The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History

Home > Other > The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History > Page 63
The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History Page 63

by Peter Heather


  Riché, P. (1976). Education and Culture in the Barbarian West, Sixth through Eighth Centuries, trans. J. J. Contreni (Columbia)

  Ridley R. T. (trans.) (1982). Zosimus New History (Canberra)

  Roberts, C. H., and Turner, E. G. (eds) (1952). Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, vol. 4 (Manchester)

  Roberts, M. (1989). The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca)

  ———– (1992), ‘Barbarians in Gaul: The Response of the Poets’, in Drinkwater and Elton (1992), 97–106

  Robinson, O. F. (1992). The Sources of Roman Law (London)

  Roda, S. (1981). ‘Una nuova lettera di Simmaco ad Ausonio? (a proposito di Symm. Ep. IX, 88)’, Revue des Études Anciennes 83, 273–80

  Rolfe, J. C. (ed.) (1935–9). Ammianus Marcellinus, Loeb (London)

  Rostovtzeff, M. (1957) The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, 2nd edn, rev. P. Fraser (Oxford)

  Roueché, C. (1989). Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity: The Late Roman and Byzantine Inscriptions (London)

  Rowlands, M., et al. (eds) (1987). Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World (Cambridge)

  Rubin, Z. (1986). ‘The Mediterranean and the Dilemma of the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity’, Mediterranean Historical Review 1, 13–62

  Runciman, S. (1929). The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus and His Reign: A Study of Tenth-century Byzantium (Cambridge)

  St Croix, G. de (1981). The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London)

  Salway, P. (1981). Roman Britain (Oxford)

  Santini, C. (ed.) (1979). Eutropius Breviarium ab urbe condita (Stuttgart)

  Schenkl, H., et al. (eds) (1965–74). Themistii Orationes (Leipzig)

  Schutz, H. (1983). The Prehistory of Germanic Europe (New Haven, Conn.)

  Scorpan, C. (1980). Limes Scythiae: Topographical and Stratigraphical Research on the Late Roman Fortifications on the Lower Danube (Oxford)

  Shaw, B. (1995a). Environment and Society in North Africa: Studies in History and Archaeology (Aldershot)

  ———– (1995b). Rulers, Nomads and Christians in North Africa (Aldershot)

  Shchukin, M. B. (1989). Rome and the Barbarians in Central and Eastern Europe: 1st Century BC–1st Century AD (Oxford)

  Seeck, O. (ed.) (1876). Notitia Dignitatum omnium tam civilum quam militarum (Berlin)

  ———– (ed.) (1883). Symmachus quae supersunt (Berlin)

  Sinor, D. (1977). Inner Asia and Its Contacts with Medieval Europe (London)

  Sivan, H. (1985). ‘An Unedited Letter of the Emperor Honorius to the Spanish Soldiers’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik lxi, 273–87

  Smith, R. (1999). ‘Telling Tales: Ammianus’ Narrative of the Persian Expedition’, in J. W. Drijvers and D. Hunt (eds), The Late Roman World and Its Historian: Interpreting Ammianus Marcellinus (London), 89–104

  Stallknecht, B. (1969). Untersuchungen zur römischen Aussenpolitik in der Spätantike (Bonn)

  Stein, E. (1959). Histoire du Bas Empire, trans. J. R. Palanque (Paris)

  Stevens, C. E. (1933). Sidonius Apollinaris and His Age (Oxford)

  Stickler, T. (2002). Aetius: Gestaltungsspielraume eines Heermeisters im ausgehenden Weströmischen Reich, Vestigia 54 (Beck)

  Tate, G. (1989). ‘Les campagnes de la Syrie du Nord a l’époque proto-Byzantine’, in C. Morrisson and J. Lefort (eds), Hommes et richesses dans l’antiquité byzantine (Paris), 63–77

  Tchalenko, G. (1953–8). Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord (Paris)

  Tejral, J., et al. (eds) (1999). L’Occident romain et l’Europe centrale au début de l’époque des Grandes Migrations (Brno)

  Thompson, E. A. (1945). ‘Priscus of Panium, Fragment 1b’, Classical Quarterly 39, 92–4

  ———– (1946). ‘The Isaurians under Theodosius II’, Hermathena 48, 18–31

  ———– (1950). ‘The Foreign Policy of Theodosius II and Marcian’, Hermathena 76, 58–78

  ———– (1956). ‘The Settlement of the Barbarians in Southern Gaul’, Journal of Roman Studies 46, 65–75

  ———– (1982a). ‘The End of Noricum’, in Thompson (1982c), 113–35

  ———– (1982b). ‘Hydatius and the Invasion of Spain’, in Thompson (1982c), 137–60

  ———– (1982c). Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire (Wisconsin)

