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The Politics of Roman Memory in the Age of Justinian DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the D
The Politics of Roman Memory in the Age of Justinian DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Marion Woodrow Kruse, III Graduate Program in Greek and Latin The Ohio State University 2015 Dissertation Committee: Anthony Kaldellis, Advisor; Benjamin Acosta-Hughes; Nathan Rosenstein Copyright by Marion Woodrow Kruse, III 2015 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the use of Roman historical memory from the late fifth century through the middle of the sixth century AD. The collapse of Roman government in the western Roman empire in the late fifth century inspired a crisis of identity and political messaging in the eastern Roman empire of the same period. I argue that the Romans of the eastern empire, in particular those who lived in Constantinople and worked in or around the imperial administration, responded to the challenge posed by the loss of Rome by rewriting the history of the Roman empire. The new historical narratives that arose during this period were initially concerned with Roman identity and fixated on urban space (in particular the cities of Rome and Constantinople) and Roman mythistory. By the sixth century, however, the debate over Roman history had begun to infuse all levels of Roman political discourse and became a major component of the emperor Justinian’s imperial messaging and propaganda, especially in his Novels. The imperial history proposed by the Novels was aggressivley challenged by other writers of the period, creating a clear historical and political conflict over the role and import of Roman history as a model or justification for Roman politics in the sixth century. -
A Chronological Particular Timeline of Near East and Europe History
Introduction This compilation was begun merely to be a synthesized, occasional source for other writings, primarily for familiarization with European world development. Gradually, however, it was forced to come to grips with the elephantine amount of historical detail in certain classical sources. Recording the numbers of reported war deaths in previous history (many thousands, here and there!) initially was done with little contemplation but eventually, with the near‐exponential number of Humankind battles (not just major ones; inter‐tribal, dynastic, and inter‐regional), mind was caused to pause and ask itself, “Why?” Awed by the numbers killed in battles over recorded time, one falls subject to believing the very occupation in war was a naturally occurring ancient inclination, no longer possessed by ‘enlightened’ Humankind. In our synthesized histories, however, details are confined to generals, geography, battle strategies and formations, victories and defeats, with precious little revealed of the highly complicated and combined subjective forces that generate and fuel war. Two territories of human existence are involved: material and psychological. Material includes land, resources, and freedom to maintain a life to which one feels entitled. It fuels war by emotions arising from either deprivation or conditioned expectations. Psychological embraces Egalitarian and Egoistical arenas. Egalitarian is fueled by emotions arising from either a need to improve conditions or defend what it has. To that category also belongs the individual for whom revenge becomes an end in itself. Egoistical is fueled by emotions arising from material possessiveness and self‐aggrandizations. To that category also belongs the individual for whom worldly power is an end in itself. -
Emperors and Generals in the Fourth Century Doug Lee Roman
Emperors and Generals in the Fourth Century Doug Lee Roman emperors had always been conscious of the political power of the military establishment. In his well-known assessment of the secrets of Augustus’ success, Tacitus observed that he had “won over the soldiers with gifts”,1 while Septimius Severus is famously reported to have advised his sons to “be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and despise the rest”.2 Since both men had gained power after fiercely contested periods of civil war, it is hardly surprising that they were mindful of the importance of conciliating this particular constituency. Emperors’ awareness of this can only have been intensified by the prolonged and repeated incidence of civil war during the mid third century, as well as by emperors themselves increasingly coming from military backgrounds during this period. At the same time, the sheer frequency with which armies were able to make and unmake emperors in the mid third century must have served to reinforce soldiers’ sense of their potential to influence the empire’s affairs and extract concessions from emperors. The stage was thus set for a fourth century in which the stakes were high in relations between emperors and the military, with a distinct risk that, if those relations were not handled judiciously, the empire might fragment, as it almost did in the 260s and 270s. 1 Tac. Ann. 1.2. 2 Cass. Dio 76.15.2. Just as emperors of earlier centuries had taken care to conciliate the rank and file by various means,3 so too fourth-century emperors deployed a range of measures designed to win and retain the loyalties of the soldiery. -
