Riot in Alexandria: Tradition and Group Dynamics in Late Antique Pagan and Christian Communities

✍ Scribed by Edward J. Watts (editor)

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 309
• Series: Transformation of the Classical Heritage
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This innovative study uses one well-documented moment of violence as a starting point for a wide-ranging examination of the ideas and interactions of pagan philosophers, Christian ascetics, and bishops from the fourth to the early seventh century. Edward J. Watts reconstructs a riot that erupted in Alexandria in 486 when a group of students attacked a Christian adolescent who had publicly insulted the students' teachers. Pagan students, Christians affiliated with a local monastery, and the Alexandrian ecclesiastical leaders all cast the incident in a different light, and each group tried with that interpretation to influence subsequent events. Watts, drawing on Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac sources, shows how historical traditions and notions of a shared past shaped the interactions and behavior of these high-profile communities. Connecting oral and written texts to the personal relationships that gave them meaning and to the actions that gave them form, Riot in Alexandria draws new attention to the understudied social and cultural history of the later fifth-century Roman world and at the same time opens a new window on late antique intellectual life.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
1. The Anatomy of a Riot
Part One. Historical Discourse in Intellectual Communities
Introduction
2. Personal Legacy and Scholastic Identity
3. Past, Present, and Future in Late Neoplatonic Historical Discourse
Part Two. The Past Within and Outside Late Antique Monasteries
Introduction
4. History and the Shape of Monastic Communities
5. Anti-Chalcedonian Ascetics and their Student Associates
Part Three. Defining the Alexandrian Bishop
Introduction
6. Creating the Legend of the Alexandrian Bishop
7. Theophilus and Cyril: The Alexandrian Bishop Triumphant
8. Peter Mongus Struggles with the Past
9. Conclusion
Appendix 1. Dating the Riot
Appendix 2. How Much Should We Trust Zacharias Scholasticus?
Bibliography
Index