  ———– (1996). The Huns (Oxford)

  Thorpe, L. (trans.) (1974), Gregory of Tours: The History of the Franks (London)

  Tjäder, J.-O. (1972). ‘Der Codex argenteus in Uppsala und der Buchmeister Viliaric in Ravenna’, in U. E. Hagberg (ed.), Studia Gotica (Stockholm), 144–64

  Todd, M. (1975). The Northern Barbarians 100 BC–AD 300 (London)

  ———– (1992). The Early Germans (Oxford)

  Toynbee, A. (1973). Constantine Porphyrogenitus and His World (London)

  Trout, D. E. (1999). Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, and Poems (Berkeley)

  Twitchett, D., and Loewe, M. (1986). Cambridge History of China, vol. 1 (Cambridge)

  Urbancyzk, P. (1997). ‘Changes of Power Structure During the 1st Millennium AD in the Northern Part of Central Poland’, in P. Urbancyzk (ed.), Origins of Central Europe (Warsaw), 39–44

  Van Dam, R. (2003). Becoming Christian: The Conversion of Roman Cappadocia (Philadelphia)

  Van Es, W. A. (1967). Wijster: A Native Village beyond the Imperial Frontier 150–425 AD (Gröningen)

  Várady, L. (1969). Das Letzte Jahrhundert Pannoniens: 376–476 (Amsterdam)

  Vasiliev, A. A. (1936). The Goths in the Crimea (Cambridge)

  Viereck, H. D. L. (1975). Die Römische Flotte (Herford)

  Vogel, F. (ed.) (1885). Ennodius Opera, MGH, auctores antiquissimi 7 (Berlin)

  Von Salis, L. R. (ed.) (1892). Liber Constitutionum, MGH, leges nationum germanicarum 2.1 (Hanover)

  Walbank, F. W. (1969). The Awful Revolution: The Decline of the Roman Empire in the West (Liverpool)

  Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. (1961). ‘Gothia and Romania’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester 44/1

  Wanke, U. (1990). Die Gotenkriege des Valens: Studien zu Topographie und Chronologie im unteren Donauraum von 366 bis 378 n. Chr. (Frankfurt am Main)

  Ward Perkins, B. (2000). ‘Land, Labour and Settlement’, in Averil Cameron et al. (eds) (2000), 315–45

  Wells, P. S. (2003). The Battle That Stopped Rome (New York)

  Whitby, L. M. (2002). Rome at War AD 229–696 (Oxford)

  ———– and Whitby, J. M. (trans.) (1986). The History of Theophylact Simocatta (Oxford)

  ———– and Whitby, J. M. (trans.) (1989). The Chronicon Paschale (Liverpool)

  Whittaker, C. R. (1976). ‘Agri Deserti’, in M. I. Finley (ed.), Studies in Roman Property, 137–65, 193–200

  ———– (1994). Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study (Baltimore)

  ———– and Garnsey, P. (1998). ‘Rural Life in the Later Roman Empire’, in Averil Cameron and P. Garnsey (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd edn, vol. 13 (Cambridge), 277–311

  Whittow, M. (1996). The Making of Orthodox Byzantium, 600–1025 (London)

  Wickham, C. (1992). ‘Problems of Comparing Rural Societies in Early Medieval Western Europe’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser. 2, 221–46

  ———– (1993). ‘La chute de Rome n’aura pas lieu. À propos d’un livre récent’, Le Moyen Age 99, 107–26

  Wightman, E. M. (1967). Roman Trier and the Treveri (London)

  Wilkes, J. J. (1969). Dalmatia (London)

  Wolfram, H. (1967). Intitulatio 1: Lateinische Königs- und Fürstentitel bis zum Ende des 8. Jahrhunderts, Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Erganzungsband 21 (Vienna)

  ———– (1985). Treasures on the Danube: Barbarian Invaders and Their Roman Inheritance (Vienna)

  ———– (1988). History of the Goths, trans. T. J. Dunlap (Berkeley)

  ———�
�� and Daim, F. (eds) (1980). Die Völker an der mittleren und unteren Donau im fünften und sechsten Jahrhundert, Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Kl. 145 (Vienna)

  Wood, I. N. (1994). The Merovingian Kingdoms (London)

  Woolf, G. (1998). Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge)

  Wormald, P. (1999). The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, vol. 1 (Oxford)

  Wright, W. C. (1913). The Works of the Emperor Julian, 3 vols (London)

  Wuensch, R. (ed.) (1898). Ioannis Laurentii Lydi Liber de mensibus (Leipzig)

  Yarshater, E. (ed.) (1984–2004, ongoing). Encyclopaedia Iranica (London)

  Zecchini, G. (1983). Aezio: l’ultima difesa dell’Occidente romano (Rome)

  Zeumer, K. (ed.) (1902). Leges Visigothorum (Hanover)

  ENDNOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  1 Fibulae, as they’re known in the scholarly literature.