Sidonius' World
Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42921-4 — Reading Sidonius' Epistles M. P. Hanaghan Excerpt More Information 1 CHAPTER 1 Sidonius’ World As a young man in the 440s and 450s Sidonius enjoyed all the traditional markers of the Roman elite: a noble birth, a classical education, a good marriage, privilege, and wealth. 1 By his death in the mid to late 480s the great secular Gallo- Roman aristocrat of his age was a bishop. 2 Barbarians likely lodged in his villa. 3 h ey certainly occupied his see, Clermont. His wife’s father had been murdered shortly after becoming emperor. 4 h e last Roman emperor in the West was dead, and the next generation inspired Sidonius with little coni dence that his belletrism would continue in the family, or even the Gallo- Roman aristocracy. Documenting accurately this fascinating period was not Sidonius’ aim – he checked himself from writing history. 5 If he was, as McLynn claims “Fifth Century Gaul’s … great historian manqué ,” this miss is of his own making. 6 Events during the 1 h e exact date of Sidonius’ marriage to Papianilla, the daughter of Fl. Eparchius Avitus is unclear. Loyen ( 1970a : x) suggested that Sidonius was twenty, Stevens ( 1933 : 19) proposes a slightly later date. For two later assessments of Sidonius’ life see Gregory of Tours 2.22 and Gennadius of Marseilles 92, neither of which may be relied upon with any certainity; Gregory manipulates Sidonius as a source when it suits him and on occasion misreads his meaning, for an example of which see Moorhead ( 2007 : 331), and for detailed analysis Furbetta ( 2015c ). -
A MESAMBRIAN COIN of GETA Luchevar Lazarov Unlike The
TALANTA XXXIV-XXXV (2002-2003) A MESAMBRIAN COIN OF GETA Luchevar Lazarov Unlike the abundant production during the Classical and Hellenistic periods, the activity of the mint at Mesambria Pontica in Roman times was relatively 1 limited . Until now, the following mints are known: Hadrian (117-138 AD), Septimius Severus (193-211 AD), Caracalla (198-217 AD), Gordian III (238- 244 AD), Philip the Arab (244-249 AD), Philip II (247-249 AD) and the empress Acilia Severa, wife of the emperor Elagabalus (218-222 AD) (Karayotov 1992, 49-66). Recently, a Mesambrian coin from the time of the emperor Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD) was found in the private collection of N. Mitkov from Provadija (NE 2 Bulgaria) , showing the beginning of the Roman mint in the city (Karayotov 1994, 20). In this present note, a Roman Mesambrian coin of the emperor Geta (209-212 AD) is presented, testifying that in the beginning of the 3rd century AD, also coins bearing the name of this son of Septimius Severus were minted in Mesambria. AUKPÇEP Obv.: / GETAC, showing a bust of Geta with laurel wreath and wearinMgEaÇcAuMiraBssR anId pAaNluPdaN mentum (Fig. 1). Rev.: / / , showing a naked Hermes with a purse in his right and a caduceus in his left hand. The face is turned to the left (Fig. 2) > AE; — ; D: 23-24 mm. Taking the size of this coin in account, it probably belongs to nominal III (Schönert-Geiss 1990, 23-99). 1 On Mesambrian coinage of the pre-Roman period, see: Karayotov 1992, Karayotov 1994, Topalov 1995. 2 I would like to thank mr. -
4.2-Persecution Under Valens (371-373) Copyright 2018 Glen L
4.2-Persecution under Valens (371-373) Copyright 2018 Glen L. Thompson This document is provided for personal and educational use. It may not be used for commercial purposes without the permission of the copyright holder. Last updated 6/6/18 Socrates Sozomen Theodoret Macedonians seek fellowship with Liberius 4.12.1 But we will have more opportunity to mention 6.10.3 Valens and Eudoxius then directed their both Basil and Gregory again in the course of our history. resentment against the Macedonians, who were more When the maintainers of the homoousian doctrine had been numerous than the above-mentioned Christians in that severely dealt with and put to flight, the persecutors began region, and they persecuted them without measure. The again to harass the Macedonians. Macedonians, in apprehension of further sufferings, sent 4.12.2 Impelled by fear rather than violence, the delegates to various cities, and finally agreed to turn to Macedonians sent messengers to one another from city to Valentinian and to the bishop of Rome rather than share city, declaring the necessity of appealing to the emperor’s in the faith of Eudoxius and Valens and their followers. brother, and to Liberius bishop of Rome, saying that it was far better for them to embrace their faith, than to commune with the party of Eudoxius. 4.12.3 For this purpose they sent Eustathius bishop of 6.10.4 And when it seemed ideal to do this, they Sebastia, who had been deposed several times, Silvanus of selected three of their own number—Eustathius, bishop Tarsus in Cilicia, and Theophilus of Castabala in the same of Sebaste; Silvanus, bishop of Tarsus; and Theophilus, province, charging them to not to disagree with Liberius in bishop of Castabalis—and sent them to the Emperor anything concerning the faith, but to enter into communion Valentinian. -
