Soldiers and Ghosts

Presentism and the Study of Late Antiquity

This chapter is on Jones and the late Roman economy and it explains why his view of it was so pessimistic in his Later Roman Empire. Before judging as pessimistic Jones' minimalist assessment of late Roman commerce, one needs to view it in a broader context, and be aware of how he described the role of trade in earlier Roman times. In his 1959 article, ?Over-Taxation and the Decline of the Roman Empire?, rates of taxation, a shrinking of the Roman economy, and the overall decline of the empire were explicitly and forcefully linked. As any reader of the Theodosian Code must, Jones accepted that tied labour was an important feature of the late Roman period. The minimalist, and predominantly pessimistic, view that Jones had of the later Roman economy was to a large extent possible because he almost completely ignored archaeological evidence.Keywords: Later Roman Empire; A.H.M Jones; archaeological evidence; late Roman economy; late Roman taxation; Theodosian Code; tied labour

Usurpations were not unusual situations in Ancient Rome. However, the term “tyrranus” was
\nunderstood differently from its modern meaning. This word technically means “someone who
\ncame to power unlawfully”, but in fact a person defeated by a new ruler was called an usurper,
\nregardless of a way he had come to power. In such a way, e.g. Licinius was declared “tyrranus”
\nalthough he had come to power as a legal augustus.
\nConstitutions against usurpers in the Theodosian Code do not constitute a homogenous
\ngroup. We could divide them into acts regarding an usurper’s legislation, acts regarding civil
\nlaw actions (e.g. slave emancipations), acts regarding public law actions (e.g. nominations
\nof magistrates) and acts regarding the emperor’s sentences. It is meaningful that there is no
\nusurper against whom all the above-mentioned types of constitutions were promulgated.
\nCivil law acts and sentences were generally upheld. In most cases, legislation was abolished
\nonly to the extent in which it was contra ius. Only Constantinus against Licinius (CTh. XV, 14, 1)
\nand Honorius and Theodosius II against Heraclianus (CTh. XV, 14, 13) decided to abrogate the
\nentire the legal output of the usurpation. Valenitianus II, Theodosius II and Honorius were the
\nonly emperors (except CTh XV, 14, 13) who abrogated all sentences of the usurpers. In almost
\nall cases, nominations made by the usurper were annulled.
\nHowever, while all usurpations (except Licinius’s usurpation) had taken place only in its
\nWestern Part, it should be noticed that all the analyzed constitutions were promulgated by all
\nsimultaneous rulers of the Empire even after 395 AD.
\nThe question is why Theodosian compilers decided to include the analyzed constitutions
\ninto the Code. In my opinion, the most probable answer is that the Chapter De infirmandis...
\nshould have served for the legitimation of the rules of the current Emperor, as until the end of
\nthe Empire there were no rules of succession of power. In all analyzed constitutions, the legal emperor referred to an output of the illegal ruler. Theodosius, evoking those constitutions and
\ndemonstrating his continuity with their authors, presented himself as the legal ruler and put
\nall his opponents in the position of usurpers.

The Parthian state emerged around 250 b.c. and lasted for nearly 500 years, becoming one of the longest empires in ancient history. At its height, the kingdom of Parthia controlled territory from the Caspian Sea and southern Caucasus in the north, Bactria in the east, the Persian Gulf in the south and Mesopotamia in the west. Its rulers actively exchanged diplomatic and trade missions with the Chinese, Roman Empire and Central Asian states, and during the age of the Parthian Empire the ancient Great Silk Road reached its peak. The Parthians entered the annals of western history for some of the most remarkable military battles in history: They defeated the renowned legions of the Roman general Crassus in 53 b.c. and inflicted heavy losses upon Mark Antony (83–30 b.c.) in 36 b.c., ultimately leading to his downfall and death along with his lover, the legendary Cleopatra.

Prior to the third century A.D., two broad Roman conceptions of frontiers proliferated and competed: an imperial ideology of rule without limit coexisted with very real and pragmatic attempts to define and defend imperial frontiers. But from about A.D. 250-500, there was a basic shift in mentality, as news from and about frontiers began to portray a more defined Roman world—a world with limits—allowing a new understanding of frontiers as territorial and not just as divisions of people. This concept, previously unknown in the ancient world, brought with it a new consciousness, which soon spread to cosmology, geography, myth, sacred texts, and prophecy. The “frontier consciousness” produced a unified sense of Roman identity that transcended local identities and social boundaries throughout the later Empire. Approaching Roman frontiers with the aid of media studies as well as anthropological and sociological methodologies, Mark W. Graham chronicles and documents this significant transition in ancient thought, which coincided with, but was not necessarily dependent on, the Christianization of the Roman world. Mark W. Graham is Assistant Professor of History at Grove City College.

