Classical and Christian Tradition in the Mentality of Late Antiquity's Intellectuals

This article is dedicated to one of the aspects of transitional historical epoch - the Late Antiquity. The peculiarity of the postclassical world is in the cultural continuity of the Mediterranean world from the Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. Thereat, as for any transition stage, two main qualitative characteristics of this period are tradition and transitivity (of historical process and elements of culture under complex interaction of different factors). Due to the conservatism of the tradition and the active transitivity, the Late Antiquity in the Latin West is of a great interest to us in the "human dimension", that is, through the alembic of the world-view of those times' most typical representatives. The reconstruction of the mentality and on the whole the picture of life of the Late Antiquity highest quarters, made on the basis of the Late Roman aristocrats-intellectuals' testimony. This study deals with some personalities of the 4-6 AD representing the stratum of aristocrats-intellectuals. They were Christians, nevertheless they were bearers of classical traditions (Ausonius, Paulinus of Nola, Sidonius Apollinaris, Dracontius, Fulgentius the Mythographer and other). The author is coming to a conclusion, that the unstable political situation, the fall of Rome and the adoption Christianity by most of the Latin authors weren't change the ancient cultural lines in the Late Roman mentality.