News and Frontier Consciousness in the Late Roman Empire

Graham, Mark W.

News and Frontier Consciousness in the Late Roman Empire

In this Book

News and Frontier Consciousness in the Late Roman Empire
Mark W. Graham
2006
Book
Published by: University of Michigan Press
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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.