Meaghan McEvoy – författare

The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity examines the Roman imperial court as a social and political institution in both the Principate and Late Antiquity. By analysing these two periods, which are usually treated separately in studies of the Roman court, it considers continuities, changes, and connections in the six hundred years between the reigns of Augustus and Justinian. Thirteen case studies are presented. Some take a thematic approach, analysing specific aspects such as the appointment of jurists, the role of guard units, or stories told about the court, over several centuries. Others concentrate on specific periods, individuals, or office holders, like the role of women and generals in the fifth century AD, while paying attention to their wider historical significance. The volume concludes with a chapter placing the evolution of the Roman imperial court in comparative perspective using insights from scholarship on other Eurasian monarchical courts. It shows that the long-term transformation of the Roman imperial court did not follow a straightforward and linear course, but came about as the result of negotiation, experimentation, and adaptation.

An Open Access edition will be available on publication on the Liverpool University Press website, thanks to funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).The last generation of work on late antiquity has transformed our understanding of how the Roman world became Christian. But in this push for a new social and cultural history of late ancient Christianity, perceptions and practical realities of politics and government have largely been left behind. *Christian Political Cultures *seeks to diversify and reinvigorate the study of Christian political thought in late antiquity by moving beyond contemporary theorisations of the ideal Christian polity and the traditional problems of ‘church and state’. Its eleven essays use rich and sometimes overlooked case studies to map out sophisticated approaches to key themes in late ancient political culture: ‘popular’ perceptions of rule; Roman masculinity; the relationship between orthodoxy and legitimacy; and the political uses of hagiography. Taken as a whole, the book provides a springboard for new thinking about the role of Christian cultural frameworks within the social history of governance in late antiquity.