Defining Late Antiquity through Epigraphy?

In the last pages of his remarkable Hellenica IV (Paris 1950, pp. 108-110), dedicated to verse dedications to late antique governors and imperial officials, Louis Robert proposed to define le ‘Bas-Empire’ in the eastern part of the Mediterranean as the period characterised by such an epigraphic style, which was peculiar and distinct from the previous, being nonetheless refined and sophisticated. Robert stressed the unity and originality of such a late style – whose life extended from the second half of the third to the sixth century- and observed the correspondence existing between its age of diffusion and the «coupures chronologiques dans les institutions et la civilisation». This was a step forward from the empirical and negative definition of late inscriptions, generally merely identified by the poor quality of realization and connected to the general decline of written culture, as well as to social and political degeneration. The individuation of a late-antique facies in Latin epigraphy (which customarily embraces the period from the VII century BC to the whole VIth century AD) has been somehow complicated by the development of a partly competing Christian epigraphy (which separated and valorised some of the written documents of late antiquity in the perspective of the history of Christianity), and in more recent times by the rise of a medieval epigraphy. Ancient scholars dealing with classical, profane Latin epigraphy showed to be aware of the difference existing between early empire epigraphic practices and late ones. But the positive recognition of a coherent ‘late style’ whose character of unity and originality can be outlined, a ‘terza età dell’epigrafia’ (‘third age of epigraphy’), is a very recent achievement; and this research field remains still ambiguously delimited. In any case, in both Latin and Greek epigraphy, the recognition of a late epigraphic habit came with a considerable delay in comparison to the discovery of a late antique world. At this proposal, it must be said that, also in recent times, epigraphists seem more concerned by defining epigraphy in itself than in its internal periodizations. Is it indeed legitimate to speak of a distinctive, late antique culture of written displays, which involved practices such as commemorating buildings and restorations, inscribing tombstones, dedicating statues and other honorific monuments? What has been the role of epigraphic studies in shaping late antiquity in the last 50 years? How the boundaries between classical epigraphy, Christian epigraphy, medieval epigraphy in the west, and byzantine epigraphy in the east have shifted meanwhile? These are only some of the questions which are raised by such an approach. This paper aims at investigating at least some of the fundamental methodological and historiographical issues connected to the subject; more specifically, it intends to analyse how the deeper consciousness of the same concept of ‘epigraphic habit’ has modified research approaches; and how the attention newly paid to formal aspects both of inscribed texts (palaeography) and of their supports (classification, evolution, practice of reuse) may contribute to periodize this historical phase.