![]() ![]() Thus the Emperor Diocletian, who set his stamp on the Empire from 284 to 305, came from a lowly family in Dalmatia on the Adriatic coast. The old aristocrats were banned from military service and leadership of the Empire became more militarised, selected from the new men who had risen through the ranks. The prolonged crisis gave rise to a military revolution which remodelled the leadership of the Roman Empire. Communication between provinces broke down and the army produced no fewer than 25 emperors in 47 years. ![]() The structure and chapter headings summarise the overall story: Part One: The Late Roman Revolutionīetween 245 and 270 every border of the Roman Empire was breached by its enemies, most significantly the Persians in the east, the Goths in the north. It is some 220 pages long, in a large format paperback, with 130 illustrations, a chronology and a map – adding up to a well-written, visually stimulating and beautifully packaged book.Īnd it is extraordinarily accessible and interesting right from the start, throwing out ideas and insights on every page. It was published by Thames and Hudson under the umbrella of their Library of European Civilisation series. The World of Late Antiquity was published in 1971 as an extended essay or meditation on the earlier part of this period, from roughly 250 to 750 AD. His books in the 1960s and 70s are credited with bringing a new coherence to the study of the period, and a new attitude which saw it not as a story of inevitable decline and fall, but as a period of surprising vigour and innovation – as a much more complex, rich and fascinating period than had previously been thought.īrown helped to bury the term ‘Dark Ages’ – which is now generally deprecated – and bring about the recategorising of the period as the ‘Early Middle Ages’, now generally defined as 500 to 1000 AD. Peter Brown has been a pioneer of the study of the late Roman / Early Medieval world for 50 years. ![]()
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