Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the evolution of literary genres in Late Antiquity. Given both the large number of genres that existed as well as the hybridisation that took place in Late Antiquity, it is often fruitful to return to first principles and to seek to determine to what genre a particular work belongs. Such is the nature of several investigations presented here, such as that of Philippe Blaudeau, seeking to understand the complexities of Liberatus' not-so-brief Breviarium, or that of Tiphaine Moreau, detecting the influence of several genres in Ambrose's sermon De Obitu Theodosii. In the legal sphere, the continuity in labour contracts observed by Christel Freu from the high empire through to Late Antiquity challenges assumptions about a decline in the conditions of labourers in the late empire, even if there were stylistic changes to the contracts and various different statuses co-existed.