Life of an ancient monument: Hadrian's Wall in history

Antiquity ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 86 (333) ◽  
pp. 760-771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hingley ◽  
Robert Witcher ◽  
Claire Nesbitt
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
New Information ◽  
Material History ◽  
Hadrian's Wall ◽  
Ancient Monument ◽  
The Last Two Millennia

The Romans are Britain's favourite invaders, and Hadrian's Wall is among the largest and finest of the relics they left behind on the island. However, as our authors urge, we should demand more intellectual depth from our monuments today. Not simply a cultural asset anchored in the Roman empire, Hadrian's Wall had a busy afterlife, a material history reflecting the uses, attitudes and emotions of later centuries. Its ‘biography’ not only captures new information about the last two millennia, it offers a story that the modern visitor deserves to hear.

Destinations in Mind

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Cassibry
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Place Names ◽  
New Information ◽  
Glass Bottles ◽  
Virtual Experiences ◽  
Hadrian's Wall ◽  
Bear Witness

Destinations in Mind explores how objects depicting distant places helped Romans understand their vast empire. At a time when many sites were written about but only a few were represented in art, four distinct sets of artifacts circulated new information. Engraved silver cups list all the stops from Spanish Gades to Rome, while resembling the milestones that helped travelers track their progress. Vivid glass cups represent famous charioteers and gladiators competing in circuses and amphitheaters, and offered virtual experiences of spectacles that were new to many regions. Bronze bowls commemorate forts along Hadrian’s Wall with colorful enameling typical of Celtic craftsmanship. Glass bottles display labeled cityscapes of Baiae, a notorious resort, and Puteoli, a busy port, both in the Bay of Naples. These artifacts and their journeys reveal an empire divided not into center and periphery, but connected by roads that did not all lead to Rome. They bear witness to a shared visual culture that was not divided into high and low art, but united by extraordinary craftsmanship. New aspects of globalization are apparent in the multilingual place names that the vessels bear, in the transformed places that they visualize, and in the enriched understanding of the empire’s landmarks that they impart. With in-depth case studies, the book argues that the best way to comprehend the Roman empire is to look closely at objects depicting its fascinating places.

Papyri and Roman Imperial History, 1960–75

1976 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 153-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan K. Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
New Information ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Province ◽  
Selection Of

‘For those outside the circle of learned devotees important work by papyrologists too often remains unfamiliar’ (J. J. Wilkes, JRS 65 (1975), 187). In the past few years the contribution of the papyri to the history of the Roman Empire has been very important, and it is the main purpose of the notes which follow to provide for the historian a convenient summary of recent documentary evidence which demands his attention. This survey encompasses work which has appeared in the last fifteen years (though with reference to documents published earlier which have recently received significant discussion) and covers the period of Roman imperial history from Augustus to Constantine. The material is divided into three sections. In the first I collect items which provide new information on topics of general imperial history, mainly matters of chronology and prosopography relating to Emperors and the imperial house; to which I have added evidence for Emperors in direct contact with Egypt, relating largely to imperial visits and revolts. In the second part I discuss Egypt as a Roman province, its organization, officials, social and economic history; some of the fresh conclusions which have emerged naturally have a broader application, which I hope to have indicated in the course of my discussion. In the brief final section documents are collected which either have their provenance outside Egypt or specifically relate to places other than Egypt. It is hardly necessary to add that the overall selection of items is subjective and cannot hope to be comprehensive. It will be noticed that some important topics are intentionally excluded from systematic examination—in particular, Roman Law, Graeco-Roman religion and Christianity.

scholarly journals THE FIGURE OF I. MAZEPA IN THE MONOGRAPHIC RESEARCH OF THEODOR MASKIW

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (32) ◽  
pp. 106-111
Author(s):  
Tetiana Yushchuk
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Main Attention ◽  
Political Events ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Press ◽  
Personal Contribution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Factual Content ◽  
The Russian Empire

