Rom und Mailand in der Spätantike: Repräsentationen städtischer Räume in Literatur, Architektur und Kunst ed. by Therese Fuhrer (review)

Recent years have seen an impressive amount of research on the late-antique city of Rome, a general growth of interest in late-antique capitals, and a flourishing of work on late-antique urbanism in general. Until very recently what had been lacking was work looking at late antique (capital) cities in properly comparative perspective so this volume, the first to focus directly on Rome and Milan together, is bound to be welcome. This edited collection stems from a May 2009 conference in Berlin and features the work of both historians and archaeologists. Because space does not permit detailed discussion of all sixteen chapters, this review will aim at a broad overview of the volume and its strengths and weaknesses.

After a brief introduction the volume is divided into four parts. The first looks at the city and (and without) the emperor. Here the focus is primarily material, looking at the topography and archaeology of the two cities. Inevitably, the focus is primarily on Rome, due to the vastly more extensive ancient remains surviving from this city. This section includes a useful account by Vincent Jolivet and Claire Sotinel of the early-fifth-century imperial palace recently excavated at the Villa Medici, the so-called Domus Pinciana. Part 2, consisting of only two chapters, focuses on literary representations of the two cities, in imperial panegyric (Rome and Milan), and in the writings of Ammianus Marcellinus (Rome alone). Part 3, which focuses exclusively on Rome, looks at the currently fashionable concept of the (late-antique) city as “Erinnerungslandschaft” (landscape of memory), focusing on both literary texts (including Macrobius, Prudentius, Sidonius Apollinaris, and Servius) and topography (including the Roman Forum, Forum of Augustus, and the Lupercal). Finally, the last and longest section of the book explores the late-antique city in Christian discourse, with chapters again focusing on topography and text alike.

As can be seen, certain key themes and interests tie this volume together, other than the focus on Rome and Milan. Both the importance of rhetoric, and the ideological as well as physical significance of topography and topographical change, are notably prominent, as is to be expected from recent scholarship. Bishops are key figures in the late-antique city—the towering figure of St. Ambrose is unsurprisingly prominent in several discussions of Milan, whereas St. Damasus is the subject of a lengthy and useful reconsideration by Neil McLynn (the sole chapter in the volume written in English, rather than German). Direct juxtaposition—or indeed, comparison—of Rome and Milan within individual chapters is rare, which is perhaps to be expected considering the huge differences between the two cities. Several chapters do a good job of getting beyond the limitations of the literary and archaeological evidence available for Milan, including Claudia Tiersch’s chapter, which looks at the evidence for Christian Milan in the fourth century.Therese Fuhrer, meanwhile, in another interesting chapter, looks at the interaction of text and built space in our picture of late-antique Milan.

Scholars interested in Rome and Milan in late antiquity will undoubtedly find much of interest. This reviewer feels that, with a little more editorial input, the volume could have been rather more than the sum of its parts.The presence of an index locorum, as well as a general index, is to be welcomed. However, a combined bibliography would have been more convenient for the reader, and a more substantive, referenced introduction also would have added to the utility of the volume as a larger contribution to the history of imperial capitals in late antiquity.