Shock, Horror, or Same Old Same Old? Everyday Violence in Augustine’s Africa

Abstract

Recent studies of violence in the ancient Mediterranean world have stressed just how radically undertheorized the phenomenon is in modern scholarly literature. In response to this, they have identified a particular aspect or expression of violence, then used that as a foundation for generating a theoretical framework for understanding violent behavior more generally. But what relationship does general, generalized, or everyday violence have to the more reified, bounded forms of violence that have been the subject of scholarly attention to date? How should we best interpret the place of violence within communities, and its relationship to “nonviolent” means of communication and interaction? Earlier literature on the place of violence in ancient societies focused upon quantifying whether the ancient world was “more violent” than modern society. This article eschews a quantitative approach and focuses instead upon the role that violence might have played, rhetorically and strategically, in social interactions. It considers two short vignettes drawn from the writings of Augustine of Hippo and uses the consonances and dissonances between the presentation of violence in those texts to propose and problematize some theoretical positions on the strategic and heuristic value of violence in late Roman North Africa. In particular, it explores the utility of the concept of reciprocity and the ethical distinction between (reasonable or justifiable) force and (illegitimate or irrational) violence as tools for understanding the role of violence in everyday interactions in the period.