Following the completion of "Augustine", however, Brown felt "free, at last" to take a wider approach to Late Antiquity, and to turn in particular to the Near East and Central Asia. In 1964, A. H. M. Jones's vast magnum opus on "The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey" had appeared, on which Brown wrote a long and important review article for the "Economic History Review" (1967). In addition, as Augustine had been a Manichaean for many years, Brown already had a natural route into the religious history of the eastern half of the later Roman Empire and the Persian Empire. An article on "The Diffusion of Manichaeism in the Roman Empire" (1969) reflected the direction of his interests, and was spectacularly corroborated when, shortly after, the Cologne Mani-Codex came to light.