Abstract
Replacing the concept of “Dark Ages” with “Late Antiquity” in the work of cultural historians was a huge step that has enabled an enormous amount of creative work on the period. Nevertheless, while now conceived in more positive and dynamic terms than before, in its parameters and even identity as a coherent episode in cultural history, Late Antiquity remains subject to debate. The terms of debate are often determined by the various disciplinary allegiances among the debaters. Students of material culture frequently view late antiquity differently from literary scholars, just as medievalists view it differently from classicists, Latinists from Hellenists, and so forth. This is not a bad thing, except when communication is frustrated overvaluing the basic assumptions and standards of inference that obtain in one field and to undervalue those of others.
This paper will solve none of these problems, except by articulating what a classical and literary Latinist’s perspective on Late Antiquity might reasonably be. There is spectrum of possibilities, not equally applicable to all kinds of literary production, but easily distinguishable from ideas emanating from other disciplinary perspectives. The main points will be (1) to support the idea that Late Antiquity is a distinct period in the history of Latin literature (with some consideration of whether the same is true of Greek literature), and (2) to offer provisional commentary on the apparently heterogeneity of this literature in comparison to the apparent homogeneity of Classical Latin literature.
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