  2 The volumes generated by the European Science Foundation project can perhaps stand as a metaphor for the general state of scholarship: they encompass a multiplicity of stimulating essays, but no general overview (although, of course, that was not their point).

  3 The truth of this is immediately apparent in the chapters devoted to the fourth and fifth centuries in the last volume of the old Cambridge Ancient History and the first volume of the old Cambridge Medieval History, both published in the 1910s, which project the same orthodoxies about inevitable Roman decline and collapse. They remained essentially unchallenged until the 1960s.

  4 In saying this, I make not the slightest criticism of projects like ‘The Transformation of the Roman World’. The aim there was to advance participants’ knowledge and understanding by exposing them to the specialized work of others and, in doing so, to enable them to do their own work better. It is that drive which its volumes reflect, and I can gratefully testify to having learned a huge amount during five happy years of participation.

  1. ROMANS

  1 Caesar Gallic War, 6. 1.

  2 Gallic War 3. 37.

  3 St Bernard Pass: Gallic War 3. 1–6 Alesia: Gallic War 7. 75ff. Uxellodunum: Gallic War 8. 33ff. For further reading on the Roman army and its training methods, see CAH 2. 10, Ch. 11; CAH 2. 11, Ch. 9.

  4 There were some additions. Areas between the Upper Rhine and Upper Danube – the Taunus/Wetterau salient and the Neckar region – were annexed before the end of the century. A much larger extension came under Trajan. At the start of the second century, he launched a series of campaigns (101–2, 105–6) which eventually added the whole of Transylvanian Dacia to the Empire. This territory was abandoned by the emperor Aurelian (before AD 275). Good general accounts of Rome’s rise can be found in CAH 2. 7. 2, Chs 8–10.

  5 Acco: Gallic War 6. 44. Avaricum: Gallic War 7. 27–8.

  6 Indutiomarus: Gallic War 5. 58. 4–6. Catuvoleus: Gallic War 6. 31. Ambiorix: Gallic War 8. 25. 1.

  7 Gibbon (1897), 160ff. Jones (1964), Ch. 25. Several studies have surveyed the many different explanations for the end of the Empire offered over the years: e.g. Demandt (1984); Kagan (1992).

  8 On Rome, see, amongst many possibilities, Krautheimer (1980) with refs. Ostia: Meiggs (1973). Carthage is discussed in more detail in Ch. 6 below. An excellent introduction to the Empire is Cornell and Matthews (1982).

  9 The Roman Republic is generally held to have lasted down to the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor, although he retained many republican constitutional trappings. Even before his reign, Rome had already acquired overseas territories by conquest, and must therefore be reckoned an imperial power.

  10 On Symmachus in particular, see Matthews (1974); for detailed annotations, see the new French translation of his works (Callu (1972–2002)) and the ongoing volumes of the Italian commentary project. Good introductions to the senators of Rome in the late antique period are Matthews (1975); Arnheim (1972); Chastagnol (1960).

  11 Letters 1. 52. 1.

  12 E.g. ‘A is – always – followed by B’, or ‘A will – in the future – be followed by B’, or ‘A would – if certain conditions apply – be followed by B’.

  13 Palladius: Symmachus Letters 1.15. On this education more generally, see the excellent study of Kaster (1988).

  14 Letters 1.1.

  15 His speeches won less favour after his death than his Letters: the seven we have survive only in one damaged manuscript, which would originally have contained many more.

  16 Sometimes, what were originally a grandee’s marginalia eventually became incorporated by mistake into the text proper, giving modern editors the occasionally tricky job of separating original text from subsequent commentary. After Symmachus’ death, the Saturnalia of Macrobius recalled the literary and philosophical ideals of Symmachus and his friends in fictional dialogue form, so as to transmit a potted version of the classical heritage to his son. On the ancient roots of the ongoing scholarly tradition that saved many classical texts, see Matthews (1975), Ch. 1.

  17 Homes Dudden (1935), 39. In the view of Boissier (1891), vol. 2, 183, they are ‘the dullest epistles in the Latin language’.

  18 Excuses: Symmachus Letters 3. 4. Much of the prevailing etiquette is sorted out in Matthews (1974), (1986); Bruggisser (1993).

  19 Caesar: Adcock (1956). The bibliography on Cicero is enormous, but see e.g. Rawson (1975) and, most recently on his oratory, Fantham (2004).

  20 Food: Ammianus 27. 3. 8–9. Wine: Ammianus 27. 3. 4.

  21 Symmachus Letters 5. 62.

  22 Symmachus Letters 6. 33, 6. 42.

  23 Symmachus Letters 4. 58–62, 5. 56.

  24 Symmachus Letters 6. 43.

  25 Ideology: Dvornik (1966). For an introduction to the ceremonial life of the Empire, see Matthews (1989), Chs 11–12; MacCormack (1981). The quotation is from Ammianus 16. 10. 10.

