Overview

(2023/24 Term 2 Office Hours: Mondays 10:30-11:30; Tuesdays 3:30-4:30; Thursdays 3:30-4:30)

My research interests range across the Roman, late Roman and early medieval periods, although I specialise in the role of invective and abuse in all forms of politics and the formation of authoritative knowledge in late antiquity. This includes working on a number of early Christian writings that have traditionally been seen as part of Patristics.

Having spent several years looking at the role of polemic in the political culture of the later Roman empire, I am currently working on the growth of late-antique heresiology in the context of classical notions of the ordering of knowledge, which will be the subject of my next monograph. During 2015-16, I held an AHRC Early Career Fellowship for a project entitled Cataloguing Damnation: The Birth of Scientific Heresiology in Late Antiquity, which has resulted in a number of articles on this subject. I am also currently editing the Cambridge Companion to Christian Heresy and, together with Professor Morwenna Ludlow, recently edited a volume entitled Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity (OUP, 2020), which resulted from conferences held at Exeter in 2015 and 2016.

As part of my AHRC Fellowship, I recorded a series of interviews with academics about surprising and unfamiliar aspects of the ancient world entitled The Distant Pasts, which are available to listen to as podcasts.

I am also currently working with an international team of scholars on a new project entitled Connecting Late Antiquities. This involves digitising and linking a wealth of different prosopographical materials for late antiquity, including making the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire available online (with the kind permission of Cambridge University Press). The project has received an AHRC-DFG grant for 2023-25, allowing these initial activities to be completed.

If you're an undergraduate looking to write a final-year dissertation or a potential applicant considering doing an MA or PhD thesis on a late-antique topic (or anything else Roman that sounds fun), then please send me an email and I'll be happy to discuss your ideas with you.

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Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2024 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2016 | 2015 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 |

2024

• Flower R. (2024) Depicting the other in early Christian polemic: Christian rhetoric and identity in the early heresiologists, The Cambridge History of Ancient Christianity, 57-79.

2022

• Flower R, McEvoy M, Whelan R. (2022) Introduction, Journal of Late Antiquity, volume 15, no. 2, pages 326-332, DOI:10.1353/jla.2022.0019. [PDF]
• Flower R. (2022) The Fragmentary Latin Histories of Late Antiquity (ad 300–620): Edition, Translation and Commentary. By LieveVan Hoof and PeterVan Nuffelen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2020. x + 332 pp. £89.99. ISBN 978 1 108 42027 3, Early Medieval Europe, volume 31, no. 1, pages 131-133, DOI:10.1111/emed.12604. [PDF]

2021

• Flower R. (2021) 'I cut its neck with its own sword': Tradition, Subversion and Heresiological Authority in the Praedestinatus, Cineres Extincti Dogmatis Refouendo? "Pelagianism" in the Christian Sources from 431 to the Carolingian Period, 55-77.
• Flower R. (2021) Augustine’s De haeresibus and Competitive Heresiology, The Late (Wild) Augustine, Brill Schoningh, 64-82.

2020

• Various. (2020) Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity, Oxford University Press, USA.
• Flower RA. (2020) The Rhetoric of Heresiological Prefaces, Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity, Oxford University Press, 180-197.
• Ludlow MA. (2020) Christian literary identity and rhetoric about style, Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity, Oxford University Press, 231-250, DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198813194.003.0015.

2019

• Flower RA. (2019) Witnesses for the Persecution: Textual Communities of Exile under Constantius II, Studies in Late Antiquity, volume 3.3, pages 337-368, DOI:10.1525/sla.2019.3.3.337.

2016

• Flower RA. (2016) Adrian: Introduction to the Divine Scriptures, Handbuch Der Bibelhemeneutiken, Walter de Gruyter, 73-81.
• Flower RA. (2016) Imperial Invectives against Constantius II: Athanasius of Alexandria’s History of the Arians, Hilary of Poitiers’ Against Constantius and Lucifer of Cagliari’s The Necessity of Dying for the Son of God, Liverpool University Press, DOI:10.3828/978-1-78138-328-5.

2015

• Flower RA. (2015) History Matters.
• Flower RA. (2015) The Artistry of Religious Historiography in Late Antiquity, New Approaches to the Later Roman Empire, Kyoto University, 137-144.
• Flower R. (2015) TAMQVAM FIGMENTVM HOMINIS: AMMIANUS, CONSTANTIUS II AND THE PORTRAYAL OF IMPERIAL RITUAL, The Classical Quarterly, volume 65, no. 2, pages 822-835, DOI:10.1017/s000983881500035x. [PDF]

2013

• Flower RA. (2013) Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective, Cambridge University Press.
• Flower RA. (2013) 'The insanity of heretics must be restrained': Heresiology in the Theodosian Code, Theodosius II: Rethinking the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, 172-194.

2012

• Flower RA. (2012) Visions of Constantine, Journal of Roman Studies, volume 102, pages 287-305, DOI:10.1017/S0075435812000068.

2011

• Flower RA. (2011) Genealogies of Unbelief: Epiphanius of Salamis and Heresiological Authority, Unclassical Traditions, Volume II: Perspectives from East and West in Late Antiquity, Cambridge Philological Society, 70-87.
• Various. (2011) Unclassical Traditions, Volume II: Perspectives from East and West in Late Antiquity.

2010

• Flower R. (2010) P. Rousseau and M. Papoutsakis, TRANSFORMATIONS OF LATE ANTIQUITY: ESSAYS FOR PETER BROWN. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. Pp. xx + 345. ISBN 978-0-75466-553-3. £65.00, Journal of Roman Studies, volume 100, pages 354-355, DOI:10.1017/s0075435810001097. [PDF]
• Flower RA. (2010) The emperor's new past: re-enactment and inversion in Christian invectives against Constantius II, Unclassical Traditions, Volume I: Alternatives to the Classical Past in Late Antiquity, Cambridge Philological Society, 28-43.
• Various. (2010) Unclassical Traditions, Volume I: Alternatives to the Classical Past in Late Antiquity.

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Teaching

Modules taught

• CLA1204 - Classical Language and Texts: Greek III
• CLA2254 - Classical Language and Texts: Latin IV
• CLA3108 - The World of Late Antiquity
• CLA3204 - Classical Language and Texts: Greek III
• CLAM104 - Cultural Transformations in Late Antiquity
• CLAM204 - Greek III
• CLAM255 - Latin IV

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Biography

Originally from Sheffield, I did my BA, MPhil and PhD at Clare College, Cambridge. After I finally stopped being a student in 2007, I took up a Research Fellowship at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and then a Temporary Lectureship at Sheffield, before coming to Exeter in 2012.

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