 If anything, however, “Julian’s poison” was the reincorporation of traditional elements—if they had ever been removed under Constantine and Constantius. Imperial legislation against the traditional observances of imperial cult does not appear until 425, when Theodosios II forbade proskynēsis for his statue on festal days.122 Isolated, these pieces of evidence might not indicate the continued veneration of emperors during late antiquity, but together this constellation of evidence points to continued engagement on some level with imperial cult, even on the part of those who engaged in practices directed at Christ. and if the language of divinity was applied to emperors—as it was—then we must consider at least the possibility that people living in the late antique city took this language seriously. For these reasons, we cannot dismiss the deep force of ritual habit. any number of events or contingencies could contribute to adjustments within a cultic system. Political and economic contingencies arising from war, famine, and epidemic could upset the normal mechanisms of cult. Civic priesthoods could be left unfilled.123 Funds for cultic observance could be appropriated for other purposes.124 Local battles could deplete the stock of animals for sacrifice or otherwise disrupt the celebra118. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 361; Price, “Between man and God,” 33; rives, Religion in the Roman Empire, 153–56. 119. Gordon, “roman Imperial Cult,” 54–58; maria kantirea, “Imperial Birthday rituals in Late antiquity,” in Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. alexander Beihammer et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 40–42. 120. Of course, these images were not truly permanent, for even statues and coinage have lifespans, which could be artificially shortened by those living around them. 121. Gregory of nazianzos, Oratio 4.81. 122. CTh 15.4.1 (may 5, 425). 123. as happened with the office of flamen Dialis from 87/86 b.c.e. until 11 b.c.e. see discussion in Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 130–32; rüpke, Pantheon, 124. 124. see, e.g., maximinus’s appropriation of funds from the public treasury intended for the theater and organizing festivals in order to pay for his campaigns along the rhine.

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tion of festivals. Conflict could also lead to increased ritual observances—for example, in petitions to a god on behalf of the city.125 The gods might not respond to the same ritual techniques as they had in the past, requiring flexibility and a change in tactics.126 These were but shifts in practice, agile alterations in the technologies employed to respond to new circumstances by ritual specialists, whose competence was demonstrated through their success in obtaining the attention and favor of the city’s divine patrons. shifts in deeper cultural frameworks, by comparison, took significantly longer. These were the result of the accumulation of small adjustments, as well as the constant reshuffling that occurred as individuals interpreted the world around them. Certainly, the long fourth century was a period when the negotiation and contestation of the imaginative horizons of religion in the roman mediterranean world were more visible and pronounced, even if there was no sudden, profound rupture, as some would suggest. It is clear that the underlying structures, assumptions, and habits had not changed significantly with Constantine’s introduction of Christianity into civic and imperial spaces. Prominent episcopacies remained in the hands of the civic elite; magistrates continued to organize festivals; Christian temples were offerings of thanksgiving and supplication in much the same way that earlier temples had been. Christians performed large-scale processions, burned incense, sang hymns; they dedicated votive offerings and inscriptions, gave rhetorical performances in ritualized settings, provided offerings and banquets for local patron sancti (sometimes even including animal slaughter). These practices asserted Christian presence (and ownership) of the civic landscape, even while looking quite similar to the practices of traditional cults. •

•

•

It is important to consider what these continuities of practice meant for religious structures in late antiquity. Individuals may have thought of themselves as belonging to a number of imagined groups, but the lines between social categories are often blurred, fluid, and porous.127 Imagined groups may not be immediately identifiable in terms of ritual practice—and individuals who attended the rituals associated with one group may also have attended those associated with another. 125. such actions are not necessarily preserved in the historical record, although literary sources occasionally depict rituals, especially lustral processions along the city’s walls, undertaken when the city is faced with siege, epidemics, and natural disasters. In addition to the examples provided in n. 101 above, see Pliny the elder, Naturalis historia 10.35; tacitus, Annales 13.24 and Historiae 1.87.1, 4.53; Zosimos, Historia nova 5.6.1. 126. see rüpke, Pantheon, 11, 15–17. 127. see the dynamics involved with the identification (and resulting classification) of individuals into social categories discussed in rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 2004), 78–81.

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Indeed, many individuals living in a late antique city would not have seen much discernible difference between the practices of Christian cult and those of traditional cult—at least until someone with cultural authority asserted that difference. social boundaries had to be constructed, asserted, and enforced. Distinctions could be developed through shared habits, but if those distinctions were to have lasting force, they could not depend solely on cultivating habits. rather, cultural agents tapped into the patterns and practices already established among the group and accentuated them through their discourses about themselves and polemics against others.128 not to put too fine a point on the matter, the bishops and literary agents who are the focus of the following chapters were in the business of doing just this. One of the strategies they had at their disposal—and one that already had a long history by the fourth century—was the reification and asserted universalism of the Church, mentioned above. This concept provided them with an ideal type, a constructed norm, to impose upon others (including each other).129 But social formations do not arise from doctrinal or theological positions; those positions are rhetorical constructions that refine and reinforce existing social fissures, no matter how firmly they are rooted in the rules of an intellectual system, how adamantly they are asserted as the truth, or how committed their adherents. These positions certainly shaped individuals within the groups that held them, but they mask other markers of social distinction, such as class, gender, occupation, or ethnos.130 This type of activity helped to establish social categories recognizable to both those positioned inside and those forced outside them. But the categories themselves did not, and could not, be entirely cohesive or homogeneous; their supposed members could identify themselves with other categories depending on social situation or circumstances. In other words, these social categories remained external, reified social constructions, but still amorphous and contestable, the combined products 128. Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups, 11–16; rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities, 4. 129. averil Cameron, “The Violence of Orthodoxy,” in Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity, ed. eduard Iricinschi and holger Zellentin (tübingen: mohr siebeck, 2008), 105–8, 111. see also earlier work on the construction of Christianity as a distinct social category during the second and third centuries in Judith Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Judith Perkins, Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era (London: routledge, 2009). 130. Both of these markers, it should be noted, are also socially constructed categories and not unproblematic in their definition as well. For instance, in the ancient mediterranean world, the ethnos was constructed around imagined ties of geographic origin, which included a variety of cultural markers and supposedly innate character traits. see discussion in todd Berzon, Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 30–36; Christopher P. Jones, “ἔθνος and γένος in herodotus,” CQ 46, no. 2 (1996): 317; Jonathan m. hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 34–36.

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of various modes of social exchange (i.e., monuments, images, inscriptions, literary productions, orations, theatrical performances, etc.).131 social categories conveyed expectations to those supposed to belong to the imagined group; they imposed limits on behavior or statements about the divine; they said what a person should do—they did not describe what he or she actually did. Ultimately, any renegotiation of religion in the roman mediterranean world had to come from within its established frameworks and internal logic. In this respect, continuities of practice and cult structures provided certain advantages to fourth-century Christian cultural agents. Because ritual performances depended upon habituated patterns of communal action, they invited slippage between ritual occasions—not only those hosted by competing cult agents, but also civic and imperial displays—and helped to reorient individuals within their social environments.132 Thus, the very structures of religion in the late antique mediterranean world naturalized transitions from traditional cult to Christian cult. On the other hand, these continuities always left space for contestation and resistance, not to mention competition between rival networks of Christian bishops. With each of these interactions, the logic, ritual practices, and social scripts of religion were constantly rearranged and pushed in new directions. as that happened, the imaginative horizons of religion were stretched to lesser or greater degrees, until, by the mid-fifth century, new structures had solidified. These people, then, lived with the ghosts of the past. They encountered them in the texts they read, in the rituals they performed, in the landscapes they walked. They wrestled with them in the halls of power, negotiated with them in temples, and built upon their remains. Their textual productions are the artifacts of competition among one another, driven by ideologies and agendas. as such, they provide crucial evidence for the rhetorical structures that reframed cultural expectations and enabled the contestation and competitions of the empire’s cultural elite. Part of the goal of these authors in formulating such radical difference between the rituals of their own groups and the rituals of others was to construct and to maintain these boundaries. to paraphrase J. L. austin, their literary compositions were texts that did something.133 The following chapters explore how their efforts reshaped late antique religion as it was manifested in Constantinople, through speech-acts that constructed boundaries, curated memories of violence, and interpreted cult landscapes and ritual performances. 131. Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups, 26; James rives, “religious Choice and religious Change in Classical and Late antiquity: models and questions,” AYRS 9 (2011): 277. 132. see richard mcCall’s observations regarding the role of communal ritualized events in facilitating shifts in the way individuals understand social formations in Do This: Liturgy as Performance (notre Dame, In: University of notre Dame Press, 2007), 24–27, 54–55. 133. J. L. austin, How to Do Things with Words (London: Oxford University Press, 1962).

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The Founding of a City

In november 324, construction of a new imperial capital began in the small Greek city of Byzantium. six years later, on may 11, 330, Constantine formally dedicated his city, designating it a new rome. Constantinople has frequently been called a Christian city, a new Christian capital for the first Christian emperor. The small Greek polis of Byzantium was perhaps one of the most unexpected locations for the development of a Christian imperialism. Compared to antioch, Jerusalem, and alexandria, cities prominent in Christian historiography and intellectual development, Byzantium had neither strong claims to an ancient Christian population nor occupied a place in apostolic narratives.1 In fact, prior to Constantine’s selection of it as his dynastic capital, the city was almost, if not entirely, lacking in Christian associations. The goal of this chapter is to map Constantinople’s early landscape, focusing on its development under Constantine. Unfortunately, our information about the city’s physical landscape at the time of his death is imprecise. archaeological 1. For the memorialization of Christian narratives in Jerusalem and antioch, see andrew Jacobs, The Remains of the Jews: The Holy Land and Christian Empire (stanford, Ca: stanford University Press, 2004), esp. 139–58, and “‘What has rome to Do with Bethlehem?’ Cultural Capital(s) and religious Imperialism in Late ancient Christianity,” Classical Receptions Journal 3 (2011): 29–45; Wendy mayer “antioch and the Intersection between religious Factionalism, Place and Power,” in The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity, ed. andrew Cain and noel Lenski (aldershot, england: ashgate, 2009), 357–67; Isabella sandwell, Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews and Christians in Antioch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 43–46. Legends about the apostle andrew’s founding of Byzantium’s Christian community only begin to appear in the ninth century. see Francis Dvornik, The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium and the Legend of the Apostle Andrew (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1958), 172–75.

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evidence for the Constantinian city is scant, because excavation has been extremely curtailed.2 nearly all our evidence for this early period is literary and shrouded in the rhetorical embellishments of vested interests in how the city’s landscape was to be perceived.3 There are, however, indications that Constantine’s city had a significant number of traditionalist resonances, challenging Christian leaders who wanted to assert Constantine’s clear devotion to Christ. my particular interest here is to consider how these resonances affected the range of cultic possibilities of the Constantinian city and inspired its Christian reframing. eusebios’s Life of Constantine engages in this process of reinterpretation, culminating in an ekphrasis (descriptive speech) on the apostoleion, Constantine’s mausoleum, as an example of Christian efforts to strip imperial monuments of traditional resonances in order to impose Christian meaning in their stead. These tensions over traditional resonances in Constantine’s new city were part of the constant renegotiations both inherent in the mental architecture of roman religion and instrumental in expanding its imaginative horizons. t h e t r a n sF O r m at IO n O F a C I t y

according to legend, the small Greek polis of Byzantium was founded by a king named Byzas in the seventh century b.c.e. on the peninsula where the Bosphoros 2. The accessible visible remains of Constantine’s city comprise a disappointingly short list: the foundations of the hippodrome and the base and column that held Constantine’s statue in the Forum of Constantine. The archaeological remains of the Theodosian city are not much better. extant are some of the monuments lining the hippodrome’s spina; portions of the triumphal arch in the Forum of Theodosios; portions of two palaces north of the hippodrome; the base for eudoxia’s statue in the augusteion; and sections of land and sea walls. Cyril mango has traced what he believes to be segments of the mesē along the modern Cerrahpaşa Caddesi. The propylaion and pronaos of Theodosios II’s reconstruction of the Great Church were excavated in 1935, but the majority of the structure lies beneath hagia sophia, built under Justinian. These excavations also uncovered a street running perpendicular to the Great Church. The remains of the milion were excavated in 1967. remains of the basilika and the mid-fifth-century Chalkoprateia church have also been found. my summary of excavations here does not claim to be exhaustive. see sarah Bassett, “The antiquities in the hippodrome of Constantinople,” DOP 45 (1991): 88; Bassett, “‘excellent Offerings’: The Lausos Collection in Constantinople,” Art Bulletin 82, no. 1 (march 2000): 494; albrecht Berger, “streets and Public spaces in Constantinople,” DOP 54 (2000): 161, 164; sven Larsen, “a Forerunner of hagia sophia,” AJA 41, no. 1 (January–march 1937): 1–5; richard krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 4th ed. (new haven, Ct: yale University Press, 1986), 70–73; Cyril mango, “The triumphal Way of Constantinople and the Golden Gate,” DOP 54 (2000): 181. 3. among our earliest literary sources for the Constantinian landscape, with varying degrees of detail, are eusebios, Vita Constantini 3.48–49; Themistios, Oratio 47a-48c; Libanios, Oratio 30.6, 37; Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 2.9; sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.16; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 2.3, 2.5.4; Notita urbis Constantinopolitanae; Zosimos, History nova 2.30–31, 35–37; and assorted sources preserved in the Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai.

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meets the sea of marmara, centering around an acropolis at the mouth of the Golden horn.4 as a strategic trade location, Byzantium was prosperous, if relatively undistinguished, during most of its pre-Constantinian existence. temples to apollo, artemis, and aphrodite were located on the acropolis, along with a theater and amphitheater (the kynegion). The town entered into a formal alliance with rome in 146 b.c.e. In 195/96 c.e., in retaliation for Byzantium’s support of his rival Pescennius niger, the emperor septimius severus razed its walls and subsequently reorganized the settlement, now called the Colonia antonina. The new colony extended to the southwest of the acropolis, with the construction of a hippodrome, a monumental bath complex (the Zeuxippos bath), a forum (the tetrastōon), a basilika complex, and colonnaded streets (the most important of which, adjacent to the tetrastōon, would become the beginning of the mesē, the main east-west avenue through the city).5 two months after defeating his son-in-law and rival Licinius, Constantine chose Byzantium as the site of his new dynastic capital. What drew Constantine to this city specifically is unclear; later sources claim that it was one of several sites under consideration, including Ilion, Chalcedon, and Thessalonica.6 If, as Paul stephenson has suggested, Byzantium was one of Licinius’s capitals, the site may have had particular appeal for Constantine, since it would have afforded another avenue by which to assert victory over his opponent.7 nonetheless, Constantine’s decision to refurbish Byzantium as his own capital was in no way a decisive replacement of other regional capitals; he and his successors continued to move

4. The attribution of Byzas as the founder of the city can be found in Diodorus siculus, Biblioteca historica 4.49.2–3; John malalas, Chronographia 13.7; hesychios of miletos, Patria Konstantinoupoleos 20. For surveys of the pre-Constantinian history of Byzantium, see Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1974), 13–18; Wolfgang müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls: Byzantion–Konstantinupolis– Istanbul bis zum Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts (tübingen: Deutsches archäologisches Institut, 1977), 16– 19; Cyril mango, Le développement urbain de Constantinople, IVe–VIIe siècles (Paris: De Boccard, 2004), 13–21; sarah Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 18–19. 5. müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 18, 229; C. mango, Développement urbain, 19; Bassett, Urban Image, 19–21. 6. Dagron, Naissance, 29–31. These sources include sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 2.3; Zosimos, Historia nova 2.30; Theophanes, Chronographia am 5816; Joannes Zonaras, Epitome historiarum 13.3; Anthologia Graeca 14.115; michael Glykas, Annales 462 (Bekker); konstantinos manasses, Brevarium chronicum vv. 2308–26 (Lampsides); kedrenos, Compendium historiarum 1.496 (Bekker). 7. Paul stephenson, Constantine: Unconquered Emperor, Christian Victor (London: quercus, 2009), 194–96. stephenson’s suggestion is asserted as fact by timothy D. Barnes, Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire (Chichester, england: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 111–13. In the Anonymus Valesianus I (25, 27, 30), Constantine invades Byzantium after Licinius escapes there and then founds his new city to commemorate his victory.

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between Thessalonica, nikomedia, nicaea, and antioch throughout the fourth century.8 Whatever Constantine’s motives, Byzantium afforded the emperor certain advantages. not only was it a strategic location, but the imperial armature begun by severus also provided a canvas for his dynastic ambitions.9 he began by extending the city’s walls three kilometers to the west, quadrupling its land area. The rapid expansion resulted in significant tracts of open space, creating the illusion that the city’s traditional cults were not as robust or entrenched as those of rome or antioch, despite the fact that Byzantium had been a typical roman town. Within this space, Constantine began a building program that visually cultivated the city’s Greek and roman heritage, asserted his claims to the throne, and established Constantinople’s place as an imperial capital. While Christianity had gained a place within this program, its driving force remained the solid assertion of roman imperialism.10 The perception of the city as Christian only gained wider acceptance through later Christian rhetorical framing. By creating an interconnected series of architectural groupings along the city’s main avenues (see map 1), Constantine and his planners used the traditional monuments to reinforce imperial resonances.11 The acropolis complex, consisting of the pre-Constantinian city’s three major temples, a theater, and the kynegion, was left intact, much to the chagrin of later interpreters. The severan foundations south of the acropolis were further developed into an architectural complex that featured important markers of the city’s participation in roman imperial institutions.12 The tetrastōon was rededicated as the augusteion. an imperial palace now joined the Baths of Zeuxippos, the hippodrome, and the forum known as the stoa Basilika. a tetrapylon known as the milion was constructed at the terminus of the mesē and marked the start of the Via egnatia. Constantine erected temples to

8. For the distinction between Constantine’s foundation of the city as a dynastic seat and its later development into an imperial capital, see Dagron, Naissance, 25–29; and John Vanderspoel, “a tale of two Cities: Themistius on rome and Constantinople,” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, ed. Lucy Grig and Gavin kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 224. 9. Dagron, Naissance, 25, 29–31; Bassett, Urban Image, 21–22. 10. modern scholarship has sometimes argued that the availability of space made the city a more convenient location than other cities for him to provide his “new Christian empire” with an appropriately Christian capital in contrast to the “pagan” rome. see, e.g., Barnes, Dynasty, Religion and Power, 111–13; Vasiliki Limberis, Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople (London: routledge, 1994), 21; kevin Wilkinson, “Palladas and the Foundation of Constantinople,” JRS 100 (2010): 193–94. 11. see Bassett, Urban Image, 26; see also Franz alto Bauer, Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in Der Spätantike: Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung des öffentlichen Raums in den Spätantiken Städten Rom, Konstantinopel und Ephesos (mainz am rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1996), 28–32. 12. Bassett, Urban Image, 23–27.

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Con stan tinia n

Wa lls

Apostoleion

Strategeion

Capitolion Mese¯

Philadelphion

Stoa Basilika

Senate

om e dr pp o

Hi

0

Theater Hagia Eirene Augusteion

Forum of Constantine

N

Acropolis

Baths of Zeuxippos Imperial Palace 2 km

MAP 1. Constantinople in 337 c.e.

rhea/Cybele and the tychē of Constantinople here, too.13 This collection of monuments referred strongly to roman imperial displays, particularly in the association of the palace and hippodrome (a feature of earlier tetrarchic capitals, themselves modeled on the close identification of the Palatine and Circus maximus in rome) and the milion, which provided the city with its own miliarum aureum (rome’s Golden mile from which highways out of the city began).14 hagia eirene, the first imperially sponsored Christian temple in the city, was built between the acropolis and the monumental civic complex. some questions continue to surround the construction of the site. Based on a passage from sokrates’s Ecclesiastical History, it has long been proposed that Constantine’s foun-

13. The early sixth-century historian Zosimos (Historia nova 2.31.2–3) attributes the tycheion to Constantine. his contemporary hesychios (Patria 15), on the other hand, distances Constantine from the temples of rhea/Cybele and the tychē, crediting the establishment of these cults to Byzas. noel Lenski follows Zosimos in arguing that Constantine created the statue of Constantinople’s tychē from a statue of rhea and established two temples, one for the tychē of rome, the other for the tychē of Constantinople. see discussion in Lenski, “Constantine and the tyche of Constantinople,” in Contested Monarchy: Integrating the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century AD, ed. Johannes Wienand (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 330–39, 347. 14. Bassett, Urban Image, 28.

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dation replaced an earlier house-church.15 There is neither accessible archaeological nor literary evidence closer to Constantine to support the presence of Christians, however, much less a Christian cult site, before 330. (The absence of evidence certainly does not preclude the possibility, but it does remind us of how fragmentary our evidence is.) This question aside, Constantine incorporated Christian cult into the imperial armature of the city through the dedication of hagia eirene. This site also provided a spatial link between the renewed civic complex that asserted the city’s imperial claims with the intact cultic complex on the acropolis that grounded those assertions in the city’s past.16 Given this location, with its close notional and spatial association with the imperial residence immediately to the south, as well as the allusions to rome already noted, it would be appropriate to think of the site as an imperially sponsored Christian temple, analogous to the temples associated with the Palatine in rome. Constantine accentuated the expanded city’s imperial character with three new monumental complexes west of the old civic centers. The first of these complexes, the Forum of Constantine, was located along the mesē immediately outside the old severan walls. at the center of the round forum stood a column of Constantine. Flanking the forum were further imperial markers: a senate house, a Praetorium and prison, and a nymphaeum.17 Further west along the mesē stood a second complex, consisting of the Capitolion and the Philadelphion (a public square honoring the tetrarchy).18 here the mesē divided into two branches, one leading southwest out of the city along the Via egnatia, the other northwest to the strategeion. as with similar monuments in other cities, the Capitolion was dedicated to the Capitoline triad and asserted Constantinople’s ties to rome and its traditional institutions.19 The Philadelphion represented the former harmony between members of the tetrarchy and thus asserted Constantine’s connection to Diocletian and 15. sokrates credits Constantine with the church’s construction (Historia Ecclesiastica 1.16.2) or enlargement (2.16.16). his is the earliest testimony explicitly linking Constantine to hagia eirene and has led to the assertion that a Christian community existed in pre-Constantinian Byzantium; see, e.g., krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals, 47; müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 18; but also discussion in Dagron, Naissance, 388–91, 393. 16. The later construction of the Great Church (hagia sophia) immediately north of the augusteion would pull hagia eirene fully into the imperial complex. some scholars have wanted to attribute the initial plans to Constantine. While this is certainly possible, I wonder if the attribution is partly motivated by a desire to dissociate the Great Church from Constantius, later regarded as a heretical emperor. For discussion, see Dagron, Naissance, 397–99. 17. Bassett, Urban Image, 29. 18. For reconstructions of this area, see Bassett, Urban Image, 31; Franz alto Bauer, “Urban space and ritual: Constantinople in Late antiquity,” AAAH 15, n.s., 1 (2001): 30–31; C. mango, “triumphal Way,” 177. Our knowledge of the Philadelphion is limited; its precise location is unknown, and it may have been a stretch of the mesē rather than a building. 19. Bassett, Urban Image, 31–32.

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earlier imperial ideologies.20 The third Constantinian monumental complex, the apostoleion, stood along the northern branch of the mesē at the highest point in the city. This monument, too, underscored Constantine’s imperial claims for his city, for he had designated the structure to be his own mausoleum, perhaps consciously imitating the mausoleum of augustus in rome.21 In addition to this significant architectural footprint, Constantine also incorporated an extensive collection of statuary and other smaller monuments assembled from rome and rival cities in the eastern empire, including alexandria, antioch, and athens.22 This collection included an array of images, from pre-fourthcentury emperors to the poets and philosophers of Greek literary culture, as well as statues of cultic significance: Zeus, Poseidon and amymone, helios, hermes, aphrodite, apollo, athena, artemis, selene, kybele, tychē, asklepios, herakles, and the Dioskouroi.23 The statues were assembled into collections at various locations throughout the city, including the Baths of Zeuxippos, the augusteion, the hippodrome, and the Forum of Constantine, all locations associated with roman cultural institutions and imperial power. The statue collections provided visual and spatial references that constructed a genealogical heritage that imbued the city with a sense of antiquity. roman mythological narratives were particularly important, as seen in two of the more notable examples from Constantine’s visual program. In the Bath of Zeuxippos, for example, was a collection that included eleven gods and demigods, as well as heroes from the Theban and trojan mythic cycles.24 The trojan cycle was also represented in the Forum of Constantine, whose assemblage of Paris, hera, aphrodite, athena, and Thetis staged the Judgment of Paris. This assemblage shared space with another artifact mythically linked with the trojan War, the Palladion, the guardian statue rescued from troy by aeneas and brought to rome, which was now supposedly deposited at the base of the Column of Constantine.25 together 20. The image of the tetrarchs can now be found at the Basilica of san marco, Venice. For a brief analysis, see Bassett, Urban Image, 242. 21. F. Bauer, “Urban space,” 31; Dagron, Naissance, 399; Cyril mango, “Constantine’s mausoleum and the translation of relics,” ByzZ 83, no. 1 (1990): 54. members of the imperial family continued to be buried in the apostoleion complex until Constantine VIII (d. 1028). 22. Bassett, Urban Image, 39. For the statuary collections under Constantine, see Bassett, Urban Image, 50–75. 23. The images of emperors and cultural figures included marcus aurelius Carus (282 c.e.), septimius severus, tiberius, trajan, hadrian, the poetess erinna, euripides, hesiod, homer, homer of Byzantium, menander, Pindar, aristotle, Demokritos, herakleitos, and Plato. see Bassett, Urban Image, 37. 24. Ibid., 52–53. The Bath’s assemblage included three apollos, three aphrodites, a hermophroditos, a herakles and auge, and a Poseidon and amymone. This assemblage is consistent with other bath collections. 25. For the myth of the Palladion, see Dionysios of halicarnassos, Antiquitates Romanae 2.66.5.

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these visual presentations of the trojan cycle appealed to roman mythic genealogies, rooted in a Greek classical heritage, which connected the glory of rome to the mythic troy and asserted Constantinople’s legitimate succession in that lineage.26 monuments are structuring elements within a cult landscape in that they impart meaning for those who interact with that landscape. The creation of a monumental landscape not only asserted the city’s participation in roman imperial ideologies, but also made Constantinople a place of durable memory. Images that activated roman mythic genealogies provided the city with an imperial and cultural history it lacked and implied that it was the culmination of a historical narrative of roman hegemony.27 Intentionally or not, this monumental landscape psychologically imposed a sense of empire, rooted in rome’s ties to the traditional gods, upon the city’s populace. In so doing, it constructed a normative image of the city against which those living in it could be evaluated. a crucial aspect of this image is the landscape’s incorporation of roman religious structures. r Om a n I m P e r Ia L C Om m I t m e n t s a n D C U Lt I n t h e n eW C I t y

a persisting point of debate in modern scholarship is the degree of Constantine’s commitment to Christianity and his aim to transform the religious landscape of the empire.28 One factor underlying this debate is a widely held assumption based in part on eusebios’s presentation of Constantine’s embrace of Christianity.29 For 26. Bassett, Urban Image, 68. 27. Other examples are the images of imperial history in the hippodrome: romulus and remus, alexander the Great, augustus, Diocletian, and probably Julius Caesar. Ibid., 63–64. 28. The positions on Constantine’s commitment to transforming the empire can be divided into roughly two camps. On the one hand, there is the position, following eusebios, that Constantine intentionally initiated a radical restructuring of the empire’s religious structures through the suppression of traditional cult, even if his efforts were not entirely successful. see, e.g., norman Baynes, Constantine the Great and the Christian Church (new york: haskell, 1975), 27–28; timothy D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1981), 247, and more recently Barnes, Dynasty, Religion and Power, 7–8, 9–13. On the other hand, there is the position that while Constantine personally favored Christianity and enacted measures to protect and privilege Christians, his general policy was one of tolerance of both Christianity in its various permutations and traditional cults. This position is exemplified by h. a. Drake, who argues that intolerance (or more properly religious coercion) of traditional cults originated from the bishops rather than Constantine. see esp. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Baltimore: Johns hopkins University Press, 2000), 320–21, 346–49. 29. see esp. eusebios, Vita Constantini, De laudibus Constantini, and Historia ecclesiastica, book 10. eusebios’s presentation overaccentuates the Christian character of Constantine’s laws; Jill harries, “Constantine the Lawgiver,” in From the Tetrarchs to the Theodosians: Later Roman History and Culture, 284–450 CE., ed. scott mcGill et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 79–80.

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the bishop, Constantine’s reign constituted a functional break from earlier paradigms of imperial religious responsibility, exhibited through the transformation of the office of emperor into what was primarily, if not entirely, what we might regard as a secular position.30 however, the modern political categories that separate secular and religious authority would have been utterly meaningless to an inhabitant of the ancient mediterranean basin. such a separation had little, if any, history in roman cultural structures or in the development of the office of emperor. rather, as noted in the previous chapter, these spheres had long been intertwined, with secular agents acting as religious agents and vice versa.31 Throughout most of roman history, the emperor was assumed to be a prominent figure in roman imperial religion, both as the holder of a collection of prominent priesthoods and as the object of cult. Constantine’s acts of patronage in the building of cult sites were clearly in line with established practices of emperors dedicating or refurbishing temples in honor of the gods who aided in their success.32 Like his predecessors, too, Constantine continued to fulfill the roles expected of the emperor in the traditional cult practices of the empire, including participating in the rituals performed on its behalf.33 One piece of evidence that suggests that Constantine engaged in traditional practices is a representation on the arch of Constantine in rome of the emperor performing animal sacrifice during his decennalia in July 315. Perhaps, as Jonathan Bardill notes, this image is a 30. Gilbert Dagron, Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2–3; h. a. Drake, “Intolerance, religious Violence, and Political Legitimacy in Late antiquity,” JAAR 79, no. 1 (march 2011): 214–15. 31. see chap. 1, pp. 34–37 for discussion. 32. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 466; Jill harries, Imperial Rome AD 284 to 363: The New Empire (edinburgh: edinburgh University Press, 2012), 159. For counterarguments characterizing Constantine’s policy on traditional cults as intolerance or active persecution, see Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, 210–11, 247–48, reiterated in Barnes, Dynasty, Religion and Power, 16. Casting the dynamics of Constantine’s “religious policy” in terms of tolerance or intolerance (or indeed as a policy) is misleading, because it implies modern assertions about religious freedom and diversity. In a late antique context, tolerance does not imply a lack of negative pressure or coercion, nor does it imply concord between religious groups, much less an easy inclusion of competing groups akin to modern models of religious diversity. see the analysis of these issues in Dagron, Emperor and Priest, 127–29, and raymond Van Dam, Remembering Constantine and the Milvian Bridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), esp. 5–14 and 219–23. above all, we should not assume that Constantine was a consistent agent or that his stance on cult was static or unconstrained by convention and the actions of other agents. 33. see eusebios, Vita Constantini, esp. book 3. It should also be noted that eusebios, our main source for Constantine’s engagement with cult matters, paints Constantine as a new augustus, who restores the failing health of the empire and rectifies cultic neglect. For a brief summary of the consonance between Constantine and augustus, see Limberis, Divine Heiress, 7–10, 38. Constantine himself would become an exemplar of emperorship, both as the good emperor and as the bad emperor. Consider, e.g., Themistios’s invocation of Constantine in his praise of Jovian as a “very Constantine” in Oratio 5.70d. Constantine becomes the primary authorizing agent for Theodosios II. see chap. 5, p. 163–65.

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repurposing of an older one; even so, the action depicted was well within prevailing expectations of imperial cult engagement.34 Other sources testify to similar activity on the part of Constantine. an anonymous panegyric records that Constantine consulted (but rejected) the haruspices before meeting maxentius’s army at milvian Bridge in 313.35 a rescript from Constantine responding to a lightning strike at the Coliseum in 320 allows for the consultation of the haruspices.36 These occasions appeal to the traditional prerogative of a consulting magistrate or imperator to affirm or veto the results of public haruspicy.37 eusebios even intimates in his Life of Constantine that it was the emperor himself who performed the divine mysteries: On days of the Feast of the savior . . . [Constantine] would perform [ἐτελεῖτο] the divine mysteries with his whole strength and body, on the one hand wholly dedicated to purity of life, and on the other initiating [ἐξάρχων] the festival for all. he transformed the sacred vigil into daylight, as those appointed to the task lit huge wax tapers throughout the city. . . . When dawn interposed, in imitation of the beneficence of the savior he opened his beneficent hand to all the provinces, peoples, and cities, making rich gifts of every kind to them all.38

eusebios presents a Constantine who is actively engaged in the ritual life of the empire, not simply by arranging for particular ritual actions, but also by performing them himself. On account of the challenge this presents to a secularizing reading of Constantine’s reign (not to mention the discomfort of an emperor perform34. Jonathan Bardill, Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 276. Bardill, however, is hesitant to assert that these sacrifices did occur. however, the image on the arch of Constantine performing his traditional cultic duties as emperor is significant, even if it has been reworked from an earlier one. 35. Panegyrici Latini 12.2.2–4. Based on the omission of a description of the expected Capitoline sacrifice during Constantine’s triumphal procession in rome, richard krautheimer and Johannes straub have both argued that the emperor refused to offer this sacrifice. an argument from silence is not evidence enough to support this conclusion, but neither do we have firm literary evidence that he did. see krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals, 42n3; Johannes straub, “Constantine as ΚΟΙΝΟΣ ΕΠΙΣΚΟΠΟΣ: tradition and Innovation in the representation of the First Christian emperor’s majesty,” DOP 21 (1967): 41–42. 36. CTh 16.10.1 (march 8, 321). see discussion in John Curran, “Constantine and the ancient Cults of rome: The Legal evidence,” Greece & Rome, 2nd ser., 43, no. 1 (april 1996): 71–72. 37. see mary Beard, John north, and simon Price, Religions of Rome, vol. 1: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 22–23, 29. 38. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.22.1–2: ταῖς δὲ τῆς σωτηρίου ἑορτῆς ἡμέραις . . . τὰς θείας ἱεροφαντίας ἐτελεῖτο, ὧδε μὲν ἁγνείᾳ βίου ὅλως ἀνακείμενος, ὧδε δὲ τοῖς πᾶσι τῆς ἑορτῆς ἐξάρχων. τὴν δ’ ἱερὰν διανυκτέρευσιν μετέβαλλεν εἰς ἡμερινὰ φῶτα, κηροῦ κίονας ὑψηλοτάτους καθ’ ὅλης ἐξαπτόντων τῆς πόλεως τῶν ἐπὶ τούτῳ τεταγμένων, λαμπάδες δ’ ἦσαν πυρὸς πάντα φωτίζουσαι τόπον . . . διαλαβούσης δὲ τῆς ἕω . . . πᾶσιν ἔθνεσι λαοῖς τε καὶ δήμοις τὴν εὐεργετικὴν ἐξήπλου δεξιάν, πλούσια πάντα τοῖς πᾶσι δωρούμενος (trans. averil Cameron and stuart hall, Eusebius: Life of Constantine [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999], 160–61).

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ing the mysteries), some interpreters have been nervous about this passage and have attempted to distance eusebios from the possibility that he is implying that Constantine is officiating at liturgy.39 however, eusebios’s language is quite explicit: Constantine does not merely participate in the rites, but he performs (ἐτελεῖτο) and leads (ἐξάρχων) them. The emperor’s continued responsibility in matters of cult can be seen most visibly in the continued identification of the reigning emperor as pontifex maximus during the fourth century. as pontifex maximus, Constantine would have expected to exercise his judgment in the empire’s religious affairs and, on occasion, more local matters. It is generally clear that Constantine brought Christ into the official pantheon of the state and thus invited the cult of Christ to enter the civic landscape, but it is also clear that this invitation did not immediately entail the eradication of traditional cult practices.40 Despite injunctions against animal sacrifice, the traditional temples were left intact, even protected, and there was no legislation forcing the population of the empire to participate in Christian ritual practices. In other words, Constantine seems to have taken the role of pontifex maximus seriously and understood its application to the religion of the empire as a whole, not exclusively to either Christianity or traditional state cult. Leaving aside for the moment Constantine’s innovation of bringing Christian cult into the monumental armature of the new city, Constantine’s actions followed traditional expectations in a number of ways. In founding the city, for example, he followed the rites of limitatio, which, like other momentous decisions, involved consulting a god (or gods). While our sources for the rites of 324 are limited, they suggest that some form of divination occurred. Our earliest source here is the Constantinopolitan author Philostorgios, writing in the second quarter of the fifth century: Constantine, in the twenty-eighth year of his reign, transformed Byzantium into Constantinople and went around its perimeter on foot marking it off, carrying his spear in his hand. now those following him thought that the area was being extended further than it ought, so one of them went up to him and asked, “how much farther, my lord?” he answered quite plainly, “Until the one who is in front of me stops,” thus making it evident that he was being guided by some heavenly power who was teaching him what to do.41 39. see, e.g., straub, “Constantine as ΚΟΙΝΟΣ ΕΠΙΣΚΟΠΟΣ,” 49–50. 40. nicole Belayche, “Realia versus leges? Les sacrifices de la religion d’État au IVe siècle,” in La cuisine et l’autel: Les sacrifices en questions dans les sociétés de la Méditerranée ancienne, ed. stella Georgoudi et al. (turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 345– 54; scott Bradbury, “Constantine and the Problem of antiPagan Legislation in the Fourth Century,” CPh 89, no. 2 (april 1994): 120–39; michele renee salzman, “religious Koine and religious Dissent in the Fourth Century,” in A Companion to Roman Religion, ed. Jörg rüpke (malden, ma: Blackwell, 2007), 109–11. 41. Philostorgios 2.9: Ὅτι Κωνσταντῖνόν φησιν ὀκτὼ καὶ εἰκοστῷ ἔτει τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ τὸ Βυζάντιον εἰς Κωνσταντινούπολιν μετασκευάσαι, καὶ τὸν περίβολον ὁριζόμενον βάδην τε περιιέναι, τὸ

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The limitatio performed by Constantine roughly follows legendary descriptions of romulus’s marking rome’s pomerium by plow, described by Livy, Ovid, and Dionysius of halicarnassus.42 If the rituals followed the example of previous city foundations, they would have included acts of divination to secure divine protection for the city.43 Perhaps this detail is what John Lydos, writing in the sixth century, had in mind when he notes that Constantine was aided by the priests Praetextatus and sopater.44 as tenuous as this evidence is, it suggests the imagined continuity in Constantine’s actions as emperor and the established frameworks of roman religion, despite the fact that he had supposedly dedicated his city to a new God. It is notable, too, that Constantine preserved the city’s temples, even if sacrifices to their gods were no longer performed. traditional religious patterns persisted at other sites, particularly at sites associated with assertions of divine protection for the empire. We should not, for example, divorce the traditional associations of Constantinople’s Capitolion and its importance in honoring the Capitoline triad.45 another important example here is the temple of the tychē, the tutelary deity who promoted the city’s fortune and prosperity. This cult continued to have a central presence in the city’s civic cult into the fifth century, if not later. sokrates claims that the emperor Julian personally offered sacrifices to the tychē of Constantinople in the basilika.46 The sixth-century chronicler John malalas describes the institution of annual festivities in honor of Constantine and the tychē: δόρυ τῇ χειρὶ φέροντα· ἐπεὶ δὲ τοῖς ἑπομένοις ἐδόκει μεῖζον ἢ προσῆκε τὸ μέτρον ἐκτείνειν, προσελθεῖν τε αὐτῷ τινα καὶ διαπυνθάνεσθαι· “ἕως ποῦ, δέσποτα;” τὸν δὲ ἀποκρινάμενον διαρρήδην φάναι· “ἕως ἂν ὁ ἔμπροσθέν μου στῇ,” ἐπίδηλον ποιοῦντα ὡς δύναμις αὐτοῦ τις οὐρανία προηγοῖτο, τοῦ πραττομένου διδάσκαλος (trans. Philip amidon, Philostorgius: Church History [atlanta: society of Biblical Literature, 2007], 24). sozomenos (Historia ecclesiastica 2.3.3) comments that Constantine enlarged the city “obeying the words of God” (τοῖς θεοῦ λόγοις πεισθεὶς), an ambiguous phrase that could hint at the limitatio rites. 42. Livy, Ab urbe condita 1.7.2; Ovid, Fasti 4.833–48; Dionysios of halicarnassos, Antiquitates Romanae 1.88.2. see also Beard et al., Religions of Rome, 175–79; stéphane Benoist, “Les processions dans la cité: De la mise en scène de l’espace urbain,” in Roma illustrata: Représentations de la ville. Actes du colloque international de Caen (6–8 octobre 2005), ed. Philippe Fleury and Olivier Desbordes (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2008), 50–51. Constantine’s limitatio of Constantinople effectively establishes a mythological lineage between romulus, augustus, and Constantine. Dagron suggests that literary constructions of Byzas might also play into this mythological complex by casting the mythical king as a both a pagan Constantine and a Byzantine romulus. see Dagron, Naissance, 375. 43. Bassett, Urban Image, 23. 44. John Lydos, De mensis 4.2. For the anachronistic identification of Praetextus see Lenski, “tyche of Constantinople,” 345. 45. see Bardill, Divine Emperor, 263; Bassett, Urban Image, 34; F. Bauer, “Urban space,” 30; C. mango, “triumphal Way,” 177; kristina sessa, Daily Life in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 54. 46. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 3.11; see also sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 5.4 ; Zosimos, Historia nova 2.31.2–3; John malalas, Chronographia 13.8. This is most likely the imperial basilika across

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The Founding of a City [Constantine] celebrated a great festival on the 11th of may and artemisia . . . ordering by his sacred decree that on that day the festival of the anniversary of the city should be celebrated. . . . he had another statue made of himself in gilded wood, bearing in its right hand the tychē of the city, itself gilded, which he called anthousa. he ordered that on the same day as the anniversary race-meeting this wooden statue should be brought in, escorted by the soldiers wearing cloaks and boots, all holding candles; the carriage should march around the turning post and reach the pit opposite the kathisma, and the emperor of the time should rise and make obeisance as he gazed at this statue of Constantine and the tychē of the city.47

The seventh-century Chronicon paschale repeats malalas’s account in an abbreviated but nearly verbatim form. This appears to be the same statue and festival later referred to several times in the Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai (early- to mideighth century), a collection of notes on the topography of Constantinople, which claims that these festivities continued to be observed on the city’s genethlion (anniversary of foundation) until the reign of Theodosios I.48 This same source specifies that the statue was escorted from the Philadelphion to the Forum, where it received hymns and proskynēsis from the people of city. It was then raised upon a pillar to a from the augusteion. sokrates only states that the tyche is in “the basilika” (ἐν τῇ βασιλικῇ, ἔνθα καὶ τὸ τῆς Τύχης ἵδρυται ἄγαλμα). The Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae records two basilikas in the city during the early fifth century, only one of which (the basilika near the augusteion) existed during Julian’s reign; the other having been constructed during the Theodosian dynasty. see Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae 232, 236, 242, and discussion in John matthews, “The Notitia Urbis Constantinople,” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, ed. Lucy Grig and Gavin kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 103–4. 47. John malalas, Chronographia 13.8: καὶ ἐπετέλεσεν ἑορτὴν μεγάλην μηνὶ μαΐῳ τῷ καὶ ἀρτεμισίῳ ιαʹ . . . κελεύσας διὰ θείου αὐτοῦ τύπου τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐπιτελεῖσθαι τὴν ἑορτὴν τοῦ γενεθλιοῦ τῆς πόλεως αὐτοῦ . . . ποιήσας ἑαυτῷ ἄλλην στήλην ξοάνου κεχρυσωμένην βαστάζουσαν τῇ δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ χειρὶ τὴν τύχην τῆς αὐτῆς πόλεως καὶ αὐτὴν κεχρυσωμένην, ἐκάλεσεν Ἄνθουσαν, κελεύσας κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ἡμέραν τοῦ γενεθλιακοῦ ἱππικοῦ εἰσιέναι τὴν αὐτὴν τοῦ ξοάνου στήλην διριγευομένην ὑπὸ τῶν στρατιωτῶν μετὰ χλαμύδων καὶ καμπαγίων, πάντων κατεχόντων κηρούς, καὶ περιέρχεσθαι τὸ ὄχημα τὸν ἄνω καμπτὸν καὶ ἔρχεσθαι εἰς τὸ σκάμμα κατέναντι τοῦ βασιλικοῦ καθίσματος, καὶ ἐγείρεσθαι τὸν κατὰ καιρὸν βασιλέα καὶ προσκυνεῖν, ὡς θεωρεῖ τὴν αὐτὴν στήλην Κωνσταντίνου καὶ τῆς τύχης τῆς πόλεως (trans. elizabeth Jeffreys, michael Jeffreys, et al., The Chronicle of John Malalas, Byzantina australiensa 4 [melbourne: australian association for Byzantine studies, 1986], 175, with minor emendations). The Chronicon paschale (330; P285b) offers the same account, abbreviated but nearly verbatim. Both malalas (Chronographia 13.7) and the Chronicon paschale (328; P284c) state that upon founding the city, Constantine had offered the city’s tychē a bloodless sacrifice. 48. see Parastaseis 5, 38, 56. But also note that Parastaseis 38 claims that Julian had the tychē destroyed, reportedly because she bore a cross. For the source’s misidentification of this statue, see averil Cameron and Judith herrin, Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 172; see also the notation in raymond Janin, Constantinople byzantine: Développement urbain et répertoire topographique, 2nd ed. (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 1964), 23–24.

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hundred acclamations of Kyrie eleison.49 While we should rightly be cautious about the testimony of later sources, it is possible that their shared source provides some evidence for fourth-century practices, as noel Lenski has argued.50 If they do, two observations should be made. First, Constantine’s establishment of a new ritual, including the commissioning of its cult statue, falls well within the expectations of the imperial office. second, with its procession, incense, acclamations, and celebratory games, not to mention the performative role of the emperor and his army, the ritual itself draws on long established patterns. another way in which Constantinople’s cult landscape continued to participate in established religious frameworks appears in the continuing centrality of the emperor and his family. Before the 380s, emperors rarely sustained a physical presence in any one city, and Constantinople was hardly an exception.51 Consequently, an emperor’s active engagement with the cult life of Constantinople was dependent upon the relatively short periods of time that he spent in the city. There were, however, other ways in which the emperor was omnipresent in the new city. Practices traditionally associated with the cult of the emperor, including the celebration of his dies natalis and dies imperii and rituals performed before statues of the emperor, being perhaps the most notable.52 eusebios claims that Constantine had forbidden the erection of his image in shrines.53 as averil Cameron and stuart hall note, however, eusebios’s assertion is inconsistent with the hispellum inscription, a copy of a rescript dated to the 330s (in other words, roughly contemporary with Constantine’s building activities in Constantinople).54 The rescript grants permission to the newly formed city to erect a temple for imperial cult and the celebration of games to honor of the imperial family, provided that the temple “not be polluted by the delusions of contagious superstitio,” a reference taken to mean traditional sacrifice.55 Barbara Burrell has 49. Parastaseis 56. see F. Bauer, “Urban space,” 35, for the suggestion that these rituals had their origins in the cult of the deified emperor. 50. Lenski, “tyche of Constantinople,” 342–44. 51. For an outline of the patterns of imperial residence and movement, see Dagron, Naissance, 77–86. 52. simon Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 188–90, 210–15; maria kantirea, “Imperial Birthday rituals in Late antiquity,” in Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. alexander Beihammer et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 40–42. 53. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.16. 54. kayoko tabata, “The Date and setting of the Constantinian Inscription of hispellum (CIL XI, 5265 = ILs 705),” Studi Classici e Orientali 45 (may 1997): 371–78. 55. ILS 705 ll. 47–48: “ne aedis nostro nomini dedicata cuiusquam contagiose superstionis fraudibus polluatur.” see discussion in michele renee salzman “Superstitio and the Persecution of Pagans in the Codex Theodosianus,” VC 41, no. 2 (June 1987): 178; salzman, “religious Koine and religious Dissent,” 112; averil Cameron and stuart hall, Eusebius: Life of Constantine (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

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suggested that the temples for imperial cult were likely to be the last of the traditional cultic structures to be dismantled or converted, because of their importance as locations for performing loyalty and a means of reminding the emperor of his obligations as benefactor.56 While there is no explicit evidence for such structures in Constantinople itself, several locations in the city would have been appropriate the performances of imperial cult. One such location is the augusteion, where Constantine had erected a statue of his mother, along with images of former emperors and the imperial family. During the following decades, the site would accumulate imperial images, including an image of the empress eudoxia at the beginning of the fifth century.57 sarah Bassett describes this forum as an “almost neutral point of convergence” for the civic, commercial, and religious spaces surrounding it. however, such a site was in line with earlier neokoroi, and thus would have lent itself to the veneration of the emperor, with incense, proskynēsis, games, and dancing. If the site was important for the worship of the imperial family, the convergence was far from neutral.58 rather it was a site that allowed—perhaps demanded—the ritual performance of loyalty to the imperial person in the heart of the Constantinian administrative complex. It is reasonable to suppose that rituals honoring imperial persons, such as incense sacrifices and proskynēsis, would have occurred there. In fact, we have some hint that this type of activity occurred at the augusteion even in the early fifth century. as part of the dedication of eudoxia’s statue, the urban prefect organized a panēgyreis, and according to sokrates, games were regularly held at the statue, a situation that aroused the ire of John Chrysostom.59 another image of the emperor was located atop a column in the Forum of Constantine. as reported by Photios, the early fifth-century Constantinopolitan historian Philostorgios describes the veneration of this image: “Our enemy of God accuses the Christians of worshipping with sacrifices the image of Constantine set up upon the porphyry column, of paying homage to it with lamp-lighting and incense or of praying to it as to a god, and of offering it supplications to avert 1999), 316. sokrates marks the establishment of Constantine’s image in the temples across the empire shortly after Constantinople’s foundation of Constantinople as the abandonment of traditional cult, but this glosses over (intentionally or not) the significance of rituals attached to these images. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.18.1. 56. Barbara Burrell, Neokoroi: Greek Cities and Roman Emperors (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 303; see also richard Gordon, “The roman Imperial Cult and the question of Power,” in The Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians, ed. John north and simon r. F. Price (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 41–42; Price, Rituals and Power, 245–47. 57. hesychios, Patria 17; John malalas, Chronographia 13.8. The bilingual inscription from the base of the statue survives; see CIL 03.736 ( = ILS 822, CIG 8614). 58. Bassett, Urban Image, 24, 33. 59. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.18.1–2; Theophanes, Chronographia am 5898.

