Romanization and the development of political and institutional frames in the provinces are focused here with the study of a paradigmatic and famous military unit, the Legio V Macedonica, one of the more lasting legions of the Empire.
This article is a fresh examination of Austrasian Letter #2, written by Remigius, bishop of Reims, to Clovis, king of the Franks. We provide a new transcription of the text, together with a translation, followed by a critical review of... more
This article is a fresh examination of Austrasian Letter #2, written by Remigius, bishop of Reims, to Clovis, king of the Franks. We provide a new transcription of the text, together with a translation, followed by a critical review of the interpretations advanced from the Middle Ages to the present day, as well as a line-by-line commentary. In our conclusion we propose a radical revision of the date and meaning of the letter. We show that it need not be dated to the beginning of the reign of Clovis, nor to the aftermath of a particular campaign, and that it cannot be understood as evidence either of Clovis taking over the administration of the Roman province of Belgica Secunda, or of his receipt of some official appointment from the emperor. We argue instead that the letter should be dated to the end of the reign of Clovis, and that it should be read as evidence of a continuity in style – more than substance – of the government of the Roman world.
The Early Middle Ages were marked by repeated food crises. According to a survey by the German historian Fritz Curschmann (on the basis of histories, annals, chronicles, hagiographies etc.), there are 68 references of food crises between... more
The Early Middle Ages were marked by repeated food crises. According to a survey by the German historian Fritz Curschmann (on the basis of histories, annals, chronicles, hagiographies etc.), there are 68 references of food crises between the years 700 and 1100. These texts, however, tell us much more about the response to hunger, than about its circumstance or cause. The aim of this paper is to analyse the actions of public officials when faced with food crises in Gaul and Italy between the end of the fifth century and the late sixth century. For this purpose, I shall look at letters by Cassiodorus (d. c. 585) and Sidonius Apollinaris (d. 486), the Histories of Gregory of Tours (d. 594) and a poem by Venantius Fortunatus (d. c.609).
NB! Cp. my English paper John Philoponus on the Bodily Resurrection, Scrinium, 9 (2013) 91-100. My point is that the impossibility of reconstructing Philoponus' thought about the Resurrection resulted from our total dependency on the... more
NB! Cp. my English paper John Philoponus on the Bodily Resurrection, Scrinium, 9 (2013) 91-100.
My point is that the impossibility of reconstructing Philoponus' thought about the Resurrection resulted from our total dependency on the Cononite sources (the monophysite tritheist party of the opponents of Philoponus): Timothy of C.ple (a Chalcedonian) was depending on the Cononite information, too.
The Cononites understood Philoponus' notion of εἶδος as synonymous to σχῆμα, whereas its real meaning was different (the soul as a separable ἐντελέχεια of the body etc.). Thus, the famous knot from the Cononite anti-Philoponian florilegium, the following Philoponian quotation (about the resurrected bodies): ܘܠܐ ܒܠܚܘܕ ܒܡܢܝܢܐ ܐܚܪ̈ܝܢ ܠܗ̇ܢܘܢ ܕܐܝܬܝܗܘܢ܆ ܐܠܐ ܘܠܐ ܫܘ̈ܝܝ ܒܐܕܫܐ ܠܗ̇ܢܘܢ.
In the Roman Empire, the fact that something was old was continuously used as a reason for its superiority. Age gave respect and sanctity. Urban spaces were valued according to their age or the lack hereof. This core Roman value has since... more
In the Roman Empire, the fact that something was old was continuously used as a reason for its superiority. Age gave respect and sanctity. Urban spaces were valued according to their age or the lack hereof. This core Roman value has since the 1980s increasingly been studied on the basis of the theory of collective memory, but recently this scholarship has received a great deal of critique, especially in an archaeological context. Opponents of the approach criticize it for being unnecessary abstract and detached from the empirical data. They accuse the scholarship of not being critical enough of method and theory. The aim of this paper is to explore the theory of collective memory and answer the above-mentioned criticism by discussing its usefulness in connection with the study of the city of Rome during the 6thcentury AD. Using primarily the Forum Romanum as a concrete example, the approach will combine literary and archaeological data with the recent contributions of neuroscientific research to memory studies in an attempt toget us closer to an understanding of what frameworks Roman communities applied to make sense of urban spaces and the culture they were a part of. It will be studied how the Forum Romanum was used in this period and what the old monuments meant as memory-transfers of Roman identity in a city that was not ruled from Rome anymore and sometimes not even by Romans. Furthermore, it will be discussed if collective memory theory can help us explain the meaning Rome developed as a symbol of the Roman Empire and as an important part of the Gothic narrative about themselves as the “new” Romans.
