Theodoret's People: Social Networks and Religious Conflict in Late Roman Syria by Adam Schor

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 463 Il s’agit donc d’un livre polyphonique, séduisant (mais comment en aurait-il été autrement ?) par la multiplicité des sources et des points de vue qu’il adopte. Mais cette grande diversité n’a pour véritable point commun que le seul nom de Cléopâtre. Une conclusion, au moins provisoire, aurait été souhaitable afin d’atténuer l’impression de juxtaposition hétéroclite. En fin de compte, de quoi Cléopâtre est-elle le nom ? Universit e de Lille – Nord de France Christian-Georges Schwentzel Theodoret's People: Social Networks and Religious Conflict in Late Roman Syria. By Adam Schor. Berkeley: University of California Press (Transformation of the Classical Heritage 48). 2011. Pp. xv, 342. Prosopography proved a powerful tool in the hands of Sir Ronald Syme for teasing out factional divisions among the social elite in the late republic and early empire. Family relationships, whether by blood, adoption, or marriage, as well as offices held, could signal larger political affiliations between individuals when the surviving historical sources provide only the barest biographical details, if any at all.1 The prosopographic techniques applied with so much success by Syme in The Roman Revolution (Oxford 1939) have seen, perhaps, diminishing returns in recent decades, but the field is now being re-energized by a new focus on “prosopographic networks.” The new quantitative foundation is provided by the analytical tools of social network theory in sociology.2 The abundance of largely untapped evidence from late antiquity provides a density of documentation that may permit these tools to be applied to ancient history. Because Christian clergy did not usually create social networks by marriage and paternity so much as by shared doctrinal and hierarchical deference, network “links,” determined by broader social cues, rather than blood relationships, are more appropriate objects of study for the period. Schor’s monograph on Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, is a bold step towards implementing this new theoretical framework. Schor gives a good outline of social network theory, which can be characterized by a series of descriptive metrics: nodes, links, and density. Individual nodes can be ranked according to their centrality and connectivity. These metrics can be used not only to determine the size of a social network but also the relative importance of certain individuals (“nodes”) who serve as gatekeepers to other sections of the network. The social importance and even dominance of actors within a network can be assigned a number. The question is whether there is adequate evidence to reconstruct Theodoret’s social networks, and, more importantly, whether the formal description of these networks carries any explanatory force in accounting for the highs and lows of his long career. Part I begins with a crucial discussion of just what constitutes a “link” within Theodoret ’s social network (Chapter One). Schor identifies verbal cues within the letters that 1 On the history of prosopography and its use in ancient history, see T. D. Barnes, “Prosopography Modern and Ancient” and “Prosopography and Roman History,” in K. S. B. Keats-Rohan (ed.), Prosopography Approaches and Applications: A Handbook (Oxford 2007) 71–94. This useful collection of essays is surprisingly absent from Schor’s bibliography. 2 G. Ruffini and S. Graham, “Network Analysis and Greco-Roman Prosopography,” in KeatsRohan (above, n. 1) 325–336. See also G. Ruffini, Social Networks in Byzantine Egypt (Cambridge 2008). 464 PHOENIX signal intimacy and affection between Theodoret and his correspondents (philia and agape), as well as cues that signal shared orthodoxy and ideology (especially akribeia and synkatabasis). More than one of these cues must be present in a letter for a network link to be established. Chapters One to Three flesh out Theodoret’s networks synchronically (within Syria) and diachronically (in the Meletian Schism in Antioch). The long-lived Acacius of Beroea, a figure Schor calls a “godfather” (94), was a living link between the origins of the network in Antioch and the crisis at the Council of Ephesus in 431. So significant was Acacius within the ecclesiastical network at the time of First Ephesus in 431 that all sides would try to bring him into their fold to gain his...