Riot in Alexandria: tradition and group dynamics in late antique pagan and Christian communities

✍ Scribed by Edward Jay Watts

Publisher: University of California Press
Year: 2010
Tongue: English
Leaves: 308
Series: Transformation of the Classical Heritage
Category: Library

No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.

✦ 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

Frontmatter
List of Illustrations (page xi)
Acknowledgments (page xiii)
1. The Anatomy of a Riot (page 1)
PART ONE. HISTORICAL DISCOURSE IN INTELLECTUAL COMMUNITIES (page 23)
2. Personal Legacy and Scholastic Identity (page 29)
3. Past, Present, and Future in Late Neoplatonic Historical Discourse (page 53)
PART TWO. THE PAST WITHIN AND OUTSIDE LATE ANTIQUE MONASTERIES (page 89)
4. History and the Shape of Monastic Communities (page 95)
5. Anti-Chalcedonian Ascetic and their Student Associates (page 123)
PART THREE. DEFINING THE ALEXANDRIAN BISHOP (page 155)
6. Creating the Legend of the Alexandrian Bishop (page 163)
7. Theophilus and Cyril: The Alexandrian Bishop Triumphant (page 190)
8. Peter Mongus Struggles with the Past (page 216)
9. Conclusion (page 254)
Appendix 1. Dating the Riot (page 263)
Appendix 2. How Much Should We Trust Zacharias Scholasticus? (page 265)
Bibliography (page 269)
Index (page 285)

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