Between the deaths of the Emperors Julian (363) and Justinian (565), the Roman Empire underwent momentous changes. Most obviously, control of the west was lost to barbarian groups during the fifth ...century, and although parts were recovered by Justinian, the empire's centre of gravity shifted irrevocably to the east, with its focal point now the city of Constantinople. Equally important was the increasing dominance of Christianity not only in religious life, but also in politics, society and culture.
Doug Lee charts these and other significant developments which contributed to the transformation of ancient Rome and its empire into Byzantium and the early medieval west. By emphasising the resilience of the east during late antiquity and the continuing vitality of urban life and the economy, this volume offers an alternative perspective to the traditional paradigm of decline and fall.
Key features:• Provides a clear analytical narrative of pivotal political, military, and religious developments• Complements this with an examination of overarching trends in urban life and the economy• Gives particular attention to the dynamics of political and religious power and of Roman-barbarian relations during the fifth century
In 146 BC the armies of Rome destroyed Carthage and emerged as the decisive victors of the Third Punic War. The Carthaginian population was sold and its territory became the Roman province of Africa. ...In the same year and on the other side of the Mediterranean Roman troops sacked Corinth, the final blow in the defeat of the Achaean conspiracy: thereafter Greece was effectively administered by Rome. Rome was now supreme in Italy, the Balkans, Greece, Macedonia, Sicily, and North Africa, and its power and influence were advancing in all directions.
However, not all was well. The unchecked seizure of huge tracts of land in Italy and its farming by vast numbers of newly imported slaves allowed an elite of usually absentee landlords to amass enormous and conspicuous fortunes. Insecurity and resentment fed the gulf between rich and poor in Rome and erupted in a series of violent upheavals in the politics and institutions of the Republic. These were exacerbated by slave revolts and invasions from the east. The instigation of Rome's first professional army to resolve the crises soon made its generals - Sulla, then Pompey, then Caesar - all too powerful. Meanwhile Greek ideas and culture had invaded Rome, contributing to the subversion of the Roman ideal of the free citizen, farmer of his own land, duty-bound to fight in its defence.
Catherine Steel tells history of this crucial and turbulent century, focussing on the issues of freedom, honour, power, greed and ambition, and the cherished but abused institutions of the Republic which were central to events then and which have preoccupied historians ever since.
"Vita di un monumento" traces the processes of transformation that engaged the so-called Nymphaeum of Egeria in the Caffarella Valley in Rome. The volume begins with the analysis of the historical, ...geographical, and archaeological background before moving onto an examination of the monument in its current form, from its construction to its reuse and refunctionalisation over time. The text organizes the current documentation and draws attention to the features of the building. After tracing the historical, architectural, and functional development, it highlights the contribution of various virtual representation and reconstruction methodologies and approaches targeted at a thorough study of the Nymphaeum itself. This development aims to portray the process of surveying, developing, and combining heterogeneous data into two- and three-dimensional models, capable of providing a critical interpretation of the monument and facilitating multidisciplinary research. The volume concludes with a selection of the most important graphic representations of the Nymphaeum, dating from the first records to the end of the 19th century. Following the issues discussed within the book, the plates integrate historical and archaeological issues ¬– related to the study of sources of human past – with questions of representation as a tool for knowledge.
Marleen Termeer presents a diachronic overview of changes in the use of non-Roman coinage in Italy from the 3rd and into the 1st centuries BC, and discusses why integration in the northwestern ...Mediterranean was significant in this context.
In this provocative book Éric Rebillard challenges many long-held assumptions about early Christian burial customs. For decades scholars of early Christianity have argued that the Church owned and ...operated burial grounds for Christians as early as the third century. Through a careful reading of primary sources including legal codes, theological works, epigraphical inscriptions, and sermons, Rebillard shows that there is little evidence to suggest that Christians occupied exclusive or isolated burial grounds in this early period.
