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The End of the Pagan City: Religion, Economy, and Urbanism in Late Antique North Africa . By Anna Leone . Oxford University Press , Oxford , 2013. ISBN 978-0-19-957092-8 , pp. xxii+ 319, 49 figures, 5 tables. Price: £70.00 (Hardcover).
Book Reviews
This book details the results of Anna Leone's most recent research on Late Antique North Africa, based on her collection of published documentation at Durham, Oxford and Rome, and on the analysis of archaeological evidence in situ. Various aspects of this new contribution draw from the author's previous monograph Changing Townscapes in North Africa,1updating and moving the discussion forward in order to focus the attention on the transition (dichotomy vs. overlap) between Paganism and Christianity. The volume comprises six chapters where different sets of data are analysed to answer the questions addressed, plus two appendices: a list of all known inscriptions which mention flamines and sacerdotales in North Africa from the fourth century onwards; and a discussion on the architectural evidence of Basilica I at Sabratha,2highlighting the main points of the research undertaken by the author at this site in 2010. The visit to Basilica II, originally planned as part of the fieldwork, had to be cancelled due to the start of the conflict in Libya.
The principal goal of the book is to provide an overview of the urban life of the North African cities in Late Antiquity from an archaeological perspective. As acknowledged by the author (3-4), this analysis has the advantage of presenting a complementary insight into a subject traditionally approached by looking mainly at written sources;3on the other hand, the rather limited amount of archaeological data available represents the main obstacle. This is sadly not surprising for scholars working on North Africa: the excavations carried out in the colonial period (mostly by Italian and French missions) allowed little space for stratigraphic methodologies and for the recording of post-Roman phases, thus creating a gap in the material evidence preserved. Precisely because of this, the greatest merit of the book is the attempt to overcome these difficulties by putting together pieces of information from different contexts. Overall, it is an appreciable further step towards a better understanding...