ABSTRACT

This chapter charts the evolution of Romanitas in the Late Antique world through a detailed assessment of the personal identities and interests of four authors: John Diakrinomenos, Theodore Lector, Marcellinus Comes, and Victor of Tunnuna. All of these authors wrote in the sixth century, but they have been selected to represent different regions and traditions in the Roman world. Going author-by-author, the chapter examines authorial self-identity, drawn out primarily by assessing the writer's interest in their own homeland and patria at the expense of other regions of the empire. The language the author chose to write in and the religion each espoused also loom large in the analysis. Together, these vignettes show the transformation of Romanitas in this period.