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calamities.”60 Philostorgios does not interpret these actions as simple acts of honoring the head of state; rather they followed a traditional pattern of worshiping the emperor as divi, marked by prayer, offerings of incense, and the burning of lamps, with the expectation that the suppliants would receive protection from that deity in return.61 While Philostorgios’s testimony postdates Constantine by nearly a century and is meant to slander nicene Christians through Constantine, this type of activity fits well within the parameters of traditional imperial cult and would have been a natural expression for a population already accustomed to this cult. I think it probable that some activity of this nature would have been practiced in Constantinople during Constantine’s reign in the decades following its founding, and perhaps well into the fifth century. The second site is Constantine’s mausoleum, the apostoleion. Unfortunately, the apostoleion itself no longer stands. after being extensively remodeled during the Byzantine period, it was destroyed in the fifteenth century, and the site is now occupied by a mosque, the Fatih Camii.62 Our earliest description of the Constantinian structure appears in eusebios’s Life of Constantine, discussed in more detail below. according to this description, the mausoleum was an imposing sight, situated at the highest point of the city in its relatively sparse and open northwestern region. The structure fit the established format of imperial mausolea.63 eusebios describes it as having a circular plan, surrounded by a quadriportico.64 The emperor’s sarcophagus 60. Philostorgios 2.17: Οὗτος ὁ θεομάχος καὶ τὴν Κωνσταντίνου εἰκόνα, τὴν ἐπὶ τοῦ πορφυροῦ κίονος ἱσταμένην, θυσίαις τε ἱλάσκεσθαι καὶ λυχνοκαΐαις καὶ θυμιάμασι τιμᾶν, καὶ εὐχὰς προσάγειν ὡς θεῷ καὶ ἀποτροπαίους ἱκετηρίας τῶν δεινῶν ἐπιτελεῖν τοὺς Χριστιανοὺς κατηγορεῖ (trans. amidon, Philostorgios, 35). 61. Behind this action, too, is the principle that such actions would be efficacious because the act of honoring an image is the same as honoring the prototype. 62. mark J. Johnson, The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 119. according to sokrates (Historia ecclesiastica 2.38.35–43), Constantius renovated the original structure following an earthquake. Prokopios (De aedificiis 1.4.9–18) comments on the significant renovations undertaken by Justinian. 63. Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum, 124. 64. significant debate surrounds the construction date and plan of the site. Gilbert Dagron, richard krautheimer, averil Cameron, and stuart hall date the church (and the mausoleum within it) to Constantine, whereas Glanville Downey argues that Constantine was temporarily buried elsewhere and his remains then transferred to a permanent structure built by Constantius. Downey dismisses eusebios’s statement detailing the emperor’s burial at the apostoleion (Vita Constantini 4.71) because he regards it as a later interpolation. Cyril mango and Jonathan Bardill have argued that the mausoleum itself dated to Constantine, while the church known during the Byzantine period was added to the site later in the fourth century, perhaps under Constantius. according to Gregory of nazianzos (Carmina de se ipso 16.59–60; PG 37.1258), the church had a cruciform plan, a detail repeated by John Chrysostom (Contra Iudaeos et gentiles quod Christus sit deus 9.6; In 2 ad Corinthios 26.53), although John distinguishes between the church and the mausoleum. krautheimer relies on Gregory’s and John’s testimony in his assertion that the original structure was cruciform. I find most persuasive mango’s argument that the

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stood at the center. and like imperial mausolea before it, the apostoleion would have been a natural location for venerating the deified emperor, particularly for a population already habituated to such practices. Participating in rituals of veneration at the tomb of Constantine would have visibly demonstrated a person’s loyalty to rome and Constantine’s son and successor. In short, Constantine’s new city did not boast a civic landscape that asserted a vision of Christian primacy, let alone actively excluded non-Christian cult. rather, the emperor’s additions privileged a traditionalist environment, including prominent temples that stressed the city’s continuity with classical foundation narratives and genealogies rather than a Christian historical narrative. Indeed, the Christian footprint of the Constantinian city was limited to two sites associated with imperial patronage, namely, hagia eirene and the apostoleion, the latter of which likely had ambiguous Christian associations at best. The next firmly identifiable imperial Christian temple would not be added to the landscape until around 360, with the inauguration of the Great Church under Constantius.65 Overall, Christian structures were outnumbered by structures with traditional cult resonances, some with the credentials of antiquity: temples to apollo, aphrodite, and rhea, the tychaion, the shrine of the Dioskouroi, and the Capitolion. For a new imperial city founded by a supposedly Christian emperor, the Christian architectural presence was minimal—certainly not an ideal situation for those who desired to emphasize the emperor’s patronage of Christian cult.66 original structure was a rotunda mausoleum, with a new shrine added later. For discussion, see Jonathan Bardill, Brickstamps of Constantinople, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 54–55; av. Cameron and hall, Life of Constantine, 337–39; Dagron, Naissance, 397–99, 403; Glanville Downey, “The Builder of the Original Church of the apostles at Constantinople: a Contribution to the Criticism of the ‘Vita Constantini’ attributed to eusebius,” DOP 6 (1951): 51–80; Downey, “The tombs of the Byzantine emperors at the Church of the holy apostles in Constantinople,” JHS 79 (1959): 27–51; Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum, 118–23, with a survey of possible site plans at 125–27; krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals, 56, 58–60 and Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 69; and C. mango, “Constantine’s mausoleum,” 57. 65. The Chronicon paschale dates the inauguration of the Great Church to 360 (P293d). The structure would have been identifiable as a Christian temple before its completion, but the duration of its construction cannot be determined. two other sites, martyria for akakios and mokios, may date Constantine’s reign. Unfortunately, the earliest source for the martyrion of akakios is sokrates, whose testimony indicates only that that the author knew the site and believed it to date to Constantine. even if these were early sites, it is impossible to determine what role, if any, they played in patterns of civic ritual life before the fifth century. sokrates’s testimony suggests that they were primarily local shrines and only occasionally entered the imperial narrative, e.g., when makedonios attempted to relocate Constantine’s body to the shrine of akakios. see discussion in David Woods, “The Church of ‘st.’ acacius at Constantinople,” VC 55, no. 2 (2001): 202–3. 66. For a city of its size, however, two sites during the period may have been sufficient. according to Dagron’s calculations, the area of the Constantinian city was only seven square kilometers (2.7 square miles), with an estimated population of 100,000–150,000. see Dagron, Naissance, 524–25, with

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the PrOBLems OF an InherIteD r e L IG IO U s L a n D s C a P e

For Constantine, the new capital city’s landscape had held certain advantages: by allowing the largely traditional roman past to occupy it, Constantine could lean on the ambiguities and imaginaries of that past to support his claims to imperial authority. But these imaginaries were too ambiguous—or not ambiguous enough— and needed to be further redefined. even if, for Constantine, the visual assertion of Christianity’s place in Constantinople was secondary to displays asserting the city’s imperial status, the insertion of Christianity into the landscape was a primary concern for others, particularly for the bishops who sought the emperor’s patronage. Indeed, the visual presence of sites associated with traditional cult, including the veneration of the emperor, would have presented real problems to Christian bishops attempting to gain a foothold in the city. somewhat paradoxically, it was Constantine’s monumentalization of the city that provided opportunities for Christians to insinuate their own presence into it. Constantine’s extension of the city’s walls had left vast tracts of land waiting for development and provided an extensive blank canvas on which the empire’s elite—senators, rhetors, philosophers, even bishops—could paint their ambitions. Despite their appearance of stability, Constantinople’s monuments, like all monuments, were unstable in meaning and provided a space in which to contest assigned meanings and inscribe new ones.67 Christian authors could contain the structuring elements of the traditional roman landscape by rhetorically reshaping people’s experience of it and reasserting Constantine’s devotion to Christianity.68 This is precisely what eusebios does in his Life of Constantine, written for Constantine’s heir, Constantius, shortly after the former’s death.69 Throughout the Life, the caution that population estimates for ancient cities are notoriously imprecise. By Theodosios II’s reign, the city had doubled in area and quadrupled in population. The cultic armature of the city had also changed significantly. The traditional temples had been dismantled, shifting the physical and notional orientations of the cultic landscape to Christian sites scattered across the city. according to the Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae (430s) at least twelve imperial church foundations commanded the early fifth-century civic topography, accompanied by smaller shrines, martyria, and similar sites of localized Christian cult. see J. matthews, “Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae,” 99. 67. see susan alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1–32; michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. steven rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 100–105; edward soja, Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions (malden, ma: Blackwell, 2000), 7; and Christopher tilley, “Introduction: Identity, Place, Landscape and heritage,” Journal of Material Culture 11, no. 1–2 (July 2006): 7–8. 68. For the role of erasure and the reinterpretation of monuments in constructing collective or social memory, see alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past, 3–5. 69. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.58–60. The Life has sometimes been understood to be a biography of the emperor, but is more appropriately read as a basilikos logos (speech in praise of the emperor)

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eusebios demonstrates his investment in the construction of an imperial Christian landscape. he notes the construction of Christian sites by members of the imperial family across the eastern empire, particularly in Palestine (i.e., the holy sepulcher, the Grotto of the nativity, the mount of Olives, and the Oak of mamre), but in nikomedia and antioch as well.70 Constantine’s own city, the bishop asserts, similarly benefited from the adornments of Christian cult, for the emperor constructed “very many places of worship [and] very large martyr-shrines” there, although eusebios is surprisingly vague about the identity and locations of these sites.71 he further claims that the emperor “saw fit to purge [the city] of all idol-worship, so that nowhere in it appeared those images of the supposed gods which are worshipped in temples, nor altars in fire, nor feasts of demons, nor any of the other customs of the superstitious.”72 Instead Constantine embellished the city with “emblems of the Good shepherd” and even adorned the ceiling of the palace with the cross.73 eusebios imposes a similar interpretation onto Constantine’s statuary collection. Because Constantine had removed the statues from their original settings and placed them in public spaces, eusebios asserts, they no longer held any cultic significance. rather, the cult statues were now “toys for the laughter and amusement of the spectators,” and their exposure to ridicule corrected those infected with the “error” of traditional worship.74 In other words, placing the gods’ statues in a public, profane space divorced them from the sacred space of the and funeral oration written on the occasion of the emperor’s death. see sabine macCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 3–5. For comparable texts from a slightly later period, see Gregory of nazianzos, Orationes 7 (for kaisarios), 8 (for Gorgonia), and 43 (for Basil); Gregory of nyssa, Vita Macrinae; Jerome, Epistula 108 (on Paula); ambrose of milan, De obitu Theodosii. For discussions on the cohesiveness of the Vita Constantini and its attribution to eusebios, see timothy D. Barnes, “Panegyric, history and hagiography in eusebius’ Life of Constantine,” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, ed. rowan Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 94–123; av. Cameron and hall, Life of Constantine, 4–8, 46–47. 70. see eusebios, Vita Constantini 3.25–41, 3.43.1–3; 3.50; 3.51–53; see also Constantine’s letter authorizing Christian possession of cult sites in Palestine at 2.24–42 (esp. 2.40). 71. eusebios, Vita Constantini 3.48.1: εὐκτηρίοις πλείοσιν . . . μαρτυρίοις τε μεγίστοις (trans. av. Cameron and hall, Life of Constantine, 140). 72. eusebios, Vita Constantini 3.48.2: καθαρεύειν εἰδωλολατρίας ἁπάσης ἐδικαίου, ὡς μηδαμοῦ φαίνεσθαι ἐν αὐτῇ τῶν δὴ νομιζομένων θεῶν ἀγάλματα ἐν ἱεροῖς θρησκευόμενα, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ βωμοὺς λύθροις αἱμάτων μιαινομένους, οὐ θυσίας ὁλοκαυτουμένας πυρί, οὐ δαιμονικὰς ἑορτάς, οὐδ’ ἕτερόν τι τῶν συνήθων τοῖς δεισιδαίμοσιν (trans. av. Cameron and hall, Life of Constantine, 140). 73. eusebios, Vita Constantini 3.49: τὰ τοῦ καλοῦ ποιμένος σύμβολα (trans. av. Cameron and hall, Life of Constantine, 140). 74. eusebios, Vita Constantini 3.54.3: ἀθύρμασιν ἐπὶ γέλωτι καὶ παιδιᾷ τῶν ὁρώντων (trans. av. Cameron and hall, Life of Constantine, 143). see further discussion in Bassett, Urban Image, 48–49. Cyril mango has suggested that a similar act of interpretation may have been involved in the conspicuous use of spolia in Christian churches. Cyril mango, “antique statuary and the Byzantine Beholder,” DOP 17 (1963): 63–64.

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temple and changed their meanings as monuments. Whatever Constantine’s own motives in developing the new capital city, eusebios provided an interpretation for how his actions should be understood by subsequent generations, beginning with Constantine’s own son. at the same time, however, eusebios’s attempt to control the interpretation of the city’s visual environment betrays how troubling the persistence of traditional elements was for those interested in asserting the Christian identity of the city. his adamant denials of cult statues’ efficacy demonstrate their continued potency even in the “profane” spaces of Constantinople, as well as his deep fear of their threatening presence. The power such images held in the late antique imagination is illustrated by an episode related in the satirical Amores text attributed to Lucian of samosata, which explores the nature of love and physical attraction.75 much can be said about this text, but my interest here is in the way it explores the potential of images of the gods. having arrived at the temple of aphrodite in knidos, the narrative’s protagonists admire Praxiteles’s famed statue of the goddess until they notice a dark flaw on the back of the statue’s thigh. The flaw, they learn, is the result of a sordid encounter: a young man had once fallen in love with the statue and spent entire days at the temple in order to admire her. he would whisper to the goddess as to a lover and cast dice to determine whether the goddess reciprocated his affections. as he became more consumed by his desire, he filled the temenos (sacred precinct) with graffiti addressed to the goddess. eventually, he could no longer contain his passion and concealed himself behind the doors of the temple. Once the gates were closed that evening, he emerged from hiding and had sex with the statue. The tale is intended to be satirical, bawdy, and absurd. yet the scandalous description is valuable in its exploration of how a viewer could respond to the divine and the problems that the prominent display of cult images might introduce. The statue is more than a work of art, and the young man more than an art aficionado. she is the goddess herself, captivating in her beauty; the man is her devotee, responding to her in a way that is only logically appropriate. he has gazed too long at the divine; she has possessed him, and he must comply. The literature of the roman mediterranean, as Jaś elsner reminds us, was frequently vague about distinguishing between deity and image, an “ambiguity” that “afforded an edge of danger, since incorrect treatment of a statue could be construed as an assault on the deity embodied in it.”76 The practices surrounding cult statues—washing, 75. Pseudo-Lucian, Amores 11–16. see further discussion in Jaś elsner, Roman Eyes: Visuality & Subjectivity in Art & Text (Princeton, nJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 117–20. The date of the text is highly contested, with suggestions ranging from the late second through early fourth century. see Christopher P. Jones, “tarsos in the Amores ascribed to Lucian,” GRBS 25 (1984): 180. 76. elsner, Roman Eyes, 11; Ian rutherford, “Theoric Crisis: The Dangers of Pilgrimage in Greek religion and society,” Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni 61 (1995): 283–86.

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dressing, parading, feeding, worshipping—acknowledged this ambiguity and privileged the divine presence. additionally, the practices of divination that sought to elicit a variety of responses from these images—blinking, tears, sweat, utterances— operated precisely on the assumption that these objects were more than mere statues.77 While we do not have evidence for all of these practices in late antique Constantinople, we have tantalizing hints for the shared reverence for cult artifacts: the parading of the statue of the tychē, the burning of incense before the statue of Constantine, and, later, the dancing performed around the statue of the empress eudoxia at the beginning of the fifth century.78 That some of these practices, particularly ritual processions and tactile—and even gustatory—engagement, became associated with relics during the early fifth century suggests a continuity of thought about the presence of the divine in these objects.79 statues of the gods, then, were not and could not be neutral images. They were vehicles for the gods, points at which their power could come into contact with the human community. moreover, the reciprocity of gaze between the human and the divine was powerful and inherently dangerous.80 Without the proper precautions, without the correct interpretative framework to guide viewing, the devotee could become utterly consumed by the encounter. (In fact, this is precisely what happened in the case of the young man at knidos, for having been consumed so entirely by his desire for the goddess, he eventually committed suicide by throwing himself from a cliff.)81 The people—perhaps chief among them, the bishops—believed in their effi77. examples can be found in Lucian, De dea Syria 10; Julian, Oratio 5; John Chrysostom, De sancto hieromartyre Babyla 5. For more on theurgy, see susanna elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 116–18, 123 –25, 307–9; arja karivieri, “magic and syncretic religious Culture in the east,” in Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity, ed. David m. Gwynn and susanne Bangert (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 403–4; emmanuel soler, Le sacré et le salut à Antioche au IVe siècle ap. J.-C.: Pratiques festives et comportements religieux dans le processus de christianisation de la cité (Beirut: Institut français du Proche-Orient, 2006), 43–44. 78. Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 2.17; sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.18; Chronicon paschale 330 (P285b). 79. see, e.g., the processions referenced by John Chrysostom in Homilia dicta postquam reliquiae martyrum, Contra ludos et theatra, and De sancto hieromatyre Phoca; sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.22.15–18, 7.23.11–12, 7.43.1–4; and sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.8, 9.2. For attestation of individuals touching, kissing, licking, and ingesting relics and other eulogiai, see Gregory of nyssa, De sancto Theodoro (GnO 10. 1/2, 62); Jerome, Epistula 108.9.2; and egeria, Itinerarium 3.6–7, 11.1, 15.6. 80. Jaś elsner explores the dynamic between various responses to art (i.e., the tension between philosophical/literary and phenomenological responses) for the authors of the second sophistic. he argues that we cannot take philosophical and literary accounts as the sole (or, I would add, primary) mode of interacting with these images, even if they are the normative perspectives. elsner, “Image and ritual: reflections on the religious appreciation of Classical art,” CQ 46, no. 2 (1996): 526; for further development see elsner, Roman Eyes, 115–21. 81. Ps.-Lucian, Amores 16.

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cacy, both to benefit their devotees and to harm those who refused to worship them. The certainty of divine presence called for an appropriate response—perhaps one not as dramatic as that of the young man at knidos, but certainly a need to recognize and honor the divine presence.82 Consequently, the continued presence of the gods in the public sphere encouraged the perpetuation of traditional cult, and it was up to Christian interpreters to deconstruct and neutralize these images. It is unsurprising, then, that we find eusebios attempting to neutralize Constantinople’s statues by controlling their interpretation. This same anxiety appears behind other late antique accounts of Christian heroes who defeat the daimones that “lived” in the statues. In the fifth-century Life of Porphyry of Gaza, for example, a statue of aphrodite shatters when a cross is brought into its sight, killing several of her worshippers standing nearby.83 It is apparent that eusebios’s primary concern throughout the Life is to assert Constantine’s support of Christian cult. Given what we know about Constantinople’s landscape, however, we should be cautious about overemphasizing his testimony as evidence of a strong Christian cult presence in the city. The bishop’s assertions helped to downplay the problematic elements of a cult landscape that clearly held onto traditional associations; he sought to persuade Constantius to follow his father’s model of piety (at least as it was construed by eusebios). Perhaps the most pronounced example of eusebios’s interpretive work appears at the end of the Life, in his ekphrasis on one of the most important landmarks in Constantinople, the apostoleion. While the ekphrasis on the apostoleion continues his program to position the deceased emperor as the paragon of imperial piety and devotion to Christ, it also wrestles with what it means for an individual traditionally treated as a god by the roman state to be interred within a structure expressly identified as a Christian cult site.84 In order to resolve these tensions, 82. It may be interesting to the reader that knidian aphrodite is documented among the statuary collection assembled at the Lausos Palace in Constantinople. Bassett, “excellent Offerings,” 7, 8–9. 83. mark the Deacon, Vita Porphyrii 61. We also have ample archaeological evidence of crosses incised onto the foreheads of statues. examples include statues contained in the national archaeological museum in athens (3665 and 1762), and rhodes’s Palace of the Grand masters (Byzantine Collection, ΓΧ1278); a bust of a man contained in the archaeological museum in Thessalonica (1061) appears to be similarly etched. Images of each of these items can be found in anastasia Lazaridou, ed., Transition to Christianity: Art of Late Antiquity, 3rd–7th Century AD (new york: alexander s. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, 2011), pl. 38, 113–15. 84. eusebios concludes the sequence surrounding Constantine’s death by mentioning the coinage minted on the occasion. On the obverse, the emperor is depicted with his head veiled (in the manner of certain traditional priesthoods), while on the reverse, he is in a quadriga ascending to heaven, a clear reference to his deification. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.73. an example of such a coin (from the Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection) can be found in av. Cameron and hall, Life of Constantine, 346, with further discussion on 349; Cameron’s and hall’s analysis of the numismatic evidence overstresses a distinction between traditional (“pagan,” in their terminology) consecratio imagery and its application to a “Christian” emperor. It should also be noted that the quadriga also occurs in the iconography of helios (the sun).

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eusebios plays off his audience’s experience of cult and imperial architecture to subtly transform the shrine from an imperial mausoleum into a church dedicated to the apostles of Christ.85 In doing so, he can also assert the legitimacy of Christianity in the highly competitive landscape of Constantinople, still negotiating its ties to both traditional forms of cult and Christianity. according to eusebios, Constantine’s monument was explicitly marked as a martyrion for Christ’s apostles. The shrine consisted of a central altar, surrounded by twelve repositories to honor the apostles.86 The interior walls were covered with variegated stones, its coffered ceiling plated with gold. The exterior was equally majestic, with a roof of copper trimmed with gold, and gold and bronze trelliswork set into its walls. surrounding the building was an open-air courtyard, containing a number of smaller structures (e.g., housing, washrooms, and lamp stores) necessary to the administration of the shrine. The entire complex was marked off from the surrounding city with porticoes open toward the courtyard. eusebios’s description of porticoes, while ambiguous, suggests that the outer walls were solid and created an architectural play that set the space apart from its surroundings and pulled the viewer (and potential worshipper) inward toward the sacred.87 a building plan such as this, in which architectural elements created spaces where the hidden was revealed as the viewer progressed into the site, fit established paradigms for monumental temples.88 The emperor’s sarcophagus, eusebios reports, was placed in the center of the mausoleum with shrines for the twelve apostles on either side.89 The arrangement suggests that Constantine saw himself as a thirteenth apostle or Christ’s earthly counterpart. There are, however, other ways to interpret this space. For the emperor, his son Constantius, and the members of the imperial court, the placement may have likened the emperor to Christ, thus asserting Constantine’s divinity rather than his apostolic status. The arrangement may also have reminded some visitors of helios, surrounded by the zodiac. helios imagery frequently converged with imperial iconography throughout the eastern mediterranean during this period, and Constantine’s devotion to the cult of helios has been document-

85. Dagron, Emperor and Priest, 139. 86. Purported relics of the apostles were later translated to the site, beginning in 356–57 with timothy, andrew, and Luke. see Jerome, Chronicon (helm 240–41); Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 3.2; Chronicon paschale 356–57 c.e. (P293b–c). see robert W. Burgess, “The Passio S. Artemii, Philostorgius, and the Dates of the Invention and translations of the relics of sts. andrew and Luke,” AB 121 (2003): 5–36; C. mango, “Constantine’s mausoleum,” 52–53, 56; Wendy mayer, “Cathedral Church or Cathedral Churches? The situation at Constantinople (c. 360–404 aD),” OCP 66 (2000): 49–60. 87. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.58–59. 88. see elsner, Roman Eyes, 22–26. 89. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.60.3.

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ed.90 In Constantinople itself, Constantine was depicted as helios atop the column in the Forum of Constantine.91 Because of its height (37 meters) and situation atop a hill, the statue was one of the most prominent features of Constantinople’s civic topography and likely visible from the apostoleion.92 a visual connection between the statue and the apostoleion may also be hinted at in eusebios’s description of the dome’s reflection of the sun. again, it is impossible to know if eusebios intended to draw such a connection, but the convergence of imagery is provocative. If the mausoleum contained references to helios or assertions of the emperor’s apotheosis (and I recognize how tenuous this is, given the paucity of information here), eusebios’s ekphrasis on the mausoleum undermined those associations. even so, the strong resonance of traditional cultic structures elsewhere in the city would have suggested to many in the city, particularly those without strong commitments to Christianity, that the mausoleum, too, was in line with earlier mausolea and thus a site of imperial cult. These resonances were only reinforced by the ritualized veneration of Constantine’s corpse, described by eusebios: The commanders of the whole army, the comites and all the ruling class, who were bound by law to pay homage to the emperor first, making no change in their usual routine, filed past at the required times and saluted the emperor on the bier with genuflections after his death in the same way as when he was alive. after these chief persons the members of the senate and all those of official rank came and did the same, and after them crowds of people of all classes with their wives and children came to look.93 90. see marianne Bergmann, Die Strahlen der Herrscher: Theomorphes Herrscherbild und politische Symbolik im Hellenismus und der römischen Kaiserzeit (mainz am rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1998), 282–84; ross kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered (new york: Oxford University Press, 1998), 156–62; elena m. Štaerman, “Le culte impérial, le culte du soleil et celui du temps,” Mélanges Pierre Lévêque 4 (1990), 361–79. For the continued interest in solar imagery by the emperor Julian later in the century, see elm, Sons of Hellenism, 286–99. some of the images of Christ might easily have been taken for images of helios. see robin Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art (London: routledge, 2000), 42–43, 110–12. Compare the appearance of helios imagery in fourth-century Palestinian synagogues, discussed in Jodi magness, “heaven on earth: helios and the Zodiac Cycle in ancient Palestinian synagogues,” DOP 59 (2005): 1–52. 91. Bergmann, Strahlen der Herrscher, 285–86; Bassett, Urban Image, 201. 92. Bryan Ward-Perkins, “Old and new rome Compared: The rise of Constantinople,” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, ed. Lucy Grig and Gavin kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 58–59; J. matthews, “The Notitia Urbis Constantinople,” 113. 93. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.67.1: Οἱ δέ γε τοῦ παντὸς στρατοῦ καθηγεμόνες κόμητές τε καὶ πᾶν τὸ τῶν ἀρχόντων τάγμα, οἷς τὸν βασιλέα καὶ νόμος πρότερον ἦν προσκυνεῖν, μηδὲν τοῦ συνήθους ὑπαλλαξάμενοι τρόπου τοῖς δέουσι καιροῖς εἴσω παριόντες τὸν ἐπὶ τῆς λάρνακος βασιλέα οἷά περ ζῶντα καὶ μετὰ θάνατον γονυκλινεῖς ἠσπάζοντο. μετὰ δὲ τοὺς πρώτους ταῦτ’ ἔπραττον παριόντες οἵ τ’ ἐξ αὐτῆς συγκλήτου βουλῆς οἵ τ’ ἐπ’ ἀξίας πάντες, μεθ’ οὓς ὄχλοι παντοίων δήμων γυναιξὶν ἅμα καὶ παισὶν ἐπὶ τὴν θέαν παρῄεσαν (trans. av. Cameron and hall, Life of Constantine, 179–80).

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eusebios does not attack these actions; in his eyes, these were the only appropriate responses to the death of the emperor. nonetheless, the space and its associated actions contained enough ambiguity that it invited, perhaps demanded, reinterpretation if Christians were to assert Constantine’s unmistakable abandonment of the traditional gods and devotion to Christ. The primary identification of the site as a place to venerate an apotheosized emperor who had been baptized was no doubt out of step with efforts to portray Constantine as a Christian emperor. eusebios’s solution was to transform this particular mausoleum into a site for the veneration of Christ’s twelve apostles. The presence of such prominent figures of Christian mythology would surely have reinforced ties between the emperor and Christ, and the act of visiting the mausoleum could be interpreted as consent to the legitimacy of Christianity within the frameworks of imperial religion.94 eusebios’s insistence that Constantine’s primary goal in constructing the shrine was to honor the apostles places the subversion of Constantine’s divinity squarely on the emperor’s own shoulders. he claims that Constantine’s desire for his body to be placed in the shrine was initially secret, with few aware of the intention, including eusebios.95 The bishop relies on Constantine’s own authority to authorize his reinterpretation—and to a large extent, eusebios’s rhetorical parry was successful, for both writers in Theodosian Constantinople and modern scholars have accepted the bishop’s claims about Constantine’s intentions for the site and what it meant for Constantine to be a Christian emperor. eusebios’s stress on the performance of the liturgy in the presence of the sarcophagus, both in the ekphrasis itself and later in his account of the emperor’s interment, further subverts the site’s possible position as a location for the veneration of the divinized emperor. eusebios is explicit here: Constantine wanted his body placed in the apostoleion because he hoped that those who visited the shrine to invoke the apostles would remember him in their prayers. In this way, his soul would benefit from the “worship which would be conducted there in honor of the apostles.”96 The bishop reinforces his presentation of the mausoleum as a Christian temple in his account of Constantine’s funeral. after Constantius had escorted his father’s body to the apostoleion and laid it in the prepared sarcophagus, he withdrew from the altar to allow the “ministers of God” to conduct the “rites of divine worship.”97 again, eusebios’s narrative subordinates emperor veneration to Christian cult: while the expected tributes are respectfully paid to Constantine, the people honor God, not the emperor. They weep and petition God on behalf of the 94. krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals, 60. 95. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.60.1. 96. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.60.2: ὡς ἂν καὶ μετὰ τελευτὴν ἀξιῶτο τῶν ἐνταυθοῖ μελλουσῶν ἐπὶ τιμῇ τῶν ἀποστόλων συντελεῖσθαι εὐχῶν (trans. av. Cameron and hall, Life of Constantine, 176). 97. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.71.1: οἱ τοῦ θεοῦ λειτουργοὶ . . . τά τῆς ἐνθέου λατρείας δι’ εὐχῶν ἀπεπλήρουν (trans. av. Cameron and hall, Life of Constantine, 181).

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emperor’s soul. In response to the piety of the people, God grants divine favor to the deceased emperor by allowing his body to remain in the shrine.98 Throughout the ekphrasis, the cult of Christ, via the mediation of the apostles, supersedes the cult of the emperor, and the mausoleum becomes a church. The performance of Christian liturgy in this space, from which the unbaptized were supposedly barred, would have had immense ramifications for non-Christian veneration of the divinized emperor. to demonstrate their loyalty to the emperor, the city’s elite would have been required to recognize at some level the sacrality of the site and publicly consent to Christianity as a legitimate expression of imperial religion, even if they themselves did not identify as Christian.99 It is possible, then, that eusebios was playing off this group’s attachment to the recently deceased emperor, which had been cultivated by the constant barrage of public praise and acclamation for the imperial persona and would have included some sense of reverence for the site of the emperor’s burial. no longer was Constantine an emperorgod who received cult at his mausoleum; he now submitted to a new celestial emperor, Christ, to whom such honors were to be directed. Those who approached his sarcophagus now did so under this reordered vision of society—or so eusebios would have his readers believe. eusebios is not simply describing a building; he reorders how the viewer, especially Constantius and the elites who gathered around him, ought to engage with that building and understand the presence of the deceased emperor’s sarcophagus within it.100 Under eusebios’s interpretation, the emperor desired this structure for his mausoleum because it was a holy site, dedicated to the mysteries of Christ; it was not a holy site by virtue of the presence of the divinized emperor’s sarcophagus. eusebios’s ekphrasis, then, dictates the experience of religion in the broadest sense and relies on the apostoleion to make assertions about Christianity in a highly competitive landscape. Under this interpretation, the site becomes a focal point for the marriage of the imperial household and Christian cult that facilitated future assertions about imperial legitimacy and normative Christianity. The remains of emperors, including Constantius and Julian, were placed in the mausoleum.101 so, too, were the purported relics of the apostles timothy, Luke, 98. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.71.1–2. 99. For the blurring of imperial and Christian identification in the apostoleion, see Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum, 129. 100. John Chrysostom engaged in similar reinterpretation of cult and burial spaces in antioch; see Christine shepardson, Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 169–70, 177–87; and discussion in chap. 4, pp. 131–38. 101. Philip Grierson, “The tombs and Obits of the Byzantine emperors (337–1042),” DOP 16 (1962): 23, 40–41; elm, Sons of Hellenism, 439. For a list of imperial remains at the apostoleion, see Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum, 201.

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and andrew in 356/57, which were joined by those of John Chrysostom in 438.102 During the later fourth century, assertions of orthodoxy frequently occurred in the apostoleion: Theodosios I installed Gregory of nazianzos as his bishop at the apostoleion;103 a gang of Gregory’s competitors forced themselves into this same site in order to consecrate maximos;104 and, according to sokrates, it was here that eudoxia forced John Chrysostom’s hand in reconciling with severian, and epiphanios upstaged John Chrysostom by condemning Origen’s books.105 Thus the mausoleum, an imperial site superimposed with Christian meaning, served as a focal point in the Constantinopolitan landscape for claims about the centrality of Christianity in civic and imperial cult life. •

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When Constantine died in nikomedia on may 22, 337, the city, not to mention the region, was thrown into a state of turmoil. The members of the imperial court, the city’s magistrates, and the soldiers who had earlier attended the ailing emperor now approached his body rending their garments, crying out in lamentation, and performing proskynēsis. The atmosphere outside the palace matched that inside it. People ran through the city’s streets in either wailing or in confused silence. soon Constantine’s body was lifted from his deathbed, placed in a golden coffin draped in purple, and escorted to the imperial palace in Constantinople. There the deceased emperor lay in state and received the customary honors until his son Constantius arrived to escort the body to the apostoleion.106 The new city that Constantine left behind was not remarkably Christian. rather, Constantine had constructed an imperial monumental landscape steeped in resonances of traditional cult. at the same time, he signaled the inclusion of Christianity in imperial religious structures by building hagia eirene between the temple complex of Byzantium’s acropolis and the new city’s administrative center. In 102. For the depositions of the apostles, see n. 86 above. For the deposition of John Chrysostom’s remains, see sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.45.2–7; with discussion in nicholas Constas, Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity, Homilies 1–5, Texts and Translations (Leiden, Brill, 2003), 114–15. 103. This is at least the common assumption based on Gregory of nazianzos’s comments in Carmen 2.1.12.888–904. see discussion in Brian Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus (new york: routledge, 2006), 19–20; Lucy Grig and Gavin kelly, “Introduction: From rome to Constantinople,” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, ed. Lucy Grig and Gavin kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 17; John mcGuckin, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (Crestwood, ny: st. Vladimir’s seminary Press, 2001), 325–26, 329. 104. The identification of the church as the site of the ordination is based on the tenuous assumption that the apostoleion was the “cathedral” under Theodosios I. 105. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.11, 6.14. 106. eusebios, Vita Constantini 4.64–71; cf. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.39–40; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 2.34.5. see also Johnson, Roman Imperial Mausoleum, 14.

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examining Contantine’s foundation and organization of Constantinople, as in much study of the ancient world, it is impossible to determine intentionality, and we cannot assume that effect indicates intention or even straightforward action. But actions have unintended consequences. Constantine’s expansion altered the experience of the city and the density of ritual spaces in a way that could not happen in its larger, more established counterparts. Whatever his intentions in choosing Byzantium as his dynastic capital and introducing Christian elements into a relatively traditionalist landscape, this landscape proved to be a fertile arena for competition and fostered conditions that allowed significant changes to occur within the religious and cultic structures of the empire during the following century. It is to the competition among religious actors, particularly among Christian bishops, and their attempts to gain control over the mechanisms of imperial religion that I turn in the following chapter.

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monuments are not considered history. and yet, in a way they are, for they provide a visual, public record of the past, a record that is under constant negotiation. a city’s public monuments, statues, and buildings display the history of those in power, of those with the social and economic means to erect and preserve, of those who have a stake in defining the past, present, and future. But monuments, and the landscapes containing them, are anything but stable. They collect meanings and become sites of contention and conflict. Their importance and meanings change when they are toppled or moved, renamed, or joined by new monuments. such spaces invite conflict, not only as tangible objects that individuals fight to control but also as spaces in which past conflicts are remembered and interpreted. examples of these sorts of contestations have been easy to see in recent years. When the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, for example, proposed relocating a statue of the Confederate general robert e. Lee in the summer of 2017, demonstrations and counterdemonstrations—and a subsequent deadly riot—occurred, sparking a national debate over how to remember the american Civil War and its meaning in american history.1 and monuments can be evoked in arguments over the morality and legitimacy of governmental action, even when those monuments are far away and have become rhetorical devices for those who have never encountered them. a particularly potent example of this type of rhetorical monument (based, of course, on real sites of torture, forced labor, and genocide) is the comparison of detention camps at the southern U.s. border to the concentration camps of hitler’s 1. see Jacey Fortin, “The statue at the Center of Charlottesville’s storm,” New York Times, august 13, 2017,www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/charlottesville-rally-protest-statue.html.

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Germany and the Japanese-american internment camps in the United states following the attack on Pearl harbor.2 The positions that people take in such controversies often (if not always) mark them as belonging to particular social groups (in the United states, this often translates to political party, but can also indicate membership in a social class or religious denomination). as seen in the previous chapter, late antique Constantinople’s public spaces were no exception to the impulse to impose and contest meaning. When Constantine refounded Byzantium, he quadrupled its land area, an act that resulted in significant tracts of open space and created the illusion, notwithstanding its history, that the city’s traditional cults were not as robust or entrenched as those of rome or antioch. eusebios’s erasure of Constantinople’s traditionalist resonances is an early example of Christian attempts to reshape the meaning of the city’s landscape. as Christian elites inserted themselves more firmly into the city’s cult structures in the decades following Constantine’s death, the focus of this activity changed. traditional cult began to recede into the back alleys. The primary competitions became those between Christian elites with opposing commitments, some based on doctrine, others on matters of discipline, some out of a desire for power. sometimes these competitions turned to open conflict, even physical violence, as rival bishops sought to control the city’s cult sites and gain influence in the imperial court. This is particularly true during the mid-fourth century, when, under Constantine’s son and successor, Constantius II (r. 337–61 c.e.), a prolonged and bitter conflict developed between the supporters of the Pneumatomachian makedonios and the nicene Paul. These two men differed in their understandings of the nature of God, and each sought to ensure that his own doctrinal formulation would define Christianity in the city.3 But we cannot ignore the role of power in the competition between the two, nor the way in which these men attempted to obtain control of the city’s religious frameworks through imperial support and the possession of physical space. a number of violent confrontations resulted, and this violence reshaped the social landscape of the city and the ways in which people understood civic religion. In the end, these disputes were settled by imperial force, with makedonios and his allies largely the winners. Constantinople’s prominent cult sites would more or less remain under the control of makedonios and his successors for the following four decades. Then, shortly after his arrival in Constantinople in late 380, the emperor Theodosios I reorganized the city’s cult structures and handed the control of those places to individuals who aligned themselves with 2. see, e.g., masha Gessen, “The Unimaginable reality of american Concentration Camps,” New Yorker, June 21, 2019, www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-unimaginable-reality-ofamerican-concentration-camps. 3. note, too, that their efforts at definition intersected with the efforts of others throughout the empire (but particularly in the eastern empire).

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Paul and the creed of nicaea. as the relationship between imperial power and ecclesial authority shifted and inverted, violence once again marked the limits of imperial orthodoxy. subsequent generations further accentuated (and widened) the distinctions between the two Christian factions by carefully curating memories of the fourth-century conflicts. The history they created for themselves produced a new vision of the empire by rewriting the inherited landscape and reorganizing its religious habits. In this chapter, I examine the role of violence as a tool in restructuring Constantinople’s religious landscape during the decades following Constantine’s death. This was a fluid, volatile landscape, where Christian bishops attempted to impose clear social boundaries between religious groups. These boundaries, however, were never fully realized and remained rhetorical and imagined, imposing a false sense of order, which was constantly threatened by other social conditions and political realities. here I focus on violence as a performative tool by which bishops and emperors, and then later authors, defined imperially sponsored Christianity and enforced (or subverted) the city’s social hierarchies. to do this, I consider the narratives about the violence occurring during the reign of Constantius, as recounted in the ecclesiastical histories of sokrates and sozomenos, primarily the second book of sokrates’s Ecclesiastical History and the third and fourth books of sozomenos’s. Chapter 5 will return to the later books of these same texts, where similar patterns of violence appear in relation to the disputes between nestorios and the alexandrian bishops. In their histories these authors stitch together episodes of violence into an extended narrative of definitional struggle. In particular, they amplify accounts of physical violence—especially torture and bodily mutilation—in order to accentuate social boundaries and cement them into the institutional memory of the city. at the same time, they emplot key moments of conflict in the Constantinopolitan landscape, centering the city in the history of imperial Christianity and fashioning it into a monument to imagined orthodoxy. a C I t y F U L L O F h e r e t IC s ? C U Lt IC D I V e r sI t y I n m I D - F O U rt h - C e n t U ry C O n sta n t I n O P L e

to understand how these narratives of violence contributed to social change, it is necessary to recognize the continued diversity of Constantinople’s social landscape in the decades following Constantine’s death and the way the city’s material architecture would have contributed to social distinctions. The bishops and local magistrates who fought to control Constantinople’s landscape—and, I argue, the historians who later recounted these conflicts—had a stake in the existence of particular groups, and they even sought to draw overlapping groups together. much of the literature that survives from the period presents late antique cities as stages upon which Christians clashed with those who were not Christian and where

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“orthodox” Christians struggled to maintain the unity of the church against the onslaught of heretics and schismatics.4 numerous fourth-century authors, Christian and non-Christian alike, present this picture, as do the historians sokrates and sozomenos who wrote from Constantinople in the following century and often tie episodes of violence to the city’s monumental architecture.5 These two authors built upon the work of eusebios, Gelasios of Caesarea, and rufinus. Their narratives, along with the histories of Theodoret and evagrios scholastikos, would define the historiography of fourth-century religious change for centuries, not only as works with their own manuscript traditions, but also through their epitomization by Theodoros anagnostes and Cassiodorus and as source material for later chronicles. The strong demarcations of these sources, however, were themselves strategic tools in the protracted disputes over the definition of Christian orthodoxy and efforts to assert Christian control over Constantinople’s religious frameworks.6 The rhetoric of orthodoxy and heresy constructed and policed the imagined boundaries between groups, transforming the social landscape, at least narratively. By creating clear social categories, Christian authors could undercut their opponents by reifying camps and essentializing them within a dualistic struggle for the salvation of the empire. In fact, these narratives also forcefully remove opponents from the field of competition by obscuring the various ways in which individuals engage with numerous, sometimes competing, groups. sozomenos, for instance, eradicated the traditional temples from the narrative landscape of the Constantinian city: [When Constantine founded his new city,] the attraction of the faith [πίστεως] in Christ was so great that many Jews and nearly all the hellenes Christianized on the spot . . . [the city] was not tempted by altars, Greek temples, or sacrifices, except [for] a short time during the reign of Julian and [that] quickly ended. Constantine honored this city, newly built of Christ and sharing his own name, and adorned it with 4. The classic study of Christian diversity is that of Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, trans. robert kraft and Gerhard krodel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971; original German publication, 1964). 5. much of the relevant literature from the period is polemical and asserts clear boundaries between groups. see, e.g., athanasios, Contra Arianos; Julian, Misopogon and Contra Galilaeos; Gregory of nazianzos, Orationes 4 and 5; Libanios, Oratio 30; epiphanios, Panarion; and John Chrysostom, Adversus Judaeos. 6. todd Berzon, Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 9–11; Judith Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 98–101; John north, “The Development of religious Pluralism,” in The Jews Among the Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire, ed. Judith Lieu, John north, and tessa rajak (London: routledge, 1992), 174–93; Éric rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 2012), 1–2.

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Violence and the Politics of Memory many large prayer houses [εὐκτηρίοις οἴκοις]. and even the divinity assented to the desire of the king and confirmed through its manifestation that the prayer houses throughout the city were holy and redeeming [σωτηρίους].7

In sozomenos’s textual map of Constantinople, non-Christian cult had been eliminated, with the population converted to Christianity en masse. In fact, while hellenes, along with Jews and manichaeans, appear as opponents and persecutors throughout both histories, they are almost entirely erased from Constantinople itself.8 For both sokrates and sozomenos, the people of the city were Christian, and had been for quite some time.9 The solid demarcation between social categories in our sources was the further development of processes that had barely begun during the reign of Constantius. rather than accepting their rigid category boundaries (e.g., between Christian, “pagan” or hellene, and Jew; or between nicene and arian), I propose another approach reading Constantinople’s social landscape. The formation of social groups is nothing if not messy, and even imperial legislation does not guarantee compliance. how would those living in the mid-fourth century, especially those not among the elite who actively defined normative expressions of religion, have understood the city before them and their own place therein? Put more simply, would a person have agreed, if asked, to identify himself primarily as Christian, hellene, Jew, or belonging to another cult group? While some individuals surely would have done so, it is my contention that by and large, most fourth-century Constantinopolitans would not have spent a significant portion of their daily lives “being” Chris-

7. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 2.3.7: εἰς τοσοῦτον γὰρ τῆς εἰς Χριστὸν πίστεως ἐπαγωγός ἐστιν, ὡς πολλοὺς μὲν Ἰουδαίους, Ἕλληνας δὲ σχεδὸν ἅπαντας αὐτόθι χριστιανίζειν . . . οὔτε βωμῶν οὔτε Ἑλληνικῶν ναῶν ἢ θυσιῶν ἐπειράθη, πλὴν ὅσον παρὰ Ἰουλιανοῦ τοῦ βασιλεύσαντος ὕστερον πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐπεχειρήθη καὶ αὐτίκα ἀπέσβη. ταύτην μὲν οὖν ὡσεί τινα νεοπαγῆ Χριστοῦ πόλιν καὶ ὁμώνυμον ἑαυτῷ γεραίρων Κωνσταντῖνος πολλοῖς καὶ μεγάλοις ἐκόσμησεν εὐκτηρίοις οἴκοις. συνελαμβάνετο δὲ καὶ τὸ θεῖον τῇ προθυμίᾳ τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ ταῖς ἐπιφανείαις ἐπιστοῦτο ἁγίους καὶ σωτηρίους εἶναι τοὺς ἀνὰ τὴν πόλιν εὐκτηρίους οἴκους. 8. exceptions appear in sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.18.19, 7.4, 7.17, 7.39.10; and sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.5.1. John Chrysostom also lists Jews and traditionalists among those who supported him when he was forcibly removed from the Great Church in 404. see John Chrysostom, Ad Innocentium papam epistula 1.3. evidence for Jews in late antique Constantinople is a particularly thorny issue, since our sources largely neglect their presence in the city, except when they are converts (especially true of sokrates and sozomenos), potential adversaries (see, e.g., Proklos, Homilia de Incarnatione 9; Homilia de Nativitatem Domini 3), or useful allies (see John Chrysostom’s aforementioned letter). see also discussion in albrecht Berger, Konstantinopel: Geschichte, Topographie, Religion (stuttgart: anton hiersemann, 2011), 54–55. 9. see Daniële slootjes, “Crowd Behavior in Late antique rome,” in Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome: Conflict, Competition, and Coexistence in the Fourth Century, ed. michele renee salzman, marianne sághy, and rita Lizzi testa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 189.

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tian.10 a large range of social categories, from those based on civic and ethnic identifications to those stemming from social class, occupation, and gender (among other things), made demands upon those living in the city. each of these social categories were constructed cultural ideals, external to the individual. a number of further factors—such as family, social location, education, and social unrest— might influence when and how a person might identify with a given category.11 Consider, for example, the effects the continued prominence of Constantinople’s traditional temples may have had on how people understood the city’s religious frameworks. Constantine’s expansion of Byzantium had altered the experience of the city, particularly in the density of its ritual spaces, in a way that could not happen in its larger, more established counterparts. even so, Christian cult space represented only a small fraction of the ritual landscape. During Constantius’s reign, however, the footprint of Christian cult space grew. Of particular note is the construction of the Great Church (later known as hagia sophia), which joined hagia eirene and the apostoleion in demonstrating imperial support for Christian cult.12 During this same period, shrines for akakios, mokios, and other martyrs were also constructed.13 earlier studies have speculated that some of these sites were appropriations of earlier traditional sites, such as the temple of Poseidon and a temple of Zeus or herakles (which became hagios menas and hagios mokios, respectively).14 Beyond this, other Christian sites, such as the anastasia, could be found in private residences and monasteries that began to dot 10. to paraphrase a question raised by Peter Brown in his review of kyle harper’s From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity, New York Review of Books, December 19, 2013, www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/dec/19/rome-sex-freedom. 11. rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 2004), 13–18, 67–78. For an application of Brubaker’s work to late antique social categories, see rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities, 4. 12. I follow Dagron’s dating for construction of the Great Church; see Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1974), 397–99. For further discussion, see Jonathan Bardill, Brickstamps of Constantinople, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 27, 54–56; Thomas mathews, The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy (University Park: Pennsylvania state University Press, 1971), 11; richard krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 50, 52; Wolfgang müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topagraphie Istanbuls: Byzantion–Konstantinupolis–Istanbul bis zum Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts (tübingen: Deutsches archäologisches Institut, 1977), 84. 13. as noted in chap. 2, p. 62 n. 65 above, the martyria of akakios and mokios may date to Constantine’s reign. Other martyria include those for martyrios and markianos (sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.3) and the Forty martyrs of sebasteia (ibid. 9.2). Further martyria appeared under the Theodosian dynasty, including those for the martyred bishop Paul (the opponent of makedonios) (sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.9; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 7.10) and John the Baptist (sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.4). 14. see Dagron, Naissance, 376, drawing from the testimony of hesychios and symeon magistros, as well as Berger, Geschichte, Topographie, Religion, 48–49.

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the landscape.15 But even with these additions to civic topography, the monuments of traditional cult remained visible in the city. according to John malalas, writing in the sixth century, there were temples to apollo, artemis, and aphrodite on the city’s acropolis, a particularly visible location and one tied to assertions of the city’s traditionalist history, until the reign of Theodosios I.16 Closer to our period, the antiochene rhetor Libanios refers to the continued presence of traditional temples when writing in the mid-380s in defense of temples in his own city of antioch.17 admittedly, the presence of traditional temples does not guarantee that there were consistently active priesthoods there. nor does it demonstrate any form of imperial tolerance for these cults in a city that was so quickly becoming a center of competition for Christian bishops vying for imperial support.18 yet the mere fact of their architectural presence—and, more important, of their visual prominence in the physical landscape—allowed them to continue to be at least imaginative possibilities for the people who encountered them.19 In fact, we have evidence of prominent members of Constantinopolitan society who openly retained their commitment to the traditional gods. These men include the likes of the philosopher Themistios, who had spent some of his youth in Constantinople and was later 15. For the early history of Constantinopolitan monasteries, see Gilbert Dagron, “Les moines et la ville: Le monachisme à Constantinople jusqu’au concile de Chalcédoine (451),” T&MByz 4 (1970): 229– 276; Peter hatlie, The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350–850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 64–71. 16. John malalas, Chronograpia 13.8, 39. see discussion in chap. 2, pp. 49, 57. 17. Perhaps Libanios is referring to the temples on the acropolis, but he is not specific in his reference. Libanios, Oratio 30.5. On the dating of the text, see heinz-Gunter nesselrath, “einführung in die schrift,” in Für Religionsfreiheit, Recht und Toleranz: Libanios’ Rede für den Erhalt der heidnischen Tempel, ed. heinz-Gunter nesselrath (tübingen: mohr siebeck, 2011), 3–38; Peter Van nuffelen, “not the Last Pagan: Libanius between elite rhetoric and religion,” in Libanius: A Critical Introduction, ed. Lieve Van hoof (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 300; edward Watts, “Theodosius II and his Legacy in anti-Chalcedonian Communal memory,” in Theodosius II: Rethinking the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, ed. Christopher kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 107. at this point Libanios had not been in Constantinople for thirty years, and we cannot be sure how current his knowledge of the city’s landscape was. nonetheless, the imagined landscape is an important element of his polemic. see Watts, “anti-Chalcedonian Communal memory,” 110–11; Lieve Van hoof, “Libanius’ Life and Life,” in Libanius: A Critical Introduction, ed. Lieve Van hoof (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 7. 18. For legislation banning animal sacrifice, see eusebios, Vita Constantinii 2.45.1, 4.23, 4.25.1; CTh 16.10.2 (issued 341 c.e.); Libanios Orationes 1.27 and 30.6–7, 37. For discussion on whether the ban dates to Constantine and how such a law fit within previous roman jurisprudence, see scott Bradbury, “Constantine and the Problem of anti-Pagan Legislation in the Fourth Century,” CPh 89, no. 2 (april 1994): 120–29. Whatever the date of the legislation, numerous sources assume that traditional temples had been closed and blood sacrifice had fallen into neglect by the time Julian assumed the throne. 19. scattered evidence exists of the continued practice of blood sacrifice, and there is little evidence that anti-pagan legislation was ever enforced (although there are a few instances in which prosecution was attempted); Bradbury, “Constantine and the Problem of anti-Pagan Legislation,” 133–34.

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appointed to the city’s senate by Constantius; the aforementioned Libanios, who for a time held a public teaching post there at Constantius’s behest; and nikokles of sparta, who also held a teaching position and had convinced Libanios to remain in the city.20 The fact that these prominent individuals were not Christians did not bar them from civic life nor from fulfilling their duties.21 It may, however, have presented some tension between their commitment to the traditional gods and the sanctioned practices of the city and imperial court. new Christian temples and shrines may have had imperial support, but in terms of visual prominence and civic heritage, they competed with older sites that some members of Constantinopolitan society—even people with ties to the imperial court—would have liked to see revitalized. The fifth-century historians suggest this in commenting on the anxious contingent (sokrates refers to them as hellenizers, τοὺς ἑλληνίζοντας) eager to reopen the city’s temples and resume the traditional sacrifices to the gods when the emperor Julian, who sought to revive these cults, entered the city in December 361.22 even later, during the 380s, Gregory of nazianzos lamented those in the city who continued to revere the traditional gods, and as late as the mid-fifth century we find Proklos deriding the observance of “Greek festivals” in the city.23 Precisely what practices were used during these festivals is unclear, but it seems to me that they would probably have included incense, processions, and hymns, but not animal sacrifice—or at least not openly.24 20. For Themistios’s career, see his own comments in Orationes 17; 23; 34.12, 16; and discussion in John Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court: Oratory, Civic Duty, and Paideia from Constantius to Theodosius (ann arbor: University of michigan Press, 1995), 31–42; edward Watts, The Final Pagan Generation (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 74–75, 88–93. For Libanios’s and nikokles’s positions in the city, see Libanios, Oratio 1.31–44 and Epistulae 810, 816, and 832; with discussion in raffaella Cribiore, Libanius the Sophist: Rhetoric, Reality, and Religion in the Fourth Century (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 2013), 46–47, and Watts, Final Pagan Generation, 76–78, 93. Other known men of this class include Flavius Dionysios (see Libanios, Oratio 1.35), Calliopolis (see Libanios, Epistulae 18, 625, 678, and 951); Didymos (see Libanios, Epistulae 317 and 318); and eudaimon (see Libanios, Epitulae 315, 108, 132, 164, 167, 255, 623, 633, 826, 1057). These men’s positions on traditional cult are often unclear. For the continued presence of “hellenes” in Constantinople through the fifth century, see Berger, Geschichte, Topographie, Religion, 49–53. 21. Theodosius I also appointed traditionalists to the higher echelons of imperial administration. examples include symmachus, Vettius agorius Praetextus, and Flavian eutolmios tatianos. On the appointment of praetorian and urban prefects, see a. h. m. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey (norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), 2: 370–72. 22. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 3.1.45. see also 3.11.4. 23. Gregory of nazianzos, Oratio 33.6, Carmen 2.1.16.39–40; Proklos, Homilia de Incarnatione 3. Writing in the sixth century, Zosimos (Historia nova 5.24.6–8) expresses relief that the fire that had broken out near the senate and destroyed the muses spared Zeus Dodonaios and athena, a welcome sign to “the more refined” citizens that the gods continued to protect Constantinople. 24. This evidence is difficult to interpret, for contrasting “true worship” with the festivals of the Greeks is a common literary device among both Jewish and Christian authors. For other examples of

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During much of the fourth century, then, the cultic options in Constantinople remained diverse, at least in theory. This would have been particularly true during the earlier years of this period, and likely fluctuated and eventually waned as the fourth century progressed. The primary categories that governed Constantinopolitan cult life would not have depended primarily on assertions of doctrine or the gods one worshipped (much less modern notions of faith or belief), but rather on how particular practices aligned with the rituals of the city or imperial court, as well as those in the more intimate and familiar neighborhood shrines and the household.25 Throughout this period, I propose, at least some Constantinopolitans would not have found it strange to see traditional cult sites side by side with Christian temples and, moreover, that some of these individuals may have frequented both. The average person (that is, those who were not prominent players in the game) might have recognized cult sites, agents, and events as official in the sense that they were intimately tied to the state apparatus and assertions of empire and Romanitas—roman-ness—or what we could call Constantinopolitanitas. For such persons the distinction between Christian and non-Christian, much less distinctions between Christian and Christian, would not have mattered under ordinary circumstances; these individuals may well have worshipped at a particular site or sought out the services of a priest or holy person because they granted access to a powerful entity who expected their worship. For others, however, the stakes in differentiating between cults were much higher, and it was in their interest to convince others of this as well. This is not to say that there were no social boundaries in fourth-century Constantinople, or that ordinary people were entirely uninterested in doctrinal debates or asserted difference between traditional and Christian practice (or between Christian and Jewish practice, for that matter). Indeed, we have occasional testimony for nonelite interest in debates over theology and which gods to honor. many of the incidents of violence described later in this chapter had at their core individuals who had been convinced that they belonged to a group and that their inclusion in that group this type of rhetoric, see Gregory of nazianzos, Orationes 28.15, 38.6, and 41.6; John Chrysostom, In epistulam ad Hebraeos 13.5. nonetheless, we should entertain animal sacrifice as a possibility outside of official civic cult, perhaps misrecognized as normal banqueting practices, as suggested by Libanios in Oratio 30.17–19. 25. I include with domestic ritual practices those of non-familially organized households (e.g., ascetic communities or philosophical schools). even these categories, however, risk imposing artificial distinctions, since there were certainly degrees of overlap between them. moreover, such spaces were important for the perpetuation of elements in the city that were not imperially sponsored, some of which (e.g., Gregory of nazianzos’s anastasia) would eventually gain imperial support, while clergy that had previously received imperial support (e.g., makedonians) were forced into domestic spaces. see discussion in harry maier, “religious Dissent, heresy and households in Late antiquity,” VC 49, no. 1 (march 1995): 50–52.

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demanded the exclusion of others. similar commitments appear in numerous accounts of martyrs who refused to sacrifice. Gregory of nyssa also describes the disruption to the normal interactions of daily commerce when tradesmen on the streets of Constantinople reacted to and took sides in the doctrinal disputes during the council in 381.26 We should, of course, approach these accounts with some caution, since they are literary representations by authors with their own agendas and commitments. The scenes and events they describe may well have occurred, but as with any narration, their accounts are acts of interpretation that impose order and meaning onto unstable and unpredictable social interactions. Their perspectives are those of a cultural elite with specialized training in philosophical debate, and who often had influential positions through which to disseminate their positions, orally and literarily, to the wider population. nonetheless, these accounts may also reflect real interest and perhaps even social differentiation on the part of ordinary people. But if we look past the rhetorical constructions of bishops, traditional priests, and orators, the ritual distinctions between imagined groups were often unclear. In many instances, supposedly distinct groups were almost visibly and aurally indistinguishable from each other. The fifth-century historian Philostorgios suggests something to this effect in his assertion that, despite their theological differences, those who followed arios’s teachings “still shared with [the homoousians] in prayers, hymns, deliberations, and almost everything else except for the sacred sacrifice.”27 Under such conditions, it would have been easy to move from one ritual group to another, perhaps even without realizing that one was doing so. Distinctions between the ritual events of competing groups needed to be applied by those with some level of cultural influence, such as the court bishop or his clergy, a respected local ascetic, or a charismatic visiting bishop. Group distinctions could even depend upon the popular appeal of a bishop. after all, Christian bishops were public performers. In fact, a bishop’s personality or preaching ability could be more determinative than his doctrinal positions in drawing people into a group, however loosely organized it might be. We can easily find examples of this in Constantinople: Gregory of nazianzos acquired a following centered on the private home of a relative (the site became known as the anastasia); in the early fifth century, severian of Gabala’s popularity threatened the authority of John Chrysostom, who attracted so much popular support himself that his expulsion caused riots.28 additionally, the ability to differentiate between groups would have 26. Gregory of nyssa, De deitate filii et spiritus sancti (GnO X/2: 121 = PG 46: 557b). 27. Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 3.14: εἰ καὶ διεφέροντο κατὰ τὰς δόξας τοῖς τὸ ὁμοούσιον πρεσβεύουσιν οἱ ἐξ Ἀρείου, ὅμως καὶ εὐχῶν καὶ ὕμνων καὶ βουλευμάτων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων σχεδὸν ἁπάντων πλὴν τῆς μυστικῆς ἐκοινώνουν θυσίας (trans. Philip amidon, Philostorgius: Church History [atlanta: society of Biblical Literature, 2007], 52, with minor emendations). 28. John Chrysostom, Ad Innocentium papam epistula 1.3; Palladius, De vita Joannis 10; sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.7.1–2, 6.11.11–12, 6.16.1, 6.18.17–18; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 7.5.2–3, 8.21.

