Jas Elsner is Professor of Late Antique Art at the University of Oxford, Humfrey Payne Senior Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Visiting Professor of Art and Religion at the University of Chicago. In 2009 he was elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and since 2013 has been Principal Investigator in the Empires of Faith Project. He is married with four children and lives in Oxford.

Jaś Elsner's ground - breaking account discusses both Roman and early Christian art in relation to such issues as power, death, society, acculturation, and religion ... he presents a fresh and challenging interpretation of an extraordinarily rich cultural crucible in which many fundamental developments of later European art had their origins.

• Preface 1: Introduction Part I - Images and Power 2: A Visual Culture 3: Art and Imperial Power Part II - Images and Society 4: Art and Social Life 5: Centre and Periphery 6: Art and Death Part III - Images and Transformation 7: Art and the Past: Antiquarian Eclecticism 8: Art and Religion 9: The Eurasian Context Epilogue 10: Art and Culture: Cost, Value, and the Discourse of Art Afterword: Some Futures of Christian Art Notes List of Illustrations Bibliographic Essay Timeline Essay