Jonathan Conant, Staying Roman. Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean, 439–700, Cambridge University Press 2012

Late antique North Africa has increasingly become the focus of research in recent decades. In particular, the Vandal interregnum has become an object of study, as an example of the integration of a barbarian tribe into the Roman-Mediterranean area of rule. Jonathan Conant asks the counter-question on this topic in his book “Staying Roman”: “what became of the idea of Romanness […] once Roman power collapsed?” (p. 1).

Conant elaborates on his differentiated thesis that “the fracturing of the political unity of the Roman empire […] also led to a fracturing of Roman identity” (p. 2). For this he defines “Romanness” as a flexible cultural system. Language, way of life, art, or institutions could mark cornerstones of identities as well as the identification of contemporaries with the Imperium Romanum and its history. Methodologically, Conant approaches this question on two levels: on the one hand, he uses prosopographic, onomastic, and archaeological data to investigate the social and economic networking of North Africa in the Mediterranean region. On the other hand, he analyses identity discourses in late antique literary texts.

The first three chapters of the book are devoted to Vandal North Africa. Chapter 1 (p. 19–66) deals with the legitimation of Vandal power. Conant argues that the Vandal elite quickly adopted a lifestyle that corresponded to that of the North African “late Roman gentry” (p. 52). In Vandal North Africa, “high culture” was synonymous with Roman culture. For the cohesion of the Vandal gens, on the other hand, belonging to the military was a decisive element. Conant argues that contemporaries were able to distinguish between Vandals and provincial Romans. From today’s perspective, it is not easy to identify those distinguishing characteristics.

The second chapter (p. 67–129) examines the integration of North Africa into the Mediterranean region on the basis of the “circulation of people, goods, and ideas” (p. 67). Conant establishes that North Africa was closely related to Italy in every respect. In contrast, Constantinople, for example, was an important migration destination for North Africans, but trade contacts or the adoption of saintly cults between North Africa and the metropolis of the East can rarely be proven. According to Conant, North Africa remained “remarkably well integrated into the larger Mediterranean world” in the fifth and sixth centuries (p. 128).

Chapter 3, “The old ruling class under the Vandals” (p. 130–165), explores the question under what conditions the Roman elites were able to come to terms with the Vandal rulers. Politically, Vandal rule was quickly accepted. But the situation was different in the field of religious identities: from the Vandal point of view, a settlement was only possible through the conversion of the Romans to Arian Christianity. They tried to achieve this by means of massive pressure on the Nicene Church (exiles, vacant bishoprics, expropriations), but escalating violence remained the exception. The Nicene clergy resisted this policy and made “staying Roman” a question of being a Nicene Christian.

The fourth chapter “New Rome, New Romans” (p. 196–251) deals with the Byzantine part of the book. Here Conant examines how North Africa, after the end of the Vandal reign, could be reintegrated into an empire that saw itself as Roman, but whose political and cultural centre of gravity now lay in Constantinople. Almost all high-ranking military and political functionaries were men with “frontier origins”, at first mainly from the Balkans, later from the eastern provinces of the empire. Experience and close relations with the imperial court were crucial for their deployment. “Local experience” in North Africa (p. 217) apparently also played a military role, which was quite unusual in comparison to other provinces. The numerically very small Byzantine ruling class had hardly integrated into North African society.

In chapter 5 (p. 252–305) Conant engages with the so-called “Moorish Alternative”. The central question is whether the emergence of Berber “kingdoms” led to individual regions of North Africa becoming “somehow un-Roman” during the course of the fifth century. Byzantine authors such as Procopius and Corippus strongly emphasised the cultural difference to the Berbers, using ethnographic stereotypes from ancient literature in the pool. In contrast, Conant points to the continuity of Roman cultural elements out. Berber leaders articulated their claim to power in established Roman forms and recognised the overarching authority of the Byzantine Empire.

The sixth chapter (p. 306–361) focuses on the tense relationship between periphery and centre in the Byzantine-imperial framework. Conant, in contrast to the older research, does not see any fundamental opposition or even resistance of the North African Church to the empire in the participation of North African bishops in the theological disputes of the sixth and seventh centuries (Three-Chapter Controversy, monergetic-monotheletic controversy). Instead, he interprets their involvement as an attempt of preserving established traditions of the self-confident North African Church. Overall, Conant declares the reintegration of North Africa into the Byzantine Empire as an extremely successful process.

In the subsequent brief outlook on Islamic North Africa in Chapter 7 (p. 362–370), Conant looks primarily for continuities of Christian life or ecclesiastical structures, followed by a conclusion (p. 371–378).

All in all, Conant provides a fascinating study on a fascinating topic. Nonetheless, this already strong book could have been improved in some respects. It would have been desirable to underpin the discussion of Roman identity or identities by using a theoretical framework from several disciplines to discuss such a complex topic. Conant’s use of Romanness/Romanitas often seems vague. A differentiation on his analysis of Roman identity or identities and its change over the centuries would have benefitted from such an approach. In this context, Conant concludes that “Politics, high culture, and religion became the axes of Roman identity in fifth-century North Africa and remained so through to at least the beginning of the eighth century” (p. 374). This can also be seen in his discussion of inscriptions where individuals claim to be “Roman”. But in a second step, it would have been worth looking at why and in which context these people might have had reasons for doing so.

Contrary to what the title of the book might suggest, it is not only about continuity lines of Roman identity. Conant’s book is a much broader investigation that links North Africa in the late antique Mediterranean with the transformation of social identities under the influence of major politics. The enormous spectrum of sources that Conant evaluates is exemplary and impressive. Experiences of war and conquest, new elites and rulers shaped the understanding of a Roman identity again and again. Ethnic, military, political, and religious aspects shaped a different definition of Romanitas in late antique North Africa at each time.