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depended on knowledge of the local political situation—and that could change quickly if a Christian cleric changed his doctrinal position or found himself in competition with someone more popular.29 Political instability, especially, could offer an opening for those positioned outside the recognized cults of the city to reposition themselves within civic cult, as was attempted in 388 when unfounded rumors of Theodosios I’s defeat by a usurper reached the city and the followers of Dorotheos (the leader of the now-illicit arian clergy) burned down the house of nektarios, the nicene bishop under Theodosios’s patronage.30 For people to identify first and foremost as Christian (and as a particular kind of Christian at that) in a landscape filled with tensions between history and shifting imperial support for sites that did not participate in that history, they needed to be convinced that social groups based on cultic engagement existed, that these groups differed from each other, and that those differences mattered. as explored in chapter 1, late antique religion was inherently social, a quality that, among other things, provided a powerful framework in which to do this. Those in positions to shape cultural norms—bishops, magistrates, and emperors, but also those without formal institutional authority, such as ascetics—had a number of means to do this: polemic, social exclusion, and imperial sanction, to name a few. They also took advantage of moments of what the sociologist rogers Brubaker has referred to as “groupness,” that is, a sense of “extraordinary cohesion” and “intensely felt collective solidarity” among individuals within a social network or space.31 such moments can occur or be created in any number of ways: during a communal ritual, at sporting events, or through a shared trauma, to offer but a few examples. For the anastasia, see raymond Janin, La géographie ecclésiastique de l’Empire byzantin, pt. 1: Le siège de Constantinople et le patriarcat oecuménique, vol. 3: Les églises et les monastères (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 1969), 22–25; rochelle snee, “Gregory nazianzen’s anastasia Church: arianism, the Goths, and hagiography,” DOP 52 (1998): 158–60. The location of the residence is unknown, but locations both south of the hippodrome and to the north of the mesē and west of the stoa Basilika have been proposed. For a brief summary of arguments, see Brian Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus (new york: routledge, 2006), 195–96n77. 29. Consider, e.g., meletios of antioch, who abandoned his homoian teachings in favor of the homoousian position. reportedly, his entire congregation followed him in this doctrinal change and formed a second homoousian faction in antioch. see Thomas r. karmann, Meletius von Antiochien: Studien zur Geschichte des trinitättheologischen Streits in den Jahren 360–364 n. Chr. (Frankfurt am main: Peter Lang, 2009), 135–49; Wendy mayer, “antioch and the Intersection between religious Factionalism, Place and Power,” in The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity, ed. andrew Cain and noel Lenski (aldershot, england: ashgate, 2009), 360–61; Christine shepardson, Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 11–19. 30. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.13. I use “illicit” here because Theodosios I had previously issued sanctions against these individuals. see CTh 16.5.11 (383 c.e.), 16.5.12 (383 c.e.), 16.5.13 (384 c.e.). 31. Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups, 12.

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By evoking already-existing social categories, as tenuous as they might be, Christian leaders could construct sharper boundaries that identified those inside a group from those outside it.32 It would have been fairly easy to police these boundaries within the physical confines of a temple or similar cult site, and easier still if the group were smaller and well known to the bishop and one another. as the number of persons attending a synaxis grew, intimate knowledge of who belonged would have become elusive. In these instances, other controls might come into play, for example, the assistance of lower clergy in identifying members of the community or the worshipper’s deft familiarity with the appropriate bodily movements and verbal responses proper to the ritual action. so, too, it would have been easier to track the presence and status of high-profile members of the community. If, for example, Themistios or Libanios were to have appeared at the liturgies of the Great Church, it is hard to imagine that they would have been mistaken for Christians.33 But policing social boundaries within the defined architecture of a temple was one thing; attempting to do so on a city street in the midst of a procession was another. There, crowds fluctuated; participants came and went; disorder held greater sway. and, as I contend in the next chapter, the fluid nature of such events better allowed for inclusion and persuasion, for pulling those who might otherwise not associate with a particular cult into the action and inviting them to consider themselves part of the group.34 and because groups are composed of individuals in conversation with one another, individual shifts in perceptions of the religious landscape would have contributed to shifts in the larger group. all this is important to bear in mind as we consider the conflicts that occurred during Constantius’s reign and their subsequent retelling by sokrates and sozomenos. Constantinople’s social landscape consisted of loose networks of individuals who coalesced around some point of agreement or interest, even as the narratives examined below flatten this landscape. sometimes the things that drew people together were doctrinal or theological stances, but they could just as well have been particular individuals or locations. From this perspective, there would 32. Ibid., 17–18, 20–26. 33. although we have examples of high-profile Christians coming to the attention of bishops in the context of the liturgy, this does not appear to have been common. see, e.g., ambrose’s exclusion of Theodosios from communion and nestorios’s refusal to allow eudokia entry into the sanctuary to receive communion; ambrose, Epistula 74 (maurist 40) and Epistulae extra collectionem 1 (maurist 41) and 11 (maurist 51); rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica 11.18; Paulinus, Vita Ambrosii 24; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 7.25; Theodoret, Historia ecclesiastica 5.17; Letter to Kosmas 8; discussions in h. a. Drake, “Intolerance, religious Violence, and Political Legitimacy in Late antiquity,” JAAR 79, no. 1 (march 2011): 193–235; kenneth holum, Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 153–54; neil mcLynn, Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 298–330. 34. see pp. 138–42.

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have been individuals with a set of investments in the existence of a group for any number of reasons—intellectual pedigree, regional or civic patriotism, political advantage, the persuasiveness of a philosophical argument, or even assertions about tradition35—who advocated for those investments publicly and strove to convince others of the correctness of their teaching, even if the average person might not have understood the theological nuances. again, this is not to say that ordinary people were wholly uninterested in distinctions between groups. But the ground on which they lived was ever shifting. The rigidity of boundaries depended upon the conjunction of random variables—for example, the firmness of individual commitments to maintaining those boundaries, the degree of cohesion between individuals, or the level of tension in the city. m U r D e r s , Bat t L e s , a n D k I D na P P I n G s : C O n s t rU C t I n G t h e B OU n Da r I e s O F L e G I t I m at e r e L IG IO n

By tapping into moments of social cohesion, by prolonging the sense of groupness created, Christian leaders (and later authors like sokrates and sozomenos) could construct social categories, build fences between imagined groups, and impose patterns of behavior or thought upon other individuals who identified with those groups. appeals to constructed identities enabled or even encouraged individuals to slide into a preferred social category—to “become” Christian or to conform to the imagined norms of the imperial church. While it is impossible to ascertain how effective these efforts were in their immediate context, the consumption of these texts by subsequent generations of readers—some of whom were undoubtedly among the governing or ecclesiastical elite—helped to bring those boundaries into existence.36 In other words, the boundaries described in our texts were not simply literary constructions or inherited social categories; they were active constructions that did something, for they brought their distinctions into fruition and encouraged their readers to identify with particular individuals, namely, the heroic defenders of nicene Christianity. The histories written by sokrates and sozomenos are themselves composite artifacts of efforts by cultural elites to organize, even manipulate, the social landscape around them. as such, they are biased.37 This does not negate, however, their 35. We could use the word “tribalism” here, but the term both reduces and obscures the multiplicity of motivations that encourage commitment to an identified group. 36. Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 14; Lieu, Christian Identity, 9. 37. a point long recognized. see Glenn F. Chestnut, The First Christian Histories: Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius, 2nd ed., revised and enlarged (macon, Ga: mercer University Press, 1986), 181–82; snee, “Gregory nazianzen’s anastasia Church,” 157–58; teresa Urbainczyk, Theodoret of Cyrrhus (ann arbor: University of michigan Press, 2002), 101–5.

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value for understanding the conflicts of the period. In preserving and curating earlier sources, especially letters and polemics, these authors both offer glimpses of earlier competitions and rely on the past to enforce their own social boundaries. When sokrates and sozomenos looked back to the past, they saw a city marked by division but also felt the continuing threat of fluidity between social groups, especially in the years leading up to the Council of Chalcedon. The boundaries and fractures within their own social landscape had long been the products of decades of polemics and social construction. This point requires further elaboration. By the mid-fifth century, when sokrates and sozomenos were writing, Christians had clearly controlled the civic institutions of priesthood and sacrifice for nearly a century, and a particular faction of Christian bishops—those who advocated for positions authorized at the Council of nicaea—had had control of Constantinople’s cult sites for over sixty years. During that time, the demarcation between “orthodoxy” and “heresy” had been progressively widened through aggressive polemics, imperial sanction, and acts of violence. But in the earlier decades of these disputes (and as continued to be true even the mid-fifth century), none of the posited doctrinal camps represented stable, unified theological parties. as other scholars have noted, the theological map consisted of loose networks of individuals with a range of opinions, the ties between whom depended on shifting alliances and competing interests.38 These alliances did not necessarily depend on shared doctrinal positions, and even when certain Christian elites appeared to agree on doctrine, their alliances frequently consisted of fragile networks, which might overlap, break apart, and compete with each other for a variety of reasons. at issue is how to understand the narratives about religious change we have inherited from late antique historians, particularly those writing during the midfifth century—in other words, at the end of the process. These authors had their own interests in inherited social constructions and positioned themselves on what they saw as the “right side” of history. Their use of doctrinal labels was the result of and was integral to the processes that erected boundaries between groups and produced particular notions of who belonged and who did not. In fact, by imposing these labels on the conditions of a century earlier, the authors who were active in a fifth-century environment that took nicene orthodoxy for granted participated 38. Lewis ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 13; David m. Gwynn, The Eusebians: The Polemic of Athanasius of Alexandria and the Construction of the ‘Arian Controversy’” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 105–15; r. P. C. hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318–381 (Grand rapids, mI: Bakewell academic, 1988), xvii–xviii; rebecca Lyman, “arius and arians,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. susan ashbrook harvey and David hunter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 246–51; rowan Williams, “review of hanson, search for the Christian Doctrine of God,” Scottish Journal of Theology 45, no.1 (February 1992): 101–11.

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in constructing and guarding boundaries between insiders and outsiders, between orthodox and heterodox, between legitimate and illegitimate. When they looked back at older disputes, they saw a landscape that had already been systematized through the polemics, caricatures, and vilifications of the previous generations. If anything, the categories assumed by the authors do more to obscure tensions and rivalries between individuals than to illuminate real group boundaries in Constantinople’s social environment. relying on them encourages us to assume that the polemics and violence of the fourth century were the result of clashes between clear groups rather than an important tool in creating those groups. rhetoric was but one way of encouraging a sense of belonging to a group in late antiquity.39 Violence, too, operated as a social strategy to create groupness. Incidents of violence not only accentuated whatever notional boundaries already existed but allowed for social cohesion—groupness—among both the perpetrators and the victims. Interested parties could take advantage of those moments to make assertions about who belonged inside (or outside) a group, what actions were acceptable, and where the group fit within late antique society. Individuals on the margins of civic religious structures attempted to gain imperial favor by resorting to religiously inflected violence, and sometimes succeeded in doing so, while those who already held that favor fought to retain their status.40 a further consideration is important to note. The sources for the conflicts of the fourth century that survive privilege one side of these contestations. Our access to alternate perspectives is often limited, thus posing a challenge for observing the complicated dynamics of conflict during this formative period. The most dominant, immediate voice for the conflicts of the mid-fourth century is that of atha39. averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), esp. 122; eduard Iricinschi and holger m. Zellentin, “making selves and marking Others: Identity and Late antique heresiologies,” in Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity, ed. Iricinschi and Zellentin (tübingen: mohr siebeck, 2008), 1–21; north, “Development of religious Pluralism,” 174–93; Isabella sandwell, Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews and Christians in Antioch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 63–119; and sandwell, “John Chrysostom’s audiences and his accusations of religious Laxity,” in Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity, ed. David m. Gwynn and susanne Bangert (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 523–42. 40. a growing body of literature addresses the role of violence in late antiquity. many studies focus on specific incidences of violence, but some consider violence and its role in social formation more broadly. see esp. elizabeth a. Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making (new york: Columbia University Press, 2004); Drake, “Intolerance,” 193–235; Chris Frilingos, “‘It moves me to Wonder’: narrating Violence and religion under the roman empire,” JAAR 77, no. 4 (December 2009): 825–52; michael Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Brent shaw, “state Intervention and holy Violence: timgad/Paleostrovsk/Waco,” JAAR 77, no. 4 (December 2009): 853–94; shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); and the articles in the volume edited by h. a. Drake, Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices (aldershot, england: ashgate: 2006).

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nasios, who provides almost no detail of how these conflicts unfolded in Constantinople itself. For example, while he mentions the condemnation and execution of the nicene Paul at the instigation of makedonios, he does not elaborate on the clashes between the two men’s followers.41 For that, we must turn to sokrates and sozomenos.42 These sources, written seventy to ninety years later, are our fullest narratives for events in Constantinople during the fourth century. Building upon earlier compilations, these authors weave episodes in Constantinople into material collated from earlier sources, from imperial letters to creedal statements and apologetic treatises. In doing so, they accentuate the role of Constantinople in the midfourth-century disputes, sometimes elaborating on events mentioned (often quite briefly) in other sources but also supplementing these accounts with details of incidents that do not appear elsewhere.43 a brief summary of these events, as outlined by sokrates and sozomenos, is necessary here. Following the death of alexander, the bishop of Constantinople, in 337, makedonios and his rival Paul contended for the office of court bishop.44 Paul was initially installed by the people as bishop at hagia eirene, but was quickly removed by Constantius and replaced by eusebios of nikomedia, a supporter of arios. Upon eusebios’s death, Paul and makedonios renewed their competition for imperial favor. This time both men were installed as bishops by their supporters in different temples (makedonios at hagios Paulos; Paul at an unspecified temple, but most likely hagia eirene).45 according to the historians, Constantius was determined to prevent Paul’s episcopacy and ordered the general hermogenes to expel the nicene bishop. In response to this use of force, the people rioted, setting the general’s house ablaze and dragging him to his death. When word of these events reached the emperor, he traveled from antioch to Constantinople to settle 41. athanasios, Historia Arianorum 1.7. rufinus (Historia ecclesiastica 10.26), too, briefly mentions the conflict. 42. Philostorgios (Historia ecclesiastica 4.9, 5.1, 8.17) discusses makedonios, but his surviving discussions are cursory. Fragment 31 of the anonymous “arian historian” (whose text survives only through excerpts in other works) mentions the list of accusations brought against makedonios and his deposition. For discussion of this text, see Joseph Bidez, Philostorgius. Kirchengeschichte: Mit dem Leben des Lucian von Antiochien und den Fragmenten eines arianischen Historiographen, 3rd ed., rev. Friedhelm Winkelmann, GCs 21 (Berlin: akademie-Verlag, 1981), cli–clxiii, 202–41. 43. e.g., the massacre of nicene Christians at hagia eirene (sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.16.7– 16; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 3.9.3–4). But their curation also includes omissions. Gregory of nazianzos reports being stoned (Orationes 23.5, 42.27; Carmen 2.1.12.104–06, 665), e.g., but sokrates and sozomenos, who both adopt Gregory’s narrative, do not mention this event (see sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.6–5.7; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 7.5, 7.7). 44. By court bishop, I mean the bishop supported by the reigning emperor as the specialist who performed ritual actions on the behalf of the city and primarily (though not exclusively) associated with the church located closest to the imperial palace (initially hagia eirene, and then the Great Church). 45. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.12; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 3.3.5.

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matters himself. Punishments were swift and harsh. Paul was expelled, and the grain dole cut in half. annoyed at makedonios’s part in the affair, Constantius hesitated briefly before allowing makedonios to assume control of Constantinople’s prominent Christian temples.46 as mentioned previously, athanasios comments on the disputes that occurred between Paul and makedonios in Constantinople, noting makedonios’s fabricated accusation against Paul and the strangling of the latter while he was in exile in kukusos (modern Göksun) in Cappadocia.47 sokrates, followed by sozomenos, provides extensive elaboration, describing this period as one of continuous civil war among Christians and placing makedonios more firmly at the center of the conflict.48 as elaborated by these fifth-century sources, makedonios’s episcopacy was a reign of terror, born in and sustained by torture and bloodshed. On the day of makedonios’s installation, for example, imperial soldiers attacked a crowd gathered—rather ironically—at hagia eirene (“holy Peace”) resulting in the slaughter of over three thousand people.49 makedonios then worked quickly to solidify his influence by positioning his allies in important sees in the nearby cities of kyzikos and nikomedia.50 makedonios also coerced the people of Constantinople to accept his teachings about Christ. sokrates describes makedonios’s methods in some detail: many people notable for their reverence were arrested and tortured, since they refused to share communion with [makedonios]. after the tortures [αἰκισμοὺς], they compelled men by violent means [βίᾳ] to partake of the mysteries. They pried open the men’s mouths with wood and shoved the eucharist down their throats. Those who endured this regarded it a greater punishment [κόλασιν] than other injuries [τιμωριῶν]. They also seized women and children and forced them to be baptized. If any declined or otherwise resisted, flogging immediately followed, and after the flogging, chains and the rack and other terrible things. . . . They placed the women who refused to partake of the mysteries in a box and cut off their breasts. They branded the breasts of other women, sometimes with iron and other times with eggs heated intensely in fire.51 46. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.13; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 3.7. 47. athanasios, Historia Arianorum 1.7.1; Apologia de fuga 3. 48. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.12.6. Cf. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 3.7. 49. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.16.7–16; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 3.9.3–4. 50. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.38.3–5. 51. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.38.6–10: πολλοὶ δὲ τῶν ἐπισήμων ἐπ’ εὐλαβείᾳ συλληφθέντες ᾐκίζοντο, ἐπεὶ μὴ ἐβούλοντο μετασχεῖν τῆς κοινωνίας αὐτοῦ. Μετὰ δὲ τοὺς αἰκισμοὺς βίᾳ τῶν μυστηρίων μετέχειν τοὺς ἄνδρας ἠνάγκαζον· ξύλῳ γὰρ διαιροῦντες τὰ στόματα τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὰ μυστήρια ἐνετίθεσαν . . . Γύναιά τε καὶ παιδία συναρπάζοντες μυεῖσθαι ἠνάγκαζον· εἰ δέ τις παρῃτεῖτο ἢ ἄλλως ἀντέλεγεν, εὐθὺς ἐπηκολούθουν πληγαὶ καὶ μετὰ τὰς πληγὰς δεσμοί τε καὶ στρεβλώσεις καὶ τἆλλα δεινά . . . Γυναικῶν γὰρ τῶν μὴ ἀνασχομένων μετασχεῖν τῶν μυστηρίων τοὺς μαζοὺς ἐν κιβωτῷ βαλόντες ἀπέπριον, ἄλλων τε γυναικῶν τὰ αὐτὰ μόρια τοῦτο μὲν σιδήρῳ, τοῦτο δὲ

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Unsatisfied with mutilation and murder, makedonios sought to make lasting marks on the city’s physical landscape as well. The bishop deprived Paul’s followers of their cult sites and ordered the demolition of a site belonging to the novatians, another homoousian group in the city.52 sozomenos, too, follows athanasios’s accusation that the arians strangled the exiled Paul. While he does not provide as many details about the clashes between the followers of Paul and makedonios as sokrates, his expands makedonios’s attacks on Paul’s supporters, noting the proscription of markian and martyrios, Paul’s close associates, in retribution for hermogenes’s death.53 In both histories, a strong portrait of makedonios as an arch-villain, not found in Gelasios or rufinus, emerges. This was a bishop who sought to erase opposition physically by seizing possession of Constantinople’s prominent cult spaces, as well as attacking cult sites belonging to minority groups in the city. The goal was to eliminate any Christian liturgy save his own. But makedonios’s tyranny extended far beyond this, in his willingness to usurp even the authority of the emperor. against Constantius’s direct orders, makedonios attempted to move Constantine’s sarcophagus from the apostoleion to hagios akakios. The people protested, and in the ensuing riots much bloodshed occurred in the sacred precinct (temenos) of hagios akakios and the adjacent portico and street.54 This was the last straw for Constantius: it was not long before makedonios himself was deposed.55 In their initial eruption, these incidents of violence were moments that cultural agents used to harden the boundaries between doctrinal groups. Constantius and makedonios would have regarded their efforts as the legitimate exercise of force against a rabble-rouser who instigated sedition and the murder of an imperial representative. Indeed, makedonios’s actions against Paul’s supporters seem to have been generally condoned by Constantius, albeit tacitly if we are to believe sokrates and sozomenos, and such tactics fit normal roman modes of social control. The infliction of bodily harm, permanent and impermanent, was a frequent, and relatively accepted, form of social control in roman society, and was used for interrogation, punishment, and deterrence.56 moreover, judicial torture of the sort practiced by makedonios had long been publicly inflicted in open-air venues

ᾠὰ εἰς ἄκρον ἐν πυρὶ θερμανθέντα προσφέροντες ἔκαιον. sokrates implies that these tortures were primarily implemented against the novatians. Compare the significantly abbreviated notice in sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.2.2–3. 52. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.38.14; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.2.3–4, 4.20.2–4. 53. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.2.2, 4.3.1. 54. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.38.33–43; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.21.3–6. 55. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.38.43–44, 2.42; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.24. 56. keith Coleman, “Fatal Charades: roman executions staged as mythological enactments,” JRS 80 (1990): 44–73.

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before whoever cared to watch. These were performances, in the fullest sense of the word, with a cast (i.e., the judge, torturer, victims) and audience.57 These actions did not simply mark boundaries; they were spectacles. as such, they were spaces that allowed for the creation of meaning: yes, physical coercion was an important method of obtaining evidence during court proceedings and punishing criminal or deviant behavior, but it was also a demonstration of power— not only to the victim, but to all present. makedonios seems to have tortured his victims in public, a display of physical force that would have sent a clear message to his audience in the lasting form of men prevented from forming words or women disfigured (if not dead). In so doing, he demonstrated his ability to remove dissenting voices and bodies in his city. Indeed, his actions could not have had the same impact if they had been done privately, or if the victims had perished and the effects of the torture were hidden or covered up.58 For makedonios, violence was a crucial tool for defining and policing the highly fluid borders between arian and nicene by punishing those who questioned his interpretation of Christianity.59 V IO L e n C e , sPaC e , a n D t h e C r e at IO n O F I n s t I t U t IO na L m e m O ry

The violence that occurred in Constantinople during the fourth century created moments of groupness that could be manipulated by the likes of makedonios to draw strong boundaries between doctrinal groups, but there is another dimension present here: the appropriation, curation, and repetition of events by later histories. The way in which sokrates and sozomenos organize and frame their narratives imposes particular views of history on the reader—views that not only inherited the battles of the past, but also engaged in the clashes of these writers’ own day.60 While the lens created by this curation and the general absence of competing narratives present certain challenges to accessing events as they unfolded, the fifth-century historians also offer unique opportunities, insofar as they preserve a rich corpus of material collected from earlier polemics, letters, council reports,

57. David riches, “The Phenomenon of Violence,” in The Anthropology of Violence, ed. David riches (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 8–9. Pamela stewart and andrew strathorn expand riches’s observations to account for the temporal dimension of such acts and potential shifts in their interpretation. see stewart and strathern, Violence: Theory and Ethnography (London: Continuum, 2002), 4. 58. There is, of course, something horrific about disappearances and uncertainty about a person’s fate. But a disappearance must be noticed if it is to be an effective tool. 59. see neil L. Whitehead, “Introduction: Cultures, Conflicts, and the Poetics of Violent Practice,” in Violence, ed. neil Whitehead (sante Fe: school of american research Press, 2004), 6–9. 60. For example, sokrates’s narratives about the expulsion of John Chrysostom are related to his polemic against nestorios and perhaps even a subtle polemic against the policies of Theodosios II.

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and presumably local archives or eyewitness accounts.61 The competitions of the previous century had shaped their own civic community, and the memories of those competitions formed an economy that shaped the immediate social environments of these authors. Through their acts of excerption and retelling, of organization and omission, and of narrative framing, these authors molded ideologically informed institutional memories.62 Three elements are crucial here: the accentuation of violence in the form of episodes of torture and mutilation by makedonios and his allies; the interweaving of Constantinopolitan episodes into a broader, sustained narrative that highlights heretics’ alleged tendency to violence; and the construction of Constantinople as a central location within these disputes by locating key episodes within the city’s monumental landscape. In what follows, I focus primarily on sokrates’s narrative, found in book 2 of his history, while noting points where sozomenos further accentuates violence. many of these episodes are incorporated from earlier sources, sometimes verbatim but elsewhere with considerable summarization or expansion. my purpose is not to provide a full survey of the historians’ sources, but rather to consider the way in which they shape episodes into a larger narrative.63 sokrates concludes book 1 with events leading to the punishment of arios and the death of Constantine. arios’s arrival in Constantinople at the command of the emperor had divided the people, and upon being ordered to receive arios back into communion, alexander locked himself in hagia eirene. There, he lay prostrate before the altar for days petitioning God to either punish arios or prevent himself from living to witness the heretic’s readmission.64 On the day arios was to have formally renounced his position, he was afflicted with intestinal pain and retreated to a nearby latrine, where he bled to death from internal hemorrhaging.65 Book 2 61. Of the sources where we might expect to find counternarratives regarding these events, Philostorgios, who was active in Constantinople roughly during the 420s and 430s, only mentions makedonios in passing and in no way in connection to reports of violence. This may be due largely to the way in which Philostorgios’s history is preserved. The anonymous “arian history” (mentioned above, n. 42) may also have provided a counternarrative, but its fragments related to makedonios are even more cursory than Philostorgios’s. 62. here I think of Paul ricoeur’s comments on the archive and the “documentary phase” of history production; see ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 166–68. 63. Compare similar observations regarding early muslim narratives in Thomas sizgorich, Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity: Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 154–67. 64. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.37; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 2.29.3. 65. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.38; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 2.29.4–5, 30.6–7. The death of arios is also recounted by epiphanios (Panarion 69.10.2–3), rufinus (Historia ecclesiastica 10.14), and Theodoret of Cyrrhus (Historia ecclesiastica 1.13), all of whom provide significantly fewer details than either sokrates or sozomenos. a further account appears in the Parastaseis (39), which

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focuses on the continued disturbance caused by arios’s followers. Both Constantine and alexander soon died, allowing disorder to increase after Constantius handed the empire and the city of Constantinople over to those who opposed the nicene creed.66 Interwoven through accounts of ensuing councils are episodes demonstrating the violent tendencies of these individuals. here we see close associations drawn between Paul and athanasios, on the one hand, and makedonios and George of Cappadocia, who had usurped alexandria’s episcopacy, on the other.67 sokrates frequently connects Paul’s exiles with athanasios, even identifying Paul as one of the bishops who traveled to rome with athanasios to seek the backing of the bishop of rome.68 similarly, sokrates frequently places accounts of makedonios’s actions in direct succession to similar portrayals of George. For example, the flight of athanasios and burning of the church of Dionysios (2.11) and George’s installation in alexandria (2.14) frame makedonios’s own ordination (2.12), his ratification following the death of hermogenes (2.13), and the mass slaughter of Paul’s supporters in hagia eirene (2.16).69 Through this interweaving of episodes, sokrates creates parallels between the violence occurring in Constantinople and that elsewhere. But it also accentuates makedonios’s tyranny, making a horrifying opponent of him. makedonios’s episcopacy was, sokrates says, full of “murders, battles, kidnappings, and civil wars,” deeds that “made him hateful not only to those injured, but also to those of his own party.”70 his tactics involved αἰκισμοί, βία, and τιμωρίαι—torture, physical force, and vengeance— to an extent “unknown [ξένη] among the methods of the hellenes,” sokrates asserts.71 makedonios used various forms of extreme violence—mutilating women’s breasts, adds that a slab of marble had been erected during the reign of Theodosios I to mark the site of the latrine. accounts of arios’s death become progressively more specific and graphic; see ellen muehlberger, “The Legend of arius’s Death: Imagination, space, and Filth in Late ancient historiography,” Past and Present 227, no. 1 (may 2015): 5–12. 66. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.5–6; cf. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 2.34, 3.3.1. In sokrates’s narrative, the deaths of Constantine (2.5) and alexander (2.6) run in quick succession. sozomenos places more narrative space between these events. 67. Previously noted by Dagron, Naissance, 425–35. In Historia ecclesiastica 2.22, 23, and 26, sokrates also places Paul concretely in athanasios’s orbit. 68. see sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.15.1–2; cf. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 3.8.1–4. The Letter of Julius (preserved in athanasios, Apologia contra Arianos 33.1) mentions bishops who traveled to rome, including markellos, but does not mention Paul by name. 69. Parallels to these episodes are found in sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 3.6–7 and 9. The historians rely on athanasios’s De synodis, Apologia de fuga, and Apologia contra Arianos. 70. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.38.33–34: Τοιαῦτα μὲν οὖν τὰ Μακεδονίου ὑπὲρ τοῦ Χριστιανισμοῦ κατορθώματα, φόνοι καὶ μάχαι καὶ ἀνδραποδισμοὶ καὶ ἐμφύλιοι πόλεμοι. Αὕτη μέντοι ἡ πρᾶξις οὐ μόνον παρὰ τῶν ἠδικημένων, ἀλλὰ καὶ παρὰ τῶν οἰκείως πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐχόντων δίκαιον κατ’ αὐτοῦ μῖσος εἰργάσατο. 71. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.38.10: ξένη τε παρὰ τὰς Ἐλλήνων; see also sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.2.2–3.

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force-feeding communion, and branding—to compel nicene Christians to participate in his rituals. This narrative framing makes clear that for sokrates, makedonios does not respect bodily integrity, but rather transgresses the limits of how those in positions of authority and care for civic matters ought to behave. The representations of the fifth-century historians, as well as the earlier polemics from which they were certainly derived, make monsters of both makedonios and his backer Constantius, casting them as morally corrupt.72 Far from legitimately punishing deviant elements in Constantinople, makedonios had perverted the teachings of the Church and was determined to break orthodox bodies. similarly, far from being an emperor “eagerly attentive to divine matters” (as Philostorgios portrays him), Constantius was a degenerate led astray by heresy into attacking God’s people.73 These men and their ilk had been pushed outside the category of Christian—or rather the boundaries of the category had been moved so as to exclude them. In the retelling, they had lost control of the narrative and the ability to impose social order, becoming targets whose elimination was crucial for the welfare of the city and empire. makedonios’s monstrous nature is further accentuated by sokrates’s incorporation, nearly verbatim, of athanasios’s accounts of harm done by George of Cappadocia. shortly after Pentecost, George, who had begun a pogrom against athanasios’s followers, persuaded the local military commander to attack a group of nicene Christians who had refused communion with him and were observing their rituals in the local cemetery: setting up a large fire and placing the virgins nearby, [George] demanded that they proclaim that they were of the creed of arios. When he saw that they were holding out and scorned the fire, he stripped them naked and mutilated their faces until they were barely recognizable. Then, seizing forty men, he tortured them ingeniously: he cut branches from palm-trees, leaving on their thorns, and flogged their backs so flagrantly [with these] that some of them had to be operated on multiple times because the thorns had lodged in their wounds; others could not endure [it] and perished.74 72. see Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s discussion of the “rhetoric of deviance” in “monster Culture (seven Theses),” in Monster Theory: Reading Culture, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (minneapolis: University of minnesota Press, 1996), 7–8, 10–11. 73. Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 3.2: τὰ πρὸς θεὸν σπουδαῖός (language praising Constantius as reported via Passio Artemii 17; trans., amidon, Philostorgius, 39). 74. athanasios, Apologia de fuga 6.27.5: πυρκαιὰν γὰρ ἀνάψας καὶ στήσας παρθένους παρὰ τὸ πῦρ, ἠνάγκαζε λέγειν ἑαυτὰς τῆς Ἀρείου πίστεως εἶναι. Ὡς δὲ νικώσας αὐτὰς ἔβλεπε καὶ μὴ φροντιζούσας τοῦ πυρός, γυμνώσας λοιπὸν οὕτω κατέκοψεν εἰς τὰ πρόσωπα, ὡς μετὰ χρόνον μόγις αὐτὰς ἐπιγνωσθῆναι. Ἄνδρας δὲ κρατήσας τεσσαράκοντα, καινοτέρῳ τρόπῳ κατέκοψε· ῥάβδους γὰρ τὰς ἀπὸ τῶν φοινίκων εὐθὺς τεμών, ἐν αὐταῖς ἐχούσας ἔτι τοὺς σκόλοπας τὰ; νῶτα τούτων οὕτως ἐξέδειρεν, ὡς τινὰς μὲν πολλάκις χειρουργηθῆναι διὰ τοὺς ἐναποπαγέντας ἐν αὐτοῖς σκόλοπας, τινὰς δὲ καὶ μὴ φέροντας ἀποθανεῖν. Theodoret repeats athanasios’s accusations in Historia ecclesiastica 2.11. Compare, too, sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.28.3–14 and sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.10.

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The parallels to makedonios’s reign of terror, particularly the mutilation of virgins and the bloodshed at cult sites, are striking. George, like makedonios, it is said, resorted to torture and military force to impose his teachings, encouraging kidnapping, property seizure and attacks on widows and orphans.75 he violated codes of civil behavior by desecrating feast days and sacred space, mutilating clergy and consecrated virgins, and attacking the weakest members of society. a central tactic of athanasios’s rhetoric, echoed by sokrates and sozomenos (as well as rufinus before them), is portraying the followers of arios as inherently violent.76 In recounting the doings of those identified as arians, athanasios himself freely incorporates older rhetorical tropes of tyranny, making it difficult to distinguish rhetoric from actual events.77 elsewhere, athanasios presents the followers of arios as bordering on, if not crossing into, the realm of insanity. These are people who do not—perhaps cannot—respect expectations of bodily integrity; neither do they recognize the inviolability of ritual space or time. sokrates gestures toward this trope early in his narrative when contrasting the characters of Paul and makedonios at the deathbed of the revered alexander. aware that he was near the end of his life, alexander presented these two men as potential successors, but warned that makedonios only made a show of virtue.78 Constantinople’s leaders should—like the reader—have known that makedonios would fragment Christianity and create civic strife. The description of Paul and makedonios that sokrates places in the mouth of the dying, saintly Bishop alexander sets up the rhetoric of persecution that follows. as an arian, makedonios would have had no qualms about committing atrocities against the members of the “true Church.”79 a tyrant could not be orthodox, and an orthodox figure could not be tyrannical.80 75. Theodoret, Historia ecclesiastica 2.11.4. 76. see discussion in Gwynn, Eusebians, 158–161. For more on the construction of competitors as persecutors, see Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, 49; Drake, “Intolerance,” 193–235; Gaddis, There Is No Crime, 268–81; michele renee salzman, “rethinking Pagan-Christian Violence,” in Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices, ed. h. a. Drake, 265–85 (aldershot, england: ashgate, 2006), 265–85. 77. Gwynn, Eusebians, 159. 78. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.6.3–4; see also sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 3.3. 79. Gaddis, There Is No Crime, 260–81. For more on the rhetoric of legitimate authority, see Peter Brown, “The saint as exemplar in Late antiquity,” Representations 1, no. 2 (spring 1983): 1–25; susanna elm, “Family men: masculinity and Philosophy in Late antiquity,” in Transformations of Late Antiquity: Essays for Peter Brown, ed. Philip rousseau and manolis Papoutsakis (Farnham, england: ashgate, 2009), 279–301; John matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus (Baltimore: Johns hopkins University Press, 1989), 231–52; Claudia rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 16–18; and edward Watts, Riot in Alexandria: Tradition and Group Dynamics in Late Antique Pagan and Christian Communities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 172–75. 80. arrogance and greed for power became primary markers of the heretic in late antique polemic; see Berzon, Classifying Christians, 85–97. rhetorical motifs of violence have a longer history of

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This presentation of makedonios’s atrocities depends heavily on a larger pattern in the histories of violence against “the true Church.” hellenes in alexandria attack Christians attempting to purify the mithraeon. The emperor Valens orders eighty nicene Christians to be burned aboard a ship on the open sea after the men traveled to nikomedia to petition him. The same emperor attempts to massacre the Christians of edessa as they assemble in their temple. The arians of alexandria murder local ascetics. In Constantinople, arians circulate rumors of Theodosios I’s defeat and set fire to the house of the nicene bishop nektarios.81 The deviant sabbatios persuades his followers to break away from the novatian community; this schism eventually results in an unfortunate affair in which sabbatios’s followers panic and trample each other while celebrating Pascha.82 another incident occurs in Inmestar, syria, where Jews crucify a Christian boy.83 These episodes are not confined to the enemies of nicene Christianity, but also extended to enemies within the ranks of the orthodox. This is particularly true of individuals who disrupted the imperial church in Constantinople during the fifth century, especially nestorios, Cyril of alexandria, and even John Chrysostom, albeit to a lesser degree. John and nestorios, both brought to Constantinople by the emperor, disturbed the order of Constantinopolitan society in much the same way makedonios had.84 Under their episcopacies, Constantinople once again became a place of conflict, with riots breaking out during vigil processions and shouting matches disrupting the synaxis of the Great Church. When John was expelled from the city in June 404, his followers even set fire to the Great Church, sokrates says, and he similarly expands on Cyril’s evil deeds in egypt, including orchestrated attacks on the governor Orestes and the philosopher hypatia.85 The murder of hypatia, which occurred during Lent, was particularly brutal: “hot-headed men . . . kept watch for [hypatia] when she returned home [from visiting Orestes]. Dragging her from her carriage to the church [τὴν ἐκκλησίαν] known as kaisarion, they stripped off her garments and slew her with potsherds. after tearing her limb from limb, they association with “pagans” as persecutors of Christians; see Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, 49; and salzman, “rethinking Pagan-Christian Violence,” 265–85. 81. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 3.2, 4.16, 4.18, 4.22, 4.24, 5.13. 82. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.21, 7.5; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 7.18.1–11, 8.1.8. 83. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.16.2–4. The incident is frequently connected to Purim, with the crucifixion an enactment of the hanging of haman. see discussion in elliott s. horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton, nJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 213–21. sokrates himself is unclear about the context—he mentions only that these were part of the “customary comic games [ἐν τῷ παίζειν ἄλογα].” 84. For sokrates’s hostility to John, see Wendy mayer, “The making of a saint: John Chrysostom in early historiography,” in Chrysostomosbilder in 1600 Jahren: Facetten der Wirkungsgeschichte eines Kirchenvaters, ed. martin Wallraff and rudolf Brändle, arbeiten zur kirchengeschichte 105 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 39–44. 85. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.18.12–18, 7.13–15.

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gathered the pieces and burned them in a place called kinaron.”86 aside from damning Cyril’s failure to prevent the mutilation and dismemberment of this highly regarded woman philosopher, sokrates laments the desecration of both the kaisarion and the fasts leading to the holy festival of Pascha.87 similar episodes of conflict and mutilation appear in sozomenos’s history. Consider, for example, the brief narrative arc constructed in book 5.9–11, which describes martyrdoms during Julian’s reign, episodes largely absent from sokrates’s history.88 This portion of sozomenos’s work begins with the people of sozomenos’s hometown, Gaza, attacking three Christian men imprisoned on the (allegedly false) charge of defiling one of the city’s temples. an enraged mob, sozomenos recounts, rushed to the prison. They abused the men savagely: dragging them sometimes on their faces, sometimes on their backs, beating them against the pavement, and striking them with whatever was at hand, some with stones, others with clubs, still others with whatever they could grab. . . . Women, too, left their looms and stabbed them with their spindles. some of the butchers in the marketplace snatched kettles boiling with hot water from their stands and poured it [on the men]; others pierced them with skewers. afterwards [the crowd] tore [the victims] apart and crushed their heads, so that their brains poured onto the ground. They then dragged the bodies outside the city, to the place where it was customary to toss animal carcasses, lit a fire, and burned them.89

This episode is included within a larger narrative cycle that establishes a pattern of violence against what the author regarded to be orthodoxy. Immediately following the incident in Gaza, sozomenos describes an attack on consecrated virgins in heliopolis (Phoenicia), where after humiliating the virgins by forcing them to stand naked in public, the citizens “shaved them, disemboweled them, and brought 86. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.15.5: Καὶ δὴ συμφρονήσαντες ἄνδρες τὸ φρόνημα ἔνθερμοι, ὧν ἡγεῖτο Πέτρος τις ἀναγνώστης, ἐπιτηροῦσι τὴν ἄνθρωπον ἐπανιοῦσαν ἐπὶ οἰκίαν ποθέν, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ δίφρου ἐκβαλόντες ἐπὶ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, ᾗ ἐπώνυμον Καισάριον, συνέλκουσιν, ἀποδύσαντές τε τὴν ἐσθῆτα ὀστράκοις ἀνεῖλον, καὶ μεληδὸν διασπάσαντες ἐπὶ τὸν καλούμενον Κιναρῶνα τὰ μέλη συνάραντες πυρὶ κατανήλωσαν. 87. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.15.6–7. 88. The exception here is the account of martyrdoms at meron (Phrygia), found in sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 3.15. 89. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 5.9.3–5: κατέδραμον εἰς τὸ δεσμωτήριον· καὶ ἐξαγαγόντες αὐτοὺς ὠμότατα διεχρήσαντο πῇ μὲν πρηνεῖς, πῇ δὲ ὑπτίους ἕλκοντες καὶ τῷ ἐδάφειπροσρηγνύντες καὶ ᾗ ἔτυχον παίοντες, οἱ μὲν λίθοις, οἱ δὲ ξύλοις, ἄλλοι δὲ ἄλλοις τισὶ τοῖς ἐπιτυχοῦσιν . . . καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες ἐκ τῶν ἱστῶν ἐξιοῦσαι ταῖς κερκίσιν αὐτοὺς κατεκέντουν καὶ τῶν ἐπ’ ἀγορᾶς μαγείρων οἱ μὲν ὕδατι θερμῷ κοχλάζοντας τοὺς λέβητας ἐξαρπάζοντες τῶν χυτροπόδων κατέχεον, οἱ δὲ τοῖς ὀβελίσκοις διέπειρον. ἐπεὶ δὲ αὐτοὺς διεσπάραξαν καὶ τὰς κεφαλὰς ἔθλασαν, ὡς καὶ τὸν ἐγκέφαλον χαμαὶ ῥεῖν, ἤγαγον πρὸ τοῦ ἄστεως, ᾗ τὰ ἀποθνήσκοντα τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων ῥίπτειν εἰώθεσαν· καὶ πῦρ ἀνάψαντες ἔκαυσαν αὐτῶν τὰ σώματα.

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swine to feast on their viscera, having covered their internal organs with their usual food, so that the swine could not readily discern between the two but rent apart human flesh out of desire for their food.”90 sozomenos’s following chapter details the martyrdom of the bishop mark of arethusa, whose ears were ripped off and skin pierced repeatedly by schoolboys’ pens. Following mark’s mutilation—and while he was still alive—the boys “smeared him with honey and garum [fish sauce] and threw him into a woven basket,” whereupon “wasps and bees flew to him and devoured his flesh.”91 The martyrdom of mark is then followed by accounts of Christians roasted over a fire, the torture of Bousiris of ankyra, and the martyrdoms of Basil of ankyra and eupsychios of Caesarea.92 Like sokrates, sozomenos weaves together assertions from various sources (here, notably, eusebios’s Life of Constantine and Gregory of nazianzos’s Oration 4), with independent material to construct this narrative of repeated violence against Christians. Claims of extreme torture of this kind are a standard topos in late antique martyr texts.93 This body of literature includes gruesome, even voyeuristic tales of trial and torture: of women mauled by mad cows, of virgins’ breasts cut off and eyes put out, of men burned in furnaces. as others have noted, this literature inverts displays of roman power by emphasizing Christian fortitude in the face of all this.94 But such narratives also perform another task. Their graphic descriptions of bodily mutilations—of martyrs who lose fingernails, tongues, breasts, ears—cast the perpetrators as bloodthirsty tyrants and villains, not rational judicial authorities. They take authorized physical coercion well past the limits of social norms, effectively transforming the normal exercise of legal sanction into atrocity.95 each of the inci90. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 5.10.6: ἀνέκειραν αὐτάς· καὶ διχῇ ἀνατεμόντες, ἐπὶ τὴν βρῶσιν τῶν ἐγκάτων προσεκαλοῦντο τοὺς χοίρους, συνήθει τούτοις τροφῇ ἐπιπολῆς τὰ σπλάγχνα καλύψαντες, ὥστε μὴ ῥᾳδίως τοὺς ὗς διακρίνειν, ἀλλ’ ἐξ ἀνάγκης τῆς εἰωθυίας τροφῆς ὀρεγομένους καὶ τὰ ἀνδρόμεα κρέα σπαράττειν. sozomenos’s source is Gregory of nazianzos, Oratio 4.86–87. 91. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 5.10.11–12, quoted text at 5.10.12: μέλιτι καὶ γάρῳ ἀλείψαντες αὐτὸν καὶ σαργάνῃ ἐμβαλόντες (πλέγμα δὲ τοῦτο ὁλόσχοινον) εἰς ὕψος ἦραν . . . σφηκῶν καὶ μελισσῶν ἐφιπταμένων αὐτῷ καὶ τὰς σάρκας κατεσθιουσῶν. Cf. Gregory of nazianzos, Oratio 4.88–91. 92. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 5.11; cf. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 3.15. The accounts of Bousiris, Basil, and eupsychios first appear in sozomenos. 93. Peter Brown, “enjoying the saints in Late antiquity,” Early Medieval Europe 9, no. 1 (2000): 6–7; see also Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, 112–17; Gaddis, There Is No Crime, 96–97; sizgorich, Violence and Belief, 70–72. 94. The narrative framing of atrocity literature absolves the readers from the moral culpability of delighting in the martyr’s suffering. see David Frankfurter, “martyrology and the Prurient Gaze,” JECS 17, no. 2 (summer 2009): 238. 95. The balance between imperial authority and clemency was a delicate dance, and fear of being labeled intolerant and placed within the same category as those previous “tyrants” could be a powerful check on exercising imperial power. ambrose leaned on these concerns, e.g., when he warned the emperor Theodosios I not to take retributive action against Christians who had attacked Jews in Callinicum in 388; see Drake, “Intolerance,” 199–200.

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dents recounted by sokrates and sozomenos, as well as their sources, are well within the realm of plausibility for the late roman world, even if they push the limits of what was culturally acceptable. This is, indeed, part of their power: by sitting at the intersection of plausibility and transgression, the reports open a way into thinking of one’s opponents as monsters. sokrates and sozomenos presumably intended readers of their narratives of mutilation not merely to recoil in horror but to share them with others.96 In other words, these authors are not simply reporting or repeating events, but crafting atrocity stories for the consumption of their readers. The mobilization of sentiment against their target group—the followers of makedonios, and more broadly, “arians”—would have been a particularly effective means to construct boundaries between the imperial church and its enemies, especially if it drew on violence or memories of (real or imagined) past violence.97 here, the institutional memory of violence, like the initial incident itself, was a useful social tool for defining the imperial church and forcing readers to identify with it.98 Their extended narratives of torture, mutilation, and trauma recall and criminalize the actions of the former regime, while deflecting attention from the actions of the new one. now favored, the homoousian elite of the Theodosian period constructed memories of violence that delegitimized the past (makedonian) regime and legitimized their own (nicene) regime. 96. David Frankfurter, “On sacrifice and residues: Processing the Potent Body,” in Religion im kulturellen Diskurse / Religion in Cultural Discourse, ed. Brigitee Luchesi and kocku von stuckrad (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 511–33, and Frankfurter, “Prurient Gaze,” 230–35. While the martyr narratives are certainly a different genre than the ecclesiastical histories of the fourth and fifth centuries, their reports of graphic violence share the characteristic of voyeurism and the aim to evoke disgust and fascination. 97. Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 9–10, 14–15; see similarly susan alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 26–27; katharina schramm, “Introduction: Landscapes of Violence: memory and sacred space,” Memory and History 23, no. 1 (spring–summer 2011): 8; Ingo W. schröder, and Bettina e. schmidt, “Introduction: Violent Imaginaries and Violent Practices,” in Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, ed. Bettina e. schmidt and Ingo W. schröder (London: routledge, 2001), 4; stewart and strathern, Violence, 161, 166. 98. This approach has been taken before, most notably and eloquently by elizabeth Castelli in her 2004 study of the formative role of martyrdom narratives in early Christianity. Citing maurice halbwachs on collective memory, Castelli notes that memory is “a socially constructed version of the past,” which “provid[es] the conceptual and cognitive constraints that render past experience meaningful in and for present contexts.” religious transformation, she adds, involves the past in that it is used to authorize the present. see Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, 12. For a concise outline of halbwachs’s work as it relates to early Christian social formation as well as a summary of criticisms of his work, see ibid., 11–24; maurice halbwachs, On Collective Memory, ed. and trans. Lewis a. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); as well as alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past, 1–19, 23–32; James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 25.

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a degree of caution is necessary here. I am not saying that the events our authors narrate are necessarily fictional or merely the product of polemic. It is entirely possible that incidents like the ones reported did occur during the conflicts of the fourth and fifth centuries. The methods of interrogation and punishment described look much like the methods used by roman authorities in other sources.99 But it is important to note the extent to which the accounts draw on the established tropes of martyr narratives, not to mention how infrequently reports of similar actions by nicene Christians appear (at least prior to the fifth century). Given, too, how well these episodes fit into tropes about insane heretics, it is not difficult to imagine that the authors (or their sources) have fabricated them. But such considerations are almost beside the point. stories need not be truthful— they need only be persuasive.100 an important way to make a story persuasive is to appeal to readers’ disgust and outrage. such appeals encourage the reader to associate violence with particular individuals or groups (here, makedonios, his followers, and the larger category of arians) and recoil from them, much the same way rhetorical evocation of concentration camps urges people to react against the actions of the current U.s. administration. and this sense of disgust is heightened in instances where the perpetrators (makedonios and George) do not follow the rituals and limits proper to authorized torture or when they invade protected spaces and times. It is less the torture itself than the memory or image of torture that serves a social function. These narratives are meant to demonstrate the actions of rival groups as insanity, demonic possession, or monstrosity.101 By recounting such episodes of violence and collecting them into a sustained historical narrative, sokrates and sozomenos constructed an institutional memory for Constantinople that clearly demarcated imperial religion in a world where its boundaries were uncertain and left no room for wavering. There is a further, crucial, aspect of the historians’ narratives. In addition to marking opponents as irrational, violent agents and excluding them from the imperial church, sokrates and sozomenos both map episodes of conflict onto defined locations and place these traumas on display. here, again, our authors continue a project already begun by their sources. But whereas their primary documents often identify a place as one where a confrontation occurred, in the histories the locations become narrative monuments: alexandria, athanasios’s embattled see, 99. see, e.g., CTH 9.5.1 (issued either in 314 or sometime between 320 and 323), which allows for the torture of persons of any social status in cases of treason, and CTH 9.35.2 (376), which describes various methods of tortures, while exempting those of decurial status (that is, those who belonged to a city’s governing body) from these methods of interrogation. 100. to be clear, I am not claiming that the episodes are necessarily fabricated, partially or wholly, only that this is a consideration we should keep in mind when approaching these reports. 101. Frankfurter, “Prurient Gaze,” 217–18, 227. This tendency to characterize an opposing party as inherently violent is not restricted to antiquity.

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famous for its zealous monks; antioch, the center of Christian culture against the traditionalist enclaves of syria; nikomedia, a den of arian emperors seeking the deaths of true Christians. These locations have become imagined, idealized spaces, only tenuously tethered to the real cities where their sources walked, debated, and petitioned, and from which they sometimes fled. The exception for both our authors is the city of Constantinople itself, which in its narrative form retains a more textured landscape, imbued with identifiable loci of violence, atrocity, and tragedy in the shape of hagia eirene, hagia sophia, the Forum of Constantine, the anastasia, and other well-known landmarks. Writing in Constantinople for other elites who likely would have some familiarity with Constantinople’s landscape— including the emperor and his court—sokrates and sozomenos connected events with locations that would strike certain resonances and thus promote their particular understandings of history.102 Often these sites—notably, the apostoleion, hagia eirene, the Great Church, and imperial fora—were associated with imperial power. Further incidents were located at sites explicitly meant to commemorate the martyrs of the period, for example, the anastasia chapel and hagios Paulos. We cannot ascertain whether this pattern is intentional—perhaps it is merely a consequence of the authors’ (or their intended audience’s) greater familiarity with Constantinople. nonetheless, the naming of Constantinopolitan sites has an important consequence: it draws attention to Constantinople as a city with streets and identifiable monuments, providing it with texture (in contrast to relatively amorphous and generic images of cities elsewhere), and thus amplifying the city’s status and pushing it to the center of the conflicts that helped to define the imperial church. This narrative implantation and performance did not occur in a vacuum. The city in which sokrates and sozomenos wrote was constantly changed by the living as they moved through its streets and buildings, even as those movements were informed, guided, and dictated by the memory or erasure of past events. Constantinople’s monumental architecture provided tangible spaces to house memories, and thus also supplied the physical and mental architecture for the contestations of politics, ideology, and power. But spaces do not contain meanings in and of 102. It is unclear how widely the histories were read, but we have limited evidence of their circulation among those who participated in Constantinopolitan literary circles, e.g., in sozomenos’s and Theodoret’s use of sokrates and later in the epitomizing of these three texts by Theodoros anagnotes in the early sixth century (and its subsequent translation into Latin by Cassiodorus, who had been in Constantinople between 540 and 554). see Joseph Bidez, La tradition manuscrit de Sozomène et la Tripartite de Théodore le Lecteur (Leipzig: hinrichs, 1908), 35–36, 51–57; Lieve Van hoof and Peter Van nuffelen, “The historiography of Crisis: Jordanes, Cassiodorus and Justinian in mid-sixth-century Constantinople,” JRS (2017): 279, 287. sozomenos, too, dedicates his work to Theodosios II (see Historia ecclesiastica preface). even if the emperor never read the work, the author clearly includes him in his ideal audience.

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themselves. People need to remember that certain events happened in these spaces, and that often means communicating these memories to others, to make recalling such events when entering a space natural and reflexive.103 In this respect, the physical landscape had a degree of agency—in the rigidity of its walls, in the crumbling of ancient buildings, in the demands it made of its walkers—but that agency was imposed upon by the stories its inhabitants told. These performances of memory in turn shaped the individuals who moved through their spaces and heard their stories. Performative manipulations of institutional memory had already occurred over the course of the fourth century. a particularly potent example here is the importation of relics, begun under Constantius, which implanted a new history in the city’s landscape. Constantius reportedly installed the relics of andrew, timothy, and Luke in the apostoleion in the 350s.104 The addition of these venerated figures to the mausoleum strengthened the connection between the imperial household and the apostolic past, and those who entered this space would have encountered this connection spatially (provided they were made aware of the presence of both imperial and apostolic remains). The Theodosian dynasty later appropriated these early relics and imported additional ones. Theodosios I reportedly brought the relics of John the Baptist to the city.105 By the late fourth century, legends circulated about the retrieval of the true Cross and the nails of the Crucifixion by Constantine’s mother, helena, which were believed to be deposited under the Column of Constantine and woven into the imperial regalia.106 These sites were also joined by martyria for the city’s own martyrs: mokios and akakios, who reportedly perished in Constantinople during the persecution of Diocletian; and martyrios and markianos, two clerics reportedly executed by Constantius.107 Like the institutional memory of violence enacted through the ecclesiastical histories, these martyria contributed to the sense of the city as a Christian space by recalling 103. see Connerton, How Societies Remember, 41, 52, 63. For monuments as performances of memory, see alcock, Archaeologies of the Greek Past, 30. 104. Jerome, Chronicon (helm 240–41); Chronicon paschale 356–57 (P293b–c); discussion in Cyril mango, “Constantine’s mausoleum and the translation of relics,” ByzZ 83, no. 1 (1990): 52–53, 56; Wendy mayer, “Cathedral Church or Cathedral Churches? The situation at Constantinople (c. 360–404 aD),” OCP 66 (2000): 49–60. 105. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.4.14. sozomenos relates that Valens had earlier attempted to bring the remains to the city, but could bring them no further than the territory of Chalcedon. John the Baptist supposedly allowed the “orthodox” Theodosios I to escort his relics the remaining distance. 106. see ambrose, De Obitu Theodosii 40; sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.17. 107. akakios: sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 2.38.40, 6.23.2; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.21.4; Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae 237. mokios: Parastaseis 1. note the late date of the testimony concerning mokios. It is also notable that the fifth-century Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae does not mention the church. martyrios and markianos: sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 4.3. see also discussion in Dagron, Naissance, 376, 391–401.

