Great courses. History. Ancient history.

Lecturer: the author

Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire painted a portrait of the Roman Empire in a long, debilitating slide to oblivion, but now historians have reevaluated this picture to create a radically different understanding of the period now known as "late antiquity." Far from being a period of decline and fall, late antiquity marked one of history's great turning points. These 36 half-hour lectures take you through five momentous centuries that link the classical world with the modern, beginning with Rome near its pinnacle of power and geographical extent and ending with the Byzantine Empire, the rise of Islam, and a succession of barbarian Christian kingdoms. You'll explore key features of late antiquity including how this tripartite division occurred; the memorable rulers and religious leaders who led the way; and the architecture, visual arts, and literature of the period. You also study what it was like to live in the late antique world: How did people earn their livings? What was the role of women in society? What distinguished the great cities of the era? Nothing in Rome's previous experience compared with the ferment of late antiquity, which saw the unpredictable growth of new institutions, states, religions, and arts. After taking this course you will never think of the barbarians and the "fall" of Rome in quite the same way again. Your imagination will be alive with the incidents, innovations, and peoples of an exciting era that gave birth to us all: late antiquity. All Lectures: 1. The World of Late Antiquity 2. The Crisis of the 3rd Century 3. The New Empire of Diocletian 4. Constantine's Roman Revolution 5. The House of Constantine, 337 - 363 6. The End of a Unified Empire 7. Ruling the Roman Empire - The Imperial Center 8. Ruling the Roman Empire - The Provinces 9. The Barbarians - Ethnicity and Identity 10. Rome and the Barbarians 11. Barbarian Kingdoms - Gaul 12. Barbarian Kingdoms - Spain and North Africa 13. Barbarian Kingdoms - Italy 14. The Eastern Empire in the 5th Century 15. The End of the Western Empire 16. The Age of Justinian, 527 - 565 17. The Christianization of the Roman World 18. Christianity and the Roman State 19. The Rise of the Roman Church 20. The Call of the Desert - Monasticism 21. Monasticism - Solitaries and Communities 22. The Church Fathers - Talking About God 23. Patristic Portraits 24. "What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem?" 25. Graven Images - Christianity's Visual Arts 26. The Universal in the Local - Cities 27. Rome and Constantinople 28. Visigothic Spain and Merovingian Gaul 29. Celt and Saxon in the British Isles 30. The Birth of Byzantium 31. Byzantium - Crisis and Recovery 32. Muhammad and the Rise of Islam 33. The Rise of the Caliphate 34. Material Life in Late Antiquity 35. The Social World of Late Antiquity 36. What Happened, and Why Does It Matter?

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