1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910819096103321

Autore

Watts Edward Jay <1975->

Titolo

The final pagan generation / / Edward J. Watts

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Oakland, California : , : University of California Press, , 2015

©2015

ISBN

0-520-37922-5

0-520-95949-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (347 p.)

Collana

Transformation of the Classical Heritage ; ; LIII

Disciplina

292.07

Soggetti

Paganism - Rome

Christianity and other religions - Rome

Rome Religion

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Growing Up in the Cities of the Gods -- 2. Education in an Age of Imagination -- 3. The System -- 4. Moving Up in an Age of Uncertainty -- 5. The Apogee -- 6. The New Pannonian Order -- 7. Christian Youth Culture in the 360s and 370s -- 8. Bishops, Bureaucrats, and Aristocrats under Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius -- 9. Old Age in a Young Man's Empire -- 10. A Generation's Legacy -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

The Final Pagan Generation recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Edward J. Watts traces their experiences of living through the fourth century's dramatic religious and political changes, when heated confrontations saw the Christian establishment legislate against pagan practices as mobs attacked pagan holy sites and temples. The emperors who issued these laws, the imperial officials charged with implementing them, and the Christian perpetrators of religious violence were almost exclusively young men whose attitudes and actions contrasted markedly with those of the earlier generation, who shared neither their juniors' interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their propensity for violent



conflict. Watts examines why the "final pagan generation"-born to the old ways and the old world in which it seemed to everyone that religious practices would continue as they had for the past two thousand years-proved both unable to anticipate the changes that imperially sponsored Christianity produced and unwilling to resist them. A compelling and provocative read, suitable for the general reader as well as students and scholars of the ancient world.