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events that had (or were believed to have) occurred there or importing memories from elsewhere.108 In short, they made Christian history real by making it physically present to anyone who encountered these monuments. The histories, too, are spaces, albeit of a different mode, that construct social boundaries, establish power relationships, and impose ideology by performing institutional memory within the narrative map of Constantinople. In preserving incidents at identifiable landmarks, their authors imposed meaning onto and into Constantinople’s narrative landscape. With that act, the monuments became relatively static within the world of the text, even if the real landscape of Constantinople continued to change and be subject to negotiation. For our authors, the apostoleion is a steadfast testimony to apostolic and imperial authority that reveals the depths of makedonios’s errancy, for when the heretics attempt to translate Constantine’s remains—to hand a symbol of orthodoxy over to heresy—violence prevents it. In a similar way, hagia eirene is simultaneously the throne of nicene bishops who stood against arios and a martyrion for three thousand Christian martyrs—another signal that the true church could not countenance the leaderships of heretics.109 The anastasia is a place true to its name, where orthodoxy “was resurrected and came back to life.”110 This narrative landscape might be tethered to a real physical landscape, but it had its own order, its own authority. It was an idealized city in which group boundaries were clearly demarcated and there was no room for wavering between camps. This narrative landscape commemorated nicene triumph by drawing the reader’s attention to moments and locations in which trauma had occurred. at the same time, the historians stripped the landscape of unwanted clutter in order to accommodate this preferred narrative. We saw this earlier with sozomenos’s presentation of Constantinople as a pristine new Christian foundation under Constantine, with no trace of its pre-Christian past. a similarly sterilized picture of the city emerges in a slightly earlier Constantinopolitan document, the Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae (ca. 412/13–427). Whereas this inventory of the city’s civic architecture mentions at least twelve Christian temples, it remains completely silent on non-Theodosian elements—the old temples, the supposed Chalkoprateia synagogue, the column of the Goths (a people associated with arianism during the period), and even the column of Constantine are all absent from its map of the 108. These relics could even be put to service to assert the triumph of orthodoxy. For example, the fifth-century empress Pulcheria is said to have “rescued” the relics of the Forty of sebasteia from the makedonian martyrion where they had lain hidden for the previous century. see sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 9.2. 109. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.37.7–9, 2.16.7–16. 110. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 7.5: ἐνθάδε ανέστη τε καὶ ἀνεβίω. Cf. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.7. Gregory himself refers to the site by this name in Oratio 42.26, Carmen 2.1.5, 3–5 (Ad plebem Anastasiae) and 2.1.11, 1079–83 (De vita sua).

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city.111 neither of the landscapes presented by sozomenos and the Notitia align with what we know of the city’s surviving monuments, but that was not important to their producers.112 rather, these landscapes erased non-Christian elements from the city. Constantinople had been purified of taint and made worthy of Christ. This process of sterilizing a landscape also intentionally left the scars of those who had lost the privilege of determining the meaning of events. For example, by the time the historians were writing, the place of arios’s death had been identified as a latrine near the Forum of Constantine. sokrates asserts that even in his time, the latrine could be found behind the forum’s market, and all who passed the spot would point at it and remember it as the place where the arch-heretic had died.113 sozomenos tells a similar story of arios’s death, although he omits the location and claims that people were afraid to approach the latrine, and that finally a rich arian had purchased the property and built a house in its place so that people might forget that it had been such a place of infamy.114 marking arios’s deisaterion (the Greek δεῖσα meaning filth or slime) amounted to grotesque voyeurism that provided a stark reminder of arios’s condemnation and a warning to others sympathetic to his teachings. and by plotting the incident on their literary maps of Constantinople, sokrates and sozomenos ensured that their readers would remember. The fifth-century historians performed similar erasures against other illicit groups, such as that of a cult site built by makedonios. When Theodosios I arrived in Constantinople, sokrates and sozomenos recount, the emperor signaled his patronage of nicene bishops by translating the relics of makedonios’ rival Paul to the Christian temple where makedonios had been installed as bishop and rededicating it as hagios Paulos.115 neither historian provides a name for the site prior to 111. In contrast to the fifth-century historians, for whom control of sites is a paramount issue, the Notitia does not address questions of orthodoxy, factionalism, and “ownership” of cult sites. Perhaps these omissions are simply a matter of genre and style, and yet the catalogue is essentially a map of the city in narrative form. however, the document does include other “civic” monuments (the hippodrome, the theater, and the baths). Possibly the temples on the acropolis had already been dismantled, as John malalas (Chronographia 13.39) later asserts, but I do not think the Notitia can be used as straightforward evidence for their dismantling. For discussion, see John matthews, “The Notitia Urbis Constantinople,” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, ed. Lucy Grig and Gavin kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 113. 112. see comments in Cyril mango, Le développement urbain de Constantinople, IVe–VIIe siècles (Paris: De Boccard, 2004), 7–8. 113. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 1.38. 114. It seems to me that the attention afforded to locations associated with memories of atrocity engendered an “anti-sacred” landscape, so to speak, which may have included behaviors associated with those sites. Unfortunately, we have very little access to these behaviors, but if sokrates, sozomenos, and Philostorgios are any indication, they may have included the repeated retelling of stories about a site and the incidents that “occurred” there. 115. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.9; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 7.10.

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this event; they simply refer to it by its new, Theodosian designation. two sites associated with the sabbatians were similarly erased: the cult site where the supposed Paschal massacre occurred had been razed and replaced by the Forum of arkadios, and the martyrion of sabbatios, a supposed pilgrimage site for the sabbatians, narratively “disappeared” with the fifth-century bishop attikos’s removal of sabbatios’s body to an undisclosed location.116 In each of these cases, an imperial monument lay over the scars of violence against the future Theodosian church. The placement of Paul’s relics in a temple associated with makedonios rewrote the site’s historical significance and transformed it from a marker of makedonian supremacy to a bastion of nicene orthodoxy. This transformation healed the wounds inflicted by makedonios while allowing a scar of these events to remain intact as a warning against those who would dissent from the imperial church. The supposed sabbatian monuments were clutter to be stripped from the narrative landscape in a way that allowed its scars, too, to remain. In both instances, these transformations were reminders to readers of the violence heretics brought down upon the city and thus a warning to anyone tempted to dissent from nicene doctrine. such acts of narrative memorialization not only carried the residue of past violence, but also of continuing acts of violence themselves. The narratives of the historians are acts of damnatio memoriae, in which literary erasures and scars reminded people who passed by sights of contestation or read about past conflicts to “forget” the violence of the past.117 But the forgetting was all the more potent for the memories it preserved. Indeed, the memorialization was a means for invested individuals to construct group boundaries and eliminate potential competition. The accuracy of the details related was not important when embedding those memories in the landscape. What was important was that by placing such memories in clearly identifiable locations, cultural agents could shape the people who moved through them. a location like hagia eirene was not merely an empty building in the landscape awaiting the flurry of human activity to bring it temporarily to life. rather, it was a memorial, a place where the “orthodox” church had stood against the ravages of its persecutors and resisted the illegitimate exercise of imperial power. It was a place where the dead walked, where the living entered their presence and paid tribute to their sacrifices. The decommemorating of arios, the makedoni116. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.25.10. 117. Charles W. hedrick Jr., History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity (austin: University of texas Press, 2000), 113; harriet Flower, The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (Chapel hill: University of north Carolina Press, 2006), 2–7; see also Connerton, How Societies Remember, 12. But spatial practices are not always easily contained by the cultural elite, as michel de Certeau reminds us in The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. steven rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 93. One could argue that social change occurred as suppressed groups seeped into the shadows of the city’s back alleys, telling stories and planting memories until they could emerge once again in the sunlight.

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ans, and the sabbatians by means of damnatio memoriae reprimanded and warned participants in illicit cult. and let us not overlook the near erasure of traditional sites and their visitors, not to mention Jews. By shaping their presentation of Constantinople’s history in this way, the historians could assert the hegemony of nicene orthodoxy by appealing to the institutional memory contained in the city’s monumental landscape. memorialization, then, provided a mechanism by which groups could seize the landscape from formerly hegemonic groups and even create a new normative landscape by rewriting the old, as one would in a palimpsest. •

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The episodes recounted by sokrates and sozomenos are not “normal” acts of violence (if any such thing ever exists). In these narrations, makedonios and those associated with him transgress the limits of the acceptable treatment of human bodies. These men inflict gruesome physical traumas, occasionally in times and spaces supposedly set aside for sacred action. The accounts of these violations are heightened and dramatic; they horrify and repulse, and yet capture the eye. makedonios and his followers are monsters; they violate women’s bodies, cut out men’s tongues. The reader could not un-see the grotesqueness of mutilation and the transgression of sacralized spaces, times, or actions. as propaganda, the historians’ stories of mutilation communicate a heightened experience of trauma and cast any action against arians currently living in the city as retributive justice. moreover, these incidents, collected into a broader narrative of violence against Constantinople’s nicene Christians, became textual performances of what would become the official institutional memory of the city. The consumption and repetition of these accounts trained their readers to focus on certain aspects or perceptions of a past event and to ignore others, further cementing social boundaries. moreover, these stories imprinted memory onto the city’s topography: onto its streets and forums, in martyria, and surrounding its Christian temples. In other words, the city’s monuments provided the substrata for sokrates, sozomenos, and the nicene readers for whom they wrote to memorialize their own history as the success of the imperial church against its enemies. This work was certainly not begun by the two historians; rather they were developing existing assertions of nicene Christian ownership of the religious infrastructure of Constantinople (and the empire writ large). While we are able to trace some of these efforts to earlier polemics, such as that of athanasios of alexandria, in many cases directly concerned with confrontations in the city, the original sources are unidentified. But we can tell some of its effects. traditional (and perhaps Jewish) cult sites were nearly erased from institutional memory, leaving other Christians as the only opponents worth engaging. These the historians tended to reduce into relatively homogeneous groups, most notably the “arians” (or “arianizers”), despite the fact that Christian groups without imperial support represented a greater diversity of positions (as, surely, was also the

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case among those who belonged to the imperial church). and, in fact, the primary opponents represented in the histories, makedonios and his followers were much closer to nicene positions than to other “arian” groups that sokrates and sozomenos discuss. But no doubt following their sources, the fifth-century historians push the makedonians firmly into the arian camp and clearly cast them as dangerous enemies that cannot be allowed any influence in Constantinopolitan religion. On the whole, intra-Christian conflicts under Constantius did not fundamentally change the fundamental architecture of religion. While Christianity was asserted as the official cult of the city, cult practices were still directed toward a powerful, unseen deity; the leaders of the city, especially the emperor and civic priests (now identified as Christian bishops who had imperial patronage) continued to determine and oversee the rituals of the city; and those rituals shaped perceptions of who belonged in the city. But we do see crucial features of religion being rearranged and pushed beyond its previous limits. While cult practice remained a local matter, connections between local configurations and those in other cities became more visible and determinative than they had been before. qualification for civic priesthoods depended on doctrinal agreement rather than magisterial rank (or, rather than simply on magisterial rank). and by the end of the fourth century, it became easier to demand that those who wanted to demonstrate their full membership in the civic community agree to a particular creed (or at least attend rituals led by those who supported that creed). The effects of these adjustments were profound. The combined effect of violence and its memorialization was immensely useful in advancing the new vision of religion, in constructing a new historical narrative for the city, and in displacing earlier or competing cultic configurations in order to cement the hegemony of Theodosian Christianity. Like acts of violence, the act of imposing such an institutional memory onto a landscape was an aggressive process that defined how the religious structures of the city were understood: who had a legitimate place in those structures, how it related to imperial authority, and why nonconforming groups could not have a space in the city. In short, in the narratives of anti-nicene aggression as presented in the work of the fifth-century historians, we are witnessing the creation of Theodosian Christianity and its effects. Ultimately, the control of Constantinople’s institutional memory and its memorialization in the city’s public spaces translated into the control of the discursive web produced between the space (with its memories), its interpreter(s), and the social group. If a group could control the ritual landscape, it could also control the interpretation of ritual practice—itself an important tool of persuasion and civic formation, as explored in the following chapter.

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no emperor looms nearly as large in later Christian imaginations as Julian, whose short reign lasted a mere eighteen months, from December 361 to June 363. The memory of this period and Julian’s efforts to return the empire to traditional cult received great attention among Christian storytellers, not only in the later fourth century, but well into the Byzantine period—and even in the modern imagination. narratives of persecution and near martyrdom were particularly potent in casting Julian as one of the quintessential villains of Christian history. so, too, were stories about individuals he forced into engaging in traditional ritual, especially through deceit or intimidation. These narratives reveal the deep anxiety Christian leaders had about the power of ritual practice. two tales about Julian’s reign illustrate this anxiety. The first is related by Gregory of nazianzos in his first invective against Julian, completed within a year or so of Julian’s death. according to Gregory, the emperor had devised a plot to trick the soldiers of his army into worshipping the traditional gods. to receive his pay each soldier was required to offer a pinch of incense to a statue of the emperor. This would have seemed innocuous, since it was customary, especially among soldiers and magistrates, to display their loyalty to the emperor and the empire in this way.1 1. tales of the ritual danger presented by Julian’s reign appear well into the ninth century. see, e.g., the incident involving Christian priests related by the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes in Chronographia am 5855, whose account follows the pattern set by, and is perhaps derived from, Gregory of nazianzos’s Oratio 4 (Contra Julianum 1). For the date of oration, see susanna elm, Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 342–43nn27–28. This oration formed the core narrative for Julian’s reign in sozomenos’s Historia ecclesiastica, book 5.

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yet this simple act created an uproar during the evening meal, when some of these same soldiers invoked Christ and signed themselves with the cross. Their companions immediately protested. “What is this?” they exclaimed, “Do you invoke Christ after denouncing him?” Gregory describes the confusion of the offending soldiers, who demanded to know the reason for the accusation. The earlier incense offering, harmless as it had seemed, had demonstrated their worship of the emperor (and other gods, if Julian had included their statues at the altar). now realizing that they had unwittingly participated in a non-Christian ritual, the soldiers were frantic. They sprang from the table and raced wildly through the marketplace proclaiming their loyalty to Christ: We are Christians! In our souls we are Christians! Let everyone hear this, and above all, let God for whom we both live and die [hear this]. We have not lied to you, savior Christ! We have not denied the blessed contract! even if our hands have somehow stumbled, our thoughts did not participate! We were outwitted by the emperor, not enticed by gold. We strip off our impiety. We purify ourselves by blood!2

The soldiers then threw their payments in Julian’s face and presented themselves for martyrdom. Their public denouncements led the remainder of the army to realize the emperor’s trap. In retaliation Julian, wanting to avoid producing new martyrs, exiled the soldiers. For the soldiers, it did not matter that their participation in the ritual was not meant to indicate their commitment to a god other than Christ. sprinkling a few grains of incense onto the fire had unintentionally enacted a relationship that violated the one with Christ. sozomenos, writing nearly a century later (ca. 448/49), relates a similar tale of unintentional ritual engagement. The pious Valentinian served as Julian’s bodyguard when he was Caesar in Gaul, sozomenos relates, until the emperor exiled him, ostensibly for failing in his duties. however, the historian explains, the “true reason” for the banishment was another offense altogether: When Julian was still among the Celts in the west, he went into a certain temple and sacrificed. Valentinian was with him, for it was the ancient custom among the romans for the leader of the Jovian and herculean legions to accompany the emperor as swords at his back, so to speak. When they were about to cross the threshold of the temple, the priest held out some moist saplings and sprinkled those entering according to hellenic custom; and because a drop fell on his tunic, Valentinian bore it with indignation (for he was a Christian) and abused the one performing the lustration. They also say that while the emperor watched, [Valentinian] quickly cut out and cast 2. Gregory of nazianzos, Oratio 4.84: Χριστιανοὶ, Χριστιανοὶ τὰς ψυχὰς ἡμεῖς· ἀκουέτω πᾶς ἄνθρωπος, καὶ πρὸ πάντων Θεὸς, ᾧ καὶ ζῶμεν καὶ τεθνηξόμεθα. Οὐκ ἐψευσάμεθά σε, Σῶτερ Χριστέ· οὐκ ἠρνησάμεθα τὴν μακαρίαν ὁμολογίαν. Εἴ τι καὶ ἡ χεὶρ ἔπταισεν, ἀλλ’ ἡ διάνοιά γε οὐκ ἠκολούθησεν. Βασιλεῖ κατεσοφίσθημεν, οὐ χρυσοῦ τραυματίαι γεγόναμεν. Ἀπεκδυόμεθα τὴν ἀσέβειαν, αἵματι καθαιρόμεθα.

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Cult Practice as a Technology of Social Construction away as much of his garment as was touched by that drop of water. Because of this Julian was incensed and not long afterwards exiled him to melitine in armenia without reprieve.3

according to sozomenos, Valentinian’s presence at a temple for a sacrifice was not at issue—after all, he was simply performing his duty as the emperor’s bodyguard. Only when Valentinian was touched by the physical matter of the ritual did his presence become problematic. at that point Valentinian slipped from bystander to participant. as we have seen in previous chapters, a significant portion of religious life in late antique roman cities involved communal acts of honor, supplication, and petition directed toward the divine realm, acts that situated the social body in relation to a deity or deities. however, ritual events were not occasions whose sole purpose was to communicate with or show honor to the divine. These events also had social consequences. rituals demonstrated inclusion in or exclusion from a group, as well as rendering the imagined boundaries between groups visually, spatially, and kinetically present. But does participation mark the individual as a member of the group and his agreement to the ritual’s actions? Precisely when and under what circumstances was an individual considered a participant? must he fully assent to the meanings of a ritual to be considered a participant, or was the act itself a form of such agreement? These were the pressing questions raised by both incidents. For Gregory and sozomenos, circumstances that limited an individual’s freedom to refuse participating in a ritual do not govern how his presence there was perceived by others. rather, participation in Julian’s sacrifices tainted the Christian and placed him outside the ranks of the church. For Gregory’s soldiers, the smallest gesture, even unknowingly or under duress, was enough to mark them as participants in a traditional ritual system, with dire consequences. For sozomenos’s Valentinian, on the other hand, his presence at Julian’s sacrifice did not indicate participation; rather, it was physical touch that signaled his transition from observer to participant. Put another way, participation and consent were in the eyes of the beholder; perception governed reality. ritual performances were not simply expressions of worship, but had the power to shape perceptions of the civic community’s values, social structures, and rela3. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 6.6.4–6: ἔτι διάγων Ἰουλιανὸς ἐν τοῖς πρὸς δύσιν Γαλάταις ἧκεν εἴς τινα ναὸν θύσων· συνῆν δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ Οὐαλεντινιανός· ἔθος γὰρ παλαιὸν Ῥωμαίοις τὸν ἡγούμενον τῶν Ἰοβιανῶν καὶ Ἑρκουλιανῶν . . . κατὰ νώτου ἐγγὺς ὡσανεὶ φύλακας ἕπεσθαι τῷ βασιλεῖ. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἔμελλεν ὑπεραμείβειν τοῦ ναοῦ τὸν οὐδόν, θαλλούς τινας διαβρόχους κατέχων ὁ ἱερεὺς νόμῳ Ἑλληνικῷ περιέρραινε τοὺς εἰσιόντας· ἐκπεσούσης δὲ σταγόνος ἐπὶ τὴν αὐτοῦ ἐσθῆτα χαλεπῶς ἤνεγκεν Οὐαλεντινιανός (ἦν γὰρ Χριστιανός) καὶ τῷ ῥαίνοντι ἐλοιδορήσατο· φασὶ δὲ καὶ τοῦ βασιλέως ὁρῶντος αὐτίκα περιτεμεῖν καὶ ἀπορρῖψαι σὺν αὐτῇ τῇ ψεκάδι ὅσον ἐβράχη τῆς ἐσθῆτος. τὸ δὲ ἐξ ἐκείνου μηνιῶν Ἰουλιανὸς οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον κατεδίκασεν αὐτοῦ τὴν Μελιτινὴν τῆς Ἀρμενίας διηνεκῶς οἰκεῖν.

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tionships with the gods. This chapter explores this aspect of ritual practice and its effectiveness as a tool for reshaping Constantinopolitan religious structures. John Chrysostom was the city’s court bishop between 397 and 404 c.e., and his episcopate is particularly instructive in this respect. By this time, Theodosian Christianity was firmly entrenched in the official ritual life of the city. even so, it was not the only form of cult in the city: other ritual groups, especially various groups associated with arianism, continued to challenge the authority of nicene clergy. moreover, other nicene clergy continually challenged John’s control over the practices of civic cult (that is, the performance of cult on behalf of the city). For many of these contestations, I argue, public ritual engagement provided a crucial tool for maintaining and expanding this control and for reorienting the conceptual world of late antique Constantinopolitans. t h e F O r m at IO n O F O rt hO D OX B O D I e s

For late antique Christian authors, a body’s movements, its contact with spaces, objects, and other bodies, held deep, abiding consequences. not only did daily interactions with one’s social and physical environment cultivate bodily habits that firmly situated the individual in society and enabled him to maneuver within it, but these habits shaped his soul and moral character. For many of these authors, the soul was not an unchanging, incorporeal essence, but an embodied substance that was physically affected through the body.4 For these reasons, controlling one’s environment and mitigating the effects of any corrupting environmental stimuli was paramount for ensuring the formation of virtuous souls. It should come as no surprise, then, that concerns about bodily habituation figure prominently in late antique literature, Christian and non-Christian alike. such concerns are particularly pronounced in pedagogical discussions, which were concerned not only with how to teach students literature, mathematics, and philosophy, but also with the proper formation of virtuous souls.5 Libanios, Basil of Caesarea, augustine of hippo, and ambrose of milan were not only the products of a rigorous educational tradition but had also been trained to perpetuate this system, 4. rebecca stephens Falcasantos, “a school for the soul: John Chrysostom on Mimēsis and the Force of ritual habit,” in The Garb of Being: Embodiment and Other Pursuits of Holiness in Late Ancient Christianity, ed. Georgia Frank et al. (new york: Fordham University Press, 2019), 104–5; susan ashbrook harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 100–105; Wendy mayer, “shaping the sick soul: reshaping the Identity of John Chrysostom,” in Christians Shaping Identity from the Roman Empire to Byzantium: Studies Inspired by Pauline Allen, ed. Geoffrey D. Dunn and Wendy mayer, supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 132 (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 150–57; and ruth Webb, Demons and Dancers: Performance in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 2008), 178–80. 5. see discussion in chap. 1 above, pp. 31–32.

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some of them as professional teachers. not only did their letters, orations, and homilies depend on the pedagogical theories advanced by their education, but each of these men also wrote treatises on the proper training of children and adolescents.6 a central feature of these works is their focus on moral formation, which depends not only on providing strong moral exemplars for the soul to imitate, but also on the shaping of bodily of habits—including ritual habits. John Chrysostom’s Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up Their Children illuminates his perspective on the performative technologies that created a Christian ethos. Because it so vividly depicts the anxieties about the shaping of both individual and collective bodies, this treatise offers a helpful introduction to the pedagogical theories that informed John’s homiletic activity throughout his career, including his time in Constantinople. Likely written during his final years in antioch, On Vainglory was at once a critique of elite culture and a guidebook for Christian education.7 The treatise starts by lamenting the injuries Vainglory (κενοδοξία) has done the church and the soul. Vainglory appears as a perfumed, adorned, and deceptively beautiful prostitute who offers her unsuspecting victims the glories of the world but her beauty and the promises she makes are nothing more than a phantasia, an illusion, that leaves men financially and morally destitute.8 she misleads men into thinking that the vices of worldly life are signs of virtue and honor: Oftentimes men, who have deprived themselves of the necessities and are wasting with hunger, still care for their household possessions. If you ask them why, they answer: “I must keep my position [τὸ σχῆμα].” . . . I hear of many who are admired for this. “so and so,” someone says, “takes thought for his position [τὸ σχῆμα]. his couch is spread and he has an abundance of bronze vessels; he is the manager of his own house.”9 6. see, e.g., Basil, Ad adolescentes de legendis gentillium libri, and augustine, De Doctrina. For further discussion, see Philip rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 36–40, 48–57; sara rappe, “The new math: how to add and to subtract Pagan elements in Christian education,” in Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity, ed. yun Lee too (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 410–16; Jan r. stenger, “athens and/or Jerusalem? Basil’s and Chrysostom’s Views on the Didactic Use of Literature and stories,” in Education and Religion in Late Antique Christianity: Reflections, Social Contexts and Genres, ed. Peter Gemeinhardt et al. (London: routledge, 2016), 86–100. 7. anne-marie malingrey, Jean Chrysostome: Sur la vaine gloire et l’éducation des enfants, sC 188 (Paris: Cerf, 1972), 46–47, tentatively dates the text to 393/94. 8. a strong element throughout John’s discussion is his use of sensory rhetoric, especially in his appeal to his audience’s sense of disgust to discourage them from participating in non-Christian practices. John Chrysostom, De inani gloria 2, 4–6. For an extensive discussion of sensory rhetoric in late antique literature, see harvey, Scenting Salvation, esp. 125–34, 206–10. 9. John Chrysostom, De inani gloria 14, 15: Πολλάκις τῶν ἀναγκαίων τινὲς ἑαυτοὺς ἀποστερήσαντες καὶ λιμῷ φθειρόμενοι τούτων οὐκ ἀμελοῦσι τῶν σκευῶν. Κἂν ἐρωτήσῃς αὐτούς, “τὸ σχῆμά μου, φησίν, ἔχειν ὀφείλω” . . . Καὶ ἀκούω πολλῶν ἐπὶ τούτῳ θαυμαζομένων. “Ὁ δεῖνα, φησίν, ἔχει τὸ σχῆμα αὑτοῦ· ἡ

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a key concept in this passage is a person’s schēma, a word indicating both one’s station in society and the behavior and physical objects that made that station visible to others.10 In late antique society, social position was a thing to be performed. a person’s status was marked by his or her dress, possessions, social networks, interactions with social superiors and inferiors, and ability to engage in civic patronage. Inclusion among the social elite demanded an outward appearance of wealth and display of good education—demands that often override concerns for financial security and the cultivation of virtue, John says. according to John, these misguided concerns are the result of poor education, which begins first and foremost at home. For him, the experiences of childhood are fundamental in setting a person’s disposition. The child’s soul is like soft wax, ready to receive impressions that will harden into a seal (τύπος) that marks his character.11 each of the body’s senses, John explains, is a gateway through which sensory experiences can enter and guide or corrupt the developing soul before it has had a chance to harden.12 Therefore the child’s parents and teachers must closely guard these gateways, especially those of vision and hearing, until he reaches maturity and has been properly trained.13 If that environment is full of vanities, the soul will solidify into a persistent state of vice. It is therefore crucial for parents to manage a child’s environment and education properly. Fathers are responsible for properly shaping the malleable souls of their children, but all too often their own pursuit of worldly status leads them to fail in this duty.14 rather than attending to his son’s necessary training in virtue, the negligent father surrounds him with adornments κλίνη ἐξεστρωμένη ἐστὶν καὶ σκεύη χαλκᾶ ἔχει πολλά· οἰκοδεσπότης ἄνθρωπός ἐστιν” (trans. max. L. W. Laistner, Christianity and Pagan Culture in the Later Roman Empire; Together with an English Translation of John Chrysostom’s Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring up their Children [Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 1951], 92–93, with emendation), 10. at its fundamental meaning, σχῆμα indicates the shape or outer appearance of an object. Σχῆμα can also refer to one’s bearing, dress, equipment, a character, or a role, notably in the context of stagecraft. For late antique authors familiar with the classical rhetorical tradition, σχῆμα would have had performative connotations: what to wear, what to eat, how to speak, gesture, and walk, and how to interact with others in a certain context, social class, or dramatic persona. Cf. John’s description in De Lazaro 2.3 (PG 48.986.47–56) and De Lazaro 6.5 (PG 48.1034–35) of the appearances of poverty and wealth as mere masks, which death rips from the actor to reveal the true, hidden state of the soul. Σχῆμα is also the word used for the monk’s habit. see, e.g., athanasios, Vita Antonii 25; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 3.14.5. 11. John Chrysostom, De inani gloria 20. John also compares the child’s soul to a pearl that obtains its shape from the diver, statues sculpted by artists, and a newly founded city that has not yet been exposed to the attacks or corrupting influence of foreigners (ibid., 21, 22, 25). he bases himself here on earlier philosophical theories of aesthesis, or sense-perception, in which an experience is likened to a typos, or seal, imprinted on the soul to create a memory; see Webb, Demons and Dancers, 178–80. 12. Ibid., 27. 13. Ibid., 3, 55–57. 14. Ibid., 16.

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and luxury and instills in him a love of material possessions. such an environment prevents the cultivation of virtue and produces effeminate men who seek only pleasure and wealth. Likewise, a daughter raised in the women’s quarters surrounded by adornments becomes an ill-tempered burden to her bridegroom.15 Vice begets vice, and the temptations of the world lead souls away from God. John’s concern about the effects of one’s sensory environment and the cultivation of habit upon the soul was informed by his own educational background and a long tradition of Greek philosophical writing on the soul and on psychagogy—the training of the rational human soul in virtue.16 Psychagogy aimed to harness the soul’s natural compulsion to imitate its surroundings and to fashion itself after the objects, actions, and characters it encountered. moreover, mimēsis (imitation) taught the techniques required for successfully navigating social interactions and inhabiting social space. The cultivation of virtue was, of course, a primary interest in discussions of mimēsis, and the same principles applied in training students to perform their social duty. The late antique system of paideia fundamentally depended upon young men’s “successful mastery of patterns of behavior and speech, and even of attitudes or points of view,” a mastery that served as “both a sign and a condition of belonging to a particular group, and this mastery is acquired largely through observation and imitation,” ruth Webb notes.17 This process required years of repetitive, deliberative (but often subtle) practice. By emulating the actions of others inhabiting the same social environment, the student trained his body to perform according to social expectations. This same process occurred outside of the school setting, often in a less deliberate way. The techniques, habits, or strategies learned by the socially embedded individual—which John calls schēma and modern scholars, following Pierre Bourdieu, refer to as habitus—were both visceral and culturally specific.18 Consequently it was impossible, or nearly so, to unlearn them. Mimēsis was about much more than copying the behaviors of one’s elders and teachers. It also included the transformative force of one’s physical surroundings. attire and possessions, for instance, could have a profound effect upon the indi15. Ibid., 16–18. John implies that young men raised to cultivate physical pleasures behave like women. 16. a full bibliography of this tradition is outside the scope of my study here. The foundational articulations of mimēsis and virtue are Plato’s Res publica (esp. books 2 and 3) and aristotle’s Politica (esp. books 7 and 8). For further discussion of the formation of virtuous habits in Plato and aristotle’s idealized education, with added attention to the “performance” of wisdom, see andrea Wilson nightingale, “Liberal education in Plato’s Republic and aristotle’s Poetics,” in Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity, ed. yun Lee too (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 133–73. 17. Webb, Demons and Dancers, 157. 18. Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. richard nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 78–79, 124; see also marcel mauss, “Body techniques,” in Sociology and Psychology: Essays, trans. Ben Brewster (London: routledge & k. Paul, 1979), 99–102.

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vidual’s soul.19 This is made abundantly clear in John’s admonishments in On Vainglory: a well-furnished house, slaves, gold and silver plates, fine tapestries and bed linens, and costly garments all “soften the ruggedness” of a man’s soul, drawing it toward the pleasures of the body and distracting it from more excellent—and manly—delight in virtue.20 John employs similar imagery in his homilies on Luke 16, where he explores the cultivation of virtue and vice in the persons of Lazarus and the rich man.21 Those things with which the rich man had surrounded himself during his life have been nothing but a tomb of illusions: “The silver-plated tables, the couches, the carpets, the tapestries, all the other household objects, sweet oils, perfumes, so much undiluted wine, the varieties of food, the savory foods, the cooks, the flatterers, the bodyguards, the household slaves, and every other ostentatious display [φαντασίαν] has been quenched and made to wither. everything is dust, everything is ash and dust, dirges and lamentation.”22 The rich man has constructed a beautiful schēma by surrounding himself with objects appropriate to his station. he has done precisely what society expects of him and has played his part well. In the process, however, he had wrought irreparable damage to his soul. his adornments have made him effeminate, brutish, and cruel.23 Luxuries had corrupted the soul and caused it to exude evil through the body.24 he has buried himself under his possessions and shackled himself to sin. John’s anxiety about how much influence environment had upon the soul also appears in his invectives against the theater. Crucial here was his fear—or rather certainty—that the viewer would emulate the characters that he had seen on stage.25 For John the spectacles of the theater and the actors who presented them were active forces that imposed themselves upon the passive audience: But you sitting up there [in the theater] where there’s such a demand to behave disgracefully, if you see a woman who’s a prostitute coming on stage with bare head and great shamelessness, dressed in golden garments, weak and corrupt, singing dirty 19. Webb cites numerous examples of this anxiety, including severos of antioch’s assertion that merely donning the costume of a worshipper of Zeus made one, in reality, a worshipper of Zeus, and a hagiographic account of a mime who became a Christian martyr after he donned a deacon’s robe. see Webb, Demons and Dancers, 156–57. 20. John Chrysostom, De inani gloria 13–15. 21. PG 48.963–1054. 22. John Chrysostom, De Lazaro 2.3 (PG 48.985): τὰς τραπέζας τὰς περιηργυρωμένας, τὰς κλίνας, τοὺς τάπητας, τὰ ἐπιβλήματα, τὰ ἄλλα τὰ κατὰ τὴν οἰκίαν ἅπαντα, τὰ μύρα, τὰ ἀρώματα, τὸν πολὺν ἄκρατον, τῶν ἐδεσμάτων τὰς ποικιλίας, τὰ καρυκεύματα, τοὺς μαγείρους, τοὺς κόλακας, τοὺς δορυφόρους, τοὺς οἰκέτας, τὴν ἄλλην ἅπασαν φαντασίαν κατεσβεσμένην καὶ καταμαρανθεῖσαν. Πάντα σποδὸς, πάντα τέφρα καὶ κόνις, θρῆνοι καὶ ὀδυρμοὶ. 23. John Chrysostom, De inani gloria 14. 24. John Chrysostom, De Lazaro 1.8 (PG 48.974.16–17). see also De Lazaro 3.5 (PG 48.998.46–52). 25. This theory about the impact of sight is shared by other critics of the theater, including tatian and ailios aristeides. see Webb, Demons and Dancers, 170–75, 185.

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For John human bodies suffer from the onslaught of sensual impressions and are shaped by the spectacles they witness. The soul of the man who watched the spectacles of the theater would become soft and weak, storing the lustful impressions of the theater with lasting detrimental effect.27 The spectator does not simply emulate what he sees; he becomes it, and he has the potential to spread his derangement to others. In these spaces, individuals unconsciously absorbed the moral values of their world and learned the social cues needed to navigate society, not only from the productions before them but also from the individuals surrounding them. For these reasons, John warns the Christian father in On Vainglory against taking his son to any of these spaces, but none quite so imperatively as the theater, with its disgracing sights and sounds. a child would too easily fall victim to these assaults. Instead, the father should take the boy to the theater’s entrance as the 26. John Chrysostom, Contra ludos et theatra (PG 56.266.30–267.4, 267.44–268.1): σὺ δὲ ἄνω καθήμενος, ὅπου τοσαύτη πρὸς ἀσχημοσύνην παράκλησις, ὁρῶν γυναῖκα πόρνην γυμνῇ τῇ κεφαλῇ μετὰ πολλῆς τῆς ἀναισχυντίας εἰσιοῦσαν, χρυσᾶ περιβεβλημένην ἱμάτια, μαλακιζομένην, θρυπτομένην, ᾄσματα ᾄδουσαν πορνικὰ, κατακεκλασμένα μέλη, αἰσχρὰ προϊεμένην ῥήματα, ἀσχημονοῦσαν τοιαῦτα, ἅπερ ὁ θεωρήσας ἂν εἰς ἔννοιαν λάβῃς, κάτω κύπτεις . . . Εἰ γὰρ καὶ μὴ συνεπλάκης τῇ πόρνῃ, ἀλλὰ τῇ ἐπιθυμίᾳ συνεγένου, καὶ τῇ γνώμῃ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν εἰργάσω. Καὶ οὐδὲ κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦ θεάτρου λυθέντος, ἀπελθούσης αὐτῆς, τὸ εἴδωλον ἐκείνης ἐναπόκειταί σου τῇ ψυχῇ . . . Πῶς γὰρ ἐπιβήσῃ τῶν προθύρων ἐκείνων τῶν ἱερῶν; πῶς ἅψῃ τῆς οὐρανίου τραπέζης; πῶς δὲ ἀκούσεις τὸν περὶ σωφροσύνης λόγον, ἑλκῶν γέμων καὶ τραυμάτων τοσούτων, καὶ τὴν διάνοιαν ἔχων τῷ πάθει δουλεύουσαν; (trans. Wendy mayer and Pauline allen, John Chrysostom [new york: routledge, 2000], 121–22, 123.) Compare John’s sentiments here to Libanios’s description of the spectacle as an enjoyment (τέρψις) that enlivens the spectator and makes life more pleasant. Libanios, Oratio 64.57; see discussion in Webb, Demons and Dancers, 169. 27. In emphasizing male desire for the female body (including the male pantomime playing female roles), John constructs a predominantly male audience, allowing him “to reduce audience response to the plain and simple sexual desire of the male spectator for the female performer, a response that is, moreover, automatic and unavoidable, according to Chrysostom,” Webb comments (Demons and Dancers, 171). Given that other ancient authors describe audiences consisting of both men and women, Webb interprets this as a “deliberate choice” on John’s part. elsewhere John describes desire as a raging fire and a rabid dog constantly attacking the soul (In sanctum Barlaam martyrem 2 [PG 50.677]; In epistulam II ad Corinthios 7.5 [PG 61.45]).

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shows conclude so that he may observe and understand the shame those who have attended bring upon themselves.28 The detrimental effects of the theater appear repeatedly elsewhere in John’s preaching, both in antioch and later in Constantinople. In Homily 10 on the acts of the apostles, for instance, he describes the enjoyments of the theater as an enduring mischief and a plague that bores itself into the souls of the spectators, who then sing snatches of songs or recite portions of dialogue from the plays on their way home or during their daily activities.29 similar infections are spread by the spectacles of the hippodrome, because those who attend the races “fill the city with cries and disorderly shouting,” threatening to spread the infection beyond the hippodrome.30 But just as human bodies bear the spectacles they have seen in the theater or the hippodrome, they can also bear the holy spectacles of Christ. In his Homily on Barlaam, John comments that the martyr’s shrine is a new stage: Don’t let the martyr be admired just for the duration of the present hour, but when they go off home let each person take away the saint and introduce him into their own household. . . . Welcome the crowned victor, and never let him leave your mind. It’s for this reason that we’ve brought you alongside the coffins of the holy martyrs. . . . For truly, while even hearing of a warrior lifts up a soldier, much more so does seeing and viewing and especially when, on entering the warrior’s tent itself, one sees his bloodied sword, the enemy’s head lying there, the spoils hanging up above, the fresh blood dripping from the hands of the person who erected the trophy, spears and shields and arrows and all the rest of his arsenal. It’s for this reason that we too have gathered here. For the martyrs’ tomb is a soldier’s tent.31

28. John Chrysostom, De inani gloria 77, 79. 29. John Chrysostom, In acta apostolorum 10.4 (PG 60.90). The available evidence for many of John’s homilies is too ambiguous for us to determine their provenance. The best study of the provenance for the homilies is Wendy mayer, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom—Provenance: Reshaping the Foundations (rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2005). here, I am more concerned about determining patterns in John’s thought than about the precise location of a homily’s delivery. 30. John Chrysostom, Contra ludos et theatra (PG 56.263.14–17): πρὸς τὴν θεωρίαν τῶν ἁμιλλητηρίων ἵππων ηὐτομόλησαν, καὶ οὕτως ἐξεβακχεύθησαν, ὥστε πᾶσαν τὴν πόλιν ἐμπλῆσαι βοῆς καὶ κραυγῆς ἀτάκτου (trans. mayer and allen, John Chrysostom, 119). 31. John Chrysostom, In sanctum Barlaam martyrem 10 (PG 50.680–81): μὴ μέχρι τῆς παρούσης ὥρας θαυμαζέσθω ὁ μάρτυς μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἴκαδε ἀπιὼν ἕκαστος ἐπαγέσθω τὸν ἅγιον, καὶ εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν εἰσαγέτω τὴν ἑαυτοῦ . . . ὑπόδεξαι τὸν στεφανίτην, καὶ μηδέποτε ἀφῇς ἐξελθεῖν τῆς διανοίας τῆς σῆς. Διὰ τοῦτο ὑμᾶς καὶ παρὰ τὰς θήκας τῶν ἁγίων μαρτύρων ἠγάγομεν . . . Καὶ γὰρ στρατιώτην ἀνίστησι μὲν καὶ ἀκοὴ ἀριστέως· πολλῷ δὲ πλέον ὄψις καὶ θεωρία, καὶ μάλιστα ὅταν εἰς αὐτὴν τοῦ ἀριστέως τὴν σκηνὴν εἰσελθὼν ἴδῃ τὸ ξίφος ᾑμαγμένον, τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ πολεμίου κειμένην, τὰ λάφυρα ἄνω κρεμάμενα, τὸ αἷμα νεαρὸν τῶν χειρῶν ἀποστάζον παρὰ τοῦ τὸ τρόπαιον στήσαντος, πανταχοῦ δόρατα καὶ ἀσπίδας καὶ τόξα καὶ τὴν ἄλλην ἅπασαν παντευχίαν κειμένην. Διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐνταῦθα συνεληλύθαμεν. Σκηνὴ γάρ ἐστι στρατιωτικὴ (trans. Wendy mayer and Bronwen neil, St. John Chrysostom: The Cult of the Saints [Crestwood, ny: st. Vladimir’s seminary Press, 2006], 186).

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again, the image of the spectacle imprints itself upon the viewer and transforms him into its likeness. The martyr’s shrine is a new spectacle, a pure theater, and the martyr is an actor worthy of emulation. Unlike the prostitute on stage, who kindles carnal desire, the sight of the martyr stirs a holy desire that directs the spectator’s body toward God. Christian worship counters the “dirty ditties” of the theater: “[God] mixed melody with prophecy, so that enticed by the rhythm and the melody, all might raise sacred hymns to him with great eagerness. For nothing so arouses the soul, gives it wing, sets it free from the earth, releases it from the prison of the body, teaches it to love wisdom, and to condemn all the things of this life, as concordant melody and sacred song composed in rhythm.”32 For John, song holds a particularly potent and seductive place in the mimetic world.33 The soul is naturally attuned to musical sounds, and the pleasure they produced draws the soul into intimate contact with them. Demons had taken advantage of that pleasure, introducing songs of heresy and vice that left the soul weak and soft. to prevent such corruption, God provided the psalms, whose purifying pleasure provides a conduit for the holy spirit into the souls who sing them.34 Considering the power of mimēsis, John’s homilies aimed to alter the audience’s perceptions of themselves and to create a sense of their vulnerability and the dangers they faced. Those subjected to the sights, sounds, and smells of traditional civic entertainments absorbed their vices, in contrast to those who limited their exposure, or at least controlled their responses, to these stimuli. The dangers of civic life were all the more acute for the undisciplined individual who had not been trained to discern and to avoid the social activities deemed inappropriate by John. But individuals could consciously change their habits and the habits of those under their charge, especially children. Fortunately, John comments in On Vainglory, virtue can and ought to be fostered by engaging in Christian practices and filling the mind with the virtuous examples of scripture. at the same time, for changes in individuals to be successful, large-scale societal change must occur, especially in excising the stimuli that present harm to individuals (e.g., the shows 32. John Chrysostom, Expositio in Psalmum 41 1 (PG 55.156.36–44): μελῳδίαν ἀνέμιξε τῇ προφητείᾳ, ἵνα τῷ ῥυθμῷ τοῦ μέλους ψυχαγωγούμενοι πάντες, μετὰ πολλῆς τῆς προθυμίας τοὺς ἱεροὺς ἀναπέμπωσιν αὐτῷ ὕμνους. Οὐδὲν γὰρ, οὐδὲν οὕτως ἀνίστησι ψυχὴν, καὶ πτεροῖ, καὶ τῆς γῆς ἀπαλλάττει, καὶ τῶν τοῦ σώματος ἀπολύει δεσμῶν, καὶ φιλοσοφεῖν ποιεῖ, καὶ πάντων καταγελᾷν τῶν βιωτικῶν, ὡς μέλος συμφωνίας, καὶ ῥυθμῷ συγκείμενον θεῖον ᾆσμα (trans. James mckinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987], 80). John’s discussion parallels discussions of music in other fourth- and fifth-century Christian authors. see, e.g., athanasios, Epistula ad Marcellinum 10–11, 29, and Basil, Homilia super Psalmum 1. 33. For further discussion of the effects of sound on the soul in John’s thought, see amanda Berry Wylie, “musical aesthetics and Biblical Interpretation in John Chrysostom,” Studia Patristica 32 (1997): 386–92. For the recitation of the Psalms as a paraenetic practice, see Paul r. kolbet, “athanasius, the Psalms, and the reformation of the self,” HTR 99, no. 1 (Jan. 2006): 88–89. 34. John Chrysostom, Expositio in Psalmum 41 1 (PG 55.157.6–20).

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of the theater and hippodrome) and replacing them with a new spiritual theater (the martyr’s shrine and Christian temples).35 t h e r I t Ua L L a n D s C a P e O F J O h n C h rys O s t Om’ s C I t y

These concerns about habituation and the mimetic properties of the soul would play heavily during John Chrysostom’s short tenure as court bishop in Constantinople. he arrived in the city in the november of 397, following intense debates over who would succeed the recently deceased bishop nektarios.36 John had already acquired renown as an eloquent preacher, skilled teacher, and proven adversary of arianism as a presbyter in antioch.37 In Constantinople, he encountered a city whose official cult had been firmly under the control of nicene clergy for nearly twenty years. John’s predecessor, nektarios, had held the episcopal throne since Gregory of nazianzos’s departure in 381. The traditional temples on the acropolis had been closed (or, at least, fallen into neglect) and their property dedicated for new uses.38 existing Christian sites, such as the apostoleion and the Great Church, had increased in prominence and become more intimately tied to the imperial family, while the extension of imperial patronage to other Christian cult sites (for example, the anastasia) had more firmly asserted Christian possession of the landscape. The changes that had occurred in Constantinople during nektarios’s episcopate were partly possible because of the political stability and constant support provided by Theodosios I and his heirs. Throughout his reign, Theodosios had clearly favored bishops who affirmed nicene trinitarianism, excluding those who did not 35. John Chrysostom, De inani gloria 19; see also 39–46, in which John outlines how to teach children scripture, beginning with simplified tales, which are revisited and elaborated upon as the child matures. 36. Palladios, Dialogus de vita Joannis 5; Ps.-martyrios, Oratio funebris in laudem Joannis Chrysostomi 13; sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.2; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.2. see also J. n. D. kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom, Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 1995), 104–6. 37. The precise circumstances surrounding John’s appointment are unclear, but Palladios (Dialogus de vita Joannis 5) mentions the interest shown in the antiochene presbyter by eutropios, the imperial chamberlain and advisor to arkadios. modern historians have taken this suggestion as evidence for eutropios’s involvement in John’s selection. see esp. kelly, Golden Mouth, 105, on eutropios’s possible motives for placing John in the episcopal office. For opposition to John’s appointment among the magistrates and clergy of Constantinople, see Ps.-martyrios, Oratio funebris in laudem Joannis Chrysostomi 15. For the date of the oration, attributed to martyrios of antioch in the manuscript tradition, see timothy D. Barnes and George Bevan, The Funerary Speech for John Chrysostom, tth 60 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013), 5–6. 38. John malalas, Chronographia 13.8, 13.39.

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agree to this definition from public space by confiscating their cult sites.39 some of these efforts are reflected in imperial legislation that attempted to restrict the visibility of ritual actions performed by cult groups deemed heretical by the court.40 Between 381 and 388, Theodosios promulgated a number of notices restricting the public practices of manichaeans, arians, and apollinarians.41 In may 381, for instance, he instructed the praetorian prefect eutropios to prevent the assemblies of manichaeans. While the primary concern of this law was the curtailment of inheritance rights among those who engaged in manichaean cult, it also aimed to decrease the public visibility of its practices. “manichaeans,” Theodosios directed eutropios, “shall not establish . . . their accustomed tombs of feral mysteries; they shall be kept completely from the sight of the throngs in the municipalities.”42 notably, the wording of the law falls just short of completely disallowing representatives of a group that did not conform to the narrowing definition of Theodosian Christianity from engaging in ritual action altogether; rather the concern is preventing a group from meeting where it could attract notice. Beginning in the early 390s, Theodosios also began issuing stronger pronouncements against traditional cult, prohibiting not only sacrifices, but even visits to temples and domestic offerings.43 These rescripts reveal a pattern of increasing concern about enforcing 39. The legislation (CTh 16.5.11, 16.5.12) is vague enough to allow non-Theodosian groups to have cult sites in the city, but only if not visually identifiable as such. 40. The evidence of the Code, however, must be approached with caution, because it is the result of the selective compilation, redaction, and reordering of earlier laws in a way that fits a particular agenda under Theodosios II. moreover, these laws were not consistently enforced and were often local in their aim. I explore the relation between the Code and the refraction of imperial Christianity under Theodosios II further in chap. 5, pp. 161–62. For the compilation of the Code, see John Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 161–69; Jill harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 22–25; tony honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, 379–455 AD: The Theodosian Dynasty and Its Quaestors, with a Palingenesia of Laws of the Dynasty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 123–27, 136–53; John matthews, Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code (new haven, Ct: yale University Press, 2000), 55–62, 67–70; as well as critiques of this corpus for evidence of actual practice in Fergus millar, A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408–450) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 8–9; and Christine shepardson, Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 204–13. 41. see CTh 16.5.7.3 (may 381), 16.5.11 (July 383), 16.5.13 (384 c.e.). 42. CTh 16.5.7.3: in urbibus claris consueta feralium mysteriorum sepulcra constituant; a conspectu celebri civitate penitus coherceantur (trans. Clyde Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions: A Translation with Commentary, Glossary, and Bibliography [Union, nJ: Lawbook exchange, 2001], 451–52). 43. see CTh 16.10.10 and 16.10.11, with the addition of 16.10.12.pref. The last of these is the most profound for its prohibition of the traditional offerings of incense, lamps, and wreaths for the Lares, the genius, and the penates. The increased restriction of traditional cult practices may be connected with political and military tensions faced by Theodosios I in the West, including attempted usurpations by maximus (383–88) and eugenius (392–94). These laws also roughly coincide with Theodosios I’s

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a particular understanding of authorized practice. even so, it is notable that although these particular practices were significantly constrained, the groups who engaged in them were not altogether forbidden the physical space of the city. These circumstances certainly suggest that the city (if not the empire) was united in a markedly “Theodosian” Christianity, that is, a vision of Christian orthodoxy that received clear support from the Theodosian court.44 If this was so, John’s task as bishop of shaping the population under his care into orthodox bodies should have been relatively straightforward. But his efforts were complicated by two significant factors: the continued, visible presence of other cult groups in the city and the dangers ritual performance itself presented to cultivating virtuous Christian souls. First, while the events and legislation of the previous decades had clarified the definition of Theodosian Christianity, they did not entirely eliminate nonTheodosian elements from civic space by the time John arrived in Constantinople. This is evident from a number of references dating to the early through mid-fifth century. The anonymous author of the Funerary Speech for John Chrysostom, writing shortly after John’s death in 407, complains that the Gothic general Gaïnas had persuaded the emperor arkadios (r. 395–408) to provide cult sites for his arian army within the walls of Constantinople.45 The historian Philostorgios, who lived in the city sometime around 425 through 433, identifies himself as a supporter of the anomoian bishop of kyzikos, eunomios, who taught that the son was wholly unlike the God the Father.46 Writing during the 440s, sokrates and sozomenos refer to a group of non-Theodosian Christians (sokrates refers to them as οἱ Ἀρειανίζοντες) who possessed a cult site immediately outside the city walls.47 Like other non-Theodosian groups, this group had been forbidden by imperial edict to possess cult sites within the city walls. technically, this group complied with the command—their cult sites were located outside the city walls. In practice, elevation of his younger son honorius as augustus in the West in 389, his (rescinded) order in 388 providing retribution for a synagogue destroyed in Callinicum, and the emperor’s involvement in the massacre in Thessalonica in 390. The constellation of events suggests that Theodosios I was shoring up his line of succession, and that a more stringent religious policy was one strategy in this endeavor. I am indebted to ross kraemer for the multiple conversations we have had on this point. 44. see esp. CTh 16.1.2 (February 380), the cunctos populi edict, which explicitly states imperial support for nicene trinitarianism as taught by the bishops of rome and alexandria. 45. Ps.-martyrios, Oratio funebris in laudem Joannis Chrysostomi 49; see also sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.4.6. 46. Philostorgios identifies himself as a “eunomian from Cappadocia” in the title of his work. Both Photios and the Suda refer to him as an arian. see Photios, Bibliotheca codex 40; Suda Α 3397 (apollinaris of Laodikea), Β 150 (Basil of Caesarea), Γ 450 (Gregory of nazianzos). 47. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.8; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.8. sozomenos refers to them as “those from the arian heresy” (οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἀρείου αἱρέσεως). as I comment in the Introduction, it is possible that this refers to the Gothic population associated with Gaïnas.

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however, they were not absent from the city, for they regularly processed through the city’s streets on feast days.48 even more complicated is the openly accepted presence of novatian sites in the city. These individuals belonged to a rigorist movement tracing its origin to the third-century roman bishop novatian (or novatus), who refused to readmit those who had apostatized during the Decian persecution. They were not under the authority of the Constantinople’s court bishop, but because they regarded the nicene Creed as the standard of orthodoxy, Theodosios I and arkadios had permitted them to remain in the city. according to sokrates, the novatian bishop sissinios was highly regarded by the imperial household and the city’s elite.49 (as far as I have ascertained, however, John never directly refers to the novatians in his writings.) There is also evidence throughout John’s tenure of traditionalists and Jews in the city in addition to these non-Theodosian Christian groups. among the charges levied against John at the synod of the Oak in 403 was that he had provided sanctuary to a group of hellenes in the Great Church.50 John himself asserts that “heretics, Jews, and hellenes” were among those in the city who sympathized with him when he was exiled.51 sokrates mentions the immigration of his own teachers helladios and ammonios, who had held traditional priesthoods in alexandria, to Constantinople in 392.52 sozomenos, too, suggests a great number of hellenes among those who flocked to hear John preach in the capital.53 sokrates and Proklos also make passing references to Jews who lived in the city during this period.54 The relationship of any of these individuals to the rituals of the city, which at this point were largely associated with the imperial court, would have been complicated. should these individuals refuse to attend the rituals of civic cult (e.g., relic processions, especially those in which the emperor or empress were participants), their absence would surely have been conspicuous, at least among certain segments of the population—for example, members of the imperial court, highranking military officials, and members of the cultural elite, some of whom we know were not Christian. In the chapter 3, we were introduced to several of these individuals, including Themistios, a well-known traditionalist and urban prefect early in the reign of Theodosios I (in office, 383–84). During arkadios’s reign, a 48. Consider, too, the importance of domestic space for the continuation of cult that did not enjoy imperial patronage. see harry maier, “religious Dissent, heresy and households in Late antiquity,” VC 49, no. 1 (mar. 1995): 50–52. 49. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.22.20. 50. Photios, Bibliotheca 59. 51. John Chrysostom, Ad Innocentium papam epistula 1.3: “καὶ αἱρετικοὶ καὶ Ἰουδαῖοι καὶ Ἕλληνες.” 52. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 5.16.9. 53. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.5.1. 54. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.4.2–5, 7.5.1, 7.17.7–15; Proklos, Homilia de Incarnatione 9, Homilia de Nativitatem Domini 3.

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prominent example is the urban prefect Optatos (in office, 404–5), reported by sokrates to have been a traditionalist.55 This brings us to the second factor complicating John’s efforts to fashion Christian bodies, namely, the social effects of ritual performance. In light of the city’s continued diversity, questions about the ritual environment become acute. It is easy to think that temples (including what Christians referred to as churches) and other cult sites were the primary locations of a city’s religious life, and while it is certainly true that the city’s temples were significant loci for ritual actions, they were by no means the sole venues for them. a significant portion of ritual activity occurred in public space, where it was potentially accessible to a large percentage of the city’s population. These were moments when individuals publicly performed their belonging to a cult group, not to mention their loyalty to the city and emperor. But in a world in which the official rituals of the city were led by nicene clergy, how did those who did not identify with the latter navigate their status as outsiders vis-à-vis the obligation to mark their belonging to the city? Perhaps such individuals picked and chose their battles, and even saw themselves in the same position that Valentinian found himself in at Julian’s sacrifice in Gaul—as observers, not participants. But where would one draw the line, and how would others perceive their attendance? and, as we have already seen, the rituals associated with Theodosian Christianity were not the only public ritual events in Constantinople. how easy would it have been to distinguish between the rituals of non-Theodosian Christian groups and those of the city? to answer these questions, we must consider cult ritual as a part of a broader performative context of late antique spectacle. Late antique cities were filled with public displays and entertainments that invited spectators into their dramatic spaces.56 On any given day, one could expect to encounter any number of spectacles, from 55. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.18.19. 56. The foundational study for ancient spectacle remains Paul Veyne, Le pain et le cirque: Sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique (Paris: seuil, 1976). For more recent studies, see Bettina Bergmann and Christine kondoleon, eds., The Art of Ancient Spectacle (Washington, DC: national Gallery of art, 1999); Jaclyn L. maxwell, Christianization and Communication in Late Antiquity: John Chrysostom and His Congregation in Antioch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 49–56; and Webb, Demons and Dancers, 24–43. For Christian discourse about the dangers of spectacle, see simon Goldhill, “The erotic eye: Visual stimulation and Cultural Conflict,” in Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire, ed. Goldhill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 154–94; maxwell, Christianization and Communication, 51–54; Charlotte roueché, “spectacles in Late antiquity: some Observations,” Antiquité tardive 15 (2007): 59–64; and Webb, Demons and Dancers, 197–216. On John and the theater more particularly, see Francine Cardman, “Poverty and Wealth as Theater: John Chrysostom’s homilies on Lazarus and the rich man,” in Wealth and Poverty in Early Church and Society, ed. susan holman (Grand rapids, mI: Baker academic, 2008), 159–75; Blake Leyerle, “John Chrysostom on the Gaze,” JECS 1, no. 2 (summer 1993): 159–74; Leyerle, Theatrical Shows and Ascetic Lives: John Chrysostom’s Attack on Spiritual Marriage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); and Webb, Demons and Dancers, 175–90.