[J'u(Y I I, 1872
200 NATURE [J'u(y I I, 1872 ployed. A number of tables give some interesting details rigidity of the earth, are so many concurrent evidences that our relative to the n:imber of miners, the machinery in use, planet, if not actually solid to the centre, has a crust far thicker from which may be gathered some idea of than can be accounted for by the theory of a liquid globe, covered and its value, This dis of the several gold fields in only with a crust resulting from superficial cooling." the extent and importance time seems to have had the effect of of Ballarat appears at cussion of the subject at that the colony. Of these fields, that to the front the defenders of the latter theo~y, which, of miners bringing the head of the list, showing a total number in the pJpular mind at least, has a mythological rather than a employed of 13,892, the approximate value of mining plant scientific foundation. It was, therefore, we_ll th,t Sir William being 516,825!.; 134½ square miles of_auriferous ground Thomson should repeat his argument,. are actually worked upon, and 189 aunferous reefs have Mr. Fisher has in this connectioo, in NATURE for January 25, been proved. In this district also occur the deepest referred to the distribution of fluid ignited matter within the shafts, two of which reach the depths of 866 ft. and 900 ft. earth, and to the relation pf volcanoes to great lines of elevation, respectively. The price of Ballarat gold varies from which would seem to show that the local distribution of such 3/. -
The Political and Military Aspects of Accession of Constantine the Great
Graeco-Latina Brunensia 24 / 2019 / 2 https://doi.org/10.5817/GLB2019-2-2 The Political and Military Aspects of Accession of Constantine the Great Stanislav Doležal (University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice) Abstract The article argues that Constantine the Great, until he was recognized by Galerius, the senior ČLÁNKY / ARTICLES Emperor of the Tetrarchy, was an usurper with no right to the imperial power, nothwithstand- ing his claim that his father, the Emperor Constantius I, conferred upon him the imperial title before he died. Tetrarchic principles, envisaged by Diocletian, were specifically put in place to supersede and override blood kinship. Constantine’s accession to power started as a military coup in which a military unit composed of barbarian soldiers seems to have played an impor- tant role. Keywords Constantine the Great; Roman emperor; usurpation; tetrarchy 19 Stanislav Doležal The Political and Military Aspects of Accession of Constantine the Great On 25 July 306 at York, the Roman Emperor Constantius I died peacefully in his bed. On the same day, a new Emperor was made – his eldest son Constantine who had been present at his father’s deathbed. What exactly happened on that day? Britain, a remote province (actually several provinces)1 on the edge of the Roman Empire, had a tendency to defect from the central government. It produced several usurpers in the past.2 Was Constantine one of them? What gave him the right to be an Emperor in the first place? It can be argued that the political system that was still valid in 306, today known as the Tetrarchy, made any such seizure of power illegal. -
Measuring the Power of the Roman Empire
26 Potter Chapter 2 Measuring the Power of the Roman Empire David Potter By the age of Cicero – the point at which they began to recognize the fact that they controlled a territorial empire and could raise revenue from it – the Ro- mans were accustomed to measure their power with criteria taken over whole- sale from Greek theory. In the De Legibus, Cicero says simply that senators ought to know the state of the army, the treasury, the allies, friends and tribu- taries of Rome and the nature of the attachment of each to Rome. For Cicero this is what it was to “know the State.”1 In these terms power is a function of income and manpower. Such a measurement, which, as we shall see, would have a long history going forward, was even then being amply employed by Gaius Caesar in his Gallic Wars, and had a long prior history in Greek thought. Caesar famously illustrated the power of the various Gallic and German tribes he subdued or encountered by telling his readers how many of them there were or had been. Good of the Helvetians to have produced a census docu- ment (in Greek no less) attesting to the fact that there were 368,000 of them at the beginning of their migration. There were now a mere 110,000 going home. The Suebi, the most powerful of the Germans were said (a nice concession on Caesar’s part) to have controlled one hundred districts which each furnished 1000 men to fight each year – since the same warriors only fought every other year, this meant that there were at least 200,000 of them, and there were nearly 250,000 Gauls who came to the relief of Vercingetorix (including men from tribes such as the Nervii that Caesar claimed to have annihilated in recent years).2 A conception of state power as a function of demography and money would have been familiar to any Roman aristocrat who knew (as any Roman aristo- crat would have) the works of fifth-century Greek historians. -
