Finding the Present in the Distant Past the Cultural Meaning of Antiquarianism in Late Antiquity
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Finding the Present in the Distant Past The Cultural Meaning of Antiquarianism in Late Antiquity Gent, 19th – 21st May 2016 Programme 19th May Morning 9.00 Registration 9.40 Welcome (P. Van Nuffelen, Universiteit Gent) Theoretical Approaches to Antiquarianism Chair: P. Van Nuffelen (Universiteit Gent) 10.20 D. MacRae (University of Cincinnati), Late Antique Roman Antiquarianism: History of Silence or the Silence of History? 11.00 Coffee Break 11.40 M. Formisano (Universiteit Gent), Anachronic Late Antiquity (provisional title) 12.20 - 12.50 General Discussion 12.50 - 14.00 Lunch Afternoon Antiquarianism in the West Chair: R. Flower (University of Exeter) 14.00 J.W. Drijvers (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), Antiquarian Aspects in the Res Gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus? 14.40 C. Ando (University of Chicago), Antiquarianism, Historicism and Presentism in Late Roman Law 15.20 Coffee break 1 Chair: M. Formisano (Universiteit Gent) 16.00 R. Schwitter (Universität Zürich), Antiquarian Writing in Scholia on Vergil: Historicizing Ancient Rome in the Post-Imperial Era 16.40 F. Foster (University of Cambridge), Servius and Antiquarianism in the Classroom 17.20 final remarks 18.00 end 20th May Morning First Session: Antiquarianism in the East Chair: C. Ando (University of Chicago) 9.00 L. Focanti (Universiteit Gent), Playing with the Past. The Patria and the Greek Cities in Late Antique Roman Empire 9.40 E. Fassa (University of Athens), Antiquitates Aegyptiacae et Antiquitates Romanae in late antique Alexandria: urban intellectuals, the past and the politics of nostalgia 10.20 R. Praet (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), Antiquarianism in the sixth century AD: Easing The shift from Rome to Constantinople. 11.00 Coffee Break Chair: G. Traina (Université Paris-Sorbonne Université Paris-Sorbonne / Institut universitaire de France) 11.40 S. Anghel (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), Plato’s Garden. Neoplatonic Antiquarianism in Late Antique Athens. 12.20 – 12.50 general discussion 12.50 - 14.00 Lunch Afternoon Chair: B. Bleckmann (Universität Düsseldorf) 14.00 M. Agnosini (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Some Constantinopolitan antiquities and ancient Roman festivals in John Lydus' De mensibus 14.40 R. Flower (University of Exeter), Antiquarianism and Encyclopaedism in Epiphanius of Salamis 15.20 Coffee break Chair: G. B. Greatrex (University of Ottawa) 2 16.00 G. Traina (Université Paris-Sorbonne / Institut universitaire de France), Antiquarian traditions on ancient Armenia: Procopius of Caesarea and the so-called Primary History 16.40 Final Remarks 17.20 End 21st May Morning Antiquarianism in Byzantium Chair: J.W. Drijvers (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) 9.00 B. Bleckmann (Universität Düsseldorf), Triumph in John of Antioch (prov. title) 9.40 G. B. Greatrex (University of Ottawa), Antiquarians, modernisers and historiography in sixth- century Constantinople 10.20 P. De Cicco (Université de Nantes), Fictive Past and Modern Propaganda: The Reverse of a Biblical Archaiologia in the Age of the ‘Heraclid’ Anastasius 11.00 Coffee Break 11.40 P. Manafis – R. Praet (Universiteit Gent – Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), Approaches to the past in Byzantium: byzantine Antiquarianism? 12.20 Conclusions 13.00-14.00 Lunch 3 Abstracts D. MacRae (University of Cincinnati), Late Antique Roman Antiquarianism: History of Silence or the Silence of History? In a pregnant footnote in his classic article on antiquarianism, Arnaldo Momigliano pointed out that “the whole history of Roman antiquarian studies from Fenestella to John Lydus is still to be written” (Momigliano 1950: 289 n.4). Starting from this observation, this paper investigates this historiographical silence: why was the history of Roman late antique antiquarianism left unwritten before the twentieth century? I argue that we can identify two chronologically distinct phases in the historiography of antiquarianism, which both diminished late antique antiquarianism. In a forthcoming paper (MacRae forthcoming), I propose a genealogy for antiquarianism as a practice distinct from history proper. I argue that this distinction is not found in antiquity, but became current only in the sixteenth century. In this century, two practicing antiquarians, Onofrio Panvinio and Johannes Rosinus wrote accounts of the history of antiquarianism to their own day in the form of prefaces to intended (Panvinio) or realized (Rosinus) books on Roman antiquities. Both of these antiquarian histories of Roman antiquarianism follow the same structure: Varro is hailed as a founder, followed by a long period of decline towards an antiquarian ‘dark age’, until the discipline was restored in the fifteenth century by