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imperial processions, market festivals, theater productions, oratory, races, funerals, and weddings. Particularly important were the shows presented in the theaters and hippodromes under the patronage of local dignitaries, including the imperial family.57 mime and pantomime performances could be found nearly everywhere: on stage, in city streets, at fairs and festivals, in marketplaces, and at private houses.58 rhetors performed their declamations, often in the same venues as other performers. Various performers frequently competed for the same audiences, as is illustrated by Libanios’s boast to have drawn crowds away from the races and theater.59 even a city’s cult sites were places of entertainment, where people congregated to listen to popular preachers.60 averil Cameron characterizes late antique cities as “theatrical and dramatic places,” where “public life, church councils and theatrical displays alike had become spectator sports,” and ruth Webb similarly describes the “flourishing festival culture” of eastern roman cities.61 Because of their pervasiveness, popularity, and accessibility, spectacles of these sorts were influential cultural institutions in late antique cities. spectacle was a primary mode of forming collective civic identities, in that these events served as a “popular school” that instilled cultural knowledge, informed social expectations, and provided the performative backdrop that shaped the late antique person’s habitus.62 Within this environment, public rituals were not simply acts of worship, but also spectacles and forms of entertainment, just as crucial to civic life as the games in the hippodrome, theater performances, and rhetorical displays. The distinctions between spectacle and ritual were thus not always clear, and one could bleed into the other. In fact, some of these events closely resembled each other. For example, public processions were a common action used for a variety of occasions: 57. Leyerle, Theatrical Shows, 14. By the fourth century, 177 days of the calendar were set aside in rome for games. While we do not have comparable data for Constantinople, races and theater shows are frequently mentioned by fifth-century authors. 58. Webb, Demons and Dancers, 54. 59. Libanios, Oratio 1.37; discussed in Webb, Demons and Dancers, 27. 60. averil Cameron, The Later Roman Empire (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1993), 176; Wendy mayer, “John Chrysostom and his audiences. Distinguishing Different Congregations at antioch and Constantinople,” SP 31 (1997): 70–75; mayer, “John Chrysostom: extraordinary Preacher, Ordinary audience,” in Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics, ed. Pauline allen and mary Cunningham (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 105–37; and mayer, “Who Came to hear John Chrysostom Preach? recovering a Late Fourth-Century Preacher’s audience,” EThL 76, no. 1 (april 2000): 73–87. among the churches associated with John’s synaxeis are the Great Church, the apostoleion, the anastasia, the church of the Goths, various martyria (e.g., in Drypia and another near the adrianople Gate), hagios Paulos, and hagios akakios, as well as the extra-urban churches dedicated to ss Peter and Paul (located across the Bosphorus), the maccabean martyrs (across the Golden horn), and another unnamed martyrion outside the city walls. 61. av. Cameron, Later Roman Empire, 174, 177; Webb, Demons and Dancers, 10. 62. Leyerle, Theatrical Shows, 18. I expand on Leyerle’s comments here to include the broader performative atmosphere of the city.

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for the adventus (arrival) of an emperor or other high dignitary in the city, for welcoming or honoring relics, for triumphs (celebrations of military victory), and for marking the anniversary of a city’s founding. Frequently, late roman cities had wide, monumental avenues, sometimes with colonnades, designed to accommodate the crowds that would attend such events (in Constantinople, the mesē was one of the primary processional routes). The various processions would also often involve the same prominent individuals and sometimes even the same objects (carts or chariots, candles, incense, processional crosses), even when the purpose of the processions differed. In other words, these distinct events followed a loose script of ritual elements. These were not scripts in a strict sense. none of these events, even those for the same purpose (e.g., triumphs honoring victories) were completely identical to others; rather they drew on a general vocabulary of gesture, costume, and speech and followed general patterns of movement, space, and time. These scripts helped individual events “make sense” to its participants.63 By engaging repeatedly in ritualized events (not only what we would consider religious rituals, but also the rituals of spectacle), the late antique person developed an intuitive understanding of what ritual was and what it was not, as well as the scripts that were available for communal actions—what parts the actors involved in these actions should play, what physical objects were utilized, and the stages on which, and even the times during which, ritual action should occur. moreover, these events performatively displayed local power structures and hierarchies by positioning magistrates, clergy, generals, or ascetics in privileged locations. Through repeated engagement with the rituals of the civic environment, an individual would internalize these power structures and learn his or her place in relation to them.64 In other words, ritualized occasions were iterative practices that trained bodies within a culturally specific ritual and cultural system.65 as with any other late antique city, Constantinople’s civic space was a vast stage, where daily life involved contact with a variety of spectacles and demanded regular social interaction in the spaces created by their performances. John repeatedly comments on the popularity of public spectacles: games in the hippodrome, the shouts of which he could hear from the bishop’s residence; processions of relics, which advanced across the streets and waterways of the city; productions of drama 63. Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 220. 64. Bell, Ritual Theory, 107–8. Bell’s discussion leaves open the possibility of failure or inadequacy in ritualization, resulting in ineptness in an actor’s participation in ritual events. 65. I borrow the concept of iterability, or citationality, from Jacques Derrida, “signature event Context,” in Limited Inc., trans. samuel Weber and Jeffrey mehlman (evanston, IL: northwestern University Press, 1988), 17–18. see also Bell, Ritual Theory, 81, 98–101; Bourdieu, Theory of Practice, 78–79; and amy hollywood, “Performativity, Citationality, ritualization,” History of Religions 42, no. 2 (november 2002): 108–14.

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and song staged in the theater; and the throngs who flocked to various Christian temples for litanies and petitions in times of distress.66 half a century later, sokrates and sozomenos refer to other spectacles during the reigns of arkadios and his son Theodosios II after him: the games and dances held at the statue of eudoxia in the augusteion; occasions when Theodosios II led the city in litanies of supplication or thanksgiving (at times interrupting the games in the hippodrome that the emperor and the city’s population were attending); and the empress Pulcheria’s public celebration marking the recovery of the relics of the Forty martyrs of sebasteia.67 There were also similar public events that we might not immediately think of as entertainment, but shared these performative and highly public characteristics. at the funeral of a magistrate killed in an accident in the hippodrome, bands of women lamented the young man as his body was processed through the marketplace, a spectacle John contrasts with the wedding procession that the young man, his bride, and the people of the city should have been celebrating.68 Weddings would certainly have provided similar spectacles, filling the city with smells, music, and noise. In fact, John’s description of the funeral has rhetorical force precisely because a wedding would have followed a similar script, with the public procession of the bride to her groom’s household accompanied by songs of joy. From other sources, we can add other public events to the occasions mentioned by our fifth-century authors. One such event was the annual celebration of the city’s genethlion (the anniversary of foundation) on may 11. This festival involved processing the city’s tychē to the Forum of Constantine, followed by races in the hippodrome. While our earliest evidence for this festival comes from the sixthcentury chronicler John malalas, the rituals reported for the genethlion likely date to the fourth century.69 It is highly unlikely that the anniversary of such an important event would have been neglected during the fifth century, especially when it allowed for the assertion of ties to Constantine (ties that members of the Theodosian dynasty were particularly anxious to stress in other contexts).70 Other public events include imperial processions, both adventus (celebrating an emperor’s arrival in a city) and triumphs.71 Unlike his predecessors, arkadios no longer moved his court to other imperial cities; still, his departures and arrivals in Con66. references are scattered throughout John Chrysostom’s homilies; see esp. Contra ludos et theatra (PG 56.263–270) and Homilia dicta postquam reliquiae martyrum (PG 63.467–72). 67. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.18, 7.22.16–18, 7.23; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.20; 9.2. 68. John Chrysostom, Pater meus usque modo operatur (PG 63.512). 69. John malalas, Chronographia 13.8. see also Chronicon paschale 330 (P285b); Parastaseis 38, 56; Constantinus VII porphyrogenitus, De Ceremoniis 1.63, 1.70, 2.52. 70. see discussion in averil Cameron and Judith herrin, Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 35–36, 215–17, 242–43. 71. sabine macCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 17–88.

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stantinople would have been occasions of pomp, as when he joined the people of the city at an exurban shrine in Drypia for a martyr’s festival.72 triumphal processions, too, were displays commonly associated with imperial power.73 The column of arkadios, which stood in the hippodrome, commemorates one such event, the victory over Gaïnas after he revolted in 400.74 Dignitaries such as visiting bishops from other cities were often received by crowds with songs and processions. such events shared many gestures and elements with the imperial adventus.75 The installation of a bishop was also a spectacle that drew excited crowds, as we see in an anonymous account of John’s own installation on February 26, 398: When the sunday came, rumor racing around the ears of all announced what had happened, and a longing . . . drove those who heard into the church [τὴν ἐκκλησίαν], and all ages and both sexes ran sparing nothing, with no heed of physical shame, bodily weakness, of tearing their clothing, of losing money, things that normally occur in a crowd as it surges forward. . . . at that moment, if the great shout [that went up] was only from human beings, one would have said that all had exceeded their human nature . . . for the consecration had already been completed, but the acclamations did not cease. even [the emperor] (for he happened to be inside confirming the decision) was so overwhelmed by the shouts themselves and the multitude of those shouting that he showed his astonishment by his stance, his expression, and his look.76

This account of how fervently the city’s people welcomed John should be recognized as the propaganda for him that it is. at the same time, its description of 72. evidence is surprisingly scarce for arkadios’s receptions upon departure and arrival. 73. During arkadios’s reign, it appears that triumphs were primarily accorded to generals, since the emperor accompanied the army on campaign less frequently than in the past. see michael mcCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal Rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Early Medieval West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 47–50. arkadios’s father, Theodosios I, had staged his arrival at Constantinople as a triumph. see Zosimos, Historia nova 4.33.1. For further examples, see mcCormick, Eternal Victory, 36–46. 74. mcCormick, Eternal Victory, 49–51. 75. see, e.g., the crowd that greeted Theophilos of alexandria with acclamation and song, described in Ps.-martyrios, Oratio funebris in laudem Joannis Chrysostomi 39, and Palladios, Dialogus de vita Joannis 8.36–42. sokrates and sozomenos identify these individuals as alexandrian sailors; see sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.15.11 and sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.17.1. 76. Ps.-martyrios, Oratio funebris in laudem Joannis Chrysostomi 16: Ὡς οὖν ἧκεν ἡ κυρία, ἡ φήμη μὲν διαδραμοῦσα τὰς ἁπάντων ἀκοὰς τὸ πρᾶγμα ἐμήνυσεν, ὁ πόθος δὲ . . . ἐπὶ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοὺς ἀκούοντας συνώθει, πᾶσά τε ἡλικία καὶ γένος ἑκάτερον ἔτρεχε φειδόμενοι οὐδενός, οὐκ αἰδοῦς φύσεως, οὐκ ἀσθενείας σώματος, οὐκ ἐσθῆτος διαρρηγνυμένης, οὐ χρυσίων ἀπολλυμένων, οἷα φιλεῖ γίνεσθαι ἐν συρρέοντι δήμῳ . . . τότε εἰ μὲν ἀνθρώπων μόνον ἦν ἡ τηλικαύτη βοή, φαίην ἂν ἅπαντας ἐκβεβηκέναι τῆς φύσεως . . . καὶ γὰρ ἡ χειροτονία μὲν ἤδη τετέλεστο, ἡ βοὴ δὲ οὐκ ἔληγε. καὶ αὐτὸν δὲ τὸν τὴν ἁλουργίδα φοροῦντα καὶ τὸ διάδημα περικείμενον—καὶ γὰρ ἔτυχεν ἔνδον ὢν καὶ συναινῶν τῇ ψήφῳ—οὕτως αἱ βοαί τε αὐταὶ καὶ τῶν βοώντων τὸ πλῆθος ἐξέπληξεν, ὥστε τὸ θαῦμα μηνύειν καὶ στάσει καὶ χαρακτῆρι καὶ βλέμματι (trans. Barnes and Bevan, Funerary Speech, 47–48).

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events surely fits within the expectation for an early fifth-century ordination in an imperial city (otherwise, the scene would not make sense to the text’s readers). Important here is how imposing on the senses spectacle in Constantinople was: these events overwhelmed public spaces with sights, sounds, smells, movement, and human bodies. Their public, performative nature called to spectators and pulled them into their drama. It was this quality that made spectacles—and public ritual, especially—such persuasive and potent tools for shaping societal norms and civic identity. Late antique ritual was amenable to a wide range of ritual participation, from those who presided over ritual events (bishops, priests, magistrates), other ritual agents (the emperor and empress, monks, virgins, the city’s elite), and “lesser” participants (other laypeople, catechumens, perhaps even non-Christians actively participating in the event) to observers (other people in the city, Christian and non-Christian, who witnessed them without actively participating). In short, an individual did not need to be Christian to participate or even actively to agree with the meaning of the ritual; he or she only needed to be present. For John Chrysostom, this was the key factor in making ritual transformative. By being bodily present at a spectacle, by exposing themselves to a ritual’s sights and sounds and smells, individuals allowed the ritual to wash over them and mold their souls. and considering the scale of the ritual events John describes, the potential for such molding extended well beyond the individual or even a cult group. In his homily on st. Phokas, for instance, John describes the transformation of space his own rituals effected: yesterday our city was magnificent, magnificent and renowned, not because it has columns, but because a martyr was in our midst, ceremoniously conveyed to us from Pontus. . . . Did you see him as he was escorted through the market place? see him sailing across the sea as well. . . . Let no one keep away from this holy festival. Let no virgin remain at home, let no married woman stick to the house. Let’s empty the city, and set course for the martyr’s tomb. after all, the imperial couple, too, are joining with us in the festivities. . . . Let’s again make of the sea a church [ἐκκλησίαν] by going out there with torches, both getting the fire wet and setting the water on fire.77

In describing another procession, this time to Drypia, a suburb west of Constantinople, John recalls crowds so thick that the pavement could not be seen.78 77. John Chrysostom, De sancto hieromartyre Phoca, 1–3: Λαμπρὰ γέγονεν ἡμῖν χθὲς ἡ πόλις, λαμπρὰ καὶ περιφανὴς, οὐκ ἐπειδὴ κίονας εἶχεν, ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ μάρτυρα πομπεύοντα ἀπὸ Πόντου πρὸς ἡμᾶς παραγενόμενον . . . Εἶδες αὐτὸν διὰ τῆς ἀγορᾶς ἀγόμενον; βλέπε αὐτὸν καὶ διὰ τοῦ πελάγους πλέοντα . . . Μηδεὶς ἀπολιμπανέσθω τῆς ἱερᾶς ταύτης πανηγύρεως· μὴ παρθένος οἴκοι μενέτω, μὴ γυνὴ τὴν οἰκίαν κατεχέτω, κενώσωμεν τὴν πόλιν, καὶ πρὸς τὸν τάφον τοῦ μάρτυρος μεθορμίσωμεν· καὶ γὰρ καὶ βασιλεῖς κοινῇ μεθ’ ἡμῶν χορεύουσι . . . Ποιήσωμεν πάλιν τὴν θάλατταν ἐκκλησίαν μετὰ λαμπάδων ἐξιόντες ἐκεῖσε, καὶ τὸ πῦρ ἐνυγραίνοντες, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ ἐμπιμπλῶντες πυρός (trans. mayer, and neil, St. John Chrysostom: The Cult of the Saints, 77–78). 78. John Chrysostom, Homilia dicta postquam reliquiae martyrum (PG 63.470.40–49).

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elsewhere, he mentions crowds pushing toward the “places of the apostles” in the city and crossing the sea to a martyrion for Peter and Paul.79 On yet another occasion, he recounts the supplicatory processions that purified Constantinople after an earthquake.80 Through these actions, John claims, the people had made the entire city a site for worshipping God and sanctified the streets with their feet and the air with their psalms. not only did these processions and litanies transform the city, they also transformed their participants, because the melodies of the psalms entered their souls and corrected their impiety and passions.81 These claims, however, are aspirational. Throughout his homilies, even as they betray his anxiety over the continued precarity of the hegemony of the nicene clergy, John conveys a strong sense that his world was a Christian one. For him this was a zero-sum game—he made no allowances for spectacles that he regarded as corrupting or for individuals participating in the ritual practices of “heretical” groups. m a k I n G t h e C I t y a C h U r C h : sh I F t I n G r e L IG IO U s I D e n t I t I e s

The cumulative effect of witnessing and participating in the ritualized occasions of civic life had a powerful effect on both individuals and the civic body. The ritual environment not only provided the mimetic context that molded a person’s schēma, it also was a performative space that sustained local social structures. Thus, the body participated with its environment in a process of mutual formation: the social environment shaped and was shaped by the bodies within it. Consequently, the spectacles and rituals of public life were inherently dangerous. The observer could quickly become a participant, as imagined by sozomenos in his account of Valentinian’s presence at the sacrifice performed by Julian. should individuals be allowed to attend the wrong events—those of “heretics,” Jews, hellenes, or the “shameful,” “dirty” shows of the theater—they would cultivate heretical or apostate bodies, thus risking the further spread of these contagions. John recognized this danger, and, as other scholars have noted, sought to mitigate it by controlling the ritual landscape.82 In what follows, I explore two aspects of late antique ritual life that made his attempts successful, namely, the way various spectacles

79. John Chrysostom, Contra ludos et theatra (PG 56.265). 80. John Chrysostom, De terrae motu (PG 50.713–16). The earthquake occurred in 398. mayer maintains that the homily is authentic; mayer, Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, 27, 126. 81. John Chrysostom, De terrae motu (PG 50.714.18–21). 82. see, esp., shepardson Controlling Contested Places, esp. 95–126; aideen hartney, John Chrysostom and the Transformation of the City (London: Duckworth, 2004); and Isabella sandwell, Religious Identity in Late Antiquity: Greeks, Jews and Christians in Antioch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), esp. 251–71.

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(including public ritual) utilized, or cited, shared patterns of behavior, and the way communal action created the illusion of a unified civic body. as we have seen above, late antique ritual events did not exist in a vacuum; rather, a large degree of citationality existed between these events in terms of their gestures, costume, language, use of space, and movement.83 Consider, for example, the citationality between imperial processions and relic processions. Processions in the imperial capital involving the emperor, his family, and other imperial dignitaries were a prominent feature of Constantinopolitan life. Because Constantinople was constructed as a stage for the performance of imperial ceremony, the same spaces that hosted imperial processions also provided the space for large-scale religious processions.84 as we have already seen, John refers to the processions that crossed the Golden horn or the Bosphorus by boat in order to bring relics, imported primarily from Palestine, into the city or to take people from the city to martyria in the suburbs across these bodies of water.85 although the martyria where these relics were deposited varied, the processional translations followed the same general scripts in terms of social placements and ritual actors. moreover, these ritual actions cited the processions of non-Christian/pre-Christian festivals, imperial ceremony, and elite funerals, both in the spaces they occupied and the personages involved. This citationality was what made an event recognizable as a particular type of social action: a ritual that lay completely outside the realm of previous experience would have had little chance of successfully communicating its meanings and social structures to its participants. For them to be effective, participants in ritual events had to be able to understand them intuitively, including their own placement and the actions required of them. But the citationality was not rigid; it allowed for improvisation, adjustments, and even ruptures with prior ritual events, so long as the larger script was recognizable.86 such modifications (e.g., interpreting the event with a sermon, changing the direction of movement, or assigning actions to new actors) could shift perceptions about civic identity, group values, and social hierarchies. 83. see Bell, Ritual Theory, 220; Derrida, “signature event Context,” 17–18; hollywood, “Performativity,” 112–14. 84. John Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy (rome: Pontificium Institutum studiorum Orientalium, 1987), 181–204; Franz alto Bauer, “Urban space and ritual: Constantinople in Late antiquity,” AAAH 15, n.s., 1 (2001): 27–61; albrecht Berger, “Imperial and ecclesiastical Processions in Constantinople,” in Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life, ed. nevra necipoglu (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 73–87; Cyril mango, “The triumphal Way of Constantinople and the Golden Gate,” DOP 54 (2000): 173–88. 85. In addition to the homilies cited above, see John Chrysostom, Adversus eos qui non adfuerant (new homily 4; PG 63.477–86); Homilia habita postquam presbyter Gothus concionatus fuerat (new homily 8; PG 63.500–510); Messis quidem multa (new homily 10; PG 63.51624). 86. Bell, Ritual Theory, 220.

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The multi-day festival for the installation of relics at the martyrion in Drypia illustrates this pattern. The event involved two processions. First, the relics were processed across the Golden horn and to the Great Church, where they were installed for a time before their translation to Drypia several kilometers to the west outside the city. This second procession likely proceeded from the Great Church following the mesē to the Golden Gate,87 through the hebdomon, and along the Via egnatia to the suburban martyrion.88 The emperor arkadios and empress eudoxia played prominent roles. The empress herself personally escorted the relics to their new home, having set aside the trappings of her status: she who wears the imperial crown and is dressed in purple could bear to be separated not even a little from the remains. . . . Like a maidservant she walked one step behind the holy relics, touching the casket and the veil which covered it. suppressing all human vanity, she allowed herself to be seen by the crowd at the midst of the vast spectacle—she upon whom it’s forbidden for even all the eunuchs who serve in the palace to gaze. Instead, her desire for the martyrs, the tyranny and flame of love persuaded her to cast off all her masks and to display with naked enthusiasm her zeal for the holy martyrs.89

stepping as carefully as David had when he brought the ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, John says, the empress led magistrates, monks, virgins, and the city’s entire population across it.90 Upon arriving at the martyrion, the crowd settled in to await the dawn and the arrival of the emperor arkadios. John describes the emperor’s approach the next morning in a subsequent homily: yesterday, the [powers of the martyrs] drew us, the entire city and the empress; today they draw the emperor and his army here with much reverence. . . . For indeed it is 87. Or the region where the Golden Gate would later stand, since it is uncertain whether the Gate had been completed by this time. The earliest attestation for the Gate is the Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae (ca. 412/13–427); C. mango, “triumphal Way,” 175. 88. John describes the procession in his Homilia dicta postquam reliquiae martyrum (new homily 1; PG 63.467–72), but does not specify the identity of the relics involved in it. J. n. D. kelly argues that the relics were those of sisinnios, martyrios, and alexander from anaunia in northern Italy. For more on this homily, see kelly, Golden Mouth, 140–41; Peter Van nuffelen, “Playing the ritual Game in Constantinople (379–457),” in Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, ed. Lucy Grig and Gavin kelly, 183–200 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 197. 89. John Chrysostom, Homilia dicta postquam reliquiae martyrum (63.469.5–17): αὐτὴ ἡ τὸ διάδημα περικειμένη καὶ τὴν πορφυρίδα περιβεβλημένη . . . ἅπασαν οὐδὲ μικρὸν τῶν λειψάνων ἀποσχέσθαι ἠνέσχετο, ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ θεραπαινὶς παρηκολούθει τοῖς ἁγίοις, τῆς θήκης ἁπτομένη καὶ τῆς ὀθόνης τῆς ἐπικειμένης, καὶ πάντα τὸν ἀνθρώπινον καταπατοῦσα τῦφον, καὶ ἐν μέσῳ θεάτρῳ τοσούτῳ φαινομένη δήμῳ, ἣν οὐδὲ εὐνούχοις ἅπασι τοῖς ἐν ταῖς βασιλικαῖς στρεφομένοις αὐλαῖς θέμις ἰδεῖν; Ἀλλ’ ὁ τῶν μαρτύρων πόθος καὶ ἡ τυραννὶς καὶ ἡ τῆς ἀγάπης φλὸξ ἅπαντα ταῦτα τὰ προσωπεῖα ῥῖψαι ἀνέπεισε, καὶ γυμνῇ τῇ προθυμίᾳ τὸν ζῆλον ἐπιδείξασθαι τὸν περὶ τοὺς ἁγίους μάρτυρας (trans. allen and mayer, John Chrysostom, 87). 90. John Chrysostom, Homilia dicta postquam reliquiae martyrum (PG 63.468.2–4, 469.18–24).

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Like eudoxia, the emperor and his soldiers had cast off all distinctions of rank, marking their submission before the greater glory of the saints.92 Despite the performative abandonment of imperial status, the relic’s double procession mirrored and transformed the imperial procession. The routes likely were those used for imperial adventus. moreover, along with the city’s magistrates and priests, the emperor and empress participated, perhaps placed within the procession in close approximation to their placement in an adventus.93 The ritual elements for the festival in Drypia repackaged particular referents in several ways: in the processional route’s direction (east to west rather than the reverse), in the procession’s temporal occurrence (during the night rather than the day), in the mode of the empress’s progress (walking rather than riding), and in the emperor’s and his army’s accouterments (without the symbols of military force, in contrast to a triumphal procession). The repackaging of the adventus that occurred in the Drypia festival and its accompanying discourse allowed for the reorientation of the city. The procession to Drypia covered the entire length of the city and more, engaging the civic space by moving through a landscape of forums and imperial monuments. In the hours that it took to traverse this space, the city became momentarily focused on the martyrs and their God. moreover, John destabilizes the normal power structures by subtly challenging the roles of the imperial couple in the ritual performance. In both homilies, we find an intriguing attention to the agency of the empress and emperor, whose status and actions would, within normal social relations, make them primary figures in the festival. But John downplays their potential as ritual agents. In fact, his homily could be read as a usurpation of eudoxia’s and arkadios’s agency in the festival and even a subordination of the couple to himself, at least in matters of cult, stressing imperial support for himself and his clergy. The festival and its accompanying homilies effectively interpreted civic life as orthodox Christian life, led by John as bishop. In short, John exploited the festival to claim and recreate its physical and social map for its participants. The repetition of this 91. John Chrysostom, Homilia dicta praesente imperatore 1 (new homily 2; PG 63.473–478; quoted text at 473.9–18): σήμερον τὸν βασιλέα μετὰ τοῦ στρατοπέδου ἐνταῦθα εἵλκυσαν μετὰ πολλῆς τῆς εὐλαβείας . . . Τὸ γὰρ δὴ θαυμαστὸν τοῦτό ἐστιν, οὐχ ὅτι παραγέγονε βασιλεὺς, ἀλλ’ ὅτι μετὰ πολλῆς προθυμίας, οὐκ ἀνάγκῃ, ἀλλὰ γνώμῃ, οὐ χάριν διδοὺς, ἀλλὰ χάριν λαμβάνων· καὶ ὁ πάντας εὐεργετῶν τοὺς κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην, ἦλθεν εὐεργεσίας ἀπολαύσων παρὰ τῶν ἁγίων τούτων, καὶ τὰ μέγιστα καρπωσόμενος ἀγαθά. 92. John Chrysostom, Homilia dicta praesente imperatore 1 (PG 63.473.16–25). 93. see also John Chrysostom, De sancto hieromartyre Phoca 1, 3 (PG 50.699.5–23, 700.20–37).

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reordering in similar festivals expanded these claims, facilitating a more enduring transformation of the city. such instances of citation were immensely potent for effecting such a transformation. homogenization of the ritual landscape could be accomplished by shared ritual elements: the physical spaces and times in which ritual action occurred, their actors (especially those seen to have prominent roles in leading or supporting ritual), codes of dress and behavior, sequences of movement, modes of speech and musicality (that is, ritual formulae, homilies, song, musical accompaniment), and the material objects utilized for the ritual performance. This flattening of the landscape could create confusion between the rituals of competing groups and make it particularly easy to slip between them, especially for individuals not already primed to look for difference. It is consequently unsurprising that public rituals became flashpoints for inter- (and even intra-) group violence. We have seen this repeatedly in the accounts of fourth-century conflicts between the followers of makedonios and Paul. similar incidents of violence at public rituals are reported for John’s tenure in Constantinople, including the stoning of the empress’s eunuch Briso at a vigil procession, the forceful seizure of nicene temples shortly before the Paschal vigil, and an attack on women during a baptismal liturgy.94 But the flattening of the ritual environment also opened up possibilities for competition. a moment when we can see both the danger of this confusion and the space it created for competition appears in John’s inauguration of vigil processions in Constantinople.95 according to sokrates, on the evenings before festival days, arianizers would gather at the stoas located immediately within the city’s gates, where they sang hymns throughout the night. In the morning, the arianizers would continue singing as they processed through the city before returning to their cult site on the other side of the city walls.96 John found the arrangement untenable, since it afforded a competing group a repetitive and influential means of drawing individuals, no matter their supposed commitments, into their performances. Concerned that those who witnessed (and probably engaged in) the vigils were internalizing the doctrines communicated by the hymns of the arianizers and thus transforming themselves into heretics, John enlisted “his own people” to perform 94. Ps.-martyrios, Oratio funebris in laudem Joannis Chrysostomi 91, 93; Palladios, Dialogus de vita Joannis 9.189–207; sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.8; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.8, 8.21.1–3. The latter two incidents are actually connected. The emperor ordered the seizure of the churches shortly before the Paschal vigil began so that those attending would be forced to receive communion from (and thus acknowledge) his newly installed clergy. a segment of the population then removed themselves from the city to avoid such coercion and reassembled outside the walls to conduct the baptismal liturgy, where they were subsequently attacked. 95. sokrates refers to these individuals as arianizers (οἱ Ἀρειανίζοντες), a title I retain here because of its connotations of actively engaging in a particular identification. 96. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.8.1–3; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.8.1–2.

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their own vigil processions.97 It was not long before the competing vigils led to a direct confrontation between the two groups. One of the arianizers struck the empress’s eunuch Briso on the forehead with a stone during John’s vigil, and several people from both groups died in the ensuing riot. In response, arkadios banned the arians from engaging in any further public ritual action.98 as with so many other spectacles, an essential dynamic here was the high degree of accessibility the arianizers’ ritual performances commanded. Within an environment that presumed that people would engage in any event that occurred on the public stage, the rituals of the arianizers had the real potential to encourage the people of Constantinople to internalize what John considered to be heretical doctrines. among the hymns sung in procession was an insulting one whose response directly challenged John’s homoousian creed, asking: “Where are those who say the three are one power?”99 For John, song was particularly insidious in ritual, both in that it provided enticing entertainment and for the way it made a lasting impression upon the soul. In his eyes, participation in the rituals of the arianizers exposed people to this threat and might also enable heretical clergy to reinsert themselves into the city’s cult structures and regain imperial patronage. to the casual observer, the vigils of the arianizers and John would have looked the same. They occurred at the same time, in the same physical spaces, using the same ritual actions. They may even have appeared to be the same event. according to sokrates, the potential confusion between these rituals enticed the people away from the rituals of the nicene clergy, thus threatening to shift their cultic engagement and identifications. John’s counter-vigils were effective partly because his agents were able to put on a more impressive display with the aid of the empress, who provided silver crosses, wax tapers, and her endorsement in the presence of her eunuch Briso.100 John was thus able to put on a more enticing spectacle, with clear endorsement from the imperial family, to attract the people to his procession. however, the real success here was not in persuading people that John’s vigils were more ornate or orthodox; rather, it was in the final elimination of the arianizers’ rituals from civic space without disrupting the larger established patterns of ritual life. notwithstanding their similarities in time, place, and action with those of the arianizers, John’s vigils were stage-managed to create a confusion that emphasized difference. By providing counter-vigils in the same space as his competitors, the bishop was also breaking apart a model of ritual engagement in which people participated in the rituals around them because they saw doing so as part 97. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.8.4: ἀντιτίθησιν αὐτοῖς τοὺς τοῦ ἰδίου λαοῦ. 98. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.8.7–9; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.8.5. 99. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.8.4: Ποῦ εἰσὶν οἱ λέγοντες τὰ τρία μίαν δύναμιν; sozomenos (Historia ecclesiastica 8.8.2) reports the same refrain. 100. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.8.5–6; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.8.4.

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of civic life. Put simply, he complicated ritual engagement by constructing it as a choice, even if that choice was in practice limited by other factors. For the common person, in any case, participation may have had less to do with theological commitment than on the popularity of the bishop, the appeal of the performance, and, in the end, the elimination of competing performances. There is a further layer worth noting in sokrates’s account, beyond the ritual redirection that the historian attributes to John. sokrates himself performs a shift that distinguishes between and imposes particular meanings upon the ritual actions of the competing groups: The arianizers [οἱ Ἀρειανίζοντες] held their assemblies [τὰς συναγωγὰς] outside the city. Whenever the weekly feasts (I mean the sabbath and the Lord’s Day) arrived on which the synaxeis customarily occur in the churches [κατὰ τὰς ἐκκλησίας], they crowded into the gates of the city around the stoas and sang antiphonal odes composed [συντιθέντες] for arian teachings. . . . John was anxious lest some of the simpler individuals might be drawn away from the church [τῆς ἐκκλησίας] by these songs [ᾠδῶν] and set those of his own people in opposition [ἀντιτίθησιν] to them, so that devoting themselves to nocturnal hymns [ὑμνολογίας], they obscured the zeal of [the arianizers] and reaffirmed their own zeal for the creed.101

The shifts in meaning here are subtle and operate on multiple levels. even as sokrates highlights the confusion between the two actions, he constructs significant rupture between the competing rituals through the vocabulary he uses for each group. The arianizers, in direct contrast to John’s group, had assemblies (literally, synagogues), not churches; they sang “odes,” not “hymns.”102 his choice of language here identifies the arianizers—both those of John’s day and any still present in Constantinople in the mid-fifth century when sokrates was writing— with Jews. arians were far outside accepted civic cult; they were not even Christians. Their rituals were dangerous, because they seduced the unwary and transformed them into heretics—or worse. In addition to these linguistic differences, the vigils break from each other in regards to violence. John’s appropriation of his competitors’ ritual performance could be interpreted as an act of violence, but it was the arianizers who responded 101. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.8.1–4: Οἱ Ἀρειανίζοντες . . . ἔξω τῆς πόλεως τὰς συναγωγὰς ἐποιοῦντο. Ἡνίκα οὖν ἑκάστης ἑβδομάδος αἱ ἑορταὶ κατελάμβανον, φημὶ δὴ τό τε σάββατον καὶ ἡ κυριακή, ἐν αἷς αἱ συνάξεις κατὰ τὰς ἐκκλησίας εἰώθασι γίνεσθαι, αὐτοὶ ἐντὸς τῶν τῆς πόλεως πυλῶν περὶ τὰς στοὰς ἀθροιζόμενοι καὶ ᾠδὰς ἀντιφώνους πρὸς τὴν Ἀρειανὴν δόξαν συντιθέντες ᾖδον . . . τότε δὴ {καὶ} Ἰωάννης εὐλαβηθείς, μή τις τῶν ἁπλουστέρων ὑπὸ τῶν τοιούτων ᾠδῶν ἀφελκυσθῇ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ἀντιτίθησιν αὐτοῖς τοὺς τοῦ ἰδίου λαοῦ, ὅπως ἂν καὶ αὐτοὶ ταῖς νυκτεριναῖς ὑμνολογίαις σχολάζοντες ἀμαυρώσωσι μὲν τὴν ἐκείνων περὶ τούτου σπουδήν, βεβαίους δὲ τοὺς οἰκείους πρὸς τὴν ἑαυτῶν πίστιν ἐργάσωνται. 102. note also sokrates’s distinction between the odes contrived (συντιθέντες) for arian teachings and those composed to counter those teachings (ἀντιτίθησιν).

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with physical violence by assaulting John’s vigils. For sokrates, it was this physical violence by the arianizers that made the rupture with the accepted scripts visible, and the result was imperial censure of their vigils and their replacement with John’s “innovation.” John had successfully harnessed (and perhaps had engineered) the violence of the night to construct clear distinctions between the practices of the arianizers and accepted civic cult practice, and blame for this violence had been successfully shifted onto his victims. The performance generated a firm boundary for cults allowed within the walls of the city. The arianizers had lost. sokrates’s account is primarily directed to a reading public, but I would argue that homiletic activity must have had a similar, but far more immediate and penetrating effect, for it was through preaching that new interpretive frameworks could be provided for participants within the very context of the ritual activity that housed these frameworks. One notable example of this type of interpretative imposition is the previously mentioned homily delivered by John after the earthquake of 398. according to John, these supplicatory processions had transformed the social order of the city. The houses and marketplaces where people had once engaged in “satanic symposia” were now pure. The streets where young men could once be heard singing theatrical songs now resounded with the purity of the psalms and hymns. The song of the people had silenced the anger of God, and the prayers of the poor had created a new foundation, so that the city no longer shook from the sins of its rulers.103 similarly, in his homilies for the translation of relics to Drypia, John constructs a religious significance, in Christian terms, for the movement the civic body had performed as it traveled through the Constantinopolitan landscape from the Great Church to the martyrion. he speaks of the empress’s careful footsteps during this procession imitating David’s dancing when he returned the ark to Jerusalem.104 The city itself had become a sea of fire ignited by desire for the martyrs.105 With these events, Constantinople had become a thoroughly Christian city, with no room or desire for other gods or for heretical doctrines. There is, however, an important caveat here. Like his predecessors and contemporaries, John presents a neat, tidy world in which the limits of ritual participation are fixed and clear. Those present at the relic processions are decidedly Christian, at least as far as John maps his audience. and this is one of the ways ritualized actions tend to homogenize complex landscapes. actual practice is never so neat.106 Individuals have a multitude of overlapping and competing commitments, which 103. John Chrysostom, De terrae motu (PG 50.715–16). 104. John Chrysostom, Homilia dicta postquam reliquiae martyrum 1 (PG 63.469.7–10, 18–24). 105. Ibid., 2 (PG 63.470.10–22). 106. see richard mcCall, Do This: Liturgy as Performance (notre Dame, In: University of notre Dame Press, 2007), 24–27, 54–55.

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may sometimes be activated in the context of a particular event. moreover, they may engage with ritual events for any number of reasons, ranging from religious devotion, curiosity, and entertainment to social obligation and even coercion. Thus, participation could reflect commitment to the ritual and the idea of the group embedded in that event, but it might also disguise a high level of resistance. The ritual itself, however, presents the collective as a consistent and unified whole. a person’s presence creates the appearance of assent to the structures and meanings communicated through ritualized action, but it also conditions one to accept those structures as natural. This can create the illusion that an individual agrees to the meanings communicated through the ritual action. ritualized events in late antique Constantinople communicated the ideology of the dominant class to the civic community, masking the transformation of social relations.107 It is my contention that this illusion is the pivotal element of communal ritual action that enables the large-scale shifts in ritual identification of the sort that we observe in fourth-century Constantinople. Participation—even if only as a witness, rather than active participant—communicates implied consent on the part of an individual to others also engaging in that action. Consequently, the ritual action, and the imagined group to which it is attached, becomes more persuasive and authoritative to those who witness it. however, this illusion of consent also provides space for resistance, since the individual can reinterpret the significance of the action and the individual’s place in the social group.108 In more extreme cases, individuals can refuse to participate in events, providing a mechanism to break with social scripts, sometimes with violent repercussions, as I believe underlay the actions, reactions, and interactions of the competing vigils described by sokrates.109 The illusion of consent to the meanings communicated through ritual action greatly concerned late antique authors. some Christian authors asserted that a person had to assent to a ritual action for it to have an impact upon the individual. It is for this reason that Valentinian’s presence at the sacrifice performed by Julian was not problematic to sozomenos. his presence did not indicate his participation in traditional cult ritual. he was merely a bystander, not a worshipper. But, remember—Valentinian’s presence was only unproblematic to a point. Once the drops of water had fallen upon his tunic, he was marked as a participant, and it was imperative that he remove himself from the ritual by destroying the object that had drawn him into it. These same concerns appear throughout the literature I have been examining here. The soldiers became idolaters by simply offering a pinch of incense to the image of the emperor. The bodies of theatergoers were transformed through the sights and sounds that assaulted them. and the population of Constantinople became Christian as they 107. Bell, Ritual Theory, 190–91, 196. 108. Ibid., 207–9. 109. Bell does not address the possibility of violence in resistance.

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escorted relics to their martyria. Participation was a bodily act, and it changed the body. This distinction is immensely important. even if an individual participated unwillingly or was unaware of the object of a ritual act (that is, the deity toward which the ritual was directed), those changes would still occur. Consequently, refusal to assent must also be performed bodily. again, we see this repeatedly: Valentinian destroyed his tunic; the soldiers in antioch ran through the city with loud protests before flinging their gold in Julian’s face; John demanded that his audience physically remove themselves from the ritualized actions of the theater. In light of these dynamics, it seems to me that multiple layers of intentionality could have been embedded in the performance of a single ritual event, and it is here that we can consider both the layers of participation and the performative work that ritual does. Certain actors, like John Chrysostom, were undoubtedly highly aware of and intentional about the actions being undertaken. Other actors were certainly less so, and many would have participated without any critical reflection, but still with a sense that these acts of worship belonged to one group rather than another. some, say an urban prefect who identified with traditional cult, would have participated with some resistance, for his presence at civic ritual would be expected of his office. For others, the ritual event was entertainment, something to join in simply because it was occurring in front of them. Whatever the case, though, an individual’s participation in ritualized social action—and here, I include the broad range of social performances of late antique civic life, from street performances to relic processions—did not necessarily indicate an active agreement with the meanings constructed through those events. however, it did create the appearance of such agreement, even if an individual was resistant to the meanings and hierarchies of the event. Between his articulation of proper Christian education, his homiletic instruction, and his ritual direction, there can be little question that John understood how important the performance of social actions were as a mechanism for shaping perceptions of the city’s cult landscape. This suggests a level of intention behind his efforts to change the behavior of those around him. a few final examples illustrate how these same processes might have worked at other stages of Constantinople’s development. to return to the accounts of Julian’s trickery from the beginning of this chapter, it would seem that Julian expected to make habituation to ritual work to his advantage. This is precisely how sozomenos describes the emperor’s scheme. Julian had hoped to restore the gods by naturalizing their veneration within the generally acceptable ritual context of honoring the image of the reigning emperor.110 according to sozomenos, Theodosios I 110. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 5.17.1–6. sozomenos’s source is clearly Gregory of nazianzos’s polemic against Julian in Oratio 4, cited at the beginning of this chapter.

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similarly recognized the value of ritual habituation when he prevented access to traditional sites: since the emperor saw that the custom [τὴν συνήθειαν] of the past toward the ancestral worship still drew the people to their places of worship, when he began to reign he hindered entry to them, and finally he destroyed many [places of worship]. and because they lacked the prayer houses [εὐκτηρίων οἴκων], at that time they became accustomed [προσειθίσθησαν] to visit the churches [ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις]. For it was not without risk even to sacrifice secretly according to hellenic custom, but a law was established decreeing the destruction of life and property for those who dared to perform these sacrifices.111

By removing the traditional temples as an option in the civic landscape, Theodosios I was able to redirect his people’s impulses for communal ritual action toward Christ and his sancti/ἅγιοι. sokrates relates a similar dynamic occurring in the late 420s when nestorios persuaded Theodosius II to deprive the makedonians of their cult sites. Without spaces of their own in which to worship Christ, they reluctantly began to worship at sites associated with nicene clergy, an act he describes as “coming over to the church [τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ] and agreeing to the homoousian creed.”112 to these authors—and likely those sharing their city—these reluctant changes in worship patterns would appear, or be made to appear, to constitute consent to new identifications. From this perspective, then, the various ritualized social actions that occurred in Constantinople and other late antique cities existed within a larger framework of ritualized behavior and social scripts. recasting Christian rituals within their performative environment shows how these processes may have been influential in shifting religious engagement during earlier periods in Constantinople’s history for which we have less evidence. In light of these dynamics, I propose that these shifts in Constantinople occurred through ritual engagement in a succession of stages, while allowing for varying degrees of intentionality, commitment, and resistance on the part of individuals in the city. In the city’s earliest decades, these processes would have positioned Christianity within the realm of licit cult activity, and later as the primary, authorized vehicle for fulfilling the city’s obligations to the divine.113 During the last quarter of the fourth century, these shifts in reality 111. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 7.20.1–2: ἐπεὶ γὰρ εἶδεν ὁ βασιλεὺς τὴν συνήθειαν τοῦ παρελθόντος χρόνου ἔτι πρὸς τὸ πατρῷον σέβας καὶ τοὺς θρησκευομένους παρ’ αὐτῶν τόπους ἕλκουσαν τὸ ὑπήκοον, ἀρξάμενος βασιλεύειν ἐκώλυσε τούτων ἐπιβαίνειν· τελευτῶν δὲ καὶ πολλοὺς καθεῖλεν. οἱ δὲ ἀπορίᾳ εὐκτηρίων οἴκων τῷ χρόνῳ προσειθίσθησαν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις φοιτᾶν· οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδὲ λάθρα θύειν Ἑλληνικῶς ἀκίνδυνον ἦν, ἀλλ’ ἐν ἀφαιρέσει κεφαλῆς καὶ οὐσίας νόμος ἔκειτο κατὰ τῶν ταῦτα τολμώντων τὴν τιμωρίαν κυρῶν. 112. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.31.5: τινὲς δὲ αὐτῶν προσεχώρησαν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, τοῦ ὁμοουσίου τῇ πίστει συνθέμενοι. 113. see mcCall, Liturgy as Performance, 58.

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demanded agreement to Theodosian Christianity as the normative expression of religion. In other words, the ritual system of late antique Constantinople was both dynamic and generative; public cult rituals occurred in continuity and tension with other social actions in ways that produced a space that both allowed for ruptures with older norms and naturalized new norms. •

•

•

The inhabitants of late antique Constantinople, like those of other late antique mediterranean cities, had been habituated into engaging with their ritual environments. ritual events produced meaning because they followed the scripts previously established by these other events. Processions, hymns, vigils, homilies, and other public manifestations of Christian worship could have no meaning or effect in and of themselves. They only had signifying value as part of a chain of activity consisting of both prior and expected subsequent ritualized action. Influential figures were able to shape public opinion because of the citationality between ritualized actions—both the cult practices of competing groups and other communal events (like games or imperial processions)—which explains why the stakes of public ritual were so high and why the infiltration of the ritual actions, spaces, and times of competing groups could escalate to physical violence. We can therefore think of ritualized activity as a delicate dance between the leaders of ritual and the participant-audience, with a full range of possible responses to the ritual event and its imposition of meaning, while recognizing that ritual’s improvisational nature was nonetheless bound by the rules of a script that was constantly pushed and stretched. ritual action did not demand reflective engagement on every level. Those presiding over rituals in fact depended on a certain degree of unreflective complacency, the better to create the illusion of consent, providing scope for imposing meanings and articulating the dominant vision of the ideal Christian city. a crucial component for shifting the interpretative frameworks embedded in these rituals was rhetoric. John Chrysostom had no qualms about telling his audience what their ritual movements meant. We have seen similar interpretive imposition in eusebios’s rhetoric about cult statues in Constantinople and the apostoleion, as well as in the rhetoric about violence during the formative years of the mid-fourth century. rhetoric also occupied a key role in forming understandings of imperial Christianity as a static, homogeneous entity during the first half of the fifth century. as chapter 5 will show, it was during this period that narratives about Constantinople’s past and present became intimately tied to claims about imperial legitimacy, and the cult landscape of city became a surrogate for arguments about imperial piety.

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In 408, the emperor arkadios died, leaving his seven-year-old son, Theodosios II, the sole augustus in the east. Theodosios II’s reign would be the longest in late roman history, but as an emperor “born in the purple” without an adult coemperor, Theodosios faced a relatively rare, but not entirely unique, challenge in asserting his authority. In no way could he boast of the traditional military virtue conventionally expected of an emperor, nor did he possess the gravitas that came from experience. This challenge was particularly acute when he entered adulthood, a moment that had proven perilous for previous “child-emperors” in the West. The reigns of earlier young emperors like Gratian (born 359 c.e.; augustus, 367–83 c.e.) and Valentinian II (born 371 c.e.; augustus, 375–92 c.e.) had, because of their youth, become largely ceremonial. When these boys matured and assumed military power, they faced opposition from their courts and armies, which frequently led to usurpation and assassination.1 to overcome these challenges, Theodosios’s court—and eventually Theodosios himself—had to resort to other means to establish his authority. as with the boy emperors before him, a rhetoric of the piety and innocence formed around Theodosios. Unlike earlier boy emperors, however, Theodosios more or less successfully made the transition to adulthood, living to the age of forty-nine (when he died after falling from his horse in the suburbs of Constantinople).2 1. meaghan mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367–455 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 307–8. 2. Chronicon paschale 589–90 (P319a–b). Theodosios II’s death (although not its cause) is also recorded in marcellinus Comes, Chronicon 450.1, 2; Theophanes, Chronographia am 5942; and evagrios scholastikos, Historia Ecclesiastica 1.22.

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Theodosios’s reign would be one of the most transformative periods in the religious organization of the eastern half of the empire. During the century prior to his birth, the landscape of Constantine’s city had been progressively reorganized, not only through monumental accretions, but also through rhetoric, violence, and cult practice. Under Theodosios I and arkadios, nicene clergy had gained control of Constantinople’s civic cult sites, consolidating the city’s normative religious frameworks as what has been termed Theodosian Christianity. But it was only under Theodosios II that this vision of Christianity as the definitive state-sponsored cult of the eastern empire was realized. During this period, the definitional lines between “orthodoxy” and “heresy” were progressively strengthened, and demands for religious conformity were asserted by increasingly vigorous and coercive means. Constantinople, as a central location of imperial power and as a symbol of the emperor’s piety, played a central role in this reorganization. This chapter examines how the circumstances of Theodosios II’s reign further contributed to the reshaping of the empire’s religion already occurring in Constantinople. a primary component of Theodosios’s religious policies was the removal of non-Theodosian elements from his city, reflected in the legislation promulgated as the emperor entered his majority, in the compilation of the Theodosian Code, and in the activities of Theodosios’s first chosen bishop, nestorios. These efforts, I argue, were both an extension of propaganda to legitimate the reign of a maturing emperor and part of the reason he successfully retained power after he entered adulthood. an emPerOr CLOtheD In PIet y

Theodosios II was born on april 10, 401, the first emperor to be born and to die in Constantinople—indeed the first to live most of his life in the city.3 nine months later, in January 402, arkadios proclaimed his infant son co-augustus. Within the next six years, both of the young augustus’s parents died (eudoxia in October 404 and arkadios in may 408), leaving the barely seven-year-old Theodosios the sole augustus of the eastern empire.4 This was a perilous moment for the young 3. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.1.1; Philostorgios 12.7. The precise date of Theodosios’s birth is given by the Chronicon paschale 401 (P307b). For the novelty of Theodosios II’s residency in Constantinople, see Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d’une capitale: Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 à 451 (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1974), 84–86; Fergus millar, A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408–450) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 4. The only emperors to be born in Constantinople prior to Theodosios II were Julian and honorios. 4. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.19.6; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.27.1, 9.1; cf. Chronicon paschale 404 (P307d–308a). sokrates alleges that eudoxia’s death was divine retribution for her persecution of John Chrysostom, exiled less than four months before. sokrates includes a number of additional prodigies indicating God’s anger at John’s expulsion, including the burning of the Great Church, the amputation of the legs of bishop kyrinos of Chalcedon, and a hailstorm that struck Constantinople

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emperor, for in the absence of an immediate adult co-emperor, it provided an ideal opportunity for usurpation. It would be almost another decade before Theodosios would reach the age of majority, and several more years after that before he could reasonably be expected to govern. Direction of the eastern empire during Theodosios’s childhood fell to existing administrative structures, with power seemingly concentrated in the hands the praetorian prefect anthemios, the imperial chamberlain antiochos, and other members of the consistory that formed the inner sanctum of the emperor’s court.5 In 414, significant changes occurred in the imperial household and eastern administration. antiochos appears to have been dismissed from his post as chamberlain, and anthemios replaced as praetorian prefect.6 here modern accounts of Theodosios’s life frequently credit his elder sister Pulcheria with administration, at least until Theodosios’s marriage to athenaïs (later known as eudokia), the daughter of an athenian sophist, in 421.7 an extensive amount of primary data survive from final two decades of Theodosios’s reign.8 The most substantial of these sources include the Theodosian Code four days before eudoxia’s death. sozomenos is more circumspect in his implication that eudoxia’s death was divine retribution. 5. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.1.1. John malalas (Chronographia 14.15) comments that antiochos had served as the administrator of the imperial household and affairs of state. Whether this was a formal guardianship is debatable. Theophanes (Chronographia am 5900) asserts that arkadios had entrusted his children to the Persian king Isdigerdes. The consistory was integral to the processes of administration. Given the length of Theodosios’s reign, this group was hardly stable. harries argues that Pulcheria’s power, which rested on presenting a public face of imperial piety, could not rival that of the consistory. see Jill harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 38–42, and harries, “men without Women: Theodosius’ Consistory and the Business of Government,” in Theodosius II: Rethinking the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, ed. Christopher kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 73–76; a. h. m. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284– 602: A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey (norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), 1.333–41; millar, Greek Roman Empire, 194–97. 6. For antiochos’s dismissal, see John malalas, Chronographia 14.15. The reason for anthemios’s is uncertain. kenneth holum credits these changes to Pulcheria, proclaimed augusta in July of that year, and speculates that antiochos had attempted to arrange a marriage between Pulcheria and a relative of anthemios. This is possible, but the evidence is entirely circumstantial. see kenneth holum, Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 91, 94. against holum, Peter Van nuffelen and Jill harries suggest that anthemios had died, but again the evidence is not definitive. see Van nuffelen, Un héritage de paix et de piété: Étude sur les histoires ecclésiastiques de Socrate et de Sozomène, Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta 142 (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 11; harries, “men without Women,” 72. For the elevation of Pulcheria as augusta, see Chronicon paschale 414 (P309a). 7. a portrayal built upon sozomenos’s description of the fifteen-year-old Pulcheria assuming responsibility for Theodosios’s court; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 9.1.3–9. 8. millar, Greek Roman Empire, 149. extensive discussions of Theodosios’s reign have been provided in previous studies of the period; I direct the reader to these studies for a more detailed chronology. see esp. alan Cameron, “The empress and the Poet: Paganism and Politics at the Court of Theodosius II,”

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(compiled during the 430s), the Acta of the series of episcopal councils that occurred during the last two decades of Theodosios’s life (though not properly compiled until after his death, and then in a way that authorized the proceedings of Chalcedon), and a number of histories produced by Constantinopolitan authors (also roughly between 427 and 449).9 This level of contemporaneous documentation provides an almost unparalleled degree of immediate access to a period of roughly twenty years as well as secondhand reports (however formed by rhetorical motives) for the thirty years prior. Of particular note during this period is the intense contestation over cultic definition, especially among nicene bishops, and imperial involvement in resolving these disputes. Theodosios himself is an elusive figure, for, like emperors before him, his biography, as we have it, is constructed according to the dictates of a late antique rhetoric of legitimacy. This rhetoric, at least as it formed around Theodosios, focuses heavily on the emperor’s piety, but also emphasizes a certain childish innocence and passivity. Consequently, modern depictions of Theodosios present a picture of a feeble, bookish, ineffective—even effeminate—weakling, particularly when compared to the soldier-emperors who preceded him.10 This portrayal of him has been challenged in recent scholarship, however, most notably by Fergus millar, who supposes there to have been a court apparatus that “‘carried’ a juvenile emperor as symbolic ruler until such time as he attained a degree of adult authority.”11 Yale Classical Studies 27 (1982): 217–89; W. h. C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement: Chapters in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 35–49; holum, Theodosian Empresses; and the essays in Theodosius II: Rethinking the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, ed. Christopher kelly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 9. The histories are those of Olympiodoros, Philostorgios, sokrates, and sozomenos. On the preservation of the Acta through the lens of Chalcedon, see millar, Greek Roman Empire, 16, and his guide in its appendix a. 10. see, e.g., such characterizations in Jones, Later Roman Empire, 1.173–74; holum, Theodosian Empresses, 147–74; and more recently by harries, “men without Women,” 76. assumptions of Theodosios’s passivity also lie behind Clyde Pharr’s comment in his translation of the Theodosian Code, in which he assigns responsibility for the Theodosian Code to eudokia; Clyde Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions: A Translation with Commentary, Glossary, and Bibliography (Union, nJ: Lawbook exchange, 2001), 487n18. note, too, that politics of gender are involved in the constructions of the personalities of the women of Theodosios’s court and their relationships with their male counterparts. Consider, e.g., the common portrayal of eudoxia as the harlot against John Chrysostom the martyred saint, a portrayal dependent on sokrates (Historia ecclesiastica 6.11, 6.15–16, 6.18–19) and sozomenos (Historia ecclesiastica 8.16). a similar depiction of a harlot Pulcheria opposed to the martyred nestorios can be found in the Letter to Kosmas (8). For a discussion of the “smear campaign” leveled against eudoxia, see Wendy mayer, “Doing Violence to the Image of an empress: The Destruction of eudoxia’s reputation,” in Violence in Late Antiquity: Perceptions and Practices, ed. h. a. Drake, (aldershot, england: ashgate 2006), 205–13. 11. millar, Greek Roman Empire, 227. For further critiques of assumptions about Theodosios’s reign, see hugh elton, “Imperial Politics at the Court of Theodosius II,” in The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity, ed. andrew Cain and noel Lenski (Burlington, Vt: ashgate, 2009), 136–38; Thomas Graumann, “Theodosius II and the Politics of the First Council of ephesus,” in kelly, Theodosius II, 109–10; and mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 3.

