Book Review: Anastasius I: Politics and Empire in the Late Roman World

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

F. K. Haarer, Anastasius I: Politics and Empire in the Late Roman World. Cambridge: Francis Cairns, 2006. Pp. xiv, 351. Reviewed by Stefanie A. H. Kennell, American School of Classical Studies at Athens (skennell@ascsa.edu.gr). Word count: 2846 words

Table of Contents

The emperor Anastasius (491-518) has been thought commendably sensible, a fence-sitter, or (more often) intemperately heterodox in regard to religious policy -- depending on sectarian loyalties (Monophysite or Orthodox), language (Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic, or Latin) and geographical location (East or West) -- while his management of the Empire's finances, bureaucracy, and military has more readily attracted respect. In other words, though Anastasius failed to sedate the religious divisions between West and East as well as around the East, he did leave his successors Justin and Justinian with a solid administrative infrastructure, fairly secure borders, and a well-filled treasury. Although in recent decades scholars have scrutinized his reign's doctrinal controversies and wars with the Persians, the only book-length treatment of his governance as a whole appeared in Italian nearly 40 years ago.1 This book, an expansion of Haarer's (hereafter H) 1996 Oxford M. Phil. and 1998 doctoral theses on the reign of Anastasius (supervised by J. Howard-Johnson and Averil Cameron and Peter Heather respectively), thus aims to provide a comprehensive up-to-date study in English. As befits its academic pedigree, this volume's eight chapters and seven appendices (plus a glossary, bibliography, index locorum, and general index) offer a carefully documented account of the background to and events of Anastasius' reign . . . . .

Apart from the Rome problem, H regards keeping Palestine and Egypt in the Church and the empire as Anastasius' greatest challenge. Discussion of the alternative to Orthodoxy relies on W.H.C. Frend's 1972 The Rise of the Monophysite Movement. Zeno's Henoticon was successful to "a certain degree," but some Easterners, including "Peter Fuller" (124) could not accept an imperial document that ignored Chalcedon.

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