scholarly journals (Mis)Identifying Teachers in Late Antique Gaul

Mnemosyne ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Alison John
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Educational Practices ◽  
Active Member ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
Historical Reconstructions ◽  
Professional Teacher ◽  
Fall Of Rome

Abstract Mamertus Claudianus, a priest in Vienne in the mid-fifth century, has been identified by some scholars as a professional teacher of Latin rhetoric. This article contests this classification, arguing that Claudianus was an active member of learned Christian literary circles and leader of philosophical and theological ‘literary salons’. It demonstrates the importance of correctly identifying teachers in the prosopography and illustrates the potential of incorrect identifications to produce flawed and distorted historical reconstructions of the cultural transformations of the late antique west. A close reading of the sources for Claudianus, coupled with a firm understanding of the cultural and educational realities of late antique Gaul, sheds light on the evolution of an increasingly Christian intellectual culture among the Gallo-Roman litterati of the fifth century, and contributes to a better understanding of the transformation of educational practices in this period and after the ‘fall’ of Rome.

Secular Monograms, Social Status, and Authority in the Late Roman World and Early Byzantium

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Imperial Authority ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Noble Identity ◽  
Late Roman

This chapter examines the use of monograms as graphic signs of imperial authority in the late Roman and early Byzantine empire, from its appropriation on imperial coinage in the mid-fifth century to its employment in other material media in the following centuries. It also overviews the use of monograms by imperial officials and aristocrats as visible signs of social power and noble identity on mass-produced objects, dress accessories, and luxury items. The concluding section discusses a new social function for late antique monograms as visible tokens of a new Christian paideia and of elevated social status, related to ennobling calligraphic skills. This transformation of monograms into an attribute of visual Christian culture became especially apparent in sixth-century Byzantium, with the cruciform monograms appearing in the second quarter of the sixth century and becoming a default monogrammatic form from the seventh century onwards.

The Brain as Treasury and as Aqueduct

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 542-566
Author(s):  
Jessica Wright
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
Motor Nerves ◽  
Architectural Structures ◽  
A Site ◽  
The City ◽  
The Brain

In late antique theological texts, metaphors of the brain were useful tools for talking about forms of governance: cosmic, political, and domestic; failed and successful; interior discipline and social control. These metaphors were grounded in a common philosophical analogy between the body and the city, and were also supported by the ancient medical concept of the brain as the source of the sensory and motor nerves. Often the brain was imagined as a monarch or civic official, governing the body from the head as from an acropolis or royal house. This article examines two unconventional metaphors of the brain in the work of the fifth-century Greco-Syrian bishop Theodoret of Cyrrhus—the brain as a treasure within the acropolis, and the brain as a node in an urban aqueduct—both of which adapt the structural metaphor of governance to reflect the changing political and economic circumstances of imperial Christianity. Drawing upon medical theories of the brain, Theodoret expands upon the conventional governance metaphor of brain function to encompass the economic and the spiritual responsibilities of the bishop-administrator. Just as architectural structures (acropolis, aqueduct) contain and distribute valuable resources (treasure, water) within the city, so the brain accumulates and redistributes nourishing substances (marrow, blood, pneuma) within the body; and just as the brain functions as a site for the transformation of material resources (body) into spiritual goods (mind), so the bishop stands as a point of mediation between earthly wealth and the treasures of heaven.

scholarly journals THE EARLY RECEPTION OF PLINY THE YOUNGER IN TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE AND EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Corke-Webster
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Pliny The Younger ◽  
The Third ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea ◽  
Sidonius Apollinaris

In 1967 Alan Cameron published a landmark article in this journal, ‘The fate of Pliny'sLettersin the late Empire’. Opposing the traditional thesis that the letters of Pliny the Younger were only rediscovered in the mid to late fifth century by Sidonius Apollinaris, Cameron proposed that closer attention be paid to the faint but clear traces of the letters in the third and fourth centuries. On the basis of well-observed intertextual correspondences, Cameron proposed that Pliny's letters were being read by the end of the fourth century at the latest. That article now seems the vanguard of a rise in scholarly interest in Pliny's late-antique reception. But Cameron also noted the explicit attention given to the letters by two earlier commentators—Tertullian of Carthage, in the late second to early third century, and Eusebius of Caesarea, in the early fourth. The use of Pliny in these two earliest commentators, in stark contrast to their later successors, has received almost no subsequent attention.