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The Theodosian line could easily have ended with arkadios’s death. surrounding the young augustus, however, was an army (in some instances, quite literally) of imperial officials committed to the continuation of the Theodosian dynasty, who oversaw the mechanisms of governance. The problem that faced these officials was how to establish and preserve the auctoritas of such a young emperor. This was not an entirely novel situation. Beginning in 367, with the elevation of the eight-year-old Gratian by his father Valentinian I, a series of extremely young boys had assumed the rank of augustus at the direction of their fathers or such powerful generals as merobaudes, stilicho, and aetius.12 Gratian’s elevation was followed by that of his four-year-old brother, Valentinian II, in 375.13 not quite a decade later, in 384, Theodosios I proclaimed his son arkadios, then only five years of age, as his co-augustus; his younger son honorios would be elevated to Caesar in 389 (he, too, only five years of age at the time), and then proclaimed co-augustus with his father and brother in 393. When Theodosios I died in January 395, the eighteen-year-old arkadios assumed control of the eastern empire, while the ten-yearold honorios ruled the Western empire under the guidance of the magister militum stilicho.14 Theodosios II himself would appoint his five-year-old cousin, Valentinian III, as Caesar in 424, then as co-augustus a year later. In a study of these child-emperors, meaghan mcevoy has demonstrated that in each of these instances, the imperial elevations occurred during a time of political crisis.15 Valentinian I named Gratian as co-augustus following a serious illness, likely in an effort to establish dynastic succession and reassert his authority against his advisors. The accession of Gratian’s brother, Valentinian II, was provoked by the death of their father, when the late emperor’s advisors sought to prevent the acclamation of popular generals (and perhaps to increase their own influence over the imperial office).16 Theodosios I’s elevation of the five-year-old arkadios as his co-augustus may have been intended to solidify his own questionable claims to the purple as well as a challenge to Gratian’s position in the West.17 The elevation of 12. a number of young emperors appear in the West, particularly in the early third century. many of these were teenagers, and a few, e.g., Diadumenianus (218) and Philip II (244–49), were as young as nine or ten. Very few enjoyed reigns of any great length. The standard practice was to elevate an emperor’s son to the rank of Caesar, only conferring the title of augustus at maturity (becoming co-augustus) or upon the death of the senior emperor. Of special note is the ill-fated elevation of Jovian’s infant son as augustus in 364 (only three years before Gratian’s elevation). see mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 3–4; 52–53. 13. mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 56. 14. Ibid., 137–42. 15. Ibid., 6. 16. Gratian’s willingness to accept the elevation of Valentinian II was crucial to maintaining his own position. For Valentinian’s near disappearance from the historical record following his accession, see mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 51–57, 61, 64. 17. mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 83. Gratian never recognized arkadios’s promotion. The circumstances of Theodosios I’s accession are uncertain; scholars have debated whether it was the result of the

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the young honorios to Caesar occurred on the occasion of Theodosios I’s triumphal entrance into rome, an event that, while celebrating Theodosios I’s defense of Valentinian II from the usurper maximus, also effectively displaced Valentinian II.18 honorios’s subsequent elevation to augustus followed the death of Valentinian II and attempts by arbogast and eugenius to seize control of the Western empire.19 Theodosios II’s elevation of Valentinian III only occurred after months of unrest that followed the death of honorios and another attempted usurpation.20 The young ages of these emperors presented significant challenges to the traditional mechanisms of establishing imperial legitimacy, which depended heavily upon proving one’s ability to lead others, demonstrated especially by a military victory and some fluency in elite culture.21 a significant component in affirming these attributes was the practice of panegyric, both in the form of public oration and literary production.22 These speeches and treatises publicly established the virtues of the emperor by appealing to a script for legitimate imperial action established by centuries of rhetorical tradition. according to this script, the emperor was to be the epitome of the roman male aristocrat: born of honorable circumstances, steeped in paideia, adept in military strategy, and governed by the philosophical virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom.23 Imperial speeches, however, were more than the simple acts of praise; they were public transactions between an emperor and his people that created an impression of consensus.24 The maneuvers of a faction at court or a military coup. For a summary of the debates, see mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 77–80, esp. 77n44. add to these dynamics the religious politics between the two courts, especially the possibility that Theodosios I patronized homoousian bishops in order to distance himself from his Western rival, who supported homoian bishops. see mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 80, 84; neil mcLynn, “‘Genere Hispanus’: Theodosius, spain and nicene Orthodoxy,” in Hispania in Late Antiquity: Current Perspectives, ed. kimberly Bowes and michael kulikowski (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 78, 107. 18. mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 92–94. The seventeen-year-old emperor Valentinian II was conspicuously absent from the triumphal procession in July 389, and Theodosios I may already have dispatched him to Gaul. 19. mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 97. 20. This ascension was accompanied by the betrothal between the young Valentinian and Licinia eudoxia, Theodosios II’s daughter. mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 229–33. 21. mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 36–40. 22. although described as one of the most ephemeral practices of the ancient world, orations were durable insofar as their performance was frequently accompanied by textual productions, whatever the degree of redaction. my discussion here does not preclude the importance of other mechanisms of legitimization, including visual representations (e.g., statues, coins), building programs, and legislation, among others. 23. The most systematic exposition of these rules is that of menander, Peri Epideiktikōn 2.1–2. see further discussion in sabine macCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 4–7; mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 27–36; and D. a russell and nigel Guy Wilson, Menander Rhetor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), xi–xxxiv. 24. macCormick, Art and Ceremony, 9.

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rhetor simultaneously provided evidence of an emperor’s fulfillment of these expectations, even if certain facts had to be manipulated or overlooked, and reminded his subject of those expectations. The emperor, in turn, was constrained by these same expectations. he could, of course, act outside the boundaries constructed for his position, but to do so brought certain risks, including the threat of riots or unrest among his generals. In other words, imperial panegyric was part of an elaborate game whose rules each party knew (either by formal training or habitual exposure) and at least nominally agreed to follow. It was not unusual, however, for emperors to not quite live up to all these expectations. Panegyric had helped earlier adult emperors downplay particular shortcomings. eusebios, for example, had glossed over Constantine’s non-elite background by stressing his training in the art of war under his father and by casting him as a new moses.25 This type of rhetorical maneuver, however, was significantly more difficult to employ in the case of a child-emperor. an infant or extremely young boy could demonstrate neither martial expertise nor a strong grounding in literary culture, at least not until a decade or two into his reign. a different strategy was necessary to bolster both his legitimacy and imperial authority. a clear sense of dynastic succession, of course, provided some weight to his claims, but it was not enough to deter other claimants to the throne. rather than accentuating qualities that the boys could not demonstrate, increasing emphasis was placed on their “spiritual worthiness,” displayed in their chastity and piety and confirmed by the divine favor demonstrated through the continuing stability of the empire.26 This strategy drew on earlier models of imperial piety, especially programs of cultic renewal (above all those of augustus and Constantine). With the child-emperors, these claims to piety were accompanied by a rhetorical stress on the emperor’s innocence, purity, and vulnerability, mcevoy argues: the emperor’s youth attracts God’s protective gaze, and God’s favor is proven by the stability of the empire under the child-emperor.27 The perpetuation of an emperor’s “childlike” qualities into adulthood became a quintessential legitimizing component of the reigns of Western emperors. honorios’s passivity, for example, shielded him from the machinations of political rivals by leaving the active administration of the empire in the hands of strong generals.28

25. eusebios, Vita Constantini, 1.12.1–2, 1.19.1–2; see discussion in Claudia rapp, “Imperial Ideology in the making: eusebius of Caesarea on Constantine as ‘Bishop,’” JTS, n.s., 49, no. 2 (October 1998): 685–95. 26. mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 107–8. 27. Ibid., 127–28. Linking stability and divine favor could be problematic, as is evident in Theodosios I’s exploitation of the unrest during the reign of the young Valentinian II to consolidate his control of the empire (ibid., 92–94). 28. Ibid., 219–20.

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Patterns similar to those observed by mcevoy for Western child-emperors appear in the case of Theodosios II. In the years prior to Theodosios’s birth and elevation to co-augustus as an infant, arkadios had experienced a series of challenges to his authority: the controversial consulship of eutropios in 399; a revolt led by the magister militum Gaïnas in 399/400; and the very public dispute between John Chrysostom and the agents of the alexandrian bishop Theophilos, in which the city’s monastic groups became vocal participants. arkadios was also continuing to experience pressure from the west, with stilicho asserting claims of regency over the eastern emperor.29 had arkadios lived longer, Theodosios might not have experienced the challenges faced by his Western counterparts. Unfortunately, his young age made him particularly vulnerable to potential usurpers after the death of his father in 408. sozomenos describes a succession of such attempts shortly after the boy’s accession as sole emperor, first in stilicho’s preparations to march east in order to replace the young Theodosios with his own son, and shortly thereafter in the hunnish general Uldin’s incursion into Thrace.30 It was thus paramount to reinforce the position of the young emperor. as I have already mentioned, piety and virtue play a central role in depictions of Theodosios. Perhaps the fullest articulation appears in sozomenos’s dedicatory preface to his Ecclesiastical History, composed with the emperor was in his midforties. Throughout, the portrait of Theodosios is consistent with the traditional expectations of imperial virtue: erudition, sound judgment, dedication to affairs of state, and benevolence toward inferiors. Of particular note is sozomenos’s emphasis on the emperor’s piety: For the leader of all to attain one part of these lowly virtues [i.e., the love of adornment, studiousness and literary skill, and military prowess] is considered the greatest thing, and a kingly thing. But of piety [εὐσεβείας], the true adornment of the imperial office, no one has produced such an account. But you, most excellent emperor Theodosios . . . have cultivated every virtue through the help of God. Draped in the purple robe and crown, the symbol of your honor to those who behold you, you always bear from within the true adornment of imperial majesty: piety and philanthropy.31 29. Ibid., 72. 30. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 9.5. stilicho’s foray into the east may have been an attempt to maintain influence in the imperial courts as honorios entered adulthood—he was only eighteen at the time of his brother’s death. 31. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica pref.2–3: μέγιστον δὲ καὶ βασιλικὸν ἐνομίζετο ταυτησὶ τῆς δημώδους ἀρετῆς μόριον ἓν κεκτῆσθαι τὸν πάντων ἡγούμενον, εὐσεβείας δέ, τοῦ ἀληθοῦς κόσμου τῆς βασιλείας, οὐδενὶ τοσοῦτος λόγος ἐγένετο. σὺ δέ, ὦ κράτιστε βασιλεῦ Θεοδόσιε . . . πᾶσαν ἐπήσκησας ἀρετὴν διὰ θεοῦ, ἁλουργίδα δὲ καὶ στέφανον πρὸς τοὺς θεωμένους σύμβολον τῆς ἀξίας περικείμενος, ἔνδοθεν ἀεὶ τὸν ἀληθῆ κόσμον τῆς βασιλείας ἠμφίεσαι, τὴν εὐσέβειαν καὶ τὴν φιλανθρωπίαν.

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after noting Theodosios’s exemplary piety, the historian proceeds to describe the emperor’s command of elite culture, highlighted in his extensive literary training and ability to accurately judge contests of rhetoric.32 But the emperor’s virtues do not end there. he is a paragon of benevolent governance, studiousness, and selfcontrol. his days are devoted to military training, his nights to study. he refuses to burden his household with his habits, having invented a long-burning lamp so that his servants would not be required to attend him at night.33 Indeed, Theodosios is a polymath whose knowledge and virtue far surpasses that of the biblical king solomon: For having become a slave of pleasure, [solomon] did not preserve the piety that had been the cause of good things and his wisdom. But you, most excellent One, are naturally considered the absolute ruler not only of men but also of the passions [τῶν παθῶν] of the soul and the body on account to your self-restraining reason which opposes indolence. . . . I hear that you have also conquered desire [τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν] for food and drink, and neither sweet figs . . . nor any other ripe fruit is able to overpower you, except just the small amount you touch and taste, having first praised the creator of all.34

Theodosios’s virtue includes the bodily training necessary to ignore the inconveniences of thirst, heat, and cold.35 sozomenos provides evidence of the emperor’s 32. Ibid. pref. 4–5. 33. Ibid. pref. 8. 34. Ibid. pref. 11–12: ὁ μὲν γὰρ δοῦλος γενόμενος τῶν ἡδονῶν οὐ μέχρι τέλους τὴν εὐσέβειαν διεφύλαξε τὴν αἰτίαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ τῆς σοφίας αὐτῷ γενομένην· σὺ δέ, ὦ κράτιστε, τὸν ἐγκρατῆ λογισμὸν ἀντιτάξας τῇ ῥᾳστώνῃ, εἰκότως νομίζῃ μὴ μόνον ἀνθρώπων αὐτοκράτωρ εἶναι, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν παθῶν τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ τοῦ σώματος . . . πυνθάνομαί σε καὶ παντὸς ὄψου καὶ ποτοῦ τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν νικᾶν, καὶ μήτε σῦκα γλυκερά . . . μήτ’ ἄλλο τι τῶν ὡραίων ἑλεῖν σε δύνασθαι, πλὴν ὅσον ἐπιψαῦσαι καὶ μόνον ἀπογεύσασθαι, πρότερον εὐλογήσαντα τὸν πάντων δημιουργόν. 35. Ibid. pref. 12. Cf. Plato’s description of the philosopher-king in Res publica 3.403–412 and his portrayal of sokrates in Symposium 198a–212c. Plato’s philosopher-king was central in legitimizing rhetoric for late antique emperors. Conceptions of masculinity are also embedded in this paradigm. For comparanda, see the Themistios’s stylization of Constantius, esp. in Orationes 1 and 3; Julian’s selfpresentation in Misopogon 338c–d; and Libanius’s portrayal of Julian in his Oratio 18.40. Cf., too, ammianus marcellinus’s questioning of Constantius’s paideia (Res gestae 21.16.4–6), meant to impeach the emperor. a similar rhetorical strategy is employed by Zosimos (Historia nova 4.27, 33.1, 41, 44) to attack Theodosios I, whom he describes as prone to luxury and lust. The classic study of kingship rhetoric is Francis Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy: Origins and Background, 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1966), see esp. 1.181–91, 241–45, and 270–77 (for pre-Constantinian articulations) and 2.614–30 and 646 (for the fourth century). see also alan Cameron and Jacqueline Long, Barbarians and Politics in the Court of Arcadius (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 82; susanna elm, “Family men: masculinity and Philosophy in Late antiquity,” in Transformations of Late Antiquity: Essays for Peter Brown, ed. Philip rousseau and manolis Papoutsakis (Farnham, england: ashgate, 2009), 279–301; Peter heather and David moncur, Politics, Philosophy, and Empire in the Fourth Century: Select Orations of Themistius, tth 36 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001),

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ascetic discipline and philanthropia in Theodosios’s response to a soldier who had offered him water during the heat of a summer’s march. Unlike alexander the Great, who had disdained such an offer by pouring it on the ground before his thirsty soldiers, Theodosios praised the gift and returned it for the soldier to quench his own thirst.36 sozomenos concludes by proclaiming that the emperor had surpassed all his predecessors by “having gathered all the virtues together and superseded [his] predecessors in the piety, philanthropy, courage, wisdom, judgment, honor, and generosity appropriate to imperial dignity.”37 a different picture of the emperor emerges in the final book of sozomenos’s history. Whereas Theodosios is a mature agent in the dedication, book 9 opens with the image of the boy-emperor whose piety ensures the stability of the empire.38 sozomenos’s argument about the necessity of the emperor’s piety for securing the empire permeates the remainder of the unfinished book 9 and unites the events narrated by sozomenos.39 Particularly important to note is that even though sozomenos wrote his history when Theodosios was an adult, throughout the narrative of book 9 Theodosios remains childlike, under the perpetual guidance of his sister Pulcheria.40 moreover, it was the child-emperor’s piety and not the skilled diplomacy of such individuals as anthemios (whom sozomenos conveniently writes out of his narrative) that maintained peace with the Persian 64–65; and John Vanderspoel, Themistius and the Imperial Court: Oratory, Civic Duty, and Paideia from Constantius to Theodosius (ann arbor: University of michigan Press, 1995), 81–83. 36. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica pref.12–14. 37. Ibid. pref. 15: πάσας ὁμοῦ συλλαβὼν τὰς ἀρετάς, πάντας ὑπερεβάλου εὐσεβείᾳ καὶ φιλανθρωπίᾳ καὶ ἀνδρείᾳ καὶ σωφροσύνῃ καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ φιλοτιμίᾳ καὶ μεγαλοψυχίᾳ βασιλικῇ πρεπούσῃ ἀξίᾳ. 38. sozomenos states quite bluntly that God’s favor because of the court’s piety; ibid. 9.1.2; 9.3.3. 39. sozomenos’s chronology ibid. 9.1–9.9 is vague. he collapses the first seven to eight years of Theodosios II’s reign, erasing the influence of anthemios and anthiochos and moving quickly from the death of arkadios to Pulcheria’s consecration as virgin at age fourteen (413/14). events in subsequent chapters occur before 414, most notably the attempts by stilicho and Uldin (likely shortly after 408) and the sieges of rome by alaric (408–10). 40. sozomenos’s account of Pulcheria follows a topos of women who direct the piety of their male relatives or associates. notable examples include helena (for Constantine), makrina (Gregory of nyssa), Paula (Jerome), and melania the elder (rufinus). I do not think that the fact that sozomenos follows a literary topos discounts the possibility that Pulcheria adopted an ascetic lifestyle; rather, the relationship between previously established topoi can affect behavior and that teasing out that relationship is complicated. see discussion in elizabeth Clark, “The Lady Vanishes: Dilemmas of a Feminist historian after the ‘Linguistic turn’ ” CH 67, no. 1 (march 1998): 21–24; kate Cooper, “Insinuations of Womanly Influence: an aspect of the Christianization of the roman aristocracy,” JRS 82 (1992): 153–55; ross kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses: Religion, Gender, and History in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 127–28; shelly matthews, “Thinking of Thecla: Issues in Feminist historiography,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 17, no. 2 (Fall 2001): 47–50; and michele renee salzman, Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire (Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 2002), 169–70.

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empire, ensured the aid of honorios against stilicho, and caused Uldin’s army to dissolve as it marched into Thrace toward Constantinople.41 This presentation bears a striking similarity to those for Western childemperors. The attainment of majority was a crucial moment for the continuation of a child-emperor’s reign. The Theodosian court faced similar circumstances. The difference between Theodosios and many of his Western counterparts, however, is that he, like his uncle honorios, succeeded in this transition. Part of Theodosios’s success was likely dependent on a rhetoric of his childlike innocence and ascetic piety, echoes of which are found in sozomenos’s preface. For this rhetoric to be effective, however, it had to be supported by action. t h e O D O sIa n C h r I s t Ia n I t y: a s O LU t IO n t O I m P e r Ia L I n se C U r I t y

Cult reform had long been used by emperors to assert their legitimacy and demonstrate their authority and beneficence. after augustus assumed control of the empire in the first century b.c.e., he exercised considerable oversight in cult reforms (cast as “renewal”), from reestablishing archaic rituals, reinstituting lapsed priesthoods, and assuming a number of lifelong priestly offices.42 The augustan reforms became a model for asserting imperial legitimacy. When later emperors ascended to the throne, particularly after defeating any rivals, they frequently styled themselves as new augusti and assumed the title of pontifex maximus. In this capacity they claimed responsibility for the most important matters of religion that preserved the safety of the state—renewing cults, refurbishing or dedicating temples, and reinvigorating priesthoods. Because of his connection to Constantinople’s own history, an apt example here is the emperor septimius severus (194–211), who relied on religious and cultural renewal to assert the legitimacy of his reign and dynastic ambitions.43 Theodosios II’s grandfather and namesake had made similar moves when he established homoousian bishops as the official, legitimate priests of the empire upon his arrival in Constantinople.44 These appointments were followed by a concerted program, first under Theodosios I and then under his son arkadios, to purify the city’s landscape by marginalizing competing cults and factions through

41. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 9.4–5 42. For discussions of augustan “revivals,” see mary Beard, John north, and simon Price, Religions of Rome, vol. 1: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 184–206; Jörg rüpke, Pantheon: A New History of Roman Religion (Princeton, nJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), 187–92. 43. see Charmaine Gorrie, “Julia Domna’s Building Patronage, Imperial Family roles and the severan revival of moral Legislation,” Historia 53 (2004): 65–66, 70; Éric rebillard, Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE. Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 2012), 38. 44. see chap. 4, pp. 121–23.

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the final closure of the city’s temples and the progressive removal of non-nicene elements from the public eye.45 Under Theodosios II, there were three main periods of reform, each roughly coinciding with a significant phase of the emperor’s maturation. While it is impossible to determine how much and when Theodosios was influenced by those around him, I believe that the emperor took an increasingly active role in these efforts. The first period of reform occurred between 414 and 416, about the time the young emperor reached the age of fourteen, the age at which under roman law a boy’s childhood ended.46 This period of transition had proven perilous for previous child-emperors. In the West, for example, Valentinian II (d. 392) and Gratian (d. 393) had both perished in their early twenties in situations suggestive of attempts to assert real power after years of administration by others.47 It is therefore interesting to note a sequence of events that occurred around Theodosios at this time. as previously mentioned, key players in the imperial consistory were replaced in 414. about this same time, an interesting cluster of activity focusing on “religious matters” occurred within the court. On October 2, 415, for example, hagia sophia, recently repaired after extensive fire damage, was rededicated, and relics of the biblical Joseph and Zachariah were enshrined there.48 Later that same month, and again in november, laws against “heretics” were issued in Theodosios’s (and honorios’s) name. These notably targeted eunomians with harsh restrictions, including prohibitions on performing baptisms, assembling in Constantinople (and, almost as an afterthought, elsewhere in the provinces), and transferring property through gifts or even if intestate.49 also in October, the court issued a rescript against Gamaliel VI, the Jewish patriarch in Palestine, revoking his honorary prefecture and forbidding him from judging cases involving Christians. This same rescript banned new synagogue construction, allowed for the demolition of existing synagogues in remote places (in solitudine) (provided that it did not incite sedition), and forbade Gamaliel or any Jew from “pollut[ing] a Christian or a man

45. a year after Theodosios I’s death, arkadios issued what could be read as a programmatic reaffirmation of nicene bishops as the representatives of imperial religion; see CTh 16.5.30 (march 3, 396). related directives (CTh 16.5.31–32) were sent to the praetorian prefect the following month. 46. see Gaius, Institutiones 1.196; Iustiniani Institutiones 1.22.pref.; and discussion in Christian Laes and Johan strubbe, Youth in the Roman Empire: The Young and the Restless Years? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 30–36. 47. mcevoy, Child Emperor Rule, 130. 48. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 9.16.4–9.17.6; Chronicon paschale 415 (P309c). alan Cameron and Jacqueline Long suggest, in Barbarians and Politics, 73–74, that there may have been an initial, unsuccessful attempt in 416 under the new praetorian prefect aurelian (414–16) to import the relics of stephen discovered in Jerusalem in 415. 49. CTh 16.5.58. Theodosios’s name is recorded on laws pertaining to cultic matters before this, but the majority (twenty-nine out of forty-one) of these involve disputes in the West.

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of any sect . . . with the Jewish stigma.”50 shortly afterward, the relics of the protomartyr stephen were discovered on an estate in Palestine claimed to have belonged to the first-century Pharisee Gamaliel, and, according to the later chronicles of marcellinus Comes (sixth century) and Theophanes (ninth century), brought to Constantinople.51 The rescript against the patriarch and the translation of the relics may not have been connected, but the timing is certainly suggestive of an interest in undermining Jewish claims of imperial tolerance. In December these injunctions were joined by Theodosios’s first “anti-pagan” legislation, which excluded those “polluted by the error of pagan rites” from military and administrative offices.52 notably, this is the first instance in which non-Christians were barred from these offices. earlier legislation against traditional cult had been directed at the apparatus of cult: such measures had prohibited sacrifices and festivals, allowed for the destruction of cult images, withheld of temple funds, and imposed sanctions against priests. now they severely limited the ability of individuals who identified as hellenes from participating in the normal practices of civic governance. another burst of activity occurred almost a decade later, in February 423, when Theodosios’s court affirmed the protection of Jewish synagogues and their assets from seizure, but forbade the construction of new synagogues.53 two months later, on april 9, the protection of synagogues was repeated. This time, however, it was paired with injunctions against practitioners of traditional cult and other nonimperial cults, namely, manichaeans, Phrygians (montanists), arians, makedoni50. CTh 16.8.22: “si Christianum vel cuiuslibet sectae hominem ingenuum servum vel Iudaica nota foedare temptaverit vel ipse vel quisquam Iudaeorum, legum severitati subdatur” (trans. Pharr, Theodosian Code, 467). note the similarity in attitudes toward the synagogues situated in solitudine here and temples similarly situated in CTh 16.10.16 (399 c.e.). also in 415, anti-Jewish riots occurred in alexandria. Over the next three years, directives were given to alexandrian officials regarding the parabalani, ascetics who tended the sick and who had been identified as agitators in the riots. see CTh 16.2.42, 16.2.43. holum, Theodosian Empresses, 98, credits these particular measures to Pulcheria’s persecution of Jews and connects them to Cyril’s attacks on synagogues in alexandria; see also al. Cameron and Long, Barbarians and Politics, 78. 51. For the discovery of the relics, see Lucian, Revelatio Sancti Stephani. For the translation of the relics to Constantinople, see marcellinus Comes, Chronicon 439.2; Theophanes, Chronographia am 5920. Discussion in elizabeth Clark, “Claims on the Bones of saint stephen: The Partisans of melania and eudocia,” CH 51, no. 2 (June 1982): 143, 151; Oded Irshai, “Confronting a Christian empire: Jewish Life and Culture in the World of early Byzantium,” in Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures, ed. robert Bonfil, Oded Irshai, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 36n55. 52. CTh 16.10.21: “qui profano pagani ritus errore seu crimine polluuntur, hoc est gentiles, nec ad militiam admittantur nec administratoris vel iudicis honore decorentur.” The abbreviated translation here is mine—Pharr’s translation of this rescript potentially obscures the fluidity of religious practice and the ease with which accusations of “paganism” could be levied. It is also worth noting legislation forbidding those “hostile to the Catholic sect” from “performing imperial service within the palace” was issued in ravenna under honorios in 408; CTh 16.5.42. 53. CTh 16.8.25 (February 15, 423).

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ans, eunomians, and now, novatians and sabbatians (this was the first time these latter two groups had been included in a list of “heretics” in imperial legislation).54 These same groups were targeted again on June 8, 423.55 This period of active legislation roughly coincides with significant events for the Theodosian court and Constantinople, namely, the birth of Theodosios’s and eudokia’s daughter, Likinia eudoxia, in 422 and the elevation of eudokia as augusta in January 423.56 another event may also have contributed to the proclamations against non-Theodosian cult groups in the city. The early seventh-century Chronicon paschale reports that a series of earthquakes struck the city on april 7; this was two days before Theodosios’s first extensive censuring of non-imperial groups in Constantinople, mentioned above.57 such a catastrophe could have been interpreted as indicating some pollution or error within the city, which would require rituals of purification and penance—as had occurred earlier under John Chrysostom following an earthquake in 398.58 If the Chronicon’s date for this earthquake is accurate, it is easy to imagine how individuals within the city could have incorporated the event into what was becoming a relatively clear agenda to reinforce the hold of nicene clergy on the city’s cult structures and eliminate non-Theodosian groups from the city. The third cluster of activity began five years later, with the installation of the antiochene monk nestorios as court bishop on Theodosios’s twenty-seventh birthday.59 at his ordination, nestorios called upon the emperor to eliminate nonTheodosian cult groups from the city, and by the end of 429, he was preaching against the use of Theotokos as a title for the mother of Christ.60 From the perspective of subsequent theological disputes, nestorios’s episcopacy was by far the most important event of Theodosios’s adulthood. reactions to nestorios’s teachings on 54. CTh 16.5.59, 16.8.26, and 16.10.22 (all issued april 9, 423, quite possibly in the same imperial letter). two further points of interest from these constitutions are worth noting: CTh 16.5.59 is the first time novatians are explicitly identified with other targeted non-imperial groups, and Theodosios claims there are no surviving paganoi. 55. CTh 16.5.60, 16.8.27, 16.10.23, and 16.10.24. 56. see sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.44.1; John malalas, Chronographia 14.7; Chronicon paschale 421, 423 (P312c, P313d). 57. The Chronicon paschale (423; P313d) is our only source for this earthquake, and I am therefore hesitant to draw the connection too strongly. however, rituals of purification are frequently reported in response to the earthquakes of the fourth and fifth centuries. Both John malalas (Chronographia 14.22) and the Chronicon paschale (447; P317a–b) mention an earthquake that occurred on January 26, 447, in response to which Theodosios II led penitential processions barefoot for several days. a list of earthquakes in Constantinople, though incomplete, was compiled in Glanville Downey, “earthquakes at Constantinople and Vicinity, a.D. 342–1454,” Speculum 30, no. 4 (October 1955): 596–600 (for our period see pp. 596–97). 58. John Chrysostom, De terrae motu (PG 50.713–16). see chap. 4, p. 138. 59. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.26.2, 7.29.1–3; nestorios, Bazaar of Heracleides 377–79 (Bedjan = Driver/hodgson 274–75). 60. see sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.29.5; evagrios scholastikos, Historia ecclesiastica 1.9; Cyril of alexandria, Libri V contra Nestorium 1.5 (ACO 1.1.5, p. 8).

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the dual nature of Christ would affect the remainder of Theodosios’s reign and have far-reaching consequences for subsequent Christian theologies. yet the controversy that eventually led to the Council of Chalcedon overshadows two important shifts that had occurred in Constantinople’s cult structures. First, over the previous decades Constantinople had come to occupy a central position in ecclesiastical politics, since emperors accompanied their armies less frequently and began to reside in the city for longer periods of time. as a result, Constantinople attracted individuals who sought access to imperial power. In fact, a hallmark of ecclesiastical politics in Constantinople under the Theodosian dynasty was the presence of clergy from other cities, who could appeal to the imperial family or use their networks (especially contacts in local ascetic communities) to influence the imperial Constantinopolitan bishops, frequently to the point of contriving their deposals. We can see this in the examples of severian, antiochos, epiphanios, and Theophilos of alexandria, all of whom came to Constantinople during John Chrysostom’s episcopacy.61 additionally, the selection of the city’s court bishop became particularly contentious, for imperial support lent significant weight in defining orthodoxy. Throughout the fourth century, rivalry for the office was a recurring reality: in 381, when Gregory of nazianzos was forced from the position; again in 398, after nektarios died; in the machinations that led to John’s expulsion in 404; and in the pressures experienced by his replacement, arsakios.62 The long episcopacy of the Constantinopolitan native attikos from 406 until 426 saw a general lull in competition over the see, but his death ignited a firestorm between parties hoping to place their candidates in the bishop’s office.63 The choice of sisinnios as attikos’s successor settled matters only briefly, for sisinnios himself died in December 427. Once again, competing parties fought to install their own candidates as bishop, until Theodosios appointed an outsider, the antiochene monk nestorios, and sent his magister militum to escort him to Constantinople to ensure his installation. Given this history, it is unsurprising that nestorios’s career as bishop in Constantinople quickly turned contentious. In 431, charges against him of misgovernment and heresy eventually led Theodosios to order his trial.64 The council that 61. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 6.2, 6.11–12, 6.15. 62. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 8.23. 63. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.25.22. 64. These events have been studied extensively, and a full account of the debates and political complexities is outside the scope of my discussion. For fuller exposition, see W. h. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 752–73. see also nicholas Constas, Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity, Homilies 1–5, Texts and Translations (Leiden, Brill, 2003), 41–56; michael Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 284–87; millar, Greek Roman Empire, 157–67; and adam m. schor, Theodoret’s People: Social Networks and Religious Conflict in Late Roman Syria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 85–90.

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was held in ephesos that summer was highly controversial: suspecting that his alexandrian rival, Cyril, was manipulating the proceedings, nestorios refused to attend before his supporters arrived. Cyril defiantly convened the council without nestorios and condemned the Constantinopolitan bishop in absentia. When nestorios’s supporters finally arrived, they held a counter-council, which in turn denounced Cyril as a tyrant unwilling to discuss matters of doctrine and eager to usurp imperial power. exasperated by reports of impasse and violence, Theodosios sent his officials to investigate, who declared both men guilty. nestorios and Cyril were deposed and arrested. nestorios was initially sent back to his monastery, then exiled to a monastery in Oasis (kharga, egypt). Cyril eventually returned to alexandria, under suspicion of having bribed officials for his release. With the removal of nestorios, Theodosios appointed maximianos, a local Constantinopolitan presbyter who had the support of the alexandrian clergy, as nestorios’s replacement. Unfortunately, maximianos died only a few years later, on holy Thursday in april 434.65 In order to prevent further conflict, Theodosios then chose a native of Constantinople, Proklos, as his court bishop.66 even after the arrests of nestorios and Cyril in 431, the disputes continued. The primary, stated disagreement continued to be over nestorios’s teaching, but behind it was also contention over the level of authority exercised by the bishop of Constantinople and the influence the bishops of other cities, especially antioch and alexandria, had in the imperial court.67 In the late 440s, tensions in Constantinople flared once more, this time between Proklos’s successor, Flavian, and individuals within the imperial court supported by Bishop Dioskoros of alexandria.68 The heightened tensions led to the final proscription of the works of nestorios (among others) in 448 and a new council at ephesos in 449. Theodosios had apparently lost patience with attempts to reconcile the two parties.69 When he authorized Cyril’s successor, the alexandrian bishop Dioskoros, to direct the new council, the latter excluded those associated with the clergy of antioch from attending the proceedings and ordered Flavian to be deposed for supposedly exceeding his jurisdiction. Dioskoros’s secretary, anatolios, was then installed as Constantinople’s new bishop.70 65. Constas, Proclus of Constantinople, 77, 79. 66. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.40.3–4. For a detailed survey of Proklos’s career as bishop of Constantinople, see Constas, Proclus of Constantinople, 80–124. 67. see Frend, Rise of the Monophysite Movement, 15–49, and millar, Greek Roman Empire, 157–67. 68. Dioskoros’s attempts to involve Leo of rome as a counterweight to the court bishop in Constantinople only escalated matters. see Gaddis, There Is No Crime, 290–93. 69. Ibid., 299. 70. Flavian was sent into exile, but died en route. For a close analysis of Dioskoros’s coercive tactics, including his refusal to allow opponents to speak, and Leo’s subsequent condemnation of ephesos II as a latrocinium (a label meant to delegitimize the council through accusations of illicit violence) in a letter to Pulcheria (450), see ibid., 299–309.

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along with the contention over Constantinople’s episcopacy came a heightened concern over the image of Constantinople as a religious space. For an emperor whose legitimacy was partly tied to assertions of his piety, the presence of nonTheodosian cult groups threatened this image. here, the court bishop could play an important role in the efforts of the imperial court—if not of Theodosios himself—in furthering the Theodosian agenda. The precise circumstances and political moves nestorios made upon his installation are difficult to reconstruct, since our earliest narrative account for this aspect of his episcopacy is sokrates, who is highly partisan against the bishop. however, the details conveyed by sokrates suggest nestorios’s involvement in the Theodosian project. The bishop’s inaugural words to the emperor demonstrated his commitment to rooting out those who threatened it: “Give to me, O king, a land cleansed of heretics [τῶν αἱρετικῶν], and I will reward you with heaven; help me overcome the heretics, and I will help you overcome the Persians.”71 Likewise, nestorios moved quickly to do precisely what he had promised: he had an arian chapel in Constantinople demolished, he targeted the novatian bishop Paul, and he incited riots against the quartodecimans (nicene Christians who celebrated Pascha following the Jewish calendar).72 nestorios’s actions could be interpreted as license for other bishops to engage in similar persecutions, and sokrates is highly critical of both nestorios and those who followed his lead in targeting clergy who might question Theodosian orthodoxy. In his theological apology The Bazaar of Heracleides, nestorios himself refers to “all the heretics that had been rejected by me.”73 he does not elaborate, but this may be in reference to the actions described by sokrates. Throughout his narrative, sokrates is careful to distance Theodosios from these affairs, and his narrative suggests that nestorios’s “vulgar” methods to suppress non-Theodosian Christianity did not enjoy imperial support. But if sokrates’s reports are accurate, nestorios was acting precisely in the manner expected of the bishop by an emperor already deeply invested in cultic reform. and these efforts would have been particularly helpful for an emperor approaching his thirtieth year, especially if he was attempting to assert his autonomy and strengthen, not only his own position, but also that of any heir he might produce in the next few years. This possibility is supported by sentiments expressed in a decree addressed to the praetorian prefect Florentius in Theodosios’s name from Constantinople on may 30, 428, less than two months after nestorios’s installation: 71. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.29.5: Δός μοι . . . ὦ βασιλεῦ, καθαρὰν τὴν γῆν τῶν αἱρετικῶν, κἀγώ σοι τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀντιδώσω· συγκάθελέ μοι τοὺς αἱρετικούς, κἀγὼ συγκαθελῶ σοι τοὺς Πέρσας. 72. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.29.8–12. 73. nestorios, Bazaar of Heracleides 383 (Bedjan = Driver/hodgson 277–78): kul-hūn harāt.yqe ‘aylein dmen qdim meny ‘eštriu wāw.

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The madness of the heretics must be suppressed so that they know beyond doubt, before all else, that the churches [ecclesias] they have stolen from the orthodox, wherever they are held, shall immediately be surrendered to the imperial church [catholicae ecclesiae], since it cannot be tolerated that those who ought not to have their own [churches] should continue to retain those possessed or founded by the orthodox and invaded by such rash lawlessness.74

This eventually became the penultimate article in the anti-heretical legislation of the Theodosian Code (book 16, title 5). In addition to the highly articulated censure of non-Theodosian cults, it includes the longest heresiology in the Code, which targeted no fewer than twenty-one groups: arians, makedonians, apollinarians, novatians, sabbatians, eunomians, Valentinians, montanists or Priscillianists, Phrygians, marcianists, Borborians, messalians, euchites or enthusiasts, Donatists, audians, hydroparastatae, tascodrogitae, Photinians, Paulians, marcellians, and manichaeans.75 moreover, the decree of 428 signals a shift in attitude toward nicene groups who were not in communion with the imperial church. The novatians and sabbatians had rarely been targeted by earlier legislation recorded in book 16 of the Code.76 now the novatians and sabbatians were unceremoniously inserted into the lists of “traditional heretics.”77 nonetheless, their position was slightly better than those of the other groups listed. Whereas novatians and sabbatians could continue practicing in the spaces they already possessed, provided they did not 74. CTh 16.5.65.pref.: “haereticorum ita est reprimenda insania, ut ante omnia quas ab orthodoxis abreptas tenent ubicumque ecclesias statim catholicae ecclesiae tradendas esse non ambigant, quia ferri non potest, ut, qui nec proprias habere debuerant, ab orthodoxis possessas aut conditas sua que temeritate invasas ultra detineant” (trans. Pharr, Theodosian Code, 462, modified). my translation of catholicae ecclesiae as “imperial church” may be unconventional, but it more accurately conveys that the groups and structures that came to be identified as the “universal” church were those bound to the emperor. 75. In contrast to epiphanios and augustine, who present genealogical constructions of heresy, CTh 16.5.65 categorizes heresy according to four groups (“schismatics,” “arians,” “manichaeans,” and “others”); see discussion in richard Flower, “‘The Insanity of heretics must be restrained’: heresiology in the Theodosian Code,” in Theodosius II, ed. kelly, 184–93. For speculation that nestorios was responsible for this law, see holum, Theodosian Empresses, 150–51; tony honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire 379–455 AD: The Theodosian Dynasty and its Quaestors, with a Palingenesia of Laws of the Dynasty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 115–16. 76. Previously these two groups enjoyed a semi-protected status—in fact, a law from Constantine in 326 explicitly states that the novatians were not “precondemned (praedamnare) “and grants them their own buildings. see CTh 16.5.2. 77. The only other time these groups are catalogued with heresies in book 16 of the Code is 16.5.59 (april 9, 423). One other mention of the novatians appears in 16.6.6 (413), but in this case they are included among those who broke with the imperial church over the dating of Pascha; consequently, the article may target the group identified as the sabbatians, rather than being a formal censure of the novatians; CTh 16.6.6 (413).

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construct new cult sites, the other groups were forbidden from possessing any buildings or gathering for ritual.78 In addition, those identified with any of these “heresies” (presumably, including the novatians and sabbatians) could not be employed in imperial service, except as the staff of provincial governors or as common soldiers, nor could they make reciprocal gifts or wills. The concern here appears to have been to prevent individuals associated with (or suspected of being associated with) non-orthodox elements from occupying positions of power and influence.79 These measures effectively created a monopoly on ritual action within the city’s public spaces, making control of civic cult easier and thus further imposing a Theodosian definition of legitimate cult. One further event falls within this orbit of activity: the compilation of the Theodosian Code itself. Begun in 429, the compilation was completed in 437 and promulgated before the roman senate in February 438.80 This entailed the redaction and organization of a century’s worth of imperial statements, spanning from Constantine to Theodosios II, many of which were responses (rescripta) to particular questions and situations.81 These statements were now artificially presented as a body of general imperial pronouncements.82 essentially, the Code is an assortment of internal communications, artifacts of an administrative apparatus, now transformed into a collection of laws. The resulting collection, while not explicitly denying the roman legal culture extant before the fourth century, constructs a decisive reorientation of society under Constantine.83 This reorientation is particularly pronounced in book 16 of the Code, which addresses matters relating to cult organization and practice. no law in this book predates Constantine, lending the assembly a decidedly proChristian tone.84 moreover, even as the Code’s reorientation of society pivots on Constantine’s patronage of Christianity, that reorientation depends entirely upon 78. CTh 16.5.65.4. The legislation also asserts the imperial church’s monopoly on baptism. 79. maría Victoria escribano Paño, “The social exclusion of heretics in Codex Theodosianus XVI,” in Droit, religion et société dans le Code Théodosien. Troisièmes journées d’étude sur le Code Théodosien Neuchâtel, 15–17 février 2007, ed. Jean-Jacques aubert and Philippe Blanchard (Geneva: Université de neuchâtel, 2009), 50–51. 80. honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, 97. 81. honoré observes that the project was originally to include a compilation of Diocletian’s legislation, but the Theodosian Code as promulgated only contained legislation from Constantine to 437. Justinian would finish the project on his own terms. For further discussion, see harries, Law and Empire, 22–25; honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, 123–27, 136–53; and John matthews, Laying Down the Law: A Study of the Theodosian Code (new haven, Ct: yale University Press, 2000), 55–62, 67–70. 82. harries, Law and Empire, 31; millar, Greek Roman Empire, 7. 83. honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, 124–25. 84. The earliest constitution in book 16 is 16.2.1, dated October 31, 313, which protects Christian clergy from the demands of public service. The Code conveniently omits any legislation promulgated by Julian (except from his time as Constantius’s Caesar) and Jovian.

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Theodosios himself. Over a third of the constitutions recorded in book 16 date to his lifetime, and each title in the book (and in the Code as a whole) culminates with Theodosios II’s own development and clarification of the topic at hand.85 The effect is, to quote Christopher kelly, “the systematic accumulation of authority” that places Theodosios II at the pinnacle of jurisprudence.86 Thus, book 16 of the Code, as an ostensibly unified text curated from fragments of previous legal writings, implicitly accepts and asserts the primacy of Theodosian Christianity within the religious frameworks of the empire. to briefly summarize, these three clusters of cult reform are focused around key, strategic points in Theodosios’s life: the attainment of his majority in 415, his marriage and the birth of his first child, and as he approached the age of thirty. Thus, these reforms would have been particularly helpful for Theodosios at precisely those points when his authority was in the greatest jeopardy. Whether the emperor himself had a strong hand in these efforts (which I suspect he did in at least the latter two), the actions undertaken on his behalf had lasting consequences for the religious structures of Constantinople, particularly in the firm entrenchment of Theodosian Christianity within those structures, but also in the way the perceived orthodoxy of Constantinople’s landscape came to stand as evidence of Theodosios’s piety. a C I t y C L e a n se D O F h e r e t IC s : W r I t I n G C h r I s t Ia n h I st O ry

The interest among members of the imperial court, including, as I am positing, Theodosios II himself, in reorganizing the mental architecture of roman religion under a unified vision of nicene Christianity depended heavily upon the marginalization of non-Theodosian elements. The legislative and ecclesiastical efforts to accomplish this goal were mirrored in Constantinopolitan historiographic production, where the piety of the emperor and the purity of his city became focal points in the rhetoric of imperial Christian identity. Of particular note are three authors writing within the imperial orbit during Theodosios’s adulthood: Philostorgios (approximately between 425 and 433), sokrates (roughly 439/440), and sozomenos 85. Fortunately, book 16 is in the portion of the Code for which we have good manuscript support. a disproportionate number of laws dating between 401 and 415 are aimed at various forms of nonnicene Christianity in the West. Due the conventions of imperial proclamations of this sort, Theodosios’s name is attached to each of these constitutions. see J. matthews, Laying Down the Law, 86–87. That so many Western laws would be incorporated for this period, in contrast to the period after 415, suggests that the Code’s compilers were using activity in the West in order to create a consistent image of the emperor as “being tough on heresy” even during his childhood. however, this impression may simply be a product of the available source material, some archives for imperial legislation being better sources than others. nonetheless, the impression remains. see honoré, Law in the Crisis of Empire, 137–41. 86. C. kelly, “rethinking Theodosius,” 40.

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(following sokrates, but prior to 450).87 each of these authors engaged with presentations of Theodosios’s piety and concern about Constantinopolitan cult with varying degrees endorsement and subversion. In chapter 3, I examined components of sokrates and sozomenos’s portrayals of Constantinople, particularly the way in which they narratively eliminate non-Theodosian elements from the city’s topography and power structures. here I turn to the way these authors argue that the preservation of their city and the regions under Theodosios’s control depended on his piety and commitment to maintaining Constantinople’s orthodox character. The earliest hints of the development of this rhetoric actually appear in an antiTheodosian reaction found in Philostorgios’s Ecclesiastical History, thought to have been written in Constantinople between 425 and 433.88 The surviving fragments of Philostorgios’s work say relatively little about Theodosios II himself, but his extant commentary is telling. Philostorgios derides the heavy hand of Pulcheria in the young emperor’s reign, commenting that Pulcheria supervised each imperial superscription that he signed.89 additionally, Philostorgios reports the ill omens that appeared when Theodosios reached adolescence: On the nineteenth of July at about the eighth hour, the sun was so completely eclipsed that stars appeared. and such a drought followed this event that there was everywhere 87. sokrates, who was likely born sometime around 380, calls himself a native of Constantinople and says he received his education there (Historia ecclesiastica 5.24.9). sozomenos was a native of Bethelia (near Gaza in Palestine) and later lived in Constantinople (Historia ecclesiastica 5.15.14–17). Less is known of Philostorgios, whose work survives only in fragments preserved primarily in Photios’s Biblioteca (ninth century). Born in Borissos (Cappadocia secunda) around 368 and relocated to Constantinople in his early adulthood, Philostorgios was a follower of eunomios. For discussions on dating Philostorgios, see Philip amidon, Philostorgius: Church History (atlanta, Ga: society of Biblical Literature, 2007), xix; Joseph Bidez, Philostorgius. Kirchengeschichte: mit dem Leben des Lucian von Antiochien und den Fragmenten eines arianischen Historiographen, 3rd ed., rev. Friedhelm Winkelmann, GCs 21 (Berlin: akademie-Verlag, 1981), cxxxii; Gabriele marasco, “The Church historians (II): Philostorgios and Gelasius of Cyzicus,” in Greek and Roman Historiography in Late Antiquity: Fourth to Sixth Century A.D., ed. Gabriele marasco (Brill: Leiden, 2003), 259; Giuseppe Zecchini, “Filostorgio,” in Metodologie della ricerca sulla tarda antichità. Atti del primo convegno dell’Associazione di studi tardoantichi, ed. antonio Garzya (naples: m. D’auria, 1989), 598; for sokrates and sozomenos, see al. Cameron, “empress and the Poet,” 265–66; hartmut Leppin, Von Constantine dem Großen zu Theodosius II. Das christliche Kaisertum bei den Kirchenhistoriken Sokrates, Sozomenus, und Theodoret (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & ruprecht, 1996), 273–81; and Leppin, “The Church historians (I): socrates, sozomenus, and Theodoret,” in marasco, Greek and Roman Historiography, 223, 224–25; Charlotte roueché, “Theodosius II, the Cities, and the Date of the Church history of sozomenus,” JTS, n.s., 37, no. 1 (april 1986): 130–32; teresa Urbainczyk, Socrates of Constantinople: Historian of Church and State (ann arbor: University of michigan Press, 1997), 20; Van nuffelen, Héritage de paix, 10, 61; martin Wallraff, Der Kirchenhistoriker Sokrates: Untersuchungen zu Geschichtsdarstellung, Methode und Person, Forschungen zur kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 68 (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & ruprecht, 1997), 209–21. 88. For discussion of the date of Philostorgios’s history, see preceding note. 89. Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 12.7.

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These omens, Philostorgios claims, were the result of God’s wrath.91 Philostorgios does not specify why God was chastising the empire, but if the historian was indeed writing in the late 420s or early 430s, it seems quite possible that he was criticizing moves by the imperial court to eliminate elements deemed outside the boundaries of Theodosian Christianity. By negatively portraying the emperor’s predecessors, in particular Constantine, on whom presentations of Theodosios II depended heavily, Philostorgios also targets Theodosios himself.92 The decision to begin the collection of the Theodosian Code at the reign of Constantine, who had been presented by eusebios as a prominent lawgiver, suggests that there was already some affinity within the court for this portrait of Theodosios II.93 Clear resonances between the two emperors are also reflected by sokrates and sozomenos, whose later histories extended from the reign of Constantine to that of Theodosios II. Both these authors depict a Theodosios who follows Constantine’s model in devoting sleepless nights to the study of God, demonstrating philosophical virtue in enduring the elements, and participating in intellectual disputes in the manner of a philosopher-bishop.94 For Philostorgios, however, Constantine is not the archetypal Christian emperor, but the consummate villain. rather than being the model of piety, he practices a 90. Ibid., 12.8: τοῦ μηνὸς Ἰουλίου εἰς ἐννέα ἐπὶ δεκάτῃ διαβαίνοντος, περὶ ὀγδόην τῆς ἡμέρας ὥραν ὁ ἥλιος οὕτως βαθέως ἐκλείπει, ὡς καὶ ἀστέρας ἀναλάμψαι· καὶ αὐχμὸς οὕτω τῷ πάθει συνείπετο, ὡς πολλῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων ἀσυνήθη φθορὰν πανταχοῦ φέρεσθαι. Ἐκλείποντι δὲ τῷ ἡλίῳ φέγγος τι κατὰ τὸν οὐρανὸν συνανεφάνη, κώνου σχῆμα παραδυόμενον, ὅ τινες ἐξ ἀμαθίας ἀστέρα κομήτην ἐκάλουν . . . τῷ δὲ ἑξῆς ἔτει ἤρξαντο σεισμοὶ οὐ ῥᾴους ὄντες τοῖς προλαβοῦσι παραβαλεῖν, τοῖς δὲ σεισμοῖς καὶ πῦρ οὐρανόθεν συγκαταρρηγνύμενον πάσας ἐλπίδας σωτηρίας περιέκοπτεν . . . καὶ ἦν ἰδεῖν ξένην θέαν, τῶν κυμάτων ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ὥσπερ τινῶν λασίων χωρίων τῷ πυρὶ καταφλεγομένων, ἄχρι τελείως τὸ φλέγον ἐναπέσβη τῷ πελάγει (trans. amidon, Philostorgius, 159–60, modified). 91. Ibid., 12.9. 92. Jill harries, “‘Pius Princeps’: Theodosius II and Fifth-Century Constantinople,” in New Constantines: The Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in Byzantium, 4th–13th Centuries. Papers from the Twentysixth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, St. Andrews, March 1992, ed. Paul magdalino (aldershot, england: Variorum, 1994), 37–44. 93. Ibid., 37–38. 94. Cf. eusebios, Historia ecclesiastica 10.9, Vita Constantini 4.29, 4.63; sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.22; sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica pref.

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pseudo-Christianity, wrapping traditional cult in the trappings of devotion to Christ and thus encouraging his people to practice idolatry. Cases in point are Philostorgios’s accounts of Constantine’s foundation of Constantinople and of the worship of Constantine’s image by the people of the city. In the former case, Constantine followed the traditional rite of limitatio, in which he traced the boundary of the city with a spear guided by an unspecified divine agent.95 as noted in chapter 2, the ritual (noticeably absent in eusebios’s account of the city’s founding) is reminiscent of rituals of rome’s foundation in Livy, Ovid, and Dionysius of halicarnassus.96 Philostorgios also accuses Christians of worshipping the statue of Constantine on the porphyry column, claiming that the people of the city “paid homage to it with lamp-lighting and incense or prayed to it as to a god, and offered it supplications to avert calamities.”97 In both instances, Philostorgios constructs the emperor’s engagement in ritual practices with traditionalist resonances in order to suggest that Constantine was “not quite Christian.” If Constantine is Theodosios’s example, surely Theodosios was leading the empire into similar impiety. Philostorgios’s criticisms of Theodosios II were further refracted through his depictions of the emperor’s grandfather and father. Theodosios I, according to Philostorgios, “lacked self-restraint and modesty in the enjoyment of luxury, which was . . . the reason why he fell victim to dropsy.” arkadios was “short, slight of build, weakly, and dark in complexion,” and his “dullness of mind was evident in his speech and the way his eyes looked as they drooped sleepily downward beneath their drowsy lids.”98 Under these emperors, Philostorgios asserts, the empire had suffered an extraordinary loss of human life, not only from invasion, but also from natural disasters manifesting God’s wrath.99 again, Philostorgios 95. Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 2.9. 96. see discussion in chap. 2, pp. 56–57 above. admittedly, the imagery presented here may have more to do with depicting Constantinople as the new rome and Constantine as the new romulus. all the same, the resonances of traditional cult practice are difficult to ignore. 97. Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 2.17: Οὗτος ὁ θεομάχος καὶ τὴν Κωνσταντίνου εἰκόνα, τὴν ἐπὶ τοῦ πορφυροῦ κίονος ἱσταμένην, θυσίαις τε ἱλάσκεσθαι καὶ λυχνοκαΐαις καὶ θυμιάμασι τιμᾶν, καὶ εὐχὰς προσάγειν ὡς θεῷ καὶ ἀποτροπαίους ἱκετηρίας τῶν δεινῶν ἐπιτελεῖν τοὺς Χριστιανοὺς κατηγορεῖ (trans. amidon, Philostorgius, 35, with minor emendations). 98. Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 11.2: ἐπ’ ἀκρασίᾳ βίου καὶ τρυφῆς ἀμετρίᾳ, δι’ ἣν αὐτὸν ἁλῶναι . . . καὶ τῷ τοῦ ὑδέρου νοσήματι; and 11.3: ὁ δὲ Ἀρκάδιος βραχὺς τῷ μεγέθει καὶ λεπτὸς τὴν ἕξιν καὶ ἀδρανὴς τὴν ἰσχὺν καὶ τὸ χρῶμα μέλας· καὶ τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς νωθείαν οἵ τε λόγοι διήγγελλον καὶ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ἡ φύσις, ὑπνηλῶς τε καὶ δυσαναφόρως αὐτοὺς δεικνῦσα καθελκομένους (trans. amidon, Philostorgius, 145, 146). The later historian Zosimos is more explicit in his criticisms of the Theodosian dynasty, commenting on Theodosios I’s profligate lifestyle (particularly his gluttony and sexual appetite), deriding him and arkadios for the influence of their wives, and insinuating that Theodosios II was the product of an affair between eudoxia and one of arkadios’s close friends. Zosimos, Historia nova 4.41, 4.44, 4.49–50, 5.3, 5.18.8, 5.24. 99. Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 11.7.