The legalization of Christianity in the late Roman Empire was a key moment in the development of Western constitutionalism. Harold Berman famously emphasized the role of the Gregorian Papal Revolution in the development of Western law. But that medieval revolution that lies at the foundation of constitutionalism depended on the much earlier Constantinian revolution, which secured the independence of the church. Merely as a sociological phenomenon, the church was unique in the ancient world, and the church claimed to be much more than a purely sociological phenomenon. She claimed to be the bearer of the meaning of human history, a holy and separate people that was a sign of a perfected kingdom of the future. In recognizing the church, Constantine inaugurated, without entirely realizing it, a “migration of the holy,” a shift of the locus of sanctity from the prince to the church. Legalization of the church dealt a blow to the belief in “sacral kingship” common in ancient politics right up to the imperium of Diocletian. After Constantine, Christian emperors recognized the church’s leaders as spokesmen of God, to whom they were accountable. The fifth-century Gelasian theory of “two powers” was an early form of the “separation of powers” as the church provided a “check and balance,” a real counterweight to imperial authority.

Aromatic civet, the natural product of the civet cat, initially entered the European scene as an imported medicine. Later, when it was obtained from semidomesticated civet cats, more of the valued civet became available and it played an expanded role in the general use of aromatics of vegetable and animal origin. Aromatic herbs, fruits, resins, and roots were very early used in European medicines. One need only consult the Natural History of Pliny and the Materia medica of Dioscorides, both dating from the first century A.D., to appreciate the well-developed medicinal uses of odoriferous vegetable products, many of which came from the East. Of the four medicinal aromatics originating in large animals castoreum, musk, ambergris, and civet three were introduced into European medicine only after the decline of the Roman Empire. Castoreum, or castor, the dried preputial follicles of male and female beavers (Castor fiber) and the secretion obtained from these glands, was known and employed in medicine from ancient times to the early modern period.' In the seventeenth century the English physician Nicholas Culpeper summed up the traditional uses of castoreum:

Relevance. The relevance of this study is determined by its examination of the dramatic poem «Orgy» through a historical-receptive lens. This approach allows for the identification of the mechanisms behind the author’s interpretation of the historical period and the tracing of the specifics of the reception of Antiquity within the text. Aim. The aim of the article is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the dramatic poem «Orgy» by the Ukrainian writer and poet Lesia Ukrainka, utilizing the methodological framework of classical reception studies. It also seeks to identify the mechanisms and reveal the role of these historical borrowings in the context of the author’s vision of Antiquity as a whole, and specifically the Greco-Roman relations from the military conquest of Hellas to the era of the Second Sophistic (2nd century BC – 2nd century AD). Methodology. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity, characterized by an interdisciplinary approach. The theoretical and methodological framework relies on the principles of receptive aesthetics and the concepts of classical reception studies. The study also employs analytical, hermeneutic, and comparative-historical methods. Results. The study establishes that the specificity of the author’s interpretation of historical events, against which the main plot unfolds, lies in chronological hybridization – combining two temporal spaces to provide a deeper elucidation of Greco-Roman relations. It was found that the historical narrative in the work functions as a «safe distance» for constructing analogies between the past and the present. The history and specifics of the perception of Greek culture in the ancient world (from the 2nd century BC to the Second Sophistic period in the 2nd century AD) are examined. It is revealed that the reception of Greek culture by ancient Rome, as described in the text, is based on the principles of selectivity and pragmatism, utilized for cultural appropriation to achieve the political self-determination of the Roman elite and the legitimization of power by the Antonine dynasty emperors. The evolution of the concept of «orgy» in a historical context is analyzed: from a sacred ritual associated with the cult of Dionysus to its interpretation by the recipient – ancient Rome. It is established that throughout the plotline, there is a shift in semantic accents regarding the primary definition of the concept of «orgy», which indicates the conflict of Greek and Roman identities depicted in the work. Conclusions. The obtained results indicate that applying the methodology of classical reception allowed for a holistic disclosure of the mechanisms of assimilation and interpretation of ancient history in Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic poem «Orgy». The study emphasizes that the author appeals to universal problems, actualizing the issue of Greco-Roman relations during Antiquity (2nd century BC – 2nd century AD) as a model of interaction between dominant and subjugated nations. The semantic transformation of the concept of «orgy» serves as a key marker demonstrating the specifics of the Roman reception of Greek culture. The proposed approach opens prospects for further studies of Antiquity in the context of classical reception within the writer’s creative heritage.

