Roman History Books and More

gone fishing . . .

. . . for classical music and other things.

(dicky laptop too)

mini review - the parthian interpreter: an odyssey of the later empire

A new novel, The Parthian Interpreter: An Odyssey of the Later Empire  (Booklocker.com 2007, 532 pages) by Michael Anderson recently came my way.  The author calls it "a novel of historical fantasy."

If you like adventure stories and swashbucklers, and don't mind an occasionally awkward prose, this is the book to read.  Set in the reign of Marcus Aurelius and inspired by the Antonine ambassadorial mission to China, it has all the elements of hero and antagonist, encounters with spies, assassins and pirates, incredible feats of bravery and survival, an exotic environment, and what else, love stories.  The emperor sends the senator Lucius Curtius Rufus – in desperate need of money – on a trade mission to China and forces him to take as interpreter the Parthian noble Arsaces, whom fate has brought as a slave to the imperial court and who has a clandestine mission from Marcus Aurelius to the Chinese emperor.  Accompanied by a cohort of soldiers, they set off to an uncertain fate, and after many adventures and much loss of life indeed arrive in China and to further troubles.

monasticism

One doesn't have to read very far in Gibbon's account of early monasticism to realise that he takes a very negative view of the subject.

Indeed, in the introduction of her translation, The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, Benedicta Ward says: "Some of the  monastic extremes of physical discipline, such as going to the limits of existence with as little sleep, food, drink and companionship as possible, were a cause for wonder, then and later, not always of a complimentary kind." (page xi). In her footnote to this comment she particularly singles out Gibbon as an example. The translation (but not the introduction) can also be viewed at Google Books. Since the book is a compilation of sayings with the occasional background story, the fact that some pages have been skipped don't make so much of a difference as it usually does.

book review – justinian’s flea: plague, empire, and the birth of europe

… And it is the moment, with the emperor at the absolute zenith of his achievement, that the world encountered the first pandemic in history.  

The coincidence of timing does not, of course, prove that the pandemic caused Rome to fall, or Europe to be born; as above, the uncertainties of the three thousand-body problem makes such a claim fundamentally uncertain.

So writes William Rosen in his Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe (Viking Adult 2007, 384 pages).  Nonetheless, the tenor of this wide-ranging book is that the plague was the instrument that caused a change in history and Rome to fall, as outlined in the Introduction and Prologue.  The reasoning for this particular version of the fall of Rome and the "birth of Europe" is rather attractive but not wholly convincing. Despite the enormous loss of life, the eastern empire still went on, even expanded for a while with Belisarius' victories on the west.

three for the price of one

Mary Beard meets Lindsey Davis at a conference about Pompeii. (Not really about the book, though it probably got a mention.)

pope leo the great and attila the hun

In telling how Pope Leo persuaded Attila not to attack the city of Rome, Gibbon is more sympathetic to later legendary accretions to the story than he usually is: Gibbon Chapter 35

"The apparition of the two apostles of St. Peter and St. Paul, who menaced the barbarian with instant death if he rejected the prayer of their successor, is one of the noblest legends of ecclesiastical tradition. The safety of Rome might deserve the interposition of celestial beings; and some indulgence is due to a fable which has been represented by the pencil of Raphael and the chisel of Algardi."

I have added links to images of the artworks Gibbon is referring to.

ravenna

"...and in the twentieth year of his age the emperor of the West, anxious only for his personal safety, retired to the perpetual confinement of the walls and morasses of Ravenna. The example of Honorius was imitated by his feeble successors, the Gothic kings, and afterwards the Exarchs, who occupied the throne and palace of the emperors; and till the middle of the eighth century Ravenna was considered as the seat of government and the capital of Italy."

Gibbon: Chapter XXX.

Although Ravenna's port had been founded by Augustus as one of the headquarters for the Empire's Mediterranean fleet, it was Honorius' shifting of the capital to Ravenna that brought the city its lasting fame, which can be summed up in one word: mosaics. Eight buildings in Ravenna have been placed on UNESCO's World Heritage list because of their mosaics.

temporary blogging hiatus (irene)

Due to computer problems, I'll have to suspend blogging until this is fixed.

final gibbon chat of the season july 18

In our final chat of the current series, we will discuss Chapters XXXII to XXXV  The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. next Wednesday, July 18.

scopes and text (with footnotes):

XXXII:
Arcadius Emperor of the East.—Administration and Disgrace of Eutropius.—Revolt of Gainas.—Persecution of St. John Chrysostom.—Theodosius II. Emperor of the East.—His Sister Pulcheria.—His Wife Eudocia.—The Persian War, and Division of Armenia.
XXXIII:
Death of Honorius. - Valentinian  III. Emperor  of the West .- Administration of His  Mother Placidia. - Aetius and Boniface. - Conquest of Africa by the Vandals.
XXXIV:
The Character, Conquests,  and  Court of Attila, King of the  Huns. - Death of  Theodosius the Younger. - Elevation of Marcian to the Empire of the East.
XXXV:
Invasion of Gaul by Attila. - He Is Repulsed by Aetius and the Visigoths. - Attila Invades and Evacuates Italy.  - The Deaths of Attila, Aetius, and Valentinian the Third.

We will conclude Gibbon in January.

claudian online (and in print)

In Gibbon’s Chapters XXIX and XXX of his Decline and Fall one of  his major sources is Claudius Claudianus, generally known as Claudian, the 4th century Alexandrian court poet of Theodosius and the Western generalissimo Stilicho. 

Claudian wrote mostly in Latin.  His texts in translation can be found at LacusCurtius and the Theoi Project.

While he is considered a major poet, his panegyrics and invectives make him a not too reliable historical source.  Or, as Gibbon puts it:

The celestial gift, which Achilles obtained, and Alexander envied, of a poet worthy to celebrate the actions of heroes, has been enjoyed by Stilicho, in a much higher degree than might have been  expected from the declining state of genius and of art.  The muse of Claudian,⁽¹⁷⁾ devoted to his service, was always prepared to stigmatise his adversaries, Rufinus or Eutropius, with eternal infamy;  or to paint, in the most splendid colours, the victories andvirtues of a powerful benefactor.  In the review of a period indifferently supplied with authentic materials, we cannot refuse to illustrate the annals of Honorius from the invectives, or the panegyrics, of a contemporary writer, but as Claudian appears to have indulged the most ample privilege of a poet and a courtier, some criticism will be requisite to translate the language of fiction or exaggeration into the truth and simplicity of historic prose.

the destruction of paganism and the introduction of the worship of saints and relics as seen by gibbon

In Chapter XXVIII,  Final Destruction of Paganism. Introduction of the Worship of Saints and Relics among the Christians of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon, at his most ornate, describes the end – more or less – of pagan worship under Theodosius towards the end of the 4th century. In fact, he devotes the entire chapter to this topic.  Don't ignore the footnotes! You can link from the text below.

THE ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition, and may therefore deserve to be considered as a singular event in the history of the human mind.  The Christians, more especially the clergy, had impatiently supported the prudent delays of Constantine and the equal toleration of the elder Valentinian; nor could they deem their conquest perfect or secure as long as their adversaries were permitted to exist.  The influence which Ambrose and his brethren had acquired over the youth of Gratian and the piety of Theodosius was employed to infuse the maxims of persecution into the breasts of the Imperial proselytes.