In fact, as late as the fourth and fifth centuries the Church did not impose on the faithful specific rituals for laying the dead to rest. In the preparation of Christians for burial, it was usually next of kin and not representatives of the Church who were responsible for what form of rite would be celebrated, and evidence from inscriptions and tombstones shows that for the most part Christians didn't separate themselves from non-Christians when burying their dead. According to Rebillard it would not be until the early Middle Ages that the Church gained control over burial practices and that "Christian cemeteries" became common.
In this translation ofReligion et Sépulture: L'église, les vivants et les morts dans l'Antiquité tardive, Rebillard fundamentally changes our understanding of early Christianity.The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquitywill force scholars of the period to rethink their assumptions about early Christians as separate from their pagan contemporaries in daily life and ritual practice.
h4A radical rewriting of the history of fourth-century Latin literature/h4ulliDemonstrates for the first time both the contemporary and lasting influence of Victor’s historiography/liliDiscusses a ...wide range of both canonical and neglected authors and texts, including Sallust, St Jerome, Ammianus, the iHistoria Augusta/i, Eunapius and Julian/liliProvides an up-to-date account of the mechanics of abbreviating texts in late antiquity, an important and relatively neglected subject/liliRe-reads and re-examines in detail two short imperial histories of the fourth century, the iCaesares/i and the iEpitome de Caesaribus/i/liliBased on primary sources, including manuscripts and newly discovered evidence for Victor’s text/liliResolves some of the enduring mysteries of later Latin literature/liliHas implications impacting many different areas of Late Roman and early medieval studies, including political, social, cultural, literary and legal history, as well as historiography/li/ulpThis book rediscovers a lost history of the Roman Empire, written by Sextus Aurelius Victor (ca. 320-390) and demonstrates for the first time both the contemporary and lasting influence of his historical work. Though little regarded today, Victor is the best-attested historian of the later Roman Empire, read by Jerome and Ammianus, honoured with a statue by the pagan Emperor Julian and appointed to a prestigious prefecture by the Christian Theodosius. Through careful analysis of the ancient evidence, including newly discovered material, this book re-examines the two short imperial histories attributed to Victor in the manuscripts, known today as the iCaesares/i and the iEpitome de Caesaribus/i, and discusses a wide range of both canonical and neglected authors and texts, from Sallust and Tacitus to Eunapius and the iHistoria Augusta/i./ppBy providing a new account of the original scope and scale of Victor’s iHistoria/i, this book revolutionises our understanding of the writing of history in late antiquity. Not only does it have profound implications for the transmission of Classical texts in the Middle Ages and the history of Classical scholarship, but it also solves some of the enduring mysteries of later Latin literature. /p
What does it mean to identify oneself as pagan or Christian in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages? How are religious identities constructed, negotiated, and represented in oral and written ...discourse? How is identity performed in rituals, how is it visible in material remains? Antiquity and the Middle Ages are usually regarded as two separate fields of scholarship. However, the period between the fourth and tenth centuries remains a time of transformations in which the process of religious change and identity building reached beyond the chronological boundary and the Roman, the Christian and ‘the barbarian’ traditions were merged in multiple ways. Being Pagan, Being Christian in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages brings together researchers from various fields, including archaeology, history, classical studies, and theology, to enhance discussion of this period of change as one continuum across the artificial borders of the different scholarly disciplines. With new archaeological data and contributions from scholars specializing on both textual and material remains, these different fields of study shed light on how religious identities of the people of the past are defined and identified. The contributions reassess the interplay of diversity and homogenising tendencies in a shifting religious landscape. Beyond the diversity of traditions, this book highlights the growing capacity of Christianity to hold together, under its control, the different dimensions – identity, cultural, ethical and emotional – of individual and collective religious experience.
