Subversive virtue

Much attention has been devoted in recent years to Christian asceticism in Late Antiquity. But Christianity did not introduce asceticism to the ancient world. An underlying theme of this fascinating study of pagan asceticism is that much of the work on Christian "holy men" has ignored earlier manifestations of asceticism in Antiquity and the way Roman society confronted it. Accordingly, James Francis looks to the second century, the "balmy late afternoon of Rome's classical empire," when the conflict between asceticism and authority reached a turning point. Francis begins with the emperor…