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implies, this is not the pedigree a pious emperor should boast, and it is therefore no surprise that Theodosios would be dominated by his sister, support impious doctrines, and bring God’s anger down upon the empire. Constructions of Theodosios’s imperial virtue are more readily apparent in the writings of sokrates and sozomenos. above I have discussed sozomenos’s presentation of Theodosios’s persisting childlike piety. sokrates, too, presents Theodosios as the paragon of imperial piety: Though born and nurtured in kingly office [ἐν βασιλείᾳ], he was in no way indolent from his rearing, but he was so exceedingly wise that he was thought by his conversation partners to have acquired knowledge from extensive practical experience. and he had such endurance that he nobly endured both frost and heat, and he fasted often especially on Wednesdays and Fridays, and he did this earnestly so as to Christianize perfectly. he structured the court no differently than a monastery [ἀσκητηρίου]. accordingly, he rose before dawn along with his sisters to recite antiphonal hymns to God. hence, he knew the sacred scriptures by heart. Indeed, he conversed with bishops as a well-established old priest [ἱερεύς] expounds [διελέγετο] from the scriptures.100

sokrates’s Theodosios is the exemplar of ascetic, philosophical masculinity: he fasts, subjects himself to hardship, and willingly endures heat and cold.101 This presentation may have reflected actual court life, but its significance lies in its appeals to earlier philosophical and biblical tropes to demonstrate Theodosios’s legitimacy.102 Theodosios is a new sokrates of athens, and like that sokrates, who stood an entire night barefoot in the snow in meditation, he is a paragon of philosophical virtue.103 at the same time, this portrait of Theodosios carries biblical undertones: like Jesus in the temple at Jerusalem, Theodosios instructs the bishops in matters of religion.104 Indeed, Theodosios’s virtue is not that of a conquering 100. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.22.2–5: Πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ ἐν βασιλείᾳ τεχθεὶς καὶ τραφεὶς οὐδὲν ἐκ τῆς ἀνατροφῆς εἶχεν βλακῶδες, ἀλλ’ οὕτως ἦν φρόνιμος, ὡς τοῖς ἐντυγχάνουσιν νομίζεσθαι διάπειραν πολλῶν εἰληφέναι πραγμάτων, καρτερικὸς δὲ οὕτως, ὡς καὶ κρύος καὶ καῦμα γενναίως ὑπομένειν, νηστεύειν τε τὰ πολλὰ καὶ μάλιστα τὰς καλουμένας τετράδας καὶ παρασκευὰς ἡμέρας, καὶ τοῦτο ἐποίει ἄκρως χριστιανίζειν ἐσπουδακώς. Οὐκ ἀλλοιότερα δὲ ἀσκητηρίου κατέστησε τὰ βασίλεια· αὐτὸς τοιγαροῦν ταῖς ἑαυτοῦ ἀδελφαῖς ὀρθρίζων ἀντιφώνους ὕμνους εἰς τὸ θεῖον ἔλεγεν. Διὸ καὶ τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα ἀπὸ στήθους ἀπήγγελλεν. Ἐντυγχάνουσι γοῦν τοῖς ἐπισκόποις ὡς ἱερεὺς πάλαι καθεστὼς ἐκ τῶν γραφῶν διελέγετο. 101. This is not to deny that late antique Christian women also performed similar ascetic practices. 102. Claudia rapp has shown that similar constructions inform assertions about episcopal piety and legitimacy during the fourth century; see rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 41–55. I think the convergence of imagery is intentional. 103. Plato, Symposium 220a–b. 104. Jesus frequently appears teaching in the temple. see, e.g., mark 12:35–37, 14:49; matthew 26:55; Luke 2:41–52, 19:47–48, 21:37–38. note that in Luke 2:41–52, it is a boy Jesus instructing the priests. If sokrates is alluding to the Lukan passage, it is the rare instance when he pictures Theodosios as a child.

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general, but of a philosopher-king and imitator of Christ, who guards the oikoumenē through his active piety. sokrates draws a stark contrast between Theodosios, a true philosopher, and his predecessor Julian, who had only styled himself as a philosopher. Whereas Julian could not control his anger, Theodosios demonstrated self-control. never, sokrates claims, did the young emperor attack those who had insulted him; indeed, he had never been seen even mildly irritated. rather, Theodosios was a paragon of clemency, even commuting death sentences and forbidding gladiatorial games.105 accordingly, God repaid Theodosios amply for his devotion, by repeatedly answering Theodosios’s prayers for the safety of the empire. For example, when a snowstorm descended upon the city while the population was gathered in the hippodrome for games, Theodosios led the populace in supplication: When the hippodrome was filled with men, the storm intensified with a raging snow fall; the emperor then made clear his disposition toward the divine and addressed the people through the herald: “But it is far better” he said, “for all to disdain the spectacles and to entreat [λιτανεῦσαι] God together, so that we might preserve ourselves from the storm that has beset us.” no sooner had he spoken the word did all the people make entreaty with great rejoicing and raise hymns to God with one voice and the entire city became one church [μία ἐκκλησία]. The emperor, dressed as a private citizen [ἐν ἰδιωτικῷ σχήματι], processed to the middle and led the hymns. and he did not err in his hope, for the weather turned calm, and the philanthropy of God yielded to all a surplus rather than a famine.106

Immediately after reporting this incident, sokrates provides further evidence of God’s favoring Theodosios. after the death of the Western emperor honorios, one of honorios’s secretaries, John, usurped the throne and captured the general, ardaburius, sent by Theodosios to depose him. not only did an angel appear in the form of a shepherd to guide ardaburius’s son and his troops to a lake near ravenna

105. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.22.5–12. 106. Ibid., 7.22.16–18: Ὡς δὲ πεπληρωμένου ἀνδρῶν τοῦ ἱπποδρόμου ἐπέτεινεν ὁ χειμὼν πολλοῦ νιφετοῦ καταρραγέντος, τότε δὴ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γνώμην ὁ βασιλεύς, οἵαν εἶχεν περὶ τὸ θεῖον, δήλην καθίστησιν, τῷ δήμῳ προσφωνήσας διὰ τῶν κηρύκων· “Ἀλλὰ πολλῷ κρεῖσσον, ἔφη, καταφρονήσαντας τῆς θέας κοινῇ πάντας λιτανεῦσαι Θεόν, ὅπως ἀβλαβεῖς τοῦ ἐπικειμένου χειμῶνος φυλαχθείημεν.” Καὶ οὔπω πᾶν εἴρητο τὸ ἔπος, καὶ σὺν χαρᾷ μεγίστῃ ἐν τῷ ἱπποδρόμῳ λιτανεύοντες ὕμνους ἐκ συμφωνίας πάντες ἀνέπεμπον τῷ Θεῷ καὶ ὅλη μὲν ἡ πόλις μία ἐκκλησία ἐγένετο, βασιλεὺς δὲ μέσος ἐξήρχετο τῶν ὕμνων ἐν ἰδιωτικῷ σχήματι πορευόμενος. Καὶ τῆς ἐλπίδος οὐχ ἥμαρτεν· ὁ ἀὴρ γὰρ εἰς τὸ εὐδινὸν μετεβάλετο, καὶ ἐκ σιτοδείας ἡ τοῦ Θεοῦ φιλανθρωπία εὐετηρίαν παρεῖχε τοῖς σύμπασιν. a. C. Zenos (1890) mistranslates ἐν ἰδιωτικῷ σχήματι at 7.22.17 as “in official garments.” The abandonment of imperial regalia is a risky move, as it could signal the abdication of power. see discussion in Luke Gardiner, “The Imperial subject: Theodosius II and Panegyric in socrates’ Church History,” in Theodosius II, ed. kelly, 260.

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where John was holding the general under guard, but God also facilitated the capture of John by draining the lake.107 For sozomenos, just as for sokrates, the security of the empire depended on the piety of the imperial court. sozomenos explicitly sets imperial piety as the theme for the final book of his history: “above all it seems to me that God has proven that piety alone secures the salvation of emperors; without this [piety] armies, the strength of an emperor, and any other armament are nothing.”108 Unlike sokrates, however, sozomenos depicts a court directed, not by the emperor alone, but by a celibate imperial couple, Theodosios and his eldest sister Pulcheria.109 moreover, Pulcheria assumes the role of mother to prepare the child-emperor for his duties.110 she arranges the best tutors to instruct Theodosios in the technical arts demanded of an emperor (horsemanship, weaponry, and literature), but she herself bears the responsibility for training the emperor in princely comportment and piety: The emperor was taught by his sister to be orderly in public behavior, learning how to drape his robes properly, to sit and walk properly, and to rule his laughter; the appropriate times to be mild or intimidating, and to inquire appropriately into those matters petitioned of him. But not least, she led him into piety; she trained [him] to pray constantly and to frequently go into the churches [ἐκκλησίαις], to present the prayer houses [εὐκτηρίους οἴκους] with votive offerings [ἀναθήμασι] and treasures [κειμηλίοις], and to honor the priests [τοὺς ἱερέας] and other good men and those who pursued philosophy in accordance with the law of the Christians.111

Whereas sokrates’s Theodosios is modeled on the adolescent Christ in the temple, sozomenos’s Pulcheria alludes to both the Virgin mary tasked with the rearing of

107. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.23.3–10. Upon receiving news of John’s capture, Theodosios led the civic body in procession from the hippodrome to the Great Church in praise of God. 108. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 9.1.2: ᾗ μοι δοκεῖ μάλιστα τὸν θεὸν ἐπιδεῖξαι μόνην εὐσέβειαν ἀρκεῖν πρὸς σωτηρίαν τοῖς βασιλεύουσιν, ἄνευ δὲ ταύτης μηδὲν εἶναι στρατεύματα καὶ βασιλέως ἰσχὺν καὶ τὴν ἄλλην παρασκευήν. 109. Ibid., 9.1.10–11, 9.3.1–2. at times holum reads sozomenos’s portrayal of Pulcheria into sokrates’s account. sokrates, however, never names Pulcheria, relegating her to the collective of Theodosios’s sisters, whom the emperor governed as a paterfamilias and archimandrite. For sokrates, Theodosios is responsible for the court piety; Pulcheria has no agency. see holum, Theodosian Empresses, 91, 95 (with n77). 110. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 9.1.5–7. 111. Ibid., 9.1.7–9: περὶ δὲ τὰς προόδους κόσμιος εἶναι καὶ βασιλικὸς παρὰ τῆς ἀδελφῆς ἐρρυθμίζετο, ἐσθῆτά τε ᾗ χρὴ περιστέλλειν μανθάνων, καὶ τρόπῳ τίνι καθῆσθαι καὶ βαδίζειν καὶ γέλωτος κρατεῖν, καὶ πρᾶος καὶ φοβερὸς ἐν καιρῷ εἶναι, καὶ ἁρμοδίως πυνθάνεσθαι τῶν περί του δεομένων. οὐχ ἥκιστα δὲ εἰς εὐσέβειαν αὐτὸν ἦγε, συνεχῶς εὔχεσθαι καὶ ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις φοιτᾶν ἐθίζουσα καὶ ἀναθήμασι καὶ κειμηλίοις τοὺς εὐκτηρίους οἴκους γεραίρειν καὶ ἐν τιμῇ ἔχειν τοὺς ἱερέας καὶ ἄλλως ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας καὶ τοὺς νόμῳ Χριστιανῶν φιλοσοφοῦντας.

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Christ and helena’s influence on Constantine.112 These resonances persisted in later Byzantine historiography, which credits Pulcheria with the foundation of temples for mary (as Theotokos) in Constantinople at the Chalkoprateia, Blachernai, and the monastery of Panagia hodegetria, and with bringing important marian relics to the city (above all, mary’s girdle, housed in the aforementioned temple for the Theotokos in the Chalkoprateia).113 For sozomenos, the genuineness of Theodosios’s piety is ensured by Pulcheria’s guardianship, which itself depends on the authenticity of her own piety. In an ostentatious display appropriate to the daughters of the imperial house, Pulcheria enters the ranks of the virgins with her sisters, excludes men from her palace, and turns her household into a women’s monastery.114 Pulcheria and her sisters eat, walk, and pray together; their time is spent weaving, and their manners are restrained.115 Pulcheria’s attention to the piety of the imperial household extends to the purity of the city, and thus the empire. The augusta demonstrates her devotion to Christ by supporting prayer houses, lodgings for the indigent and pilgrims, and monasteries (presumably in Constantinople itself, although sozomenos is vague here), and it was she who prevented “the innovation of counterfeit dogmas” from perverting true religion during her brother’s reign.116 It was clearly because of the piety demonstrated by Pulcheria and the court, sozomenos explains, that “God, being merciful and fighting on behalf of their household, bestowed upon the emperor the things proper to his age and sovereignty, and every plot and battle contrived against him fell apart of its own

112. That Pulcheria herself traded on resonances with the Virgin has been remarked upon in modern scholarship. see holum, Theodosian Empresses, 142–43, 154–55; Vasiliki Limberis, Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople (London: routledge, 1994), 54–55, 57–61. The Letter to Kosmas (8) alleges that Pulcheria claimed identity with the Theotokos: “have I not given birth to God?” (law l’alāhā ildet), to which nestorios replied that she had given birth to satan (‘aty lsāt.ānā iladty). 113. see Theodoros anagnotes, Epitome historiae tripartitae 363. additional relics include an icon of mary and the shroud of mary. For a discussion of the sources, see holum, Theodosian Empresses, 142n120. holum is ready to credit the girdle and the shroud to Pulcheria, notwithstanding that the earliest sources for these relics date no earlier than fifty years after Pulcheria; for a more cautious approach, see John Wortley, “The marian relics at Constantinople,” GRBS 45, no. 2 (2005): 172–73. 114. sozomenos describes Pulcheria’s vows as an immensely public event, accompanied by the dedication of an ornate altar in the Great Church. The Letter to Kosmas comments that Pulcheria also set up her image above the altar and dedicated her stola as an altar cloth, although it is unclear whether the letter’s author associated these items with her dedication as a virgin. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 9.1.4–5; Letter to Kosmas 6–7. 115. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 9.3.1–2. Unlike sokrates, sozomenos does not describe Theodosios’s personal habits. Pulcheria’s household consists of herself and her sisters, although later reconstructions assume that sozomenos envisioned a similar lifestyle at Theodosios’s palace. 116. Ibid., 9.1.9–10.

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accord.”117 Though Theodosios had been properly trained in the art of war, he ultimately had no need of strategy or military might; his shield was his piety, and his weapon divine favor. Indeed, throughout book 9, sozomenos repeatedly reminds his readers that the ascetic piety of the eastern royal couple, the child Theodosios and his sister-consort Pulcheria, was essential to preserving Constantinople and the eastern empire. It was Theodosios’s piety, not his military engagements, that prevented Uldin’s invasion of Constantinople and the unrest of the West from spilling over into the east.118 new heresies had been prevented from flourishing in the city and a multitude of new Christian temples had been built throughout the city.119 This was all due to the piety of a new Constantine and helena—Theodosios and Pulcheria. Their efforts to maintain the orthodoxy of the city was proof of their devotion to God, but at the same time, God would not have allowed the city to remain pure had the imperial couple not been so attentive in these matters.120 In this narrative, the divine grace experienced by the east stands in marked contrast to the misfortunes suffered by the old rome and the Western empire during this same period.121 For sozomenos, Constantinople was a pristine center of Theodosian Christianity, whereas the people of rome continued to prefer the traditional cults.122 The misfortunes of rome were in truth the wrath of God (ὑπὸ θεομηνίας) on account of their “excessive indolence, licentiousness, and unjust and ungodly neglect of strangers.”123 This contrast between the fortunes of the old and new rome comes into sozomenos’s history from one of his sources, an earlier history written sometime before 426 by the imperial official and professed hellene, Olympiodoros of Thebes. Olympiodoros’s history, also dedicated to Theodosios, focused almost exclusively on events in the West from 407 through 424/25. Peter Van nuffelen argues persuasively that Olympiodoros portrays the Western court as a dark mirror of Theodosios’s.124 117. Ibid., 9.3.3: διὰ ταῦτα δὲ προφανῶς ἵλεω ὄντος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ αὐτῶν οἴκου ὑπερμαχοῦντος, τῷ μὲν κρατοῦντι τὰ τῆς ἡλικίας καὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἐπεδίδου, πᾶσα δὲ ἐπιβουλὴ καὶ πόλεμος κατ’ αὐτοῦ συνιστάμενος αὐτομάτως διελύετο. 118. Ibid., 9.5.3. 119. Ibid., 9.1.9–10. 120. Ibid., 9.1.12. 121. Ibid., 9.6.1–2. 122. Ibid., 9.6.3; see also 2.3 and discussion in chap. 3, pp. 77–78. 123. Ibid., 9.6.5: τοῖς γὰρ εὖ φρονοῦσιν ὑπὸ θεομηνίας κατεφαίνετο ταῦτα συμβαίνειν Ῥωμαίοις κατὰ ποινὴν ὧν πρὸ τοῦ ὑπὸ πολλῆς ῥᾳστώνης καὶ ἀκολασίας εἰς ἀστοὺς καὶ ξένους ἀδίκως καὶ ἀσεβῶς ἥμαρτον. For his part, alaric acknowledged that some divine force drove him to attack rome: τις συνεχῶς ἐνοχλῶν αὐτὸν βιάζεται καὶ ἐπιτάττει τὴν Ῥώμην πορθεῖν (9.6.6). 124. see Peter Van nuffelen, “Olympiodorus of Thebes and eastern triumphalism,” in Theodosius II, ed. kelly, 130–33. not only sozomenos but also Philostorgios (ca. 425–33) and Zosimos drew on Olympiodoros’s history, which survives in the writings of these authors and summaries in Photios’s Bibliotheca. These fragments have been compiled in r. C. Blockley, The Fragmentary Classicizing

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Olympiodoros contrasts the piety and virginity of Theodosios and his female relatives to honorios’s court, which was infected with the poisons of lust and immorality.125 Because of honorios’s moral failings, the Western empire suffered under the tyranny of those who would usurp imperial power, first stilicho and then honorios’s brother-in-law Constantius III.126 Olympiodoros even reports accusations of incest between honorios and his sister Galla Placidia. to resolve these accusations Placidia’s associates plotted to alienate the brother and sister, which only led to physical confrontations that upset the social order of ravenna.127 The relationship grew so strained that honorios exiled Placidia to Constantinople. honorios eventually died of dropsy, a disease associated in late antique rhetoric with immoral and profligate lifestyles, whereupon a high official named John usurped the throne.128 Theodosios II only appears at the end of Olympiodoros’s account, when his army arrives to save the West from its momentous failure, defeat John, and install the young Valentinian III as his co-emperor.129 Olympiodoros is never explicit about the contrast between the two courts, but the comparisons are implicit: the abysmal failures of the West, rooted as they were in the impiety and moral weakness of honorios’s court, prove the importance of the piety of the Theodosian court—and perhaps reminded Theodosios to adhere to those standards of piety.130 sozomenos, on the other hand, downplays this criticism of honorios and Galla Placidia. On several occasions, he asserts the piety of the Western imperial couple: honorios’s first response upon the death of a conspirator against him is to dismount and publicly thank God;131 Placidia, like Pulcheria, is a patroness of Christian cult sites and a protector of religion.132 however, hints of Olympiodoros’s contrast between the imperial couples appear throughout sozomenos’s book 9, particularly in the way he constructs a dialogue between events in the two courts. The favor Theodosios receives from God (9.3.3) is set against stilicho’s destabilization of the Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus, and Malchus vol. 2: Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1983), 152–209. 125. Olympiodoros 1.3. Lust drove honorios’s second marriage to his general stilicho’s daughter Thermantia, the sister of his first wife, maria, whose virginity the girls’ mother had sought to protect through witchcraft, Zosimos alleges (Historia nova 5.27.2–5.28.2–3). 126. Van nuffelen, “Olympiodorus of Thebes,” 139. Following Constantius’s marriage to Placidia, honorios was cowed into proclaiming his new brother-in-law co-emperor (an elevation not recognized by Theodosios II). Olympiodoros reports that Constantius regretted the elevation because it deprived him of the luxurious lifestyle to which he was accustomed (Olympiodoros 33). see also Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 12.12. 127. Olympiodoros 38. 128. Olympiodoros 39; Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 12.13. 129. Olympiodoros 43; Philostorgios, Historia ecclesiastica 12.13–14. 130. Van nuffelen, “Olympiodorus of Thebes,” 140–41. 131. sozomenos, Historia ecclesiastica 9.12.5. 132. Ibid., 9.16.2. For Pulcheria’s patronage, see 9.1.10.

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West (9.4); the disintegration of Uldin’s army in the east (9.5) is followed by alaric’s sack of rome (9.6). The following ten chapters (nearly half of sozomenos’s narrative) are occupied by accounts of campaigns against rome, at the conclusion of which sozomenos summarily comments on the contrast with affairs in the east: “But during this time affairs in the eastern empire were free from war and were governed with great order contrary to all expectation, since the emperor was still a youth. It seems that God clearly was pleased with the current emperor.”133 The implication here is that somehow the Western court could not properly protect its territory from God’s anger, even if sozomenos is nowhere explicit about the cause of that anger. This does not mean, however, that the portraits of Theodosios and his court are entirely laudatory. This is clear in Philostorgios’s work, but also elsewhere. sokrates’s presentation, especially, is complicated. For example, as Luke Gardiner has noted, a hint of irony is evident in sokrates’s description of Theodosios’s clemency, which sits in immediate narrative relationship with the latter’s prayers for the death of the Western usurper John. Gardiner argues that Constantinopolitan readers would have also been well aware of other recent events that challenged claims about imperial clemency, including the exile of the urban prefect kyros and the execution of Theodosios’s childhood friend Paulinos (both events that sokrates conveniently omits).134 even so, these undertones do not negate the rhetoric of imperial virtue that pervades sokrates’s narrative. If anything, the irony heightens this rhetoric and appeals to imperial virtue in order to draw attention to the ways in which Theodosios had stepped out of character—in short, sokrates relies on these tensions to remind us of imperial expectations. This irony is even more pronounced in sokrates’s exposition of the violence surrounding nestorios. as michael Gaddis has observed, narratives of violence and tyranny appear frequently in fifth-century polemic as a means to delegitimize opponents in ecclesiastical disputes, even when individual bishops employ common methods of coercion and correction.135 This is precisely what happens in 133. Ibid., 9.16.3–4: ἐν τούτῳ δὲ τὰ μὲν πρὸς ἕω τῆς ἀρχομένης πολεμίων ἀπήλλακτο καὶ σὺν κόσμῳ πολλῷ τὰ τῇδε ἰθύνετο παρὰ τὴν πάντων δόξαν· ἦν γὰρ ἔτι νέος ὁ κρατῶν. ἐδόκει δὲ ὁ θεὸς περιφανῶς ἥδεσθαι τῇ παρούσῃ βασιλείᾳ, οὐ μόνον ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτου τὰ περὶ τοὺς πολέμους ὧδε διατιθείς, ἀλλὰ καὶ πολλῶν ἐπ’ εὐσεβείᾳ πάλαι εὐδοκιμηκότων τὰ ἱερὰ σώματα ἀναφαίνων. 134. Gardiner, “Imperial subject,” 261. For the exile of kyros, see John malalas, Chronographia 14.16; Chronicon paschale 450 (P318b–c); and Theophanes, Chronographia am 5937. Based on an entry in marcellinus Comes (Chronicon 440), both kyros’s exile and Paulinos’s execution are thought to have occurred in the early 440s. holum, Theodosian Empresses, 176–77, 190–94, accepts the charge of an affair leading to the execution of Paulinos, identifies eudokia as kyros’s patrona, and attributes the downfall of kyros and Paulinos, along with the exiles and executions of several others in 443, to the eunuch Chrysaphios. 135. a significant portion of Gaddis’s study focuses on polemics surrounding the nestorian controversy as it occurred broadly in the east, but he does not address rhetoric about nestorios extensively. see Gaddis, There Is No Crime, 260–81.

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sokrates’s polemic against nestorios, who plays a wolf in sheep’s clothing for the historian. On first glance, sokrates explains, the antiochene monk appeared to possess the qualities desired of a bishop: he was both “especially sweet-voiced and well-spoken” and “acclaimed by the majority for his prudence.”136 Once installed as bishop, however, nestorios quickly revealed his true character, especially his lack of education, his propensity for violence, and his arrogance. Five days after his ordination, nestorios ordered the destruction of the arian euktērion; he was immensely jealous of the popularity of the novatian bishop Paul; and he incited riots against the quartodecimans in Constantinople’s vicinity.137 to further demonstrate the derangement nestorios encouraged, sokrates tells of a bishop in the neighboring region of hellespont who soon imitated nestorios by harassing the makedonians of his own city. The makedonians responded by assassinating their persecutor, enabling nestorios to persuade the emperor to deprive the makedonians of their cult sites in both hellespont and Constantinople.138 emphasizing nestorios’s violent actions helped to delegitimize his tenure as court bishop. But this portrayal would have also created problems for the emperor, who had appointed him. Throughout his account of the dispute, sokrates is careful to distance Theodosios from nestorios’s actions, first by defusing responsibility for nestorios’s selection (he only obliquely includes Theodosios in his comment about “the rulers” [οἱ κρατοῦντες] selecting the bishop), and then conspicuously excusing the emperor in the greater part of his narrative.139 nonetheless, sokrates’s account subtly criticizes Theodosios for his haste in choosing an unqualified bishop and for then himself to be influenced by the machinations of Cyril. In sokrates’s narrative, Theodosios appears to have been entirely clueless about nestorios’s tyrannical behavior, and only when nestorios finally attacked the popular novatian bishop Paul did the emperor realize the public nuisance his bishop had become. however, he would not call for nestorios’s trial until civil order in Constantinople had completely disintegrated.140 If sokrates veils his criticisms of Theodosios’s involvement with nestorios, later authors, namely, John malalas and the compiler of the Chronicon paschale, are more direct in their accusations. Particularly noteworthy are these sources’ implications that Theodosios was an effeminate, weak-willed boy caught between the

136. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.29.2–3: εὔφωνος δὲ ἄλλως καὶ εὔλαλος . . . ἐπὶ σωφροσύνῃ μὲν παρὰ τοῖς πλείστοις ἐκηρύττετο. 137. Ibid., 7.29.8–12. 138. Ibid., 7.31. 139. Ibid., 7.29.1. 140. Ibid., 7.29.11, 7.34.1. sokrates’s interruption of his narrative of nestorios’s episcopacy with an account of the slaughtering of slaves in the Great Church accentuates the violence sokrates associates with the bishop; Gaddis, There Is No Crime, 283n1.

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protracted and bitter rivalry of two domineering women.141 These same sources further suggest that hellenism was a corrupting influence in Theodosios’s court. The emperor’s choice of eudokia as his bride only added to the temptations of hellenism.142 Both malalas and the Chronicon paschale elaborate on sokrates’s report of the empress’ origins as the daughter of an athenian philosopher, from whom she received training in Greek literature and philosophy.143 For these sources eudokia was hardly a suitable consort for a supposedly Christian emperor, and according to their conclusions, it was hardly surprising that Theodosios had been led astray by eudokia’s pet bishop, nestorios. malalas also undermines Theodosios’s piety by casting doubt on his sexual restraint. The young emperor harasses Pulcheria (malalas’s word here is ὤχλει) to help him find a wife, and his sole criterion for his future bride is her beauty: I want you to find me a really lovely young girl, so that no other woman in Constantinople—whether she be of imperial blood or of the highest senatorial family—may possess such beauty. If she is not superlatively beautiful, I am not interested, neither in high rank or imperial blood or wealth. But whoever’s daughter she is, providing she is a virgin and exceedingly beautiful, her I shall marry.144

141. By later accounts, the two women patronized opposing parties in the disputes that led to the councils of the 430s and 440s. Whether this rivalry arose from their attachments or oppositions to particular bishops or whether their patronage of opposing parties was the result of an existing rivalry is open to debate. The dispute supposedly led both women to withdraw publicly from court. While such a rivalry is possible, rhetors frequently present women as influential figures behind men, particularly rulers, to make assertions about the men’s characters. to provide two earlier examples, helena was said to be the stabilizing, pious force behind her son Constantine (ambrose, De obitu Theodosii 41), and the source of Gallus’s wickedness was his wife Constantina (ammianus marcellinus, Res gestae 14.1.8). 142. John malalas, Chronographia 14.3. 143. sokrates, Historia ecclesiastica 7.21.8–9; John malalas Chronographia 14.4; Chronicon paschale 420 (P311b). Later recasting of eudokia’s father as a philosopher transformed him into a “diehard pagan,” who educated his daughter with the same religious commitments. sozomenos and Theodoret do not mention eudokia, possibly because they wrote after her withdrawal from court. holum raises doubts over eudokia’s connection to athens, arguing that she was of antiochene extraction. holum’s arguments depend, however, on a speech by eudokia to the people of antioch, but this is reported only by evagrios, of antiochene origin himself, who says that eudokia was from athens. see al. Cameron, “empress and the Poet,” 267, 273; holum, Theodosian Empresses, 114, 117–18; also erkki sironen, “an honorary epigram for empress eudocia in the athenian agora,” Hesperia 59, no. 2 (april–June 1990): 374. 144. John malalas, Chronographia 14.3: ἐγὼ θέλω, εἰ εὕρῃς μοι νεωτέραν εὔμορφον πάνυ, ἵνα τοιοῦτον κάλλος μὴ ἔχῃ γυνὴ εἰς Κωνσταντινούπολιν, εἴτε ἐξ αἵματός ἐστιν βασιλικοῦ εἴτε ἐξ αἵματός ἐστιν συγκλητικοῦ πρώτου. εἰ δὲ μή ἐστιν καλὴ εἰς ὑπερβολήν, οὐ χρείαν ἔχω, οὔτε ἀξιωματικὴν οὔτε ἐκ βασιλικοῦ αἵματος οὔτε πλοῦτον, ἀλλὰ καὶ εἴ τινος δή ποτέ ἐστιν θυγάτηρ, μόνον παρθένον καὶ εὐπρεπεστάτην πάνυ, ταύτην λαμβάνω (trans. elizabeth Jeffreys, michael Jeffreys, et al., The Chronicle of John Malalas, Byzantina australiensa 4 [melbourne: australian association for Byzantine studies, 1986], 191–92).

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This is hardly the image of the ascetic bishop-emperor he is for sokrates or sozomenos. to satisfy the young emperor, Pulcheria and Paulinos introduce the emperor to the young and recently orphaned athenaïs. The philosopher’s daughter consents to baptism, adopts the name eudokia, and marries Theodosios.145 Unfortunately (as malalas tells it) eudokia’s beauty leads to trouble, since she is implicated in an affair with Paulinos, Theodosios’s groomsman and close confidant, who was also the empress’s frequent visitor.146 This account casts serious aspersions upon claims for Theodosios’s imperial virtue and its power to protect the city and the empire, but these aspersions also demonstrate how deeply the rhetoric of imperial piety had taken root in Christian historiography. The narratives surrounding the person of Theodosios, then, reveal a particular level of concern about the emperor’s image as pious ruler, on which the legitimacy of the emperor, the purity of the city, and their mutual security all depended. These narratives, combined with real efforts to eradicate non-Theodosian cult groups, had a significant impact on the cult structures of the city. What we see by the end of Theodosios’s reign is the culmination of over a century of small adjustments in religious habit. The civic community continued to consult and honor the divine entities that protected the empire, but they were now the triune God and the Christian martyrs. The emperor, aided by priests and magistrates, was still responsible for fulfilling the obligations of cult, but it was now that of Christ, whose priests were nicene bishops. non-Christians were discouraged from civic and imperial office, if not outright excluded. Blood sacrifice was decisively maligned, but offerings were still made in eucharistic liturgies, and processions, hymns, and incense still filled the streets. Loyalty to the emperor was demonstrated by acceptance of the nicene Creed and communion with the court bishop of Constantinople. While each of these changes fit within traditional patterns of roman religion, they pushed and stretched its frameworks, and ultimately rearranged its internal logic until Theodosian Christianity, as embodied in the cult of the city of Constantinople, was a defining feature of Romanitas in the eastern empire. •

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145. John malalas, Chronographia 14.4. 146. Ibid., 14.6, 8; Chronicon paschale 444. Cf. evagrios scholastikos, Historia ecclesiastica 1.21. according to these accounts, eudokia demanded that her husband allow her to travel to Jerusalem to pray at the holy shrines. While this is not presented as a formal divorce, she never returned to court, remaining in Jerusalem until her death (460). holum dates the incident, if genuine, to 443; see holum, Theodosian Empresses, 176–77. For an alternate reading, see al. Cameron, “empress and the Poet,” 263–64; e. D. hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire, AD 312–460 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 221–47; and noel Lenski, “empresses in the holy Land: The making of a Christian Utopia in Late antiquity,” in Travel, Communication and Geography in Late Antiquity: Sacred and Profane, ed. Linda ellis and Frank kidner (aldershot, england: ashgate, 2004), 117.

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The emperor’s piety became a crucial rhetorical point for assertions about his legitimacy, as well as about the legitimacy of Theodosian Christianity. Defining and enforcing a particular vision of Christian orthodoxy had provided the imperial court with a way to overcome some of the challenges to Theodosios’s authority as emperor. his religious activity largely centered on forced conformity to orthodoxy—on removing traditionalist, Jewish, and heretical practices from his city. many of these efforts occurred at crucial points in the emperor’s maturation, and are reflected in rhetorical presentations of the emperor and his court as models of piety and guardians of orthodoxy. even if not officially endorsed by Theodosios, surely this rhetoric and the marginalization, even attempt at eradication, of non-Theodosian elements helped to promote the sense that the cultic integrity of the emperor and Constantinople had significant consequences for the rest of the empire. But tying the emperor’s legitimacy so closely to his piety and commitment to orthodoxy was a dangerous game. should misfortune befall the city, should the emperor’s piety be questioned, his legitimacy and that of Theodosian Christianity would be impugned. This is why the stakes to define and assert the boundaries of Theodosian Christianity were so high during the second half of Theodosios II’s reign. There were, however, whispers of attacks against the emperor, both during his lifetime and in subsequent generations.147 By way of conclusion, I would point to one example of such an attack. In his Bazaar of Heracleides, written shortly after the death of Theodosios and preserved in syriac, nestorios recites a litany of disasters that had befallen the empire—famines, plagues, earthquakes, barbarian attacks—as the result of Theodosios’s failure to defend his former court bishop.148 Constantinople itself suffered significantly: “the towers of the wall were broken and tore away from the wall, although the wall itself suffered no damage [from the earthquake]. . . . and at some places the stones at the center of the wall had been jolted from the whole structure and the surrounding area; . . . even the plaster had been shaken out. . . . [In] the Forum of Theodosios the Great, even the stones that were fastened [down] by iron and lead were torn out.”149 These calamities, nestorios proclaims, 147. see discussion in edward Watts, “Theodosius II and his Legacy in anti-Chalcedonian Communal memory,” in Theodosius II, ed. kelly, 269–84. 148. The Bazaar is dated around 451, inasmuch as it mentions Theodosios’s death and nestorios himself is thought to have died around 451/52. 149. nestorios, Bazaar of Heracleides 498–99 (Bedjan = Driver/hodgson 364): bqust.ant.ynāpolis dēyn mdyntā dmalkutā ‘etpseqw hwāw magdelē dšurā dbnēyn hwāw ‘mēh. w’arpiw hwāw lšurā kad medem lā h. aš hwā men ‘aylyn d’ettzi’ menhun. wpāšw hwāw ‘ayk ‘aylyn dlā ‘ettzi’w kad layt hwā lhun ‘āp lā h. ad šuwdā’ā dzāw’ā. menhēyn ddukyātā men ms. a’tēh dbenyānā šwar hway kēpē men klēh benyānā wmen hdrāwhy dbenyānā ‘āp kelšā ‘ettzi’ hwā . . . bforus dtē’ādāsis rabā. ‘āp geyr kēpē dasirān hwāy kparzlā wba’bārā ‘eštmet. hwāy kad metyablān hwāy bgāw ‘ā’ar wnugrā mqāwyān hwāy kad šābān whāydēyn nāplān hwāy. wkad nāpqin hwāw hānun d’tidin hwāw lamqabāluthēn bar šā’tēh nāplān hwāy.

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were signs of God’s anger at the emperor for his impiety, which he had demonstrated by failing to uphold true Christian orthodoxy (in nestorios’s view, his own teachings regarding the union of the prosopa of Christ).150 moreover, nestorios implies, the destruction of the Forum of Theodosios the Great signaled that the younger Theodosios had abandoned his grandfather’s commitment to orthodoxy.151 God had revealed that the trisagion (“Thrice holy” hymn) and crosses should be placed in the palace in the Forum as signs of the true doctrine to assuage his wrath.152 Unfortunately, this provided only temporary relief, for as soon as the immediate dangers had been averted, Theodosios and his city obstinately defended heretical teachings. “Theodosios had raised himself against God,” nestorios concludes, so “God had taken him from their midst.”153

150. Ibid., 499–500 (Bedjan = Driver/hodgson 364–65). 151. Ibid., 499 (Bedjan = Driver/hodgson 364). 152. Ibid., 500, 502–03 (Bedjan = Driver/hodgson 365, 366–67). 153. Ibid., 506 (Bedjan = Driver/hodgson 369): ‘damā d-’etnseb men ms. a’tā tē’ādāsis hāw d-meštaqal hwā luqbal ‘alāhā.

Conclusion The Making of a Christian City

On July 28, 450 c.e., while riding in the suburbs of Constantinople, Theodosios II fell from his horse. two days later, the emperor was dead, leaving no heir, and an empire still reeling from the decisions pushed through by Dioskoros of alexandria at the second council of ephesus the previous year. The first problem was solved, albeit imperfectly, by Pulcheria’s marriage to the former tribune marcian. The solution to the second problem appeared to come when the new imperial couple called for a council to be held at Chalcedon. There, the assembled bishops reversed the decisions of the second council at ephesus and granted definitive authority to Cyril’s earlier council in 431.1 These decisions, however, were not readily accepted in all parts of the empire. significant factions of bishops, monks, and other interested parties, especially in egypt, syria, Palestine, and Constantinople itself, vehemently opposed the formulation of Christian “orthodoxy” promulgated at Chalcedon. regardless, the massive, if contested, reordering of cult structures following the Council of Chalcedon was able to happen because of developments in Constantinople (and elsewhere) over the previous one hundred and twenty-seven years. Throughout this study, I have analyzed how a range of practices associated with civic cult, from singular events and habitual actions to the role of violence and the politics of memory, contributed not only to the Christianization of Constantinople but also to the eventual dominance of one faction of Christian bishops over its 1. John malalas, Chronographia 14.27. On the events surrounding the Council of Chalcedon, see W. h. C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement: Chapters in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 45–49; kenneth holum, Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 208–16.

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civic cult. In the process, this investigation has challenged a number of assumptions that the focus of current research has largely neglected. The first assumption relates to the religious landscape of fourth-century Constantinople and the boundedness of groups within that landscape. according to older narratives about the changes that occurred during the fourth century, Constantine’s legalization of Christianity in 313 c.e. produced an almost instantaneous transformation of the empire’s religion. magistrates and priests no longer performed sacrifice on behalf of the civic community, especially in a newly founded “Christian” city like Constantinople. The only acceptable form of cult in the eyes of the emperor was that of Christ. aside from the brief interlude of Julian’s “pagan revival” in 361–63 c.e., the empire had become decidedly Christian, and the reigning emperor dictated which Christian sect held control of “the Church.” The picture that results from this narrative is largely one of an empire that swung between “nicene” and “arian” Christianity until 381, when Theodosios I firmly asserted the creed produced fifty-six years earlier at the Council of nicaea. In short, Theodosios I’s reign marked the final triumph of orthodoxy, toward which the empire had been relentlessly marching. The scholarship of the past few decades has challenged this narrative by recognizing not only that Constantine did not declare Christianity the official religion of the empire, but also that its cult landscape continued to be diverse and highly competitive into the early fifth century. This is particularly true of studies focusing on religious competition in rome and antioch, but also for the late antique mediterranean more broadly.2 From these studies it has become clear that both rhetoric and ritual performances were indispensable tools for marking a group’s territory and asserting their legitimacy in opposition to other groups.

2. see esp. John Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000); Jacob Latham, Performance, Memory, and Processions in Ancient Rome: The Pompa Circensis from the Late Republic to Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Christine shepardson, Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014); emmanuel soler, Le sacré et le salut à Antioche au IVe siècle ap. J.-C.: Pratiques festives et comportements religieux dan le processus de chistianisation de la cité (Beirut: Institut français du Proche-Orient, 2006); Wendy mayer, “antioch and the Intersection between religious Factionalism, Place and Power,” in The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity, ed. andrew Cain and noel Lenski, (aldershot, england: ashgate, 2009), 357–67; For studies on religious competition in the late antique mediterranean more broadly, see esp. The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. adam h. Becker and annette yoshiko reed (tübingen: mohr siebeck, 2003); Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity, ed. David m. Gwynn and susanne Bangert (Leiden: Brill, 2010); and Religious Competition in the Third Century CE: Jews, Christians, and the Greco-Roman World, ed. Jordan rosenblum, Lily Vuong, and nathaniel Desrosiers (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2014).

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These tools were effective because they worked within established discourses, even as they pushed against them and reshaped its horizons. Christianity, at least as it became recognized as part of the fabric of late antique civic institutions, was not a distinct, well-bounded religion. nor did it represent a complete rupture with the patterns of thought and ritual habits of the past. rather, as explored in chapter 1, the emperors who patronized Christian cult and the bishops who served as its priests inherited the religious frameworks of the roman past. They were bound to these frameworks by their educations and by expectations that the emperor and local elite would ensure that obligations to the divine be met. The performances of civic cult, too, followed and even reinforced these patterns. emperors retained the title of pontifex maximus at least until the 370s and continued to exercise the prerogatives of that office. traditional rites of imperial cult, especially proskynēsis before the emperor in person and in effigy, persisted. We also have scattered evidence for urban prefects holding responsibility for organizing festivals and imperial officials overseeing trials related to matters of cult. Bishops—and, on occasion, emperors and empresses—led processions; they performed sacrifices (in the form of eucharistic synaxeis); they regarded biblical texts as oracular. monumental Christian temples and the office of bishop occupied the same mental space as traditional spaces and priestly offices had before them. In short, Christian civic cults drew from the same underlying scripts that made expressions of cult intelligible to the late antique person. This continuity surely facilitated the normalization of Christian cults within the late antique city. moreover, the ritual actions of the civic community provided a space to negotiate new configurations within the existing religious framework, to get those present to agree to the rearrangement of their mental architecture.3 The perpetuation of these habits and structures in Constantinople has remained largely overlooked because of persistent assumptions about Constantine’s foundation of the city as a “new, Christian capital,” where the primary competitions were relatively minor skirmishes between anti- and pro-nicene factions. to some extent, this portrayal of the city originates in Theodosian-era constructions of the memory of Constantine and its need to ground imperial authority in assertions about religious purity. The power of this imagined city over subsequent Byzantine historiography shows how successful the rewriting of the city’s history was and the extent to which Constantinople itself became a monument of orthodoxy in later imperial claims. But sources originating from late antique Constantinople reveal a significantly more complicated and conflicted social landscape. as argued in chapter 2, the monumental landscape and cult infrastructure of Constantinople during its first decades 3. richard mcCall, Do This: Liturgy as Performance (notre Dame, In: University of notre Dame Press, 2007), 24–27, 54–55.

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would have been unfamiliar to Pulcheria and marcian. even as Constantine added Christian temples to the civic landscape, their architectural footprint within the new city was relatively insignificant compared to sites evoking traditional cult: the temples of apollo/helios, artemis, and aphrodite on the city’s acropolis; the shrine of the Dioskouroi; the temple of rhea/Cybele; the tychaion; and a monumental bath complex dedicated to Zeus. additionally, Constantine populated his new city with a statuary collection that similarly appealed to rome’s cultural cultic heritage. Only two sites within this landscape were associated specifically with Christian cult, namely, hagia eirene and the apostoleion. even for the relatively small city Constantinople was in 337, this asymmetry is staggering. The contrast between traditional and Christian cult sites becomes even starker if, as I have argued, the apostoleion was not designed primarily as a Christian temple, but rather as an imperial mausoleum. Indeed, the worship of the emperor himself figured prominently in Constantinople’s cult landscape: in the augusteion, at the Column of Constantine, and in the imperial mausoleum. each of these sites lent themselves to traditional articulations of emperor-cult, especially the burning of incense and the performance of proskynēsis. In other words, these sites are examples of continuity between the traditional and the new, but were also spaces that invited contestation and conflict. We cannot follow eusebios in assuming that these sites would have been devoid of cultic significance to the average viewer. Despite later protestations to the contrary, Constantine’s city was not a pristine Christian capital. It was an imperial city that invited Christianity into its landscape. This situation surely created no small degree of tension over the proper expression of civic cult and produced a fertile arena for competition. Christians actively engaged this landscape and provided their own interpretations of the monuments before them. eventually they would abandon the monuments, in practice and in imagination. temples were left to crumble. shrines were avoided. some of these places were repurposed: physically through the reuse of their stones; notionally through the rhetorical reordering of their spaces and meanings. We saw this even in eusebios’s own rearticulation of the imperial mausoleum as a Christian temple and the acts of veneration that occurred there upon Constantine’s death as a Christian funeral liturgy. The project begun under Constantine was asserted with increasing vigor over the course of the fourth century. In the years following Theodosios I’s arrival in Constantinople, the civic landscape changed significantly: the traditional temples were closed; new Christian sites were constructed; and non-nicene elements were excised from the civic landscape. Under Theodosios I, homoousian Christians gained control of the discourses about the empire’s relations with God, and participation in their rituals became the dominant marker of participation in Constantinopolitan public life. after his father’s death in 395, arkadios reaffirmed these dynastic commitments to nicene Christianity. nonetheless, non-Theodosian groups persisted in the public spaces of Constantinople. The actions of Theodosios

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I and arkadios did little to alleviate competition between groups; if anything, they shifted the focus of competition from eradicating traditional temples to the control of Christian temples, and with that the right to dictate normative Christianity. There were no clear lines between cult groups within this social landscape. The strength of group boundaries depended upon the firmness of individual commitments to maintaining those boundaries, the degree of cohesion between individuals who shared those commitments, and the ability of cultural leaders to convince those around them that these boundaries existed. Groupness itself, however, cannot be assumed. Indeed, the permeability of social categories fostered a space for invested individuals to compete for access to, and ultimately for control of, the official cult sites of the city. These agents were highly sensitive to the opportunities that moments of groupness afforded them, and the boundaries they constructed were not merely rhetorical. rather, their rhetoric was meant to bring the imagined boundaries into reality. This brings us to a second consideration, namely, the generative force of social action. Groupness can be created through a variety of strategies. rhetoric is one of the most obvious strategies an individual can use to create social categories, and it is therefore the easiest avenue for us to observe the construction of group. however, a close examination of our sources reveals that Christian agents relied on a variety of methods to construct and claim Christianity as a foundational organizing element in the physical landscape of the city. emperors and the city’s cultural elite created spaces devoted to the divine and constructed a Christian mythology within the Constantinopolitan landscape by importing relics. Bishops sought to gain the favor of emperors, and those close to emperors worked to maintain control of the city’s cult spaces. Christian authors interpreted the landscape around them, even to the point of impressing memory and significance into that landscape. Violence also created moments of groupness, opening up a space for cultural agents to produce meaning for those around them. Violence is a performance that creates a relationship between the perpetrator of violence, his victim, and those who witness the act of violence, from which new meanings are produced about morality, social boundaries, and power relations. The generative aspect of violence is evident in makedonios’s oppression of homoousians, if not by Constantius’s order, at least with his tacit approval. Violence’s generative potential is also apparent in the reinterpretation of these same actions by later Theodosians authors who traced their lineage to the victims of makedonios’s violence. as Paul Connerton has argued, memories of violence performed by formerly hegemonic groups are powerful tools for new regimes, and this is certainly true of the memories of violence found in the writings of sokrates and sozomenos.4 4. Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 9–10, 14–15.

