scholarly journals A House Divided Against Itself

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrastos Omissi
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Military History ◽  
Roman History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Body ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman

This short chapter constitutes an introduction to the main body of the work, and sets out the wide-reaching consequences of permanent civil war within the later Roman Empire. It argues that previous research has overemphasized the importance of external warfare with the barbarian outsiders in recounting the political and military history of the late third and early fourth centuries. Far more important were the wars that Romans fought against themselves. The chapter sets out the broadly chronological structure of the book, and urges the reader to see that chapter divisions organized by dynasty should not suggest that this book takes a traditional approach to late Roman history. Far from it: the legitimacy of many of the late Empire’s great dynasties will be thrown open to question.

scholarly journals barbarización del ejército romano

STUDIUM ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 13-40
Author(s):  
Ignacio Jesús Álvarez Soria
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Military History ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military ◽  
Late Roman

Resumen En el presente artículo repasaremos someramente algunos de los hitos más reseñables de la historia militar del Imperio Romano Tardío, haciendo hincapié en el papel de los bárbaros que luchaban junto a los romanos, puesto que la barbarización del ejercito romano ha sido uno de los puntos de referencia en las investigaciones acerca de la decadencia y caída del Imperio Romano. En este sentido, haremos referencia al papel integrador que tuvo el ejército romano durante buena parte de la historia del Imperio Romano, y señalaremos los principales hechos que condujeron al final de dicho papel; esbozando también las desastrosas consecuencias que tuvo este hecho para el futuro del Imperio, especialmente del Occidental.    Palabras clave: Bárbaros, ejército, integración, migración, godos, reclutamiento. Abstract In this article we will briefly review some of the most important milestones in the military history of the Late Roman Empire. In it we will emphasize the role of the barbarians who fought with the Romans, since the barbarización of the Roman army is one of the points of reference in the investigations about the decay and fall of the Roman Empire. In this sense, we will refer to the role played by the Roman army in the integration of foreigners during a large part of the history of the Roman Empire. In addition, we will point out the main events that led to the end of this integrating role; we will also indicate the disastrous consequences this fact had for the future of the Empire, especially for the Western part. Key words: Barbarians, army, integration, migration, goths, recruitment.

Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrastos Omissi
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Operating Principle ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way ◽  
Late Roman

This book is the first history of civil war in the later Roman Empire to be written in English. It advances the thesis that civil war was endemic to the later Empire (third to fifth centuries AD) and explores the way in which successive imperial dynasties—many of whose founding members had themselves usurped power—attempted to legitimate themselves and counter the threat of almost perpetual internal challenge to their rule. The work takes as its operating principle that history is written by the victors, and seeks to employ panegyric as a tool to understand the processes that, according to one contemporary commentator, ‘made tyrants by the victory of others’. Panegyric provides direct evidence of how, in the wake of civil wars, emperors attempted to publish their legitimacy and to delegitimize their enemies. The book explores the ceremony and oratory that surrounded imperial courts, examines how and why this ceremony was aggressively used to dramatize and constantly recall the events of recent civil wars, and, above all, it explores how the narratives produced by the court in this context went on to have enormous influence on the messages and narratives found within contemporary historical texts. The resulting book is a thoroughly original reworking of late Roman domestic politics, an exploration of the way that successive imperial courts sought to communicate with their subjects, and an examination of the fallibility of history.

Managing Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka through Constitutional Arrangements

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Ilam Khan
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
History Of

Marginalization causes conflicts; they may be political, social, or economic. A careful contemplation over the history of Sri Lanka reveals that the sentiments of being marginalized have been present — in one (ethnic) group or the other — in the island right from its independence. When the majority ethnic group, i.e., the Sinhala, was in a position of power, it manipulated the constitution of the country to safeguard its own interests. This widened the rift among different ethnic and religious groups, especially between the Sinhala and the Tamil. This structural marginalization resulted in a civil war, starting in 1983, that lasted for 26 years. However, the ethnic conflict did not resolve even after the end of the civil war and continues to exist in the form of a political struggle between the Tamil and Sinhala. The Tamil demand for federation, autonomy, inclusion, and self-determination can only be achieved through constitutional means. Therefore, this research evaluates the post-Civil Warconstitutional development and amendment processes that were, at a point in time, more pluralistic and liberal, and contributing well to managing the ethnic conflict in the country. It was expected that the ethnic conflict would be permanently resolved through the constitutional arrangements, which Sri Lanka was already heading. However, the majority (Sinhala) reversed the progress through a new (20th) amendment to the constitution. Against this backdrop, this article argues that all segments of the society can be accommodated in the political sphere of the state through political liberalization which is possible only through constitutional arrangements.

Seneca the Elder, the Controuersia Figurata, and the Political Discourse of the Early Empire

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-150
Author(s):  
Matthew Leigh
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Roman History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Specific Event ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Seneca The Elder

This paper studies examples of how exponents of Roman declamation could insert into arguments on the trivial, even fantastic, cases known as controuersiae statements of striking relevance to the political culture of the triumviral and early imperial period. This is particularly apparent in the Controuersiae of Seneca the Elder but some traces remain in the Minor Declamations attributed to Quintilian. The boundaries separating Rome itself from the declamatory city referred to by modern scholars as Sophistopolis are significantly blurred even in those instances where the exercise does not turn on a specific event from Roman history, and there is much to be gained from how the declaimers deploy Roman historical examples. Some of the most sophisticated instances of mediated political comment exploit the employment of universalizing sententiae, which have considerable bite when they are related to contemporary Roman discourse and experience. The declamation schools are a forum for thinking through the implications of the transformation of the Roman state and deserve a place within any history of Roman political thought.

The Spanish Civil War: New Approaches and Historiographic Perspectives

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 264-267
Author(s):  
Eduardo González Calleja
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Military History ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
History Of ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

The bibliography on the Spanish Civil War is almost unattainable, but the matter continues to elicit such interest that it remains open to new historiographic trends. For example, the ‘classic’ military history of the conflict, cultivated prominently in recent years by Gabriel Cardona, Jorge Martínez Reverte and Anthony Beevor, does not renounce the microhistory or cultural perspective. These constitute the theoretical framework of the New Military History and its corollary the New Combat History, which combine philological, anthropological, psychological and historiographical perspectives to various degrees. In the specific field of the war experiences pioneered by George L. Mosse, the concepts of brutalisation, barbarisation and demodernisation of military operations, coined by Omer Bartov to describe the particularities of the Eastern campaign during the Second World War, are being used by Spanish historians dedicated to the study of the violence and atrocities of the civil war and post-war. Focusing on the field of political history, government management or diplomacy has been studied almost exhaustively, but this is not the case for the principal phenomenon of political violence in the 1930s in Europe, namely paramilitarisation. It is surprising that the latest studies on the issue at the European level (Robert Gerwarth, John Horne, Chris Millington and Kevin Passmore) do not include any essays on the enormous incidence of paramilitary violence in Spain before, during and after the civil war.

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