Religious Violence in the Ancient World : From Classical Athens to Late Antiquity

The first assessment of religious violence throughout the whole of Antiquity, with a particular focus on Late Antiquity where a much more nuanced picture is offered, grounded in recent cutting-edge research. Of interest to scholars of Graeco-Roman religions and Late Antiquity, historians of early Christianity and historians of religion.

Much like our world today, Late Antiquity (fourth-seventh centuries CE) is often seen as a period rife with religious violence, not least because the literary sources are full of stories of Christians attacking temples, statues and ''pagans''. However, using insights from Religious Studies, recent studies have demonstrated that the Late Antique sources disguise a much more intricate reality. The present volume builds on this recent cutting-edge scholarship on religious violence in Late Antiquity in order to come to more nuanced judgments about the nature of the violence. At the same time, the focus on Late Antiquity has taken away from the fact that the phenomenon was no less prevalent in the earlier Graeco-Roman world. This book is therefore the first to bring together scholars with expertise ranging from classical Athens to Late Antiquity to examine the phenomenon in all its complexity and diversity throughout Antiquity.