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This chapter examines the moves toward a second Ecumenical Council in the years after the second depositions of Athanasius and Marcellus. Constantius’ brother, Constans, is presented as a central figure in the negotiations, perhaps from as early as 340. It is argued that the decisions of the Synod of Rome, here dated to Spring 341, were not intended to be binding on the East in the absence of any Eastern bishops, but merely addressed the local problem of whether or not to continue to treat Athanasius and Marcellus as bishops in the absence of convincing evidence that they had been validly deposed. The works written by Athanasius and Marcellus in Rome at this time, the First Oration against the Arians, the Letter to Julius, and probably On the Holy Church (De Sancta Ecclesia), are examined. It is argued that all draw on a statement agreed between the two concerning a heresy, which Athanasius calls the Arian heresy and Marcellus calls Ariomania. The signatories and documents of the Eastern and Western synods of Serdica are minutely examined, and argued to show that the two alliances were now in a process of realignment. Marcellus and Athanasius were in fundamental disagreement over whether or not to issue a statement adding to the Nicene Creed, and most of the Easterners were not in as intransigent a mood as the letter written in their name might suggest. Marcellus withdrew from public engagement with the controversy shortly afterwards to obviate the need to choose between a breach with Athanasius or with his own pupil Photinus of Sirmium. He died nearly 30 years later in communion with the former, without ever having condemned the latter.

Theophanes' Chronographia is a rich repository of material culled from earlier sources, put together soon after 810. He made extensive use of George of Pisidia's official history of Heraclius' Persian campaigns and based his account of the period following the assassination of Constans II (669) on Theophilus of Edessa (in a Greek translation) and the early eighth‐century source also used (more sparingly) by Nicephorus. This last work is identified as the political memoirs of the Patrician Trajan. While Theophanes may have reworked what he transmits (when his religious principles or prejudices were activated) and had to allocate precise dates, if necessary by guesswork, to every event recorded (because of his annalistic format), he supplies much unique information, notably about military operations 624–8, the fall of Khusro, and the climactic phase in the battle between Byzantium and Islam (692–718).

The initial Arab conquests are described and dated: Palestine and Syria (634–6); Persian Mesopotamia (636–40); northern Mesopotamia and south‐west Armenia (640); Khuzistan (640–2); Egypt (641–3); Iran (642–52). The unification of Arabia, achieved in the two years following the Prophet's death in 632, and Meccan organizational capability are identified as key factors in these early successes. Attention then turns to the Mediterranean where both sides dispatched naval expeditions against each other, ending with a grand Arab offensive targeted on Constantinople in 654. Failure there and reverses elsewhere helped trigger civil war in the caliphate (656–61). Mu‘awiya is shown to have imposed his authority with much bloodshed after ‘Ali's assassination in 658. Meanwhile Constans II (641–69) is seen preparing the rump of the Roman empire (customarily called Byzantium) for a long defensive war, and intervening first in Transcaucasia (660–1), then in the central Mediterranean (662–9).

This final chapter continues the story of Arab‐Byzantine warfare. Mu‘awiya's second major offensive (669–74) is traced from the opening act (the assassination of Constans II) to the naval defeat which brought it to a halt and opened the way for a Byzantine‐sponsored rebellion in Syria and Palestine. After a summary account of the second Arab civil war (682–92) and the humiliating treaty (686) which the Emperor Justinian II imposed on ‘Abd al‐Malik (685–705), a new phase of Arab expansion is described, in the course of which Byzantium lost north Africa (698) and the pressure on Asia Minor steadily intensified from 709 to a climax in the 717–18 siege of Constantinople. Key structural features of the new Muslim state are identified. The chapter ends with a cast‐forward to the successful guerrilla war of defence fought by Byzantium in the eighth and ninth centuries.

This chapter details attempts on the part of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire to reverse the Arab conquests. Efforts on the part of the Emperors Constans II and Justinian II to restore Roman control to the occupied territories are examined in detail, and the reasons for their failure elucidated. As divisions within the Arab elite were surmounted, the new political order in the Near East achieved a measure of stability and the world of the Caliphate acquired a more coherent and cohesive identity. The Arab conquest of North Africa effectively put an end to hopes for Byzantine revival, and the war-torn Empire of Constantinople itself entered a period of major internal cultural, ideological, and organizational reconfiguration. With Byzantine control of the central Mediterranean dislocated, the societies of the West would now follow new paths of development

This final chapter examines the escalation of Maximus’s doctrinal dissent and its association with a series of western political rebellions against Constantinople. Against the backdrop of those rebellions, it sets out the ever-deepening alliance between the Roman church and Maximus’s Palestinian faction, culminating in the Lateran Council of 649, which condemned monotheletism and its eastern adherents. When the cessation of hostilities granted the emperor a brief reprieve from Muslim pressure, he secured the arrests of pope Martin and Maximus in Rome, and thence transported them eastward for trial on charges of treason in Constantinople. There Maximus was said to have denied the emperor’s right to debate doctrine, since he was not a priest and fulfilled none of the sacramental functions of the priesthood. Though condemning Maximus and sending him into exile, the imperial authorities then made repeated attempts to convince him to abandon his doctrinal dissent. His continued resistance resulted in his death.

In the mid-340s, Firmicus Maternus, a pagan astrologer turned Christian polemicist, became the first-known author to ask the emperors to abolish traditional cults. This chapter sets On the Error of Profane Religions in the context of Constantinian legislation and of the urban Roman religious milieu to which Firmicus had previously belonged. Often (and too quickly) dismissed as a self-serving work by an ill-tutored convert, Firmicus’ polemic aims not just to spur Constantine’s sons towards greater zeal but to end the Devil’s dominion over mankind. In the work’s first half, Firmicus targets the cults most popular in the city of Rome. Dismissing philosophical allegories, he argues that traditional rites teach their worshippers immorality. Juxtaposing Christian scripture and pagan ritual formulas in the work’s second half, he depicts polytheistic cults as a unified religious system counterfeited by the Devil from the Christian truth—a major departure from earlier polemicists’ conceptions of polytheism. Firmicus’ appeals to the emperors were rooted in the fundamental Christian conviction that idolatry would someday be abolished; that victory had, however, come much closer to realisation, in the years after Constantine’s endorsement of Christianity, than Lactantius had thought possible.

Chapter 3 focuses on apocalyptic motifs which are present in Donatist writings from the early years of the schism. This was a period bracketed by two persecutions; that of Constantine, which ended c.321, and the “Macarian” repression, which lasted from 347 to 361. Accordingly, of the five documents which will be examined in this chapter, two are martyrological acta dating to the Macarian era. The other two are sermons: one a commemoration of Constantinian martyrs likely composed sometime around the 330s, and the other a Christmas sermon delivered either during or soon after the time of Macarius. The chapter concludes with a comparison between these texts and the writings of contemporary pro-Nicene and Homoian polemicists, highlighting striking overlaps in the apocalyptic rhetoric of each community.