The Roman Near East, 31 BC-AD 337 by Fergus Millar (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Ancient and Medieval The Roman Near East, 31 BC-AD 337. By Fergus Millar. (Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press. 1993. Pp. xxxii, 587.) This is an extremely well-documented volume on the extension of Roman rule in the Near East in the course of the four centuries or so that elapsed after the battle of Actium in 31 B.C. Its Near East is not that region in its entirety but the Semitic Near East, the future Byzantine Diocese of Oriens, that excluded Anatolia and Egypt. The author ably discusses the various stages of this extension of Roman rule, which in the reigns of Trajan, Severus, and Diocletian went beyond the Euphrates, thus going counter to Augustus's decision to make the Euphrates the boundary between Rome and Iran. The author is careful not to present his work as a contribution to the history of Roman "drums and trumpets," and so he thoroughly goes through the history, geography, and religions of the sub-regions which constituted the Near East, and in the process he demonstrates the power of Hellenization and Romanization in transforming this Semitic Near East from what it had been to what it came to be at the end of this period. The author has acquitted himself remarkably well in the execution ofhis task, and all students of Roman history should be grateful to him for this well-researched and richly-documented volume. What would interest readers of this journal most is what the author says on Christianity and the two Semitic peoples that were related to it, namely, the Jews and the Arabs, the latter being the people who sponsored the spread of Islam, the monotheistic Abrahamic religion, in the seventh century and with it the Arab conquests. These topics are important in this age ofecumenism and of inter-faith dialogues and their treatment calls for the following critical comments. In a volume of this size and context, more might have been said on Christianity: on its fortunes in the Near East as a persecuted religion and on its final triumph in the fourth century when Constantine converted and declared it religio licita, thus revolutionizing the history of the region and the world. There is fresh material on both Christianity in this period and on the vexata quaestio of Constantine's conversion. 251 252 BOOK REVIEWS His treatment of the two Semitic peoples, the Jews and the Arabs, is of unequal value. It is excellent on the Jews, with whose language and history he is evidently conversant but not so on die Arabs, who do not do well with him. The sedentary Arabs of Emesa, Edessa, Nabataea, and Palmyrena—whose territories formed a large chunk of die Near East—wrote important chapters in die history of this region and of Rome, as they contributed to the welfare of Christianity before Constantine and as they protected the Roman frontier. It is common knowledge that their Arabness was much diluted by the forces of Hellenization and Romanization, but it was not entirely obliterated. The audior strips them of dieir Arab identity and chooses to conceive of die Arabs as those nomads of the steppe who appear as a threat to the Roman-controlled Near East. The vulnerability of this conception of the Arabs is advertised by the author himself, who confessedly has no knowledge ofArabic (p. xvi). This naturally has led him to operate with dependent judgments and to a view of Arab history, which no true and objective scholar of Arabic, Arabica, and Romano-arabica will accept. But it is good to hear die audior say diat by down-playing the significance of Arab identity, his book should not "seem to take one side in the profound religious and communal tensions of the modern world." The volume, however, remains a substantial contribution to the study ofthe extension ofRoman rule in the Near East from the principate ofAugustus to die reign of Constantine. Irfan Shahid Georgetown University Religion and Literature in Western England, 600—800. By Patrick SimsWilliams . [Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, Volume 3·] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1990. Pp. xvi, 448 incl. 2 maps. $79.95.) The proliferation of general and specialized studies...