In this Book
News and Frontier Consciousness in the Late Roman Empire
Book
2006
Published by:
University of Michigan Press
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
summary
Prior to the third century A.D., two broad Roman conceptions of frontiers proliferated and competed: an imperial ideology of rule without limit coexisted with very real and pragmatic attempts to define and defend imperial frontiers. But from about A.D. 250-500, there was a basic shift in mentality, as news from and about frontiers began to portray a more defined Roman world—a world with limits—allowing a new understanding of frontiers as territorial and not just as divisions of people. This concept, previously unknown in the ancient world, brought with it a new consciousness, which soon spread to cosmology, geography, myth, sacred texts, and prophecy. The “frontier consciousness” produced a unified sense of Roman identity that transcended local identities and social boundaries throughout the later Empire.
Table of Contents

Part 1: Worldview
Part 2: Media: The Triumph of the Periphery
Part 3: Pagans, Christians, and Frontiers
ISBN | 9780472115624 |
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DOI | 10.1353/book.66756![]() |
MARC Record | Download |
OCLC | 1111386373 |
Pages | 266 |
Launched on MUSE | 2019-08-05 |
Language | English |
Open Access | Yes |
Creative Commons | CC-BY-NC-ND |