The article analyzes the monographic studies of T. Maсkiw, which concerned the figure of I. Mazepa. The personal contribution of the historian to the study of political circumstances and public sentiments in which the documents described by scientists were created, the genesis and texts of research sources, as well as their influence on memoirists of that era are determined. Attention is drawn to the refutation by scientists of falsified data and erroneous assumptions of other researchers about the figure of the hetman. The types and kinds of sources used by T. Maсkiw in his research are described. The differences in the factual content of texts of sources of different European countries, the dependence of these texts on the place of creation of the source and its author are studied, the structure, genesis and differences of the main works of the historian on this subject are analyzed. Emphasis is placed on new information on the history of Ukraine in the time of I. Mazepa, which T. Maсkiw found in European archives. The archeographic aspect of the historian’s activity is also reflected in the article. An important contribution of the author can be considered his reflections on the objectivity / subjectivity of the European press, which covered the events of Europe and Ukraine in the era of hetman I. Mazepa, its influence on European politicians, as well as the dependence of the press on the state. The main attention in the research is paid to the ukrainian-language monograph «Hetman Ivan Mazepa in the that time western European sources 1687-1709». An analysis of the change in assessments of political events in Ukraine by the foreign press after the transition of the hetman to the side of the Swedish king, a description of the reasons for this transition, the dependence of foreign assessments of the events of 1708 on the position of the Russian Empire, causes and consequences for I. Mazepa, vicissitudes of granting the hetman the title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Library of Edward Gibbon

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 53-74
Author(s):  
Richard Virr
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
University Library ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
New Information ◽  
Mcgill University ◽  
Rare Books

Edward Gibbon’s (1737–1794) library was fundamental to his historical work and he could not have written his great history The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1778) without it. His library continues to attract interest and attention, and two documents held in Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library and Archives, not previously known to scholars, provide new information about the books that Gibbon owned. These are an invoice from his London bookbinder, Joseph Hall, for 1773–1776, andan invoice from his Lausanne bookseller, Jules Henri Pott, for 1793. The article provides transcriptions of these two documents, examines their contents, and discusses their importance for our understandingof Gibbon’s library.

Leon Allatios’ Entführung der Bibliotheca Palatina und weitere Selbstzeugnisse von Griechen über den Dreißigjährigen Krieg

Daphnis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 158-189
Author(s):  
Stefano Saracino
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
History Of Knowledge ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Interesting Topic ◽  
History Of

This article explores narrative sources, which were left behind in the early stage of the Thirty Years War by Greek-Orthodox migrants. The most impressive text of this kind, which heretofore has been explored by scholars for different scopes, but has not been interpreted as testimonial of the war, is the final report of the catholic convert Leon Allatios from Chios for his principals at the Roman court. Allatios in 1622/23 was commissioned to organize the deportation of the Bibliotheca Palatina. The article analyses how the mobility of Allatios and other Greeks was affected by the events of war. Furthermore it focuses on the narrative strategies used by such migrants in communicating their experiences in the Holy Roman Empire, and finally it reconstructs the practices and processes used by Allatios for the accomplishment of his mammoth task; for his testimony of the abduction of the famous library from Heidelberg represents an interesting topic for studies on the history of knowledge.

Another eyewitness to the plague described by Cyprian, with notes on the “Persecution of Decius”

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 473-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Harper
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Mortality Event ◽  
Electronic Search

In JRA 28 (2015), I published a study of the sources for the pandemic mortality event that struck the Roman Empire during the years A.D. c.249-270. Although relatively neglected in recent historiography, this pandemic is surprisingly well attested both by contemporary witnesses and by later sources reflecting the earlier tradition. The study identified at least 6 contemporary testimonies and 6 other independent lines of transmission about the disease, disentangling some two dozen sources of information down through the Late Byzantine chronicles. The plague described by Cyprian, despite progressing against the backdrop of one of the most poorly documented phases of Roman history, has left behind a body of literary evidence that in sheer volume exceeds the testimony for the better-studied Antonine plague of the late 2nd c. Moreover, the evidence for the plague described by Cyprian is, collectively, quite compelling; the consistency of independent testimony adds credence to the claims of a major mortality event. My study claimed to have gathered the ancient sources “comprehensively and collectively”, but such claims are precarious and an electronic search of the Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts has uncovered yet another (seventh) contemporary witness to the pandemic.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 207-218
Author(s):  
Kimberly Cassibry
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The Other ◽  
Metal Vessel ◽  
Chariot Racing ◽  
Hadrian's Wall ◽  
Made In ◽  
Roman Spain