Flavio Biondo and his contemporaries. In this way, their story echoed the broader antiquarian outlook of a Renaissance rebirth of the great Roman civilization that had been threatened with extinction in the medieval period. The absence of late antique antiquarianism from the work of Panvinio and Rosinus, then, reflects the notions of temporality favored by the antiquarians themselves. Later histories of antiquarianism disregard pre-modern antiquarianism almost entirely. Johannes Graevius’s potted history of the field in the first volume of his Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum (1694), a definitive collection and edition of Renaissance antiquarianism, delimits the field in terms that matches the contents of his own work. Similarly, Bernhard Stark’s Systematik und Geschichte der Archäologie der Kunst (1880), proclaimed by Momigliano as the ‘the best’ history of antiquarianism, plays down pre-Renaissance antiquarian influence on the modern discipline of archaeology. Graevius and Stark write out ancient and late antique antiquarianism from their accounts in the interest of articulating modern disciplines – antiquarianism and archaeology, respectively. These histories of silence, written in particular intellectual and historical contexts, raise a broader question of what it means to write the history of antiquarianism. From the seventeenth century, alongside the narratives identified above, we can witness the development of a stereotype of the antiquarian – perhaps best exemplified by Nietzsche’s famous caricature of the antiquarian mindset in his On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life. Although initially dismissive, this stereotype – derived from early modern antiquarian practice – has recently enabled a broader comparative study of antiquarianisms and the possibility of breaking the silence on late antique antiquarianism. M. Formisano (Universiteit Gent), Anachronic Late Antiquity (provisional title) In my paper I will discuss the presence of antiquarian knowledge in some texts of the 4th century AD, both in prose and in poetry. In particular I will apply the concept of "anachronicity" 4 as it has been launched by the art historians Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood in their path-breaking 2010 monograph "Anachronic Renaissance". J.W. Drijvers (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), Antiquarian Aspects in the Res Gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus? The fourth-century historiographer Ammianus Marcellinus has been characterized as “the lonely historian” by Arnaldo Momigliano, implying that there was a disconnection between the historian and the world he describes. Auerbach characterized him as a profound pessimist, who sketched the world in which he lived as grim and ugly. Ammianus wrote within the tradition of Greek and Roman historiography and his Res Gestae are a continuation of Tacitus’ historical writings. Unfortunately the first thirteen books of the RG have gone and the remaining books (14-31) deal with the years 353-378. Ammianus refers regularly to the past, in particular the Roman Republic. On the one hand this may have been a way of profiling himself and displaying his knowledge. On the other hand, the past and knowledge of history, as well as cultural memory in general, were important aspects for the vitality and even survival of Roman civilization, according to Ammianus. He displays an idealized vision of the past and criticizes his contemporaries, such as Roman senators in the two digressions about the population of Rome (RG 14.6 and 28.4) or lawyers (31.4), for not being familiar with the political, literary and legal history of the Greek and Roman world. Also emperors are criticized for not having knowledge of the past. It is perhaps therefore not surprising that the words antiquitas and antiquus occur regularly in Ammianus’ work (Antiquitas 15 times; forms of antiquus 23 times). The aim of this paper is twofold. I intend to explore the meaning of antiquus/antiquitas in the Res Gestae and based on that I hope to be able to say something about whether Ammianus could be considered an antiquarian historian. C. Ando (University of Chicago), Antiquarianism, Historicism and Presentism in Late Roman Law Legal norms exist in multiple, historically imbricated forms, including original statutory language and interpretation. What is more, legal systems recognize multiple sources of both norms and interpretation, including legislative assemblies, rulings in court, and jurisprudence. In the high and late Roman empire, political and theoretical argument over these topics assumed a particular form. On the one hand, emperors and their agents asserted the superiority of statute law, by way of asserting their own preeminence. At the same time, much Roman law was old, sometimes very old, and neither its language nor its content could be unproblematically applied to contemporary realities. Reading law in late antiquity thus