The emperor Nero is etched into the Western imagination as one of ancient Rome’s most infamous villains, and Tacitus’ Annals have played a central role in shaping the mainstream historiographical ...understanding of this flamboyant autocrat. This section of the text plunges us straight into the moral cesspool that Rome had apparently become in the later years of Nero’s reign, chronicling the emperor’s fledgling stage career including his plans for a grand tour of Greece; his participation in a city-wide orgy climaxing in his publicly consummated ‘marriage’ to his toy boy Pythagoras; the great fire of AD 64, during which large parts of central Rome went up in flames; and the rising of Nero’s ‘grotesque’ new palace, the so-called ‘Golden House’, from the ashes of the city. This building project stoked the rumours that the emperor himself was behind the conflagration, and Tacitus goes on to present us with Nero’s gruesome efforts to quell these mutterings by scapegoating and executing members of an unpopular new cult then starting to spread through the Roman empire: Christianity. All this contrasts starkly with four chapters focusing on one of Nero’s most principled opponents, the Stoic senator Thrasea Paetus, an audacious figure of moral fibre, who courageously refuses to bend to the forces of imperial corruption and hypocrisy. This course book offers a portion of the original Latin text, study aids with vocabulary, and a commentary. Designed to stretch and stimulate readers, Owen’s and Gildenhard’s incisive commentary will be of particular interest to students of Latin at both A2 and undergraduate level. It extends beyond detailed linguistic analysis and historical background to encourage critical engagement with Tacitus’ prose and discussion of the most recent scholarly thought.
Slavery in Ancient Rome Sead Bandžović
Historijski pogledi (Online),
06/2023, Volume:
VI, Issue:
9
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The institution of slavery was characteristic of all the civilizations from Mediterranean basin in ancient times. However, slavery had its widest application in the Roman state, for which it was of ...immense importance, since slaves were seen as the driving force of Roman social and economic system. Slaves (servus, puer) were treated as “speaking tools” (instrumentum vocale). The position of the individual in the Roman state was regulated in detail, and there were three special positions: status civitatis (Roman citizen or foreigner), status familiae (elder of the family or its member under the rule of pater familias) and status libertatis (slave or free man). Slaves had a special legal status in Roman law at the time. Unlike animals and things over which power was referred to as domicium, this was about power over man, so the term domicia potestas was used. In the initial stages of the development of state and the law, they were viewed exclusively as property, without any personal, property or other rights. Thus the puer could not be a party to the proceedings, and his union with the slave girl was treated as a de facto union (contubernium), not as a valid marriage. He could only improve the position of his master, and if the servus would cause some damage to a third party, the master was not obliged to eliminate it, but according to Aquilius law of damage from 287 AD there was a possibility of handing over the slave to the injured party according to the principles of noxal liability. An individual could find himself in the status of a slave in three ways: by falling into captivity in war, by being born to a slave mother (vernae) or by losing his freedom as a form of sanction. In addition to private and royal, there were also so-called public slaves (servi publici). Their owner was not a private person, but a wider social community, and power over them was officially exercised by the Roman people (populus Romanus), civilian authorities in municipalities or colonies in Italy and its provinces. Servi publici were most often employed by magistrates or priests, and they also worked as guardians of various Roman buildings: basilicas, temples, archives and libraries. Roman law also knew of other forms of subordination that were not a form of slavery but states similar to it. The first aspect referred to persons in mancipio who were handed over by the pater famillias through mancipation to another elder as labor or to avoid tortious liability. The second case concerned addictus. Under the old civil law (ius civile) the addictus was a debtor in a certain obligatory relationship where, in case of non-payment of his obligation, he would be assigned to the creditor. The creditor had to keep him in the so-called creditor’s imprisonment for 60 days, until a guarantor appeared or the debt was repaid. If this did not happen, the debtor could be killed or sold as a slave. Persons redeemed from captivity (redempti ab hostibus) could be held captive by the redeemer until the ransom is paid either in money or by the work of the redeemed person. During the period of the empire, the duration of captivity of this kind could last for a maximum of 5 years. Gai Institutiones also classified auctoratus in these states. These included men, women and minor children who undertook to work for a person for a certain period of time (iudicati). Liberation from slavery was done through a special legal procedure (manumissio). In the early epochs of the ius civile, it was of an extremely formal nature, and with later praetorian activity this formalism was abandoned and replaced by new, more efficient legal means.
