Narrative Images of Rome and Constantinople in Historiography: From Gibbon to the Late Antique Studies
E.V. Litovchenko's research was completed as part of the State Assignment of the Institute of History and Archaeology of Byzantium and the Black Sea Region of Sevastopol State University, "A Comprehensive Historical and Archaeological Study of Byzantium and the Black Sea Region in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages" (FEFM-2025-0002). The researcher contributed 40 %.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52575/2687-0967-2026-53-2-294-302Keywords:
Rome, Constantinople, Late Antiquity, historiography, narrative imagesAbstract
The article examines the evolution of historiographical approaches to evaluating the narrative images of Rome and Constantinople in Latin written sources of the fourth and fifth centuries. The primary objective of the study is to identify key shifts in the academic perception of these cities within historical scholarship. The methodological framework of the research is based on a comparative historiographical analysis that makes it possible to contrast various research paradigms and trace the intellectual trajectory from the classical concept of decline and fall established by Edward Gibbon to contemporary models of the sociocultural transformation of Late Antiquity. Through a detailed review of the conceptual works by Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, Peter Brown, Peter Heather, Averil Cameron and others, the article demonstrates a consistent scholarly shift away from perceiving imperial centers as static backdrops of degradation. Instead, the study substantiates their understanding as dynamic narrative images. The paper summarizes the most significant research findings regarding the impact of Christianization on the transformation of the symbolic space of the cities, as well as the crucial role of the bureaucratic apparatus in maintaining their elevated status. A major outcome of the research is the validation of the imagological approach for deconstructing the complex mechanisms involved in the transfer of imperial majesty and ideological continuity.
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