'Luke Lavans Public Space in the Late Antique City represents a magnificent summation to almost twenty years of research, encompassing fieldwork survey and excavation, innumerable city visits to check the evidence on the ground, and exhaustive library research. The catalogue listing the urban amenities of the Late Antique City is in itself an extraordinary resource for all future studies of the Roman urban fabric. Here we finally have the data, literally from the ground up, to evaluate the competing theories on the decline, continuity or flourishing of public life in the towns of the final centuries of Roman imperial power.' - John Bintliff, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh and Leiden
Luke Lavans Public Space in the Late Antique City is a pathbreaking achievement as a synthesis, which makes much previous work on the subject unnecessary to read. It is firmly based in a uniquely detailed account of how the monumental life of late Roman cities worked in material terms, grounded in a remarkable knowledge of the archaeology, as set out in an invaluable volume of appendices, which every late antique scholar will also need to have by them. In many ways, this book is a new starting-point for late antique archaeology and material culture. I wish I had had it by me when I wrote on this topic, more superficially, twenty years ago. - Chris Wickham, Chichele Professor of Medieval History emeritus, University of Oxford
Ce livre offre un aperēu trčs complet de lorganisation de lespace public des villes de lAntiquité Tardive (rues, fora/agorai, macella, boutiques). Les villes, ą lintérieur de frontičres gardées par des castra, sont riches et peuplées, attachées ą leur passé. Léglise sintroduit dans cet espace sans le remettre en cause. Les villes gardent leur decorum antique, leur équipement civique, leurs bouleutčria, leurs thermes, leurs lieux de spectacle (théātres, hippodromes). Constantinople sattache ą reproduire les caractéristiques de Rome pour se poser en capitale politique et religieuse. Les évźques vers la fin du Ve s. simposent peu ą peu en leaders de leur ville, y compris de son administration, jouant de leur poids religieux pour adoucir une hiérarchisation sociale forte héritée de lAntiquité. - Jean-Pierre Sodini, Professeur émerité, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Membre de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