The Nephew of Michael Cerularios , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:1 (1981:Spring) P.89
SNIPES, KENNETH, A Letter of Michael Psellus to Constantine the Nephew of Michael Cerularios , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 22:1 (1981:Spring) p.89 A Letter of Michael Psellos to Constantine the Nephew of Michael Cerularios Kenneth Snipes N AN ARTICLE listing the unpublished letters of Michael Psellos, I Jean Darrouzes noted that a small group of six letters attrib uted to Psellos is found in three manuscripts: Athas, Mov~ Meyiar17c; Aavpac; 1721 (M 30) fols. 86-98; Bucharest, Academia Republicii Socialiste Romania 737 (587) fols. 214-49; and Cam bridge, Trinity College 1485 (0.10.33) fols. 192-203v. 1 In addi tion to the three manuscripts known to Darrouzes, these six letters are found also in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Supplement grec 1334 fols. 108-23v.2 Three of the six (the first, fourth, and sixth) were correctly identified by Darrouzes as letters already published by Sathas or Kurtz-Drexl. 3 Darrouzes, followed by Paul Canart in a later, more comprehensive list of the unpublished letters of Psellos, 4 believed that the other three letters (the second, third, and fifth) had not yet been published. In the case of the third and fifth letters, however, both scholars have been misled by slight differ ences between the word order of their incipits and the incipits of letters 1 and 84 in the large collection of Psellos' letters edited by Sathas. 5 The fifth letter, for example, begins 'Eyw be qJf.11'/V, lepd Kai rpzn6(}1Jre Kerpa).lj, rather than 'Eyw tliv, w lepa Kai rpzn6()17re Kerpa).,~ as in the version in Parisinus gr. -
The Byzantine State and the Dynatoi
The Byzantine State and the Dynatoi A struggle for supremacy 867 - 1071 J.J.P. Vrijaldenhoven S0921084 Van Speijkstraat 76-II 2518 GE ’s Gravenhage Tel.: 0628204223 E-mail: [email protected] Master Thesis Europe 1000 - 1800 Prof. Dr. P. Stephenson and Prof. Dr. P.C.M. Hoppenbrouwers History University of Leiden 30-07-2014 CONTENTS GLOSSARY 2 INTRODUCTION 6 CHAPTER 1 THE FIRST STRUGGLE OF THE DYNATOI AND THE STATE 867 – 959 16 STATE 18 Novel (A) of Leo VI 894 – 912 18 Novels (B and C) of Romanos I Lekapenos 922/928 and 934 19 Novels (D, E and G) of Constantine VII Porphyrogenetos 947 - 959 22 CHURCH 24 ARISTOCRACY 27 CONCLUSION 30 CHAPTER 2 LAND OWNERSHIP IN THE PERIOD OF THE WARRIOR EMPERORS 959 - 1025 32 STATE 34 Novel (F) of Romanos II 959 – 963. 34 Novels (H, J, K, L and M) of Nikephoros II Phokas 963 – 969. 34 Novels (N and O) of Basil II 988 – 996 37 CHURCH 42 ARISTOCRACY 45 CONCLUSION 49 CHAPTER 3 THE CHANGING STATE AND THE DYNATOI 1025 – 1071 51 STATE 53 CHURCH 60 ARISTOCRACY 64 Land register of Thebes 65 CONCLUSION 68 CONCLUSION 70 APPENDIX I BYZANTINE EMPERORS 867 - 1081 76 APPENDIX II MAPS 77 BIBLIOGRAPHY 82 1 Glossary Aerikon A judicial fine later changed into a cash payment. Allelengyon Collective responsibility of a tax unit to pay each other’s taxes. Anagraphis / Anagrapheus Fiscal official, or imperial tax assessor, who held a role similar as the epoptes. Their major function was the revision of the tax cadastre. It is implied that they measured land and on imperial order could confiscate lands. -
Jordanes and the Invention of Roman-Gothic History Dissertation
Empire of Hope and Tragedy: Jordanes and the Invention of Roman-Gothic History Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Brian Swain Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2014 Dissertation Committee: Timothy Gregory, Co-advisor Anthony Kaldellis Kristina Sessa, Co-advisor Copyright by Brian Swain 2014 Abstract This dissertation explores the intersection of political and ethnic conflict during the emperor Justinian’s wars of reconquest through the figure and texts of Jordanes, the earliest barbarian voice to survive antiquity. Jordanes was ethnically Gothic - and yet he also claimed a Roman identity. Writing from Constantinople in 551, he penned two Latin histories on the Gothic and Roman pasts respectively. Crucially, Jordanes wrote while Goths and Romans clashed in the imperial war to reclaim the Italian homeland that had been under Gothic rule since 493. That a Roman Goth wrote about Goths while Rome was at war with Goths is significant and has no analogue in the ancient record. I argue that it was precisely this conflict which prompted Jordanes’ historical inquiry. Jordanes, though, has long been considered a mere copyist, and seldom treated as an historian with ideas of his own. And the few scholars who have treated Jordanes as an original author have dampened the significance of his Gothicness by arguing that barbarian ethnicities were evanescent and subsumed by the gravity of a Roman political identity. They hold that Jordanes was simply a Roman who can tell us only about Roman things, and supported the Roman emperor in his war against the Goths.