Pain is one of the most important things in my life.La douleurI tell him that when I was a child, my mother's unhappiness took the place of dreams.The LoverWe, the so-called civilized worlds, know that we are mortal, as Valéry declared after World War i, but now, even more, we know that we can cause our own death. Auschwitz and Hiroshima revealed that the “malady of death,” to use Marguerite Duras's term, constitutes our most hidden inner recesses. If the passion for death governs the military and economic domains as well as social and political bonds, this passion now even appears to govern the once noble realm of the mind. Indeed, a monumental crisis in thought and word, a crisis in representation, has occurred. Its analogues can be found in previous centuries (the decline of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity, the devastating periods of plague or war during the Middle Ages), and its causes can be sought in the collapse of economic, political, and legal structures. Moreover, the power of destructive forces, both outside and within the individual and society, has never appeared as incontestable and irrevocable as it does today. The destruction of nature, of life and economic resources, is coupled with an outbreak, or simply a more patent manifestation, of the disorders that psychiatry has subtly diagnosed: psychosis, depression, mania, borderline disorders, false personalities, and so on.

The Role of the Large Landholders in the Loss of Roman Gaul: <i>A Case Study in the Decline of the Roman Empire in the West</i>*

The Cambridge Economic History of Europe from the Decline of the Roman Empire

The eighth and final volume of The Cambridge Economic History of Europe is the third of a group of three that cover the economic history of the western world during and since the Industrial Revolution. The main theme of this volume is the role played in the growth of industrial economies by the development of economic and social policies. The volume also discusses these factors in detail for the principal economies, and includes detailed studies of France, Britain, Germany, the United States, Austria-Hungary, the countries of Eastern Europe, Russia, Sweden, and Japan.

The human race has a long history. Depending on which paleontologist or paleoanthropologist one consults, man's beginnings reach back from a third to more than a half million years. At the Darwin Centennial in Chicago, in November I959, anthropologist L. S. B. Leakey told of an early man or late protoman, evidence of whom has been found in East Africa, who may mark the beginnings of the species. The available skeletal material and artifacts, which were uncovered deep in the side of a canyon that afforded quite an accurate geological dating, indicate that these people were, indeed, human.1 During the next 200,000 years or more of man's rather precarious foothold on Earth, his numbers were extremely small and our knowledge of him is quite meager.2 Typically, he congregated in nomadic tribes and was completely subject to all of the vagaries of the weather and the ecological cycle of the game animals on which his existence depended. Food shortages were usually endemic, and the ravages of epidemics were routine-although the wide dispersal of the population tended to localize these hazards. Nevertheless, the picture that emerges is one in which births and deaths were roughly balanced, with births perhaps holding a narrow margin. Despite the rigors of life, however, many island civilizations of a high cultural level prospered for a time in the rich river valleys of Egypt and Asia and then vanished. Populations apparently grew rapidly during the emergence of a golden age, and then declined during the following period of regression and decay. In the most varied contexts, this cycle of growth and decline appears to have been repeated for millennia. Even in China, the location of a man's most stable culture, this seems to have been the recurrent pattern. In any event, the competent consensus is that by the time of Christ, near the midpoint in the cycle of growth and decline of the Roman Empire, the population

The Theodosian Code—a collection of Roman imperial legislation of the period from Constantine the Great to Theodosius II—is a fundamental source for understanding the legal, social, economic, cultural, and religious history of the later Roman Empire. More than 2,700 of the 3,500 original texts of the Code survive, illuminating issues as wide-ranging as prison conditions and rural patronage, intestate succession, and the pork supply for the city of Rome. Yet no recent study has closely examined how the Code was prepared, and this gap has hindered accurate interpretation. Laying Down the Law offers for the first time a clear and comprehensive guide to the interpretation of the Theodosian Code. John F. Matthews, a leading authority on the late Roman Empire, examines in detail the planning, design, and publication of the Code. Matthews sets in legal and political context the recognition in the fifth century of the need for a codification of imperial legislation, describes the editorial principles upon which the work was based, and considers how these principles affected the shape of the Code. Combining legal with historical evidence, Matthews shows the Theodosian Code in a new and more accurate light, emphasizing its importance as a prime source of information on the later Roman Empire.

Abstract:At some point in late antiquity, most scholars believe, Christians reversed the powerful valence of death pollution and considered corpses and bones to be sacred. The rise of the ‘Cult of the Saints’ or ‘cult of relics’ is widely accepted as a curious social phenomenon that characterized late antiquity. This paper argues that although present elsewhere in the late Roman Empire, no such ‘corporeal turn’ happened in Rome. The prevailing assumption that it did – fostered by the apologetic concerns of early modern Catholic historiography – has led us to gloss over important evidence to the contrary, to read our own assumptions into our extant textual, material, and archaeological sources. As a ‘case study’, this paper considers the so-called ‘Crypt of the Popes’ in the catacombs of Callixtus, which is universally presented unproblematically as an authentic burial chamber attesting to an age of persecution and the strength of Catholic apostolic succession. This paper argues, by contrast, that the chamber is not what it seems; it is, rather, a case of early modern historiographical artifice masquerading as late antique Roman Christianity.