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and yet collective or social memories—not simply narratives, but narratives produced as the history of the group—are useful, malleable resources for those who want to assert boundaries between groups. nowhere is the transformation of Constantinople’s religious framework more apparent than in the nicene appropriation of memories of confrontations between cult groups in the previous century. Indeed, the histories produced by sokrates and sozomenos, and also by their counterparts Olympiodoros and Philostorgios, are carefully constructed pieces of propaganda that engaged the conflicts (real and imagined) of the fourth century in order to advocate for a particular vision of imperial religion. The authors frequently blame incidents of violence on their competitors. They sometimes even distance their own groups from acts perpetrated against non-Theodosian groups by attributing this violence to divine retribution. The historians of Theodosian Constantinople did more than simply blame others for violence. They wrote violence into the city’s physical spaces and wrote their competitors out of those same spaces. These authors erased monuments (e.g., temples, churches, memorials) associated with their competitors from their narrative landscapes and at times eliminated competing groups from their narratives altogether. They admonished their readers that certain individuals should be forgotten and created gaping holes that served as warnings against contesting the hegemony of Theodosian Christianity. In other words, the memorialization of violence in civic space was an avenue for competing groups to assert their dominance and push others from public view. here, I have considered the manipulation of memory as regards the construction of social groups and the shaping of religious identities, but the same can be said of groupness focused on other identifications, among them social status (elite/plebeian), ethnicity (roman/Goth), and civic identity (Constantinopolitan/antiochene). From this perspective, it becomes clear that controlling narratives of violence and memory was crucial for crippling nicene bishops’ competitors. however, it would be an error to assume that there was a well-organized imperial plan behind these moves. Often, these actions were a series of haphazard events that contributed to the transformation of the landscape, even when later authors claimed that the establishment of a distinctly Christian landscape was the result of some long-term strategic plan initiated by Constantine. ritual performances are similarly generative, as argued in chapter 4. to later eyes tempered by the assertions of Theodosian and later Byzantine historiography, it is easy to think that Christian practices constituted a distinct genus of ritual action with little connection to the actions of competing groups. In this light, rituals were events that individuals willingly engaged in because they were already members of a particular group. But to see the ritual activities of Christians as utterly distinct from those of other groups would be to neglect the performative and generative potential of ritual practice. Because of their participation in estab-

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lished scripts, ritual performances invited confusion between events and allowed for the rearrangement of the mental furniture, so to speak, by reorienting the person toward new cultic frameworks. here, that framework is Theodosian Christianity. This observation explains how ritual could facilitate shifts in identification and also why it could be such a powerful site of conflict. Various individuals within Constantinople’s landscape, including the emperor, magistrates, bishops, and monastics, endeavored to control the interpretation of that landscape. ritual provided those individuals who were invested in establishing clear social boundaries with another means to achieve this. But did people need to consciously agree to these shifts and reshufflings? Just as individuals might approach social categories with varying degrees of awareness and commitment, so, too, individuals might engage in ritual activities with varying degrees of intentionality. Communal actions, from imperial ceremonial and spectacles to religious ritual events, formed a significant portion of public life in late antique Constantinople. These actions may have been variously directed— toward the emperor and expressions of Romanitas, for entertainment and civic pride, or as acts of honor, supplication, and petition to the divine—but they all had social consequences. They relied on, reinforced, and transformed social hierarchies, constructed boundaries between social groups and configurations, and produced perceptions of normative civic structures. Indeed, the accessibility of ritualized activity in Constantinople allowed for multiple layers of participation, from ritual agents and active participants to observers. But all these individuals were present for—and involved in—organized expressions of groupness, and they were therefore susceptible to the social consequences of those actions. according to John Chrysostom, a person’s schēma is shaped through mimēsis, or imitation. however, to John and his contemporaries, mimēsis was significantly more than copying behaviors. mimēsis had profoundly transformative effects, as that which was external to the body—costume, sights, sounds, smells—was internalized and turned back outward to the world. This was a matter of the deepest learning and nearly impossible to prevent. The individual had to be constantly on guard against corrupting influences, and it was the responsibility of those in authority to protect their dependents. John understood how enticing competing ritual events had been for the antiochene population during his time as presbyter there. moreover, the tumultuous years of Julian’s reign, and those of Jovian, Valentinian I, and Valens after him, were within John’s own memory. he had experienced firsthand the uncertainty about civic cult those years engendered and the openings this uncertainty afforded competing groups. he knew that his position as court bishop was precarious and perceived the events of competing groups as real threats to that position. This is why it was so vital to John that parents properly educate their children and the civic environment be properly ordered. It is also within this context that

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John’s actions as the bishop of Constantinople make sense. he was reordering society and eliminating stimuli that endangered his city, namely, the theater and the ritual actions of those he regarded as competitors. he sought to transfer the attention of his flock to the spectacle of the new, holy theaters of Christ and his martyrs. John constructed ritual engagement as a choice, but it was a choice to which there could be only one correct answer. In the competing vigils of the arianizers and John, recounted by sokrates and sozomenos, we see these dynamics come to the foreground. a battle was waged, and one side emerged as victor. The important thing to take away from this discussion is that no matter what commitments, consent, or resistance an individual might have brought to participating in (or even just attending) the rituals of the city, the fact that that individual was present communicated an agreement to its meanings and the ordering performed for the civic community. Perception and reality may not be synonymous here, but they are intricately bound to each other in ways that we may not be entirely comfortable with—and in ways that made Christian social agents like John Chrysostom anxious. together the memorialization of violence and the performance of ritual in that landscape contributed to the consolidation of legitimate cult in Constantinople under the rubric of Theodosian Christianity. The potential for fluidity between the practices of competing groups comes into greater focus when placed in conversation with momentous political shifts that occurred during fifth century. For example, during the Theodosian dynasty, Constantinople became an imperial capital in a way that it had not been before. Before this period, an emperor accompanied his army and resided in one of several imperial cities for shorter periods of time. Theodosios I continued this practice, but his son did so with less frequency, and his grandson spent most of his life in Constantinople. Constantinople thus became more closely associated with the imperial court than any city had been since the early empire, save rome—and because of the changes in imperial structures that had occurred over the previous centuries, I would venture to argue that Constantinople surpassed rome in this regard. Consequently, beginning in the closing years of the fourth century, and even more so during the reign of Theodosios II, Constantinople assumed a central role in the political and ecclesiastical networks of the eastern empire. Finally, this study has paid particular attention to the relationship between rhetoric and social competition. One of the more significant challenges for reconstructing cult life in late antique Constantinople arises in relating the rhetorical constructions of historiographic narratives to the events and conflicts they purport to describe. This is particularly evident in the narratives dating from the sixth century and later, but it is also true of the historians writing in Constantinople during the mid-fifth century, who often serve as our primary, or even sole, witnesses for these events. Collecting and reconciling supposedly factual details from these authors,

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who clearly had competing agendas, obfuscates their immediate situations and the rhetorical impact of their accounts. Of course, this problem is not isolated to the study of Constantinopolitan religious politics; it is one that all historians of the ancient mediterranean confront. But it has special significance in Constantinople because the emerging historiography of the city was participating in the construction (and, in some cases, the contestation) of Theodosian Christianity. rather than relying on these texts solely for purposes of reconstructing the history of the city, I have approached this evidence as the artifacts of competition. In other words, while it is possible—and indeed, in some cases quite probable—that the authors writing during our period relay some information about earlier cultic configurations and competitions in their city, they themselves participated in the competitions of their own day by appealing to and shaping the memories of earlier competitions. Their presentations are valuable, then, for what they can tell us both about the ways in which the local economy of memory was shaped by previous competitions and about their authors’ own expectations and anxieties about the cultic landscape of their city. This is a particularly important observation when applied to Theodosios II, who became the sole emperor of the eastern empire at the age of seven. so young an emperor could not be expected to exercise his agency as emperor. some historians have followed sozomenos in asserting that his older sister Pulcheria served as regent during this period, but this does not adequately explain the changes that occurred in Constantinople, most notably the acceleration of efforts to homogenize the empire’s religious structures under the aegis of Theodosian Christianity. I have proposed instead that these efforts were intimately tied to the unique challenges that a child-emperor like Theodosios II presented to the traditional mechanisms for establishing imperial legitimacy. The transition to adulthood had proven quite perilous for child-emperors of the recent past in the Western empire, as has been noted by meaghan mcevoy. I see a similar dynamic occurring in the reign of Theodosios II. as Theodosios entered adulthood in the late 410s and early 420s, his commitments to a homogeneous vision of Christianity was asserted with more insistence, and it is during this period that we see the crystallization of the processes that had occurred haphazardly over the previous century. In chapter 5, I pinpoint three phases in this transition, which coincide with the progressive exercise of Theodosios II’s agency. The first occurred between 414 and 416 as Theodosios entered adolescence and approached his legal majority. During this period, we see the rededication of the Great Church, an increase in the translation of relics, and a series of rescripts from Constantinople alienating non-Theodosian elements from imperial religious frameworks. The second phase occurred in the years following his marriage in 421 and the birth of his first (and what would be his only) child in 422, which roughly coincided with further legislative censure of non-Theodosian groups, including,

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for the first time, novatians. The third period began in 428, as Theodosios approached age thirty, and continued until his death in 450, during which we see the compilation and promulgation of the Theodosian Code and a heightened interest in clarifying the boundaries of Theodosian Christianity in a series of councils aimed at defining orthodoxy. Throughout this period the imperial administration orchestrated a series of legislative and ecclesiastical moves aimed at securing nicene Christianity as the only authorized expression of cult in the empire. although non-Theodosian groups had been increasingly marginalized over the course of the fourth century, the final transformation of Constantinople into an imperial, nicene Christian capital did not occur until the court of Theodosius II began to push for a sharper definition of orthodoxy as communion with Constantinople’s court bishop. Legislative censure of non-Theodosian groups strengthened the nicene monopoly on Constantinople’s cultic structures. It is in this context that we can understand both nestorios’s tenure as bishop and the compilation of the Theodosian Code, particularly its construction of Christian orthodoxy. The marginalization of non-Theodosian groups was paired with the development of a particular rhetoric of imperial Christianity focusing on the religious integrity of the emperor and his capital. We have seen an aspect of this rhetorical activity in sokrates’s and sozomenos’s attempts to purify the city of taint and expel non-Theodosian groups from the historical record. In doing so, these authors emphasized memories of the past that presented “orthodox” Christians of previous generations as the victims of horrific violence at the hands of “heretics.” But their historiographic shaping of institutional memory served a further purpose: they cast the reigning imperial dynasty as the saviors and protectors of true Christianity. The members of Theodosian line, in short, were the pious guardians of the empire’s exchanges with God. rhetoric about piety had long served to legitimize emperors, and that rhetoric was all the more important for securing the reigns of child-emperors. I cannot state this strongly enough: When we read this literature, we are witnessing the creation of imperial Christianity as a defined social category dependent upon the person of the emperor and his city. I suspect that demands to accept a common formulation of theology were employed by some individuals in Theodosios II’s administration—and perhaps by Theodosios himself—as a mechanism for demonstrating allegiance to the emperor in a similar fashion to earlier incense offerings to the statue of the emperor. If this is the case, the discourse emerging from Constantinopolitan circles was strategically situated for exporting Theodosian Christianity to other parts of the empire. Ultimately, the transformation of Constantinople’s religious frameworks was not a neat process. There were many agents at play—the emperor, civic magistrates, bishops, monks, rhetors, and many other individuals whose identities have

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been lost to us. social relations are messy and unpredictable. People act in unexpected ways, and sometimes they side with agents or groups that the cultural elite—the power players—do not want them to. We see this during Constantius’s reign, when “the people” rioted in response to the forcible removal of their favorite Paul. We see it, too, in the 380s, when Gregory of nyssa complained about tradesmen asserting the subordination of the son (that is, “arian” theological positions), and in the early fifth century, when a segment of the population attacked the Great Church and then left the city when arkadios expelled John Chrysostom. and we see the messiness of social relations yet again when “the people” reacted to nestorios’s teachings. In each of these cases, we can see hints of individuals (even if they remain unnamed) acting against, or in concert with, one another: the emperor, his court, cultural elites, the court bishop, bishops from other cities, individuals identified as Jews or sabbatians, and the frustratingly amorphous entity known as “the people.” We see fleeting moments of groupness, of organization, and of rearrangement; we catch glimpses of people aligning with one another as the moment and circumstances demanded. In the end, the group that mattered in late antique Constantinople, at least for the majority of its inhabitants, was not “the Church,” but rather the city. By the time of Pulcheria’s and marcian’s council at Chalcedon, Constantinople itself had become a monument of imperial orthodoxy. But like any monument, it was a site of negotiation, a space where cultural institutions were written and rewritten, where the furniture and boundaries of roman religion were pushed, stretched, and rearranged.

selected b iblio graphy

P r I m a ry s O U r C e s

Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum. edited by eduard schwartz. Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum I (ephesus) and II (Chalcedon). Berlin: Walter de ruyter, 1922–37. english translation by norman P. tanner. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1: Nicaea I to Lateran V. With the original texts established by G. alberigo, J. a. Dossetti, et al. London: sheed & Ward; Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990. english translation by Peter L’huillier. The Church of the Ancient Councils: The Disciplinary Work of the First Four Ecumenical Councils. Crestwood, ny: st. Vladimir’s seminary Press, 1996. ambrose. De Obitu Theodosii. edited by Otto Faller. Ambrosius. Explanatio symboli, De sacramentis, De mysteriis, De paenitentia, De excessu fratris, De obitu Valentiniani, De obitu Theodosii, 371–401. CseL 73. Vienna: Österreichische akademie der Wissenschaften, 1955. ammianus marcellinus. Res gestae. edited by Wolfgang seyfarth. Ammiani Marcellini Rerum Gestarum libri qui supersunt, 2 vols. Berlin: teubner, 1978. english translation by Walter hamilton and andrew Wallace-hadrill. Ammianus Marcellinus: The Later Roman Empire (AD 354–378). harmondsworth, england: Penguin Books, 1986. Anthologia Graeca. edited by hermann Beckby. Anthologia Graeca. 4 vols. 2nd ed. munich: heimeran, 1965–68. aristotle. Politica. edited by W. D. ross. Aristotelis politica. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957. 191

192

Selected Bibliography

athanasios. Opera. edited by G. J. m. Bartelink. Athanase d’Alexandrie, Vie d’Antoine. sC 400. Paris: Cerf, 2004. edited by hans-Georg Opitz. Athanasius Werke, vol. 2.1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1940. edited by Jan-m. szymusiak. Athanase d’Alexandrie. Apologie à l’empereur Constance, Apologie pour sa fuite. sC 56. Paris: Cerf, 1958. augustine. De Doctrina. edited by William m. Green. Augustinus. De Doctrina christiana. CseL 80. Vienna: Österreichische akademie der Wissenschaften, 1963–. Basil of Caesarea. Ad adolescentes de legendis gentilium libris. edited by Fernand Boulenger. Saint Basile. Aux jeunes gens sur la manière de tirer profit des lettres helléniques. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1935. translated by roy J. DeFerrari. “to young men, on how They might Derive Profit from Pagan Literature.” In Basil IV: Letters 249–368, On Greek Literature. LCL 270, 378– 435. Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1934. Blockley, r. C. The Fragmentary Classicizing Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus, and Malchus, vol. 2: Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes. Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1983. Chronicon paschale. edited by Ludovic Dindorf. Chronicon Paschale. 2 vols. CshB 1 and 2. Bonn: Weber 1932. translated by michael Whitby and mary Whitby. Chronicon Paschale, 284–628 AD. tth 7. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1989. Codex Iustinianus. edited by Paul krueger, Theodor mommsen, and rudolf schoell. Corpus Iuris Civilis, vol. 3: Codex Iustinianus, edited by Paul krueger. Berlin: Weidmann, 1954. Codex Theodosianus. edited by Theodor mommsen, Paul martin meyer, and Jacques sirmond. Theodosiani libri XVI cum constitutionibus Sirmondianis et leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes; consilio et auctoritate academiae litterarum regiae borussicae. Berlin: Weidmann, 1905. translated by Clyde Pharr. The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions: A Translation with Commentary, Glossary, and Bibliography. Union, nJ: Lawbook exchange, 2001. Constantinus VII Porphyrogennetos. De Ceremoniis. edited by albert Vogt. Le livre des ceremonies. 2 vols. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1935–39. Diodoros siculus. Biblioteca historica. edited by kurt Theodore Fischer and Friedrich Vogel. Diodori bibliotheca historica. 5 vols. 3rd ed. Leipzig: teubner, 1964. Dionysios of halicarnassos. Antiquitates Romanae. edited by karl Jacoby, Dionysii Halicarnasei antiquitatum Romanarum quae supersunt. 4 vols. Leipzig: teubner, 1967. egeria. Itinerarium. edited by Pierre maraval and manuel C. Díaz y Díaz. Journal de voyage: Itinéraire. sC 296. Paris: Cerf, 1982.

Selected Bibliography

193

translated by anne mcGowan and Paul F. Bradshaw. The Pilgrimage of Egeria: A New Translation of the Itinerarium egeriae, with Introduction and Commentary. Collegeville, mn: Liturgical Press, 2018. epiphanios. Panarion. edited by karl holl. Ancoratus. Panarion (haereses 1–33). GCs 25. Leipzig: hinrichs, 1915 (reprinted as GCS, n.s., 10. Boston: de Gruyter, 2013). edited by karl holl and Jürgen Dummer. Epiphanius II: Panarion (haereses 34–46). GCs 31. Berlin: akademie-Verlag, 1980. edited by karl holl and Jürgen Dummer. Epiphanus III: Panarion (haereses 65–80). De Fide. GCs 37. Berlin: akademie-Verlag, 1985. eusebios. Historia ecclesiastica. edited by Gustave Bardy. Eusèbe de Césarée. Histoire ecclésiastique. 3 vols. sC 31, 41, and 55. Paris: Cerf, 1952–58. edited and translated by kirsopp Lake. Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books I–V. LCL 153. Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1998. edited and translated by J. e. L. Oulton. Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, Books 6–10. LCL 265. Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1932. . De laudibus Constantini. edited by Ivar a. heikel, Eusebius Werke, vol. 1. GCs 7. Leipzig: hinrichs, 1902. translated by h. a. Drake. In Praise of Constantine: A Historical Study and New Translation of Eusebius’ Tricennial Oration. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. . Vita Constantini. edited by F. Winkelmann. Eusebius Werke, vol. 1.1: Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin. Berlin: akademie-Verlag, 1975. translated by averil Cameron and stuart hall. Eusebius: Life of Constantine. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. eutropios. Breviarium. edited by hans Droysen. Eutropius. Breviarium ab urbe condita. Berlin: Weidman, 1879. evagrios scholastikos. Historia Ecclesiastica. edited by Joseph Bidez and Léon Parmentier. The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius with the Scholia. London: methuen, 1898. translated by michael Whitby. The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus. tth 33. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000. Gregory of nazianzos. Orationes. edited by Fernand Boulenger. Grégoire de Nazianze. Discours funèbres en l’honneur de son frère Césaire et de Basile de Césarée. Paris: Picard, 1908. edited by Joseph Barbel. Gregor von Nazianz: Die fünf theologischen Reden, Düsseldorf: Patmos-Verlag, 1963. edited by J. -P. migne. PG 35, 36, 37. Paris: migne, 1857–66. edited by Claudio moreschini. Grégoire de Nazianze: Discours 38–41. sC 358. Paris: Cerf, 1990. Gregory of nyssa, Sermones. edited by Günter heil, Johannes P. Cavarnos, and Otto Lendle. Gregorii Nysseni Sermones. Part II. Gregorii nysseni Opera 10/1 and 10/2. Leiden: Brill, 1990. . Vita Macrinae.

194

Selected Bibliography

edited by Pierre maraval. Grégoire de nysse. Vie de sainte Macrine. sC 178. Paris: Cerf, 1971. hermogenes. Progymnasmata. edited and translated by George a. kennedy. Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition, 73–88. atlanta, Ga: society of Biblical Literature, 2003. hesychios of miletos. Patria Konstantinoupoleos. edited by Theodore Preger. Scriptores Originum Constantinopolitanarum. Leipzig: teubner, 1901. Jerome. Chronicon. edited by rudolf helm. Die Chronik des Hieronymous / Hieronymi Chronicon. Eusebius Werke 7. GCs 23 and 34. Leipzig: akademie-Verlag, 1956, 1984. . Epistula 108. edited by Isodor hilberg. Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae. CseL 55, 305–51. Vienna: tempsky, 1912. Joannes Zonaras. Epitome historiarum. edited by Theodor Büttner-Wobst. Ioannis Zonarae epitomae historiarum libri xviii, vol. 3. CshB. Bonn: Weber, 1897. John Chrysostom. Epistula 1 ad Innocentium papam. edited by anne-marie malingrey with Philippe Leclerq. Palladios. Dialogue sur la vie Jean Chrysostome, vol. 2. sC 342, 68–95. Paris: Cerf, 1988. . Homilia. edited by Frederick Field. John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Epistolam ad Hebraeos, Homiliae XXXIV. Oxford: J. h. Parker, 1862. edited by norman mckendrick. “quod Christus sit Deus, Greek text, edition and introduction.” Ph.D. diss., Fordham University, 1967. edited by J.-P. migne. PG 47–64. Paris: migne, 1857–66. translated by Wendy mayer and Pauline allen. John Chrysostom. new york: routledge, 2000. translated by Wendy mayer and Bronwen neil. St. John Chrysostom: The Cult of the Saints. Crestwood, ny: st. Vladimir’s seminary Press, 2006. translated by Catharine P. roth. St. John Chrysostom on Wealth and Poverty. Crestwood, ny: st. Vladimir’s seminary Press, 1984. . De inani gloria. edited by anne-marie malingrey. Jean Chrysostome: Sur la vaine gloire et l’éducation des enfants. sC 188. Paris: Cerf, 1972. translated by max. L. W. Laistner. Christianity and Pagan Culture in the Later Roman Empire; Together with an English Translation of John Chrysostom’s Address on Vainglory and the Right Way for Parents to Bring Up Their Children. Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 1951. John Lydos. De mensibus. edited by richard Wünsch. Ioannis Lydi liber de mensibus. Leipzig: teubner, 1898. John malalas. Chronographia. edited by hans Thurn. Ioannis Malalae Chronographia. CFhB 35. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000. translated by elizabeth Jeffreys, michael Jeffreys, et al. The Chronicle of John Malalas. Byzantina australiensa 4. melbourne: australian association for Byzantine studies, 1986.

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195

Julian. Opera. edited by Christian Lacombrade. L’empereur Julien. Oeuvres completes. Vol. 2.2. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1964. edited by karl Johannes neumann. Juliani imperatoris librorum contra Christianos quae supersunt: Insunt Cyrilii Alexandrini, Fragmenta Syriaca. Leipzig: teubner, 1880. edited by Gabriel rochefort. L’empereur Julien. Oeuvres complètes. Vol. 2.1. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1963. kedrenos. Compendium historiarum. edited by Immanuel Bekker. Georgius Cedrenus Ioannis Scylitzae opera. Vol 1. CshB. Bonn: Weber, 1838. konstantinos manasses. Breviarium chronicum. edited by Odysseus Lampsides. Constantini Manassis Breviarium Chronicum. CFhB 36.1. athens: academy of athens, 1996. Letter to Kosmas. edited and translated into French by François nau. “histoire de nestorius d’après la lettre à Cosme et l’hymne de sliba de mansouriya. Part I. La Lettre à Cosme.” In Documents pour servir à l’histoire de l’Église nestorienne, 271–286. PO 13. Paris: FirminDidot, 1919. Libanios. Opera. edited by richard Foerster. Libanius, Opera. 12 vols. Leipzig: teubner, 1963. edited and translated by a. F. norman. Libanius, Selected Orations. 2 vols. LCL 451, 452. Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1969, 1977. edited and translated by a. F. norman. Libanius, Autobiography and Selected Letters. 2 volumes. LCL 478, 479. Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1992. translated by scott Bradbury. Selected Letters of Libanius: From the Age of Constantius and Julian. tth 41. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2004. edited and translated by Craig Gibson. Libanius’s Progymnasmata: Model Exercises in Greek Prose Composition and Rhetoric. sBL Writings from the Greco-roman World 27. atlanta, Ga: society of Biblical Literature, 2008. Livy. Ab urbe condita, bk. 1. edited by Wilhelm Weissenborn and moritz müller. Titi Livi. Ab Urbe Condita libri, vol. 1. Leipzig: teubner, 1932. (Pseudo-)Lucian. Amores. edited and translated by m. D. macleod. Lucian. Vol. 8. LCL 432. Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1967. Lucian. De dea Syria. edited and translated by a. m. harmon. Lucian. Vol. 4. LCL 162, 338–411. Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1925. Lucian. Revelatio Sancti Stephani. edited by s. Vanderlinden. “revelatio sancti stephani.” REB 4 (1946): 178–217. marcellinus Comes. Chronicon. edited by Theodor mommsen. Chronica Minora. vol. 2, 37–108. Berlin: Weidmanns, 1894. mark the Deacon. Vita Porphyrii. edited by henri Grégoire and m.-a. kugener. Marc le Diacre. Vie de Porphyre, évêque de Gaza. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1930.

196

Selected Bibliography

(Pseudo-)martyrios. Oratio funebris in laudem Joannis Chrysostomi. edited by martin Wallraff. Oratio funebris in laudem sancti Iohannis Chrysostomi. quaterni della rivista di Bizantinistica 12. spoleto: Fondazione Centro Italiano di studi sull’ alto medioevo, 2007. translated by timothy D. Barnes and George Bevan. The Funerary Speech for John Chrysostom. tth 60. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013. menander rhetor. Peri Epideiktikōn. edited and translated by D. a. russell and n. G. Wilson. Menander Rhetor: A Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. michael Glykas. Annales. edited by Immanuel Bekker. Michaelis Glycae annales. CshB. Bonn: Weber, 1836. nestorios. The Bazaar of Heracleides. edited by Paul Bedjan. The Book of Heraclides of Damascus: The Theological Apologia of Mar Nestorius. Piscataway, nJ: Gorgias Press, 2007. translated by G. r. Driver and Leonard hodgson. Nestorius: The Bazaar of Heracleides. eugene, Or: Wipf & stock, 2002. Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae. edited by Otto seeck. Notitia Dignitatum, 228–43. Berlin: Weidmann, 1876. translated by John matthews. “The notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae.” In Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity, edited by Lucy Grig and Gavin kelly, 81–115. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. noy, David, ed. Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, 3 vols. tübingen: mohr siebeck, 2004. Olympiodoros. Fragmenta. edited and translated by r. C. Blockley. The Fragmentary Classicizing Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus, and Malchus, vol. 2: Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes, 152–209. Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1983. Ovid. Fasti. edited by e. h. alton, D. e. W. Wormell, and e. Courtney. P. Ovidi Nasonis Fastorum libri sex. 4th ed. Leipzig: teubner, 1997. Palladios. Dialogus de vita Joannis. edited by anne-marie malingrey. Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostome. sC 341–42. Paris: Cerf, 1988. translated by robert t. meyer. Palladius: Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom. ancient Christian Writers 45. new york: newman Press, 1985. Panegyrici Latini. edited and translated by C. e. V. nixon and Barbara saylor rodgers. In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini. Introduction, Translation, and Historical Commentary with the Latin Text of R. A. B. Mynors. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai. edited and translated by averil Cameron and Judith herrin. Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai. Leiden: Brill, 1984. Paulinus of nola. Opera. edited by Wilhelm von hartel. Sancti Pontii Meropii Paulini Nolani. 2 vols. CSEL 29, 30. Vienna: Österreichischen akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999.

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197

Philostorgios. Historia Ecclesiastica. edited by Joseph Bidez. Philostorgius. Kirchengeschichte: mit dem Leben des Lucian von Antiochien und den Fragmenten eines arianischen Historiographen. 3rd ed., rev. Friedhelm Winkelmann. GCS 21. Berlin: akademie-Verlag, 1981. translated by Philip amidon. Philostorgius: Church History. atlanta, Ga: society of Biblical Literature, 2007. Photios. Biblioteca. edited by rené henry. Photius. Bibliothèque. 8 vols. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1959–77. Plato. Res publica. edited by s. r. slings. Platonis Rempublicam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. . Symposium. edited by John Burnet. Platonis opera, vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901. . Timaeus. edited by John Burnet. Platonis opera, vol. 4. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902. Pliny the younger. Epistulae. edited by mauriz schuster. Epistularum libri novem. Epistularum ad Traianum liber, Panegyricus. 3rd ed. Leipzig: teubner, 1958. Proklos of Constantinople. Homiliae. edited and translated by nicholas Constas. Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity: Homilies 1–5, Texts and Translations. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Prokopios. De aedificiis. edited by G. Wirth. Procopii Caesariensis opera omnia. vol. 1, 5–186. Leipzig: teubner, 1964. rufinus. Historia Ecclesiastica. edited by Theodor mommsen. Eusebius, Werke. Vol. 2, pts. 1–3. GCs 9/1–3. Leipzig: hinrichs, 1903–9. sokrates. Historia Ecclesiastica. edited by G. C. hansen. Sokrates Kirchengeschichte. GCs, n.f. 1. Berlin: akademieVerlag, 1995. translated into english by a. C. Zenos. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. 2. Buffalo, ny: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1890. sozomenos. Historia Ecclesiastica. edited by Joseph Bidez and Günther Christian hansen. Sozomenus: Kirchengeschichte. GCs 50. Berlin: akademie-Verlag, 1960. Suda. edited by ada adler. Suidae lexicon. 4 vols. Leipzig: teubner, 1928–35. Themistios. Orationes. edited by Glanville Downey and a. F. norman. Themistii orationes quae supersunt. 3 vols. Leipzig, teubner, 1965–74. translated by Peter heather and David moncur. Politics, Philosophy, and Empire in the Fourth Century: Select Orations of Themistius. tth 36. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001. Theodoret of Cyrrhus. Historia Ecclesiastica. edited by Léon Parmentier and Felix scheidweiler. Theodoret. Kirchengeschichte, 2nd ed. GCs 44. Berlin: akademie-Verlag, 1954.

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Theodoros anagnostes. Epitome historiae tripartitae. edited by Günther Christian hansen, Theodoros Anagnostes, Kirchengeschichte. 2nd ed. GCs, n.f., 3. Berlin: akademie-Verlag, 1995. Theophanes. Chronographia. edited by C. de Boor. Theophanis chronographia. Vol. 1. Leipzig: teubner, 1883. translated by Cyril mango and roger scott. The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor: Byzantine and Near Eastern History, AD 284–813. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Zosimos. Historia nova. edited and translated into French by François Paschoud. Zosimus: Histoire nouvelle. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2000. translated by ronald ridley. Zosimus. New History. Byzantina australiensa 2. Canberra: australian association for Byzantine studies, 1982. se C O n Da ry L I t e r at U r e

alcock, susan. Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. alföldi, andreas. The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome. translated by harold mattingly. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948. anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. revised ed. London: Verso, 2016. ando, Clifford. “Introduction: religion, Law and knowledge in Classical rome.” In Roman Religion, edited by Clifford ando, 1–15. edinburgh: edinburgh University Press, 2003. . The Matter of the Gods: Religion and the Roman Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. andrade, nathanael. “The Processions of John Chrysostom and the Contested spaces of Constantinople.” JECS 18, no. 2 (summer 2010): 161–89. asad, talal. Genealogies of Religion. Baltimore: Johns hopkins University Press, 1993. audi, robert. “Belief, Faith, and acceptance.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 63, no. 1 (February 2008): 87–102. austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. ayres, Lewis. Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Baldovin, John. The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy. rome: Pontificium Institutum studiorum Orientalium, 1987. Bardill, Jonathan. Brickstamps of Constantinople. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. . Constantine, Divine Emperor of the Christian Golden Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Barnes, timothy D. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge: harvard University Press, 1981. . Constantine: Dynasty, Religion and Power in the Later Roman Empire. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. . “Panegyric, history and hagiography in eusebius’ Life of Constantine.” In The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, edited by rowan Williams, 94–123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

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Barton, Carlin a., and Daniel Boyarin. Imagine No Religion: How Modern Abstractions Hide Ancient Realities. new york: Fordham University Press, 2016. Bassett, sarah. “The antiquities in the hippodrome of Constantinople.” DOP 45 (1991): 87–96. . “‘excellent Offerings’: The Lausos Collection in Constantinople.” Art Bulletin 82, no. 1 (march 2000): 6–25. . The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Bauer, Franz alto. Stadt, Platz und Denkmal in der Spätantike: Untersuchungen zur Ausstattung des öffentlichen Raums in den spätantiken Städten Rom, Konstantinopel und Ephesos. mainz am rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1996. . “Urban space and ritual: Constantinople in Late antiquity.” AAAH 15, n.s., 1 (2001): 27–61. Bauer, Walter. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. translated by robert kraft and Gerhard krodel. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971. Baynes, norman h. Constantine the Great and the Christian Church. new york: haskell, 1975. Beard, mary, John north, and simon Price. Religions of Rome, vol. 1: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Becker, adam h., and annette yoshiko reed, eds. The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. tübingen: mohr siebeck, 2003. Belayche, nicole. “Realia versus Leges? Les sacrifices de la religion d’État au IVe siècle.” In La cuisine et l’autel: Les sacrifices en questions dans les sociétés de la Méditerranée ancienne, edited by stella Georgoudi, renée koch Piettre, and Francis schmidt, 343–70. turnhout: Brepols, 2005. Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Benoist, stéphane. “Du pontifex maximus à l’élu de Dieu: l’empereur et les sacra (Ier s. av. n.e.–Ve s. de n. e.).” In Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire: Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Heidelberg, July 5–7, 2007), edited by Olivier hekster, sebastian schmidt-hofner, and Christian Witschel, 33–51. Leiden: Brill, 2009. . “Les processions dans la cité: De la mise en scène de l’espace urbain.” In Roma illustrata: Représentations de la ville. Actes du colloque international de Caen (6–8 octobre 2005), edited by Philippe Fleury and Olivier Desbordes, 49–61. Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2008. Berger, albrecht. “Imperial and ecclesiastical Processions in Constantinople.” In Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life, edited by nevra necipoglu, 73–87. Leiden: Brill, 2001. . Konstantinopel: Geschichte, Topographie, Religion. stuttgart: anton hiersemann, 2011. . “streets and Public spaces in Constantinople.” DOP 54 (2000): 161–72. Bergmann, Bettina, and Christine kondoleon, eds. The Art of Ancient Spectacle. Washington, DC: national Gallery of art, 1999. Bergmann, marianne. Die Strahlen der Herrscher: Theomorphes Herrscherbild und politische Symbolik im Hellenismus und der römischen Kaiserzeit. mainz am rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1998.

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Berzon, todd. Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity. Oakland: University of California Press, 2016. Bidez, Joseph. La tradition manuscrit de Sozomène et la Tripartite de Théodore le Lecteur. Leipzig: hinrichs, 1908. Boin, Douglas. “hellenistic ‘Judaism’ and the social Origins of the ‘Pagan-Christian’ Debate.” JECS 22, no. 2 (summer 2014): 167–96. . “Late antique Divi and Imperial Priests of the Late Fourth and early Fifth Centuries.” In Pagans and Christians in Late Antique Rome: Conflict, Competition, and Coexistence in the Fourth Century, edited by michele renee salzman, marianne sághy, and rita Lizzi testa, 139–61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. translated by richard nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Boyarin, Daniel. Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Bradbury, scott. “Constantine and the Problem of anti-Pagan Legislation in the Fourth Century.” CPh 89, no. 2 (april 1994): 120–39. Brown, Peter. “enjoying the saints in Late antiquity.” Early Medieval Europe 9, no. 1 (2000): 1–24. . Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire. madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992. . “review of From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity, by kyle harper.” New York Review of Books, December 19, 2013, www .nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/dec/19/rome-sex-freedom. . “The saint as exemplar in Late antiquity.” Representations 1, no. 2 (spring 1983): 1–25. Brubaker, rogers. Ethnicity without Groups. Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 2004. Burgess, robert W. “The Passio S. Artemii, Philostorgius, and the Dates of the Invention and translations of the relics of sts. andrew and Luke.” AB 121 (2003): 5–36. Burrell, Barbara. Neokoroi: Greek Cities and Roman Emperors. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Cameron, alan. “The empress and the Poet: Paganism and Politics at the Court of Theodosius II.” Yale Classical Studies 27 (1982): 217–89. . “The Imperial Pontifex.” HSCP 103 (2007): 341–84. . The Last Pagans of Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Cameron, alan, and Jacqueline Long. Barbarians and Politics in the Court of Arcadius. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Cameron, averil. Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. . The Later Roman Empire. Cambridge, ma: harvard University Press, 1993. . The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity: AD 395–700. 2nd ed. London: routledge, 2012. . “The Violence of Orthodoxy.” In Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity, edited by eduard Iricinschi and holder Zellentin, 102–14. tübingen: mohr siebeck, 2008. Cameron, averil, and stuart hall, ed. and trans. Eusebius: Life of Constantine. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.

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In de x

acclamations, 27n46, 30, 40, 59, 71, 129 acropolis of Constantinople: in the Constantinian building program, 49–51, 72; survival of pre-Constantinian temples, 48, 80, 105n111, 121, 182 aetios of antioch, 36 alexander, bishop of Constantinople, 89, 93–94, 96 alexander the Great, 152 alexandria: as rival city, 52, 158; school culture, 31; status in Christian historiography, 46, 94, 97, 101 alypius of Thagaste, 37 ambrose of milan, 37, 99n95, 113 ammonios, 124 anastasia (church), 79, 82n25, 83, 102, 104, 121 anthemios, praetorian prefect, 145, 152 antioch: as rival city, 52, 158; Christianity, 38, 46, 64, 102, 140; imperial capital, 26, 49, 89; John Chrysostom, 114, 119, 121; religious competition, 40, 180; school culture, 31; traditional temples, 75, 80 antiochus, imperial chamberlain, 145 apollinarians, 122, 160 apostacy, 110–12, 124, 131 apostoleion (Church of the apostles): construction, 52, 61n64; emperor-cult, 62, 67, 69–70; eusebios’s ekphrasis, 10, 47, 67–72, 142; imperial ideology and Christianity, 71–72,

79, 102–4, 121; as mausoleum, 12–13, 61–62, 67–70, 91, 182 apotheosis, 41, 69–70 archaeological remains, 36n85, 47n2, 51 arch of Constantine (rome), 54, 55n34 arians: arianizers, 2–4, 107, 135–38, 186; clergy, 84; cult sites, 123–24, 159, 173; Goths, 2, 104; laws against, 122, 155, 160; as religious competitors, 105, 113, 121, 180, 189; as social category, 78, 92, 107–8; vigils, 1–2, 135–38; violence of, 91, 96–97, 100–102. See also makedonians arios, 2, 93, 104–6 arkadios, emperor: child-emperor, 147, 150; control of cult landscape, 1, 123–24, 136, 144, 153, 182–83, 189; death, 143, 144, 147; polemic against, 165; residency in Constantinople, 128; ritual involvement, 36, 133 arsakios, bishop of Constantinople, 157 athenaïs, empress, 145, 175. See also eudokia athanasios, bishop of alexandria, 90–91, 94, 95–96, 101, 107 athens, 31, 52 attikos, bishop of Constantinople, 106, 157 augusteion, 49, 52, 60, 128, 182. See also tetrastōon augustine of hippo, 37, 113 augustus, emperor (d. 14 c.e.), 34, 52, 54n33, 149, 153

215

216

Index

banqueting, 40, 43 Basil of ankyra, 99 Basil of Caesarea, 37, 113 belief, 17–21, 24, 82. See also faith bishops: as civic priests, 10, 34–37, 108, 175, 181; court bishops, 83, 89, 113, 121–22, 124, 156, 157–59, 173, 175, 176, 185–86, 188, 189; competition between, 24, 73, 75–76, 89, 146, 150, 157–58, 184, 189; cultural agents, 24, 44, 66–67, 84, 185, 188; defining orthodox, 2, 6, 8, 10, 23, 76, 123, 134, 146, 188; factionalism, 87, 94, 179; of elite background, 10, 34, 37; imperial patronage, 11–12, 63, 72, 80, 84, 105, 108, 121, 124, 153, 166, 174, 183; popularity, 83, 137; networks, 24, 45; nicene (homoousian), 87, 104, 121, 153, 175, 184; novatian, 124, 159, 173; ritual, 39–40, 41–42, 85, 129–30, 181; traditional cultural forms, 16; violence, 10–11, 17, 91, 96, 157–59, 172–73 body: civic body, 131–32, 138; as political field, 4, 30–31; ritualized body, 112, 140; social and physical environment, 112–13, 115–18, 131, 185 boundary construction, 3, 78, 87, 92, 100, 104, 136–38, 144, 176, 188 Byzantium (pre-Constantinian city), 46, 47–49, 56, 72–73, 75, 79 Byzas, legendary founder of Constantinople, 47, 50n13, 57n42 calendar, 24, 26–27, 33, 37, 159 capitolia, 27 Capitolion (Constantinople), 51, 57, 62 Chalcedon, 13, 48 Chalcedon, Council of (451), 6, 36, 87, 146, 157, 179, 189 Chalkoprateia synagogue, 104 Chalkoprateia, Theotokos church, 47n2, 169 child-emperors, 143, 147–50, 152–53, 154, 168, 187–88 children, 20, 33, 38, 90, 114–15, 120, 185 Christianity, Theodosian: definition, 6; hegemony, 108, 113, 142, 175–76, 184, 188; historical narratives, 9, 170, 187; identifying with, 125; imperial support, 11–12, 122–25, 144, 153–62, 164, 184–86 Chronicon paschale, 58, 156, 173–74 Church, as discursive product, 23–24, 44, 95–97, 180, 189 churches, as temples, 25–26, 38–39, 43, 51, 54, 82, 125, 181–82

citationality, 127n65, 132, 134–35, 142 civic priesthood: bishops, 10, 34–35, 37, 87, 108, 153, 175, 181; feature of late antique religion, 19–20, 30, 108, 175; ritual, 130, 134; unfilled, 42, 153; traditional cults, 80, 124, 180 Codex-Calendar of 354, 33 coercion, 92, 99, 139, 172 Colonia antonina, 48 Column of arkadios, 129 Column of Constantine, 51–52, 60, 69, 103, 104, 165, 182 Column of the Goths, 104 Competition: Christian factions, 75; Christianity and traditional cult, 77, 80; civic landscape, 73, 135, 181–82, 183; for episcopacies, 37, 45, 157; physical violence, 75; political economy, 75, 84, 89, 93; ritual as, 2–3, 45, 106; studies on, 180; texts as, 9, 25, 87, 186–87 Constantine, emperor: Christian emperor, 15, 47, 53–54, 64–65, 67–68, 70–71, 77–78, 104, 180, 184; death, 72, 93–94, 182; exemplar of imperial piety, 54n33, 128, 149, 161, 164–65, 169–70, 181; founder of Constantinople, 6, 10, 46–47, 48–52, 63, 72–73, 181–82; object of cult, 40–41, 60–62, 66, 68–69, 165; sarcophagus, 91, 104; traditional cult patterns, 34, 40, 54–61 Constantinian building program, 52, 60–62 Constantinople, Council of (381), 83 Constantius II, emperor: ecclesiastical involvement, 75–76, 89–91, 94, 103, 108, 183; eusebios’s Life of Constantine, 63, 67–68, 70–72; foundation of Great Church, 62, 79; image as tyrant, 95; political appointments, 81; traditional cult patterns, 34–35, 40–42 Constantius III, emperor, 171 Constantius Chlorus, emperor, 41 contestation: Christian factions, 6, 9, 88, 113, 146; historical narratives, 74–75; landscape, 102, 106, 182; social structures, 7, 43, 45, 187 creed as demonstration of loyalty, 29 creed as performative marker, 20, 108 cult: adjustment of, 42–43, 45; contention over, 3; Christians, 16, 38–40, 41, 43–44; definition, 22–23, 25–26; group formation, 9, 28–30; civic, 9–12, 57; emperor-cult, 41, 59; imperial patronage, 54–56; landscapes, 6, 45, 49, 51, 53, 59; literary evidence, 8–9; legislation, 42; traditional patterns, 16, 19–20, 22, 26–27, 32–37, 40 cult images, 36, 40, 42, 52, 64–67, 155

Index Cunctos Populos edict, 35 curation, 4, 11, 45, 76, 87, 92, 162 curiales, 33, 34, 37 Cyril of alexandria, bishop, 36, 97–98, 158, 173, 179 damnatio memoriae, 106–7. See also erasure Decius, emperor, 29 deities, 20, 23, 26, 37, 57, 61, 65, 108, 112, 140 Demosthenes, 38 Diocletian, 51, 103 Dioskoros of alexandria, bishop, 158, 179 Dioskouroi, 52, 62, 182 divination, 19, 36, 56–57, 66 divine anger, 163–64, 165, 170, 177 divinity, 41–42, 68, 78 doctrinal disputes, 6, 82–85, 87, 91–92, 108 Domitius modestus, praetorian prefect, 36 Dorotheos, arian bishop, 84 Drypia, 129, 130, 133–34, 138 earthquakes, 39, 131, 138, 156, 164, 176 edessa, 97 education. see paideia ekphrasis, 10, 38, 47, 67, 69–71 emperor: ceremony, 30, 127, 128, 132; cult agent, 10, 34–35, 39, 54–57, 59–60, 84, 108, 124, 128, 130, 133–34, 153–54, 175, 181, 185, 189; imperial rhetoric, 146–47, 148–49, 162, 176, 188; loyalty to, 28, 29, 110–11, 125, 175, 188; object of cult, 10, 27, 39, 40–42, 59, 60–61, 70–72, 140, 181, 182, 185; patron, 8, 11, 62, 76, 105, 159, 180, 182. See also child-emperors emperor-cult, 41, 59 ephesos, First Council of (431), 157–58 ephesos, second Council of (449), 158 epiphanios, 157 erasure, 75, 78, 102, 105–7, 184 eudokia, empress (athenaïs), 145, 156, 174–75 eudoxia (aelia), 1, 36, 60, 66, 72, 128, 133–34, 144, 156 eunomians, 154, 156, 160 eunomios of kyzikos, 123 eupsychios of Caesarea, 99 euripides, 31 eusebios of Caesarea, 10, 53, 59, 75, 142, 149, 164–65, 182; Life of Constantine, 47, 55, 61, 63–65, 67–71, 99 eusebios of nikomedia, 89 eutropios, historian, 41 eutropios, praetorian prefect, 122, 150

217

evagrios scholastikos, 4, 77 exile, 5, 90–91, 94, 111–12, 124, 158, 171–72 factions, 1, 8, 22, 76, 153, 179, 181 faith, 17–21,77, 82. See also belief festivals: civic, 27–29, 58–59, 128, 132; Constantine, 55; Christian, 38–39, 40, 98, 129, 130, 133–35; disruption, 43; festival culture, 126; “Greek,” 81, 155; magistrates, 19, 35–36, 43, 181; rome, 33 Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, 158 Flavius anatolius, magister militum, 36 Florentius, praetorian prefect, 159 forgetting, 105–6. See also erasure forums: of arkadios, 106, 128; of Constantine, 47–52, 58, 60, 69, 102, 105; of Theodosios, 47n2, 176–77 funerals, 40–41, 70–71, 72, 126, 128 Gaïnas, 123, 129, 150 Galla Placidia, empress, 171 Gamaliel VI, 154 Gaza, 98 Gelasios of Caesarea, 77, 91 genethlion, 58, 128 George of Cappadocia, bishop of alexandria, 94–96, 101 Golden Gate, 133 Goths, 1–2, 104, 123 grammar, 31–32 Gratian, emperor, 143, 147, 154 Great Church (hagia sophia), 5, 62, 79, 85, 97, 102, 121, 124, 133, 138, 154, 187, 189 Gregory of nazianzos, 8, 37, 40–42, 72, 81, 83, 110–12, 121, 157 Gregory of nyssa, 18, 37, 83, 189 groupness, 84, 86, 88, 92, 183–85, 189 habitus, 29, 116, 126 hagia eirene, 50–51, 62, 72, 79, 89–90, 93–94, 102, 104, 106, 182 hagia sophia. See Great Church hagios akakios, 91 hagios menas, 79 hagios mokios, 79 hagios Paulos, 89, 102, 105 haruspicy, 55 hebdomon, 39, 133 helena, 103, 169, 170 heliopolis, 98 helios, 52, 68–69, 182

218

Index

helladios, 124 hellenes, 8, 77–78, 94, 97, 124, 131, 155 heresiology, 160 heresy, 3, 77, 87, 95, 104, 120, 144, 157 hermogenes, general, 89, 91, 94 hermogenes of tarsos, 32 hesiod, 31 hippodrome, 48–50, 52, 119, 121, 126–29, 167 hispellum Inscription, 59 homer, 31, 38 homilies, 8, 11, 39, 114, 117, 120, 131, 134–35, 142 homoousians (nicenes), 17, 83, 91, 100, 136, 141, 153, 182–83 honoratus, urban prefect, 36 honorios, emperor, 147–48, 149, 153, 167, 171 hymns: competitive, 1–2, 135–37; civic festivals, 58; martyr festivals, 39; as part of ritual script, 19, 43, 81, 83, 142, 175; psychagogy, 11, 120; purification of city, 138; Theodosios II, 166–67 hypatia, 97

Jovian, emperor, 34, 41, 111–12, 185 judicial torture, 90–92, 101 Julian, emperor: burial, 71; hellenism, 17, 24, 57, 77, 81, 98, 125, 131, 138, 140, 180, 185; imperial cult, 41; oppression of Christians, 34, 110–12; polemic against, 40, 42, 110–12, 167

imagined communities, 8, 10–11 imperial cult, 11, 13, 40, 42, 55, 59–61, 69, 72, 155, 181 imperial images, 40, 42, 52, 60 imperial legislation, 42, 78, 122, 156 imperial mausolea, 52, 61–62. See also apostoleion imperial patronage, 6, 9, 62, 108, 121, 136 implied consent, 11, 139 incense: imperial ceremony, 19, 29, 59; for imperial images, 60–61, 66, 110–11, 139, 165, 182, 188; processions, 2, 39, 43, 127, 175; sacrifice, 28, 81 Inmestar, 97

magistrates, involvement in cult, 10, 20, 30, 33, 35–37, 43, 55, 127, 130, 133–34, 175, 180 makedonians, 17, 21, 91–92, 108, 141, 160, 173 makedonios, bishop of Constantinople, 10, 17, 75, 89–97, 100–101, 104–108, 135, 183 manichaeans, 17, 78, 122, 155, 160 marcian, emperor, 179, 182, 189 mark of arethusa, bishop, 99 martyria: akakios and mokios, 62, 103; Drypia, 133, 138; martyrios and markianos, 103; as part of topography, 107, 132–33, 140; Phokas, 130; Peter and Paul, 131; sabbatios, 106 martyrs: admiration for, 18; as divine patrons, 23, 175; commemoration, 39–40, 102, 103–4, 119–20, 121, 129, 138, 186; narratives, 83, 99, 101, 111; relics, 39, 128, 130, 133–34 maximianos, bishop of Constantinople, 158 maximos the Cynic, 72 memory: collective, 100n98, 184; cultural, 10, 33; institutional, 12, 76, 92, 100–101, 103–4, 107–8, 188; transmission of, 11, 77, 88–89, 92–93, 169, 175, 181, 187. See also monuments menander rhetor, 31 mesē, 48, 49, 51–52, 127, 133 milion, 49, 50 mimēsis, 116, 120, 185 monastics, 185 montanists, 155, 160

Jerusalem, 38, 46, 133, 138, 166 Jesus, 20, 166 Jews, 8, 17, 39, 77–78, 82, 97, 107, 124, 131, 137, 189. See also synagogues John (usurper), 172 John Chrysostom: background, 37–38, 121; exile, 5, 83, 90–91, 124, 144n4, 189; homilies, 8, 114, 119–20; installation, 129; On Vainglory, 114–16, 117–19, 120; opposition to, 5, 72, 97, 113, 124–25, 150, 157; processions, 2–3, 4–5, 130–31, 132–38, 156; ritual environment, 4, 11, 60, 116–19, 123, 127–28, 131, 140, 142, 185–86 John malalas, 57–58, 80, 128, 173–75

kandidianos, comes, 36 knowledge, 31, 33, 66, 84–85, 126, 151, 166 kukusos, 90 kynegion, 48–49 kyros, urban prefect, 172 kyzikos, 90 law, 27, 31, 32–33, 69, 122, 141, 154, 161 Libanios, 8, 17, 24, 32, 80, 81, 85, 113 Licinius, 48 Likinia eudoxia, empress, 156 limitatio (founding ritual), 56–57, 165 liturgy, 56, 70–71, 91, 135, 182 Lucian, Amores, 65–66

Index monuments: as sites of conflict, 6, 63, 74, 102, 106–7, 184; creation of meaning, 10, 63, 65, 74–75, 76, 182; cities as narrative monuments, 101, 181, 189; imperial ideologies, 47, 49–50, 51–53, 80; places of durable memory, 53, 102, 104; site of group identification, 45, 74, 104 music, 120, 128, 135 mutilation of bodies, 11, 76, 91, 93, 96, 98–100, 107 narrative mapping, 104 nektarios, bishop of Constantinople, 37, 84, 97, 121, 157 nestorios, bishop of Constantinople: against “heretics,” 141, 144, 156, 159, 188; disputes, 76, 156, 158, 189; trial, 36, 157–58; tyrant-bishop, 97, 141, 172–74; writings, 8, 176–77 nicaea (city), 49 nicaea, Council of (325), 6, 12, 34, 87, 180 nicene Christianity, 6, 11, 12, 86, 97, 162, 182 nicene Christians, 2, 61, 95, 97, 101, 107, 159 nicene clergy, 113, 121, 125, 131, 136, 141, 144, 156 nicene Creed, 17, 94, 124, 175 nikokles of sparta, 81 nikomedia, 26, 49, 64, 72, 90, 97, 102 Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae, 104–5 novatians, 91, 124, 156, 160–61, 188 Olympiodoros of Thebes, 170–71, 184 Optatos, urban prefect, 125 Orestes, 97 orthodoxy: Constantinople as center, 8, 157, 162, 170, 181, 188–89; distinction from heresy, 3–4, 76–77, 87, 144, 159; imperial connections, 2, 12, 72, 123, 157, 176–77, 179; nicene Creed, 6, 98, 104, 106–7, 124, 180. See also Theodosian Christianity paganism, 24–25 pagans, 17 paideia, classical, 31, 38, 116, 148 palace, 49–50, 64, 72, 133, 169, 177 panegyric, 28, 41, 55, 148–49, Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai, 58 Pascha (easter), 97, 98, 106, 135, 159, 160n77 Paul of Constantinople, bishop, 11, 75–76, 89–91, 94, 96, 105–6, 135, 189 Paul, novatian bishop, 159, 173 Paulinos, 172, 175 Paulinus of nola, 37, 40 persecution, 96, 103, 110, 124, 159 Philadelphion, 51, 58

219

Philostorgios, 4, 12, 56, 60–61, 83, 95, 123, 162–65, 172, 184 pistis, 17, 20, 28, 77 Plato, 38, 116n16, 151n35 Pliny the younger, 29 Pneumatomachoi, 11 polemic: Christian, 18, 23, 25, 87–88, 92, 95, 101; social norms, 44, 84, 107, 172–73 pontifex maximus, 34–35, 56, 153, 181 prayer, 2, 19, 20, 61, 70, 83, 138, 167, 172 priests: civic hierarchy, 30, 134, 175; cultic responsibility, 34, 37, 40, 82, 130; elites, 10; traditional, 57, 83, 111, 124, 155. See also civic priesthood processions: Christian festivals, 38–39, 43, 85; citationality, 59, 132, 134, 142; civic life, 19, 28, 126–29, 175, 181; imperial, 126–27, 128, 132; relics, 36, 39, 66, 124, 127, 130–34, 138, 140; sacrificial, 30, 33, 81; supplicatory, 138; vigil, 1–4, 97, 135–36 progymnasmata, 32–33 Proklos, bishop of Constantinople, 8, 81, 124, 158 proskynēsis, 27, 40, 42, 58, 60, 72, 181, 182 psychagogy, 116 Pulcheria, empress, 128, 145, 152, 163, 168–71, 174–75, 179, 182, 187, 189 quartodecimans, 159, 173 ravenna, 26, 167, 171 relics: cult, 66, 127, 132, 140, 183, 187; Drypia, 133, 138; Forty martyrs of sebasteia, 128; John the Baptist, 103; Joseph and Zachariah, 154; mary, 169; Paul of Constantinople, 105–6; saints and martyrs, 39; samuel, 36; stephen, 155; timothy, Luke, and andrew, 71, 103; true Cross, 103 religio, 20, 22 religion, definition, 18–20, 21–23 republican rome, 19–20 resistance, 28, 45, 139, 140–41, 186 rhea/Cybele, 50, 62, 182 riot of the statues (387), 40 riots, in Constantinople, 5, 83, 89, 91, 97, 136, 149, 159, 173, 189 ritual agents, 130,134, 185 ritual: engagement, 4, 10, 12, 111, 113, 136–37, 141, 186; environment, 7, 16, 125, 131, 135, 142; habits, 4, 42, 114, 181; public, 9, 11, 113, 125, 126, 130, 132, 135–36, 142 Romanitas, 82, 175, 185

220

Index

rome (city): Constantinople’s emulation, 49–53, 57, 165; ecclesiastical politics, 94, 180; processions, 38; sack of, 172; status, 26–27, 186; Theodosios I, 148; traditional institutions, 20, 33, 34, 35, 54, 75, 170, rufinus, 77, 91, 96 sabbatians, 106–7, 156, 160–61, 189 sabbatios, 97, 106 sacred space, 64, 96 sacrifice: animal, 19, 28, 30, 34, 39–40, 42, 54; Christian refusal, 83, 175; continuation of, 19, 80n19, 81, 141, 180; Julian, 112, 125, 131, 139; laws against, 56, 59, 80n18 schēma, 114–17, 131 school curriculum, 31–33 senate, 37, 51, 69, 81, 161 seneca the elder, 32 sense perception, 115n11 septimius severus, emperor, 48, 49, 153 severan foundations, 48, 49, 51 severian of Gabala, 83 sidonius apollinaris, 37 simplicius, urban prefect, 36 sissinios, novatian bishop, 124 smell, 120, 128, 130, 185 social categories: boundaries, 43, 85; construction, 8, 22, 44–45, 77–79, 86; contestation, 183; identification, 28, 185 social scripts, 35, 139, 141 sokrates of Constantinople: composition, 4–5, 86–87; construction of history, 4, 11–12, 92, 184; Constantinopolitan landscape, 50, 57, 72, 101–2, 108, 162–63, 188; on fourth-century conflicts, 76–78, 85, 89–91, 93–101, 105, 107, 183, 186; John Chrysostom, 1–3, 135–39; nestorios, 159, 173; mass conversion, 17; pagans and Jews, 114–25; ritual, 60, 81, 123–24, 135–39; Theodosios II, 128, 141, 164, 166–68, 172–75; translation, 20–21 souls, 4, 111, 113, 115–16, 119–20, 123, 130–31 sozomenos: composition, 4, 86–87, 89; construction of history, 11–12, 92, 101, 184; fourthcentury conflicts, 76–77, 85, 89–91, 93, 96, 98–100, 107, 183, 186; John Chrysostom, 124; narrative landscape, 77–78, 101–2, 104–5, 107–8, 162–63, 188; ritual engagement, 111–12, 123, 131, 139–41; Theodosios II, 128, 150–53, 164, 166, 168–72, 175, 187 spatial competition, 25, 51, 103, 104–7 spectacle, 30, 120, 125–33, 126, 186

speech-acts, 4, 8, 45 statues, 30, 40, 42, 52, 59, 64–67, 74, 111, 142. See also cult images stilicho, 147, 150, 153, 171 stoa basilica, 49 supplication, 39, 43, 60, 112, 128, 165, 167, 185 synagogues, 18–19, 104, 137, 154, 155 synaxis, 38, 85, 97 synesios of Cyrene, 37 temples: aphrodite, 48, 62, 65, 80, 182; apollo, 35, 48, 62, 80, 182; artemis, 48, 80, 182; Constantine, 56; closure, 121, 141, 182–83; Dioskouroi, 62; herakles, 79; narrative erasure, 77–78; Poseidon, 79; rhea, 50, 62, 182; survival, 36, 79–80; visibility, 79; as votive offerings, 39; Zeus, 79 tetrastōon, 48, 49. See also augusteion textual performance, 107 theater, 29, 48–49, 117–21, 126, 128, 131, 140, 186 Themistios, 24, 40, 80, 85, 124 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, 77 Theodosian Christianity: definition, 6, 144; hegemony, 9, 108, 113, 135, 142, 162, 170, 175, 184–88; imperial support, 11–12, 123, 153, 159, 176; legislation, 122–23, 164 Theodosian Code, 8, 37, 144–45, 160–61, 164, 188 Theodosian Walls, 39, 123, 135, 138 Theodosios I, emperor: involvement with cult matters, 37, 72, 103, 140–41, 153–54; legislation, 35, 122; rhetoric against, 165; riot of the statues, 40; succession, 147–48; support of nicene Christians, 35, 180, 182–83, 75, 84, 105, 121, 124 Theodosios II, emperor: child-emperor, 5, 143, 144–45, 147–48, 150–53, 187; death, 177, 179; involvement in ecclesiastical affairs, 36, 154–58, 176, 187–88; imperial rhetoric, 146, 164–62; legislation, 42, 154–65, 159, 161–62; new Constantine, 164–66; piety, 146, 150–51, 159, 162, 163, 167–72, 174–75, 176; polemic against, 163–64, 172–75, 176–77; ritual agent, 128; Theodosian Christianity, 11–12, 144, 162 Theophilos, bishop of alexandria, 150, 157 Theotokos: Church of, 169; controversy, 156 Thessalonica, 13, 48, 49 threskeia, 17, 20–21, 22, torture, 74, 76, 90, 91–93, 94–96, 99–100, 101 traditional mediterranean cult, definition, 25 trauma, 11, 84, 100–101, 104, 107 trier, 26

Index tychaion, 50, 57–58, 62, 182 tychē, 50, 52, 57–58, 66, 128 tyranny, 5, 91, 94, 96, 99, 158, 171–73 Uldin, 150, 153, 170, 172 Valens, emperor, 34, 36, 97, 185, Valentinian I, emperor, 111–12, 125, 140, 147, 185 Valentinian II, emperor, 143, 147–48, 154 Valentinian III, emperor, 147–48, 171 Via egnatia, 49, 51, 133 vigils, 1–5, 135–39, 142, 186 violence: as boundary construction, 4, 12, 75–76, 82, 87–88, 91–92, 100, 135, 144, 179,

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184; among heretics, 93–94, 97–98, 104, 173; memories of, 11, 45, 100–102, 103, 106, 108, 179, 184, 186, 188; narratives, 5, 11, 76–77, 98–99, 107, 137–38, 172, 184; as performance, 3, 76, 183; physical, 10, 75, 142, 158; rhetoric about, 8, 142, 184 virgins, attacks on, 95–96, 98–99 votive offerings, 39, 43, 168 voyeurism, 105 women, violence against, 90, 92, 94–96, 99, 107, 135 Zeuxippos Baths, 49, 52

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