Roman History Books and More

late-third century urban defenses in south Languedoc

Thanks to Lindsay Powell for finding this!   (History of the Ancient World)

Writing on the wall: late-third century urban defenses in south Languedoc
By Douglas Underwood
PhD Dissertation, University of Missouri–Columbia, 2009

This thesis takes the three largest cities in Roman south Languedoc-Narbonne, Carcassonne and Toulouse -and reexamines the evidence, both archaeological and literary, about the city walls. I conclude that these walls, indeed built in the late third or early fourth century, were not hastily constructed and did not only enclose a small portion of the city. Further, the construction of monumental walls at this date shows a level of economic vitality. This argues against the commonly assumed dismal situation and suggests that the problems of the “third-century crisis” did not affect south Gaul in ways previously thought.

City of Narbonne in south of France, and the Saint Just cathedral
viewed from the Gilles Aycelin dungeon.
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

the transition to late antiquity on the lower danube, lecture series

Update 1:  Adrian now has actually blogged it and comments:

All of it looks good, but noteworthy is Poulter's article "The Transition to Late Antiquity", Peter Heather's "Goths in the Roman Balkans c.350–50"; Peter Guest's "Coin Circulation in the Balkans in Late Antiquity" and Neil Christie's "From the Danube to the Po: the Defence of Pannonia and Italy in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries AD". 

---

(Hat tip Adrian Murdoch via Twitter)

Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 141
The Transition to Late Antiquity on the Lower Danube
Volume published 2007

A lecture series available as free PDF files.

barbarian invasion across the rhein, 406

Our current read,  Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem, centers around the barbarian invasion of 406 CE across the Rhein river, which our fictitious hero Paulinus Gaius Maximus is tasked to stave off by Stilicho, magister militum of the Western Roman Empire. (Note also Claudian at LacusCurtius re Stilicho.)

The Cambridge Medieval History by By J.B. Bury, Macmillan, 1911, page 266, gives a concise description.  (The book may also be read at the Internet Archive.)

reprise: late antiquity

I posted this in June 2007, and it might be timely again:

late antiquity, spätantike: when did it happen?

saint gregory of tours

Gibbon's main source in Chapter XXXVIII is Gregory of Tours (c. 538 - 594).  He was the son of a senator from Clermont (Sidonius Apollinaris' see) who seems to have died while Gregory was still quite young.  Gregory was educated by his uncle Avitus, the bishop of Clermont.  In 573 Gregory became bishop of Tours.  Many of his predecessors were his relatives.  He is best known for his "Ten Books of Histories" or as it is more commonly known these days "The History of the Franks."

Background:
Some pictures of artefacts from Gregory's time.

Map:
Gaul after the death of Clovis (from wikipedia)

more on monasticism

The figures Gibbon particularly draws our attention to in the early history of monasticism are St. Anthony in Egypt and St. Martin in Gaul.

Monasticism seems to have started in Egypt, and we have accounts of some of the monks by  Rufinus and Palladius. Perhaps the most famous of the monks was St. Anthony, a life of whom was written by his contemporary admirer, Athanasius. The Catholic Encylopaedia has a more modern account.

Anthony has been a popular subject for painters: Hieronymus Bosch painted a lurid picture of Anthony's temptation by demons. Another picture on the same subject was painted by Matthias Grünewald as part of the Isenheim Altarpiece, which also contains a more restful picture of Anthony's visit to St. Paul the Hermit.

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.

late antiquity, spätantike: when did it happen?

As a member of the "educated public" (see below), I have been struggling lately with this question:  What is Late Antiquity/Spätantike, and how is it framed?  There are so many different views out there.

Therefore, it was comforting to read yesterday in A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II, 405-450 (Sather Classical Lectures),  Table of Content, University of California Press 2006, by Fergus Millar:

It is a matter of pure choice, convention, or convenience to what periods we apply the terms "Late Empire," "Byzantium," or "Late Antiquity."   We can, for instance, quite reasonably choose to use "Byzantine" only for the period after the loss of Syria, Egypt, and Libya to Islam.  But we could also choose to see the long and stable reign of Theodosius II as the beginning of "Byzantium:"  the first extended reign by an Emperor born in Constantinople;  the first regime conducted from there (allowing for occasional mi­nor excursions) continuously for four decades;  the reign most emphatically marked by Christian piety;  and the one for which our evidence allows us to see, far more fully and clearly than any other, the intimate relations between the Emperor and the Greek-speaking Church.  (emphasis mine)

for german speakers: plekos – online periodical on late antiquity

In my search on information on the terminology/dating of  Late Antiquity I stumbled over the German online periodical plekos:

plekos
Periodicum OnLine zur Erforschung
der KOmmunikationsstrukturen in der Spätantike

(Online Periodical for the Research of
Communications Structures in Late Antiquity)

For full articles through 2006, you have to click on the HTML links, beginning 2007, everything is in PDF format.

book: law and empire in late antiquity

Jill Harries, the author of the Sidonius book mentioned below, has also written Law and Empire in Late Antiquity.  Here is a  Bryn Mawr Classical Review.

A brand new book on Roman legal history of hers is Cicero And the Jurists – Bryn Mawr Classical Review.

more on sidonius apollinaris

Gaius Sollius Modestus Sidonius Apollinaris (c. 430 – after 489), poet, diplomat, bishop, is “the single most important surviving author from fifth-century Gaul” according to Eric Goldberg (see below).  He was one of four late antiquity Gallo-Roman aristocrats whose letters survive in quantity.  His letters have been compared to a literary Herculaneum, preserving under the accumulated centuries the most varied evidences of late Roman provincial life. (wikipedia and O.M. Dalton)

Bingley already briefly blogged Sidonius below, with his letters at the Early Church Fathers site.  (Click on the page symbol at top and bottom to continue the letters content.)

The Fall of the Roman Empire Revisited: Sidonius Apollinaris and His Crisis of Identity Eric J. Goldberg.  (Essays in History, The Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia).

ammianus marcellinus, roman historian

Ammianus Marcellinus was born between 325 and 335 A.D. and lived until at least 395.  He possibly hailed from Antioch, and was of noble birth.  He soldiered under Constantius II, and under Julian the Apostate until the latter's death.  He later lived in the city of Rome.  He wrote, in Latin, a history of the Roman empire from the accession of Nerva to the death of Valens (96-378).  This work, known as res gestae, consisted of thirty-one books;  of these the first thirteen are lost, the remaining eighteen cover the period from 353 to 378.  Online, they can be found in Latin only, at the Latin Library.  There are excerpts in translation, especially the battle descriptions:  The Siege of Amida in 359 and The Battle of Hadrianopolis 378, (probably the best known).  I could not find an online translation of the Battle of Strasbourg 357.  And there is The Luxury of the Rich in Rome …