CUP (2015) h/b 363pp £74.99 (ISBN 9781107092112)
Much ink has been spilt on Greek and Roman festivals with their processions and rituals, establishing their importance for social cohesion, but with rather less attention on their endurance into later centuries. G.’s book addresses this omission, focussing in particular on the survival of pagan festival practices into the Christian period, with special attention to festivals which originated in the city of Rome, but had spread to the cities of the eastern Roman Empire.
The book in divided into three parts, with part II, on Roman festivals in the east after Constantine, clearly the heart of the discussion. Part I offers a backdrop to this investigation, offering in chapter 1 a stimulating overview of the re-invigoration of Greek festival culture in the eastern provinces during the imperial period, and in chapter 2 a discussion of the introduction of Roman festivals into eastern cities.
In part II we turn to Graf’s central question, how these festivals survived, changed and were viewed in the centuries after Constantine. Chapter 3 looks at Theodosius’ reform of the legal calendar in AD 389, within which the pagan festivals of the Kalendae Ianuarius and the birthdays of the cities of Rome and Constantinople were acknowledged alongside imperial festivals and the Christian celebration of Easter. Chapter 4 looks at some of the immediate responses to this, focussing on discussions of the Kalendae in pagan and Christian rhetoric. Chapter 5 turns instead to the history of Lupercalia from Augustus to Constantine Porphyrogennetos, while chapter 6 looks at the importance of aetiological myths. Chapters 7 and 8 look respectively at the Brumalia and Kalendae in later Constantinople, while chapter 9 sums up some of the common themes by exploring the impact of traditional festival culture on Christian liturgy. Part III turns from the impact of Christianity on communal festival culture to its involvement in individual religious experience in the contexts of incubation (chapter 10) and magic (chapter 11).
This is a dense and erudite book, full of detail and insight. It has much to offer scholars of religion and late antiquity, though might prove more daunting to a more general audience. Those willing to read closely, however, will find a stimulating account of the ongoing importance of festivals for social cohesion and group identity, as well as the concerns of Church and State to keep them within safe boundaries.
Zahra Newby—University of Warwick