Alan Cameron - The Last Pagans of Rome

The Last Pagans of Rome

Alan Cameron

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cameron, Alan, 1938
The last pagans of Rome / Alan Cameron.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-19-974727-6

1. Christianity and other religionsRoman. 2. Church historyPrimitive and early church, ca. 30-600.
3. RomeHistoryEmpire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D. 4. Christianity and other religionsPaganismHistory
Early church, ca. 30-600. 5. PaganismRelationsChristianity. 6. EmperorsRome. I. Title.

BR170.C36 2011
261.220937dc22 2010009147

Undertaken with the assistance of the Stanwood Cockey Lodge Foundation.

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

For old friends
TDB, GWB, WVH, PEK, JAN
and (once again)
for Carla

The seeds that eventually grew into this volume were sown in articles I published as long ago as 1966 and 1977. It was in the 1980s that I first had the idea of turning my approach to the so-called pagan reaction into a book, and it was then that I began compiling the information on subscriptions that now fills chapters 1214. It was also then that I came up with the title, which, as my ideas progressed, has turned out to be more ironic than I originally intended. It would (I suspect) have been a very different book if I had written it then. But I had not yet thought out all the issues to my own satisfaction, and other projects (mostly Greek) beckoned more insistently. Yet I never gave up on the last pagans, and at the turn of the millennium decided that the moment had come to pick up the threads again. The last decade or so has not only seen much important new work, but also the unexpected discovery of important new texts.

I have incorporated radically revised versions of three early articles, and substantially revised and updated the unpublished drafts of were added at a late stage, provoked by the continuing emphasis in recent continental scholarship on the entirely lost (and surely trivial) history of Nicomachus Flavianus. At first I thought of publishing them separately, but given the ever increasing importance accorded this history in modern writing on the pagan reaction, they too belong in this book.

My debt to the published work of Alfldi, Barnes, Bloch, Brown, Chastagnol and Paschoud (among many others) will be obvious. Many friends have sent me books and offprints, supplied information, commented on drafts or discussed problems with me over many years. I think particularly of Tim Barnes, Glen Bowersock, Christopher Jones, Franca Ela Consolino, Bob Kaster, Arnaldo Marcone, John North, Lellia Cracco Ruggini, Rita Lizzi Testa, Michele Salzman, Peter Schmidt, and Jim Zetzel. I am especially grateful to Michele for organizing a symposium on my views in May 2008 (and to Carmela Franklin for hosting it at the American Academy in Rome); and to Tim for generously taking the time to give the entire penultimate version of the manuscript a thorough critical reading, saving me from many errors.

I have also profited from criticisms and information of various sorts from Neil Adkin, Tom Banchich, Doug Boin, Philippe Bruggisser, Richard Burgess, J.-P. Callu, Giovanni Cecconi, Brian Croke, Michel Festy, Gavin Kelly, Dale Kinney, Hartmut Leppin, Neil McLynn, Silvio Panciera, Umberto Romano, Cristiana Sogno, John Weisweiler, and many others over the years. I wish I could recall the names of all those who asked questions after lectures that started a train of thought or led me to rethink an issue. Irene SanPietro helped with editorial work on a difficult manuscript, and David Ratzan performed the Herculean task of compiling the index. Hrica Valladares suggested the cover illustration. I am particularly grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for awarding me an emeritus fellowship that covered many expenses, and to the Stanwood Cockey Lodge Fund of Columbia University for a generous subvention to defray the cost of publication. Finally, a special thank you to Stefan Vranka and the staff of Oxford Press USA for accepting so forbidding a manuscript in such difficult times, and for the promptest and most efficient operation I have encountered in forty years of publishing books.

CHAPTER 1
Pagans and Polytheists

CHAPTER 2
From Constantius to Theodosius

CHAPTER 3
The Frigidus

CHAPTER 4
Priests and Initiates

CHAPTER 5
Pagan Converts

CHAPTER 6
Pagan Writers

CHAPTER 7
Macrobius and the Pagan Culture of His Age

CHAPTER 8
The Poem against the Pagans

CHAPTER 9
Other Christian Verse Invectives

CHAPTER 10
The Real Circle of Symmachus

CHAPTER 11
The Pagan Literary Revival

CHAPTER 12
Correctors and Critics I

CHAPTER 13
Correctors and Critics II

CHAPTER 14
The Livian Revival

CHAPTER 15
Greek Texts and Latin Translation

CHAPTER 16
Pagan Scholarship: Vergil and His Commentators

CHAPTER 17
The Annales of Nicomachus Flavianus I

CHAPTER 18
The Annales of Nicomachus Flavianus II

CHAPTER 19
Classical Revivals and Pagan Art

CHAPTER 20
The Historia Augusta

APPENDIX
The Poem against the Pagans

The Last Pagans of Rome

The ruin of paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered, as a singular event in the history of the human mind

Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Ch. xviii

The last pagans of my title are the nobles of late fourth-century Rome. Although they spent their days moving between their grand Roman mansions and a variety of suburban villas, the oldest families owned estates all over Italy, North Africa, and many other parts of the empire, thus controlling the lives of hundreds of thousands. In the region of Hippo, according to Augustine, people said that if one particular noble converted, no pagans would be left.