'Transformation' is a notion apposite to essays in honour of Peter Brown. 'The transformation of the classical heritage' is a theme to which he has devoted, and continues to devote, much energy. All the essays here in some way explore this notion of transformation; the late antique ability to turn the past to new uses, and to set its wealth of principle and insight to work in new settings.

Contents: Preface, Philip Rousseau and Manolis Papoutsakis; Peter Brown: select bilbliography; Between Marrou and Brown: transformations of late antique Christianity, Robert Markus; Old and new Rome: Roman studies in 6th-century Constantinople, Averil Cameron; Old and new Rome in late antique Near East, Glen Bowersock; Regulations for an association of artisans from the late Sasanian or early Arab period, Sebastian Brock; Crosses, icons and the image of Christ in Edessa: the place of early iconophobia in the Christian-Muslim controversies of early Islamic times, Sidney H. Griffith; Alle origini della tradizione pagana su Constantino e il senato romano, Rita Lizzi Testa; Four funerals and a wedding: this world and the next in 4th-century Rome, John Matthews; Les réticences de saint Augustin face aux légends hagiographiques d'après la lettre Divjak 29*, Claude Lepelley; Language, morality and cult: Augustine and Varro, Philip Rousseau; A world full of stories, Charlotte Roueché; Safe-conducts to heaven: holy men, mediation and the role of writing, Claudia Rapp; Book burning as purification, Judith Herrin; Gregorio Magno e i 'Libri dei Re', Lellia Cracco Ruggini and Giorgio Cracco; The late antique origins of the lunatic asylum?, Peregrine Horden; Family men: masculinity and philosophy in late antiquity, Susanna Elm; Radegundis peccatrix: authorizations of virginity in late antique Gaul, Julia M.H. Smith; Gemistus Plethon and Platonic political philosophy, Peter Garnsey; Index.

Philip Rousseau is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Early Christian Studies, and Director, Center for the Study of Early Christianity, Catholic University of America, USA; Manolis Papoutsakis is Lecturer in Syriac and Classical Armenian Languages and Literatures, Princeton University, USA.