  26 Development of Roman law: Robinson (1997); Honoré (1994); Millar (1992), Chs 7–8. Taxation: Millar (1992), Ch. 4; Jones (1964), Ch. 13.

  27 The two most important imperial titles in the late period were Augustus and Caesar, both originally deriving from personal names (Julius Caesar and his nephew Augustus). In the fourth century, Augustus became the title adopted by senior emperors, while Caesar was reserved for junior colleagues.

  28 Matthews (1989), 235 with refs.

  29 Themistius Or. 6. 83 c–d.

  30 General development of the imperial office: Millar (1992), esp. Chs 2 and 5; Matthews (1989), Ch. 11.

  31 Pan. Lat. 6. 22. 6.

  32 Introductions to the late Roman army: Jones (1964); Elton (1996b); Whitby (2002).

  33 Growth of bureaucracy: e.g. Matthews (1975), Chs 2–4; Heather (1994b).

  34 The Theodorus incident is recounted widely in the sources: Ammianus 29. 1, with full list at PLRE, 1, 898.

  35 The deeper history of this development is well explored in CAH, 2. 11, Ch. 4.

  36 A contemporary of Symmachus who figures in the letter collection, Petronius Probus, was, for instance, Praetorian Prefect (roughly the equivalent of first minister) for Italy, Africa and the western Balkans for about eight years altogether, in two separate stints.

  37 For an introduction to these developments, see Jones (1964), Ch. 18; Dagron (1974); Heather (1994b).

  38 General development of Trier: Wightman (1967).

  39 Those for the presentation of crown gold were shorter than normal imperial speeches, presumably because there were so many of them – one from each city of the Empire – that the imperial personage might be driven out of his imperial mind if they went on too long.

  40 The bibliography on towns in the Roman Empire is enormous, but for introductions to their importance – physical, administrative and political – see Jones (1964), Ch. 19.

  41 On Konz and the Moselle villas, see Wightmann (1967), Ch. 4. The literature on the villa as a cultural phenomenon is as profuse as that on towns, but see e.g. Percival (1976).

  42 Letters 9. 88; the letter was first id
entified by Roda (1981).

  43 On Ausonius’ Latinity, see Green (1991). Ausonius’ maternal grandfather was a major landowner among the Aedui of central Gaul. His mother’s brother was a successful rhetorician who became court tutor to one of the emperor Constantine’s family in Constantinople. Ausonius tells us less about his paternal ancestry, thereby generating suspicions that it may not have been so respectable, but his father was a doctor who owned property in south-western Gaul and his uncle made a mercantile fortune.

  44 For Aristotle, this constituted the only good life, and someone living isolated on his estates was bound to be less rational. Our word ‘idiot’ comes from the Greek (idiotes) for someone shunning participation in this kind of local community.

  45 Gonzalez (1986); trans. M. H. Crawford.

  46 Villas were always divided into the pars rustica (‘country part’, the working farm) and the pars urbana (‘urban part’, for civilized living). The pars urbana incorporated substantial public rooms for entertaining peers, as well as baths, so that life in the villa was anything but idiotic. There are many good studies on the ideological adjustments involved in becoming Roman. See e.g. Woolf (1998); Keay and Terrenato (2001); D. J. Mattingly (2002).

  47 Symmachus Letters 1. 14.

  48 The next three quotations are from Mosella ll. 161–7, 335–48, 399–404.

  49 Quintilian’s contribution to the Latin tradition is examined in e.g. Leeman (1963).

  50 Using the concordance to Symmachus’ works (Lomanto (1983)), I count getting on for twenty mentions of Baiae and its pleasures in his correspondence.

  51 Letters 1. 14.

  52 According to the expert on the subject, Jones (1964), 528, by c. 370 ‘The third class of the comitiva [countship] was still conferred, but on persons of very humble degree, decurions who had completed their obligations to their cities, and the patrons of the guilds of bakers and butchers at Rome.’

  53 On Ausonius’ extraordinary rise to prominence, see Matthews (1975), Ch. 3.

  2. BARBARIANS

  1 Tacitus Annals 1. 61. 1–6.

  2 Wells (2003), esp. Chs 2–3 and appendices, is a good introduction to the myth of Arminius and the recent archaeological finds. Its account of the battle, however, is very odd, envisaging a massacre that was all over in an hour while making no comment on the fact that the best source describes a drawn-out four-day struggle fought out over a considerable distance (Cassius Dio 56. 19–22 (no other source contradicts Dio)).

 

‹ Prev