The Conclusion reviews the role of material culture in mediating imaginations of place in the Roman empire, with reference to the Itinerary Cups describing journeys from Spain to Rome, the Spectacle Cups depicting chariot racing and gladiatorial combat, the Fort Pans documenting Hadrian’s Wall, and the Bay Bottles visualizing Baiae and Puteoli. To demonstrate the flexibility of the book’s analytical framework, two final sets of artifacts are presented. One focuses on spectacle souvenirs that were made in Roman Spain and include the date of the event and the name of its sponsor with unusual specificity. The other is an ornamental metal vessel that was excavated in a distant province, yet was created in workshops around Rome’s Circus Flaminius and bears that place name as a mark of prestigious craftmanship. Whereas the book’s introduction constructed an interdisciplinary analytical framework, the Conclusion reconsiders the place of material culture in Roman studies.

Presidential Address: Great Historical Enterprises II. The Maurists

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 169-187
Author(s):  
M. D. Knowles
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
The Other ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Small Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
Two Bodies

Ayear ago our theme was the work of the Bollandists. Their name suggests immediately, to all acquainted with European historiography, the name of another body of religious, many of them the contemporaries of Henskens and Papebroch, and it would be impossible to omit from even the shortest list of great historical enterprises the achievement of the Maurists. The two bodies of men and their work, nevertheless, have little in common save an equal devotion to accurate scholar-ship. What impresses us in the history of Bollandism is its continuity of spirit and undeviating aim over more than three hundred years, during which a very small but perpetually self-renewing group has pursued a single narrowly defined task, which is still far from completion. With the Maurists, on the other hand, it is the magnitude, the variety and the high quality of the achievement that strikes the imagination. While the Bollandists, a small family in a single house, have in three centuries produced in major work no more than a row of sixty-seven folios, the Maurists, in a little more than a hundred years, published matter enough to stock a small library, and left behind them letters, papers and transcripts which have been used and exploited by scholars for nearly two centuries since. Indeed, it would be both impossible and alien to the scope of our interests to attempt the briefest survey of Maurist scholarship in its entirety, and my remarks to-day will be confined to their publications on European history after the decline of the Roman Empire. Who were the Maurists, and wherein lay their peculiar excellence?

The Warships of the Later Roman Empire

1948 ◽  
Vol 38 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 47-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. H. Dolley
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Essential Difference ◽  
New Information

It is surprising that so little study should have been devoted to the navy of the later Empire. Since new information has now become available, it would seem a favourable opportunity to consider afresh the structure of the warships of the imperial fleets. The ancient sources may be divided into three main categories. The first is represented by that invaluable collection of tenth century naval handbooks which have recently been edited by M. Dain. Most important for our present purposes are the Περὶ θαλασσομαχίας of the Emperor Leo VI, which may probably be dated to 905–6, and the anonymous Παρὰ Βασιλείον Πατρικίου καὶ Παρακοιμωμένου (cited ‘Anon PBPP’), which M. Dain dates to the years immediately following the Cretan expedition of 960–1. This latter work was unknown to Torr when writing his Ancient Ships, and M. Dain may be said virtually to have rediscovered it. It is addressed to a certain Basil who was the natural son of Romanus Lecapenus. His bastardy stood him in good stead, and he survived the fall of his father and half-brothers. He seems to have attached himself to the party of Nicephorus Phocas, and organized a ‘fifth column’ which contributed in no small part to the overthrow of Joseph Bringas. His nefarious enterprises were finally ended by Basil II, who relegated him to a monastery. All the tenth-century naval handbooks reflect older traditions, and there seems to have been little essential difference between conditions prevailing under the Amorian and the Macedonian dynasties.

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