Sublime

The violent, encroaching Roman Empire left people searching for a nonestablishment guide who could inspire and protect them.

Europe did not enjoy an outstanding technological edge. What made Europeans exceptional was their unparalleled and insatiable ambition to explore and conquer.

The first four centuries of the first millennium, which saw Christianity explode from a small base in Palestine to sweep through the Mediterranean and across Asia, were a maelstrom of faith wars.

century, but also the most urgent political and economic project.

The great irony, then, was that although Europe experienced a glorious Golden Age, producing flourishing art and literature and leaps of scientific endeavour, it was forged by violence.

The richest seams for anthropological researchers to tap are the means by which the late Roman population and their fifth- and sixth-century successors used display – in buildings, personal adornments, burial ceremonies and trappings – to express and reinforce ideas about identity, belonging and status.

Curiosity, in his words, was nothing more than a disease.