scholarly journals Addressing Conflict in the Fifth Century: Rome and the Wider Church

Scrinium ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-114
Author(s):  
Bronwen Neil
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Social Conflict ◽  
Social Resources ◽  
Conflict Theory ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Social Conflict Theory

Abstract In seeking to trace the escalation, avoidance or resolution of conflicts, contemporary social conflict theorists look for incompatible goals, differentials in power, access to social resources, the exercise of control, the expression of dissent, and the strategies employed in responding to disagreements. It is argued here that these concepts are just as applicable to the analysis of historical doctrinal conflicts in Late Antiquity as they are to understanding modern conflicts. In the following, I apply social conflict theory to three conflicts involving the late antique papacy to see what new insights it can proffer. The first is Zosimus's involvement in the dispute over the hierarchy of Gallic bishops at the beginning of the fifth century. The second and longest case-study is Leo I's intervention in the Chalcedonian conflict over the natures of Christ. The final brief study is the disputed election of Symmachus at the end of the fifth century.

Ut fidem dictis adhibeant

Mnemosyne ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 633-658
Author(s):  
Andreas Abele
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Analysis Tools ◽  
Compulsory Military Service ◽  
Heavy Burden

Abstract Sulpicius Severus’ account of St Martin sharing his cloak with the beggar at the gate of Amiens is still one of the most prominent and best-known episodes of late antique Christian hagiography. This deed is considered above all as the epitome of Martin’s charity and will to follow Christ. Furthermore, this episode also serves to apologize Martin’s military service in the Roman army. The latter was a heavy burden for Sulpicius’ saint, which the author of his Vita had to get rid of in the most credible way possible. Sulpicius asserts that Martin’s compulsory military service was dominated by Christian virtues. A narratological close reading focusing on the categories of ‘distance’ and ‘focalization’ and applying linguistic analysis tools as well shows that eventually it is the narrative disposition of the ‘Amiens episode’ that makes the narrator’s earlier apologetic authorial statements credible.

Therapy of the word and other psychotherapeutic approaches in Ancient Greek medicine

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 741-752
Author(s):  
Chiara Thumiger
Keyword(s):  
Physiological State ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Ancient Medicine ◽  
Pharmaceutical Substances ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Greek Medicine ◽  
Systematic Knowledge

One of the most distinctive aspects of contemporary psychiatry is its firm grounding in a neurological and biochemical framework for the interpretation of mental life and its disturbances. In the absence of any strong neurological understanding or systematic knowledge of active pharmaceutical substances, one might expect that early ancient medicine readily resorted to non-somatic approaches to healing mental suffering. Instead, what is usually labelled “therapy of the word” and other forms of what one may call psychotherapy emerge relatively late in Greek medicine, only in the first centuries of our era. This paper provides an overview and analysis of this development in ancient history of psychology, philosophy and medicine, covering a broad period of time from the fifth century BCE to the end of the late-antique period, the fifth century CE. The focus is on the very idea (or lack thereof) of the curability of mental disturbance, and on the particular branch of therapeutics which addresses the psychological and existential condition of the patient, rather than his or her physiological state.

Listening for “The Silence of the Night”: Reading Kevin Hart’s “The Voice of Brisbane”

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 357-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lachlan Brown
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Cross ◽  
John Of The Cross ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Yves Bonnefoy

AbstractThis essay undertakes a close reading of Kevin Hart’s poem “The Voice of Brisbane” alongside three pertinent voices. The first voice belongs to Yves Bonnefoy and concerns his translation of the French termévidence. Taking into account Hart’s own admiration of Bonnefoy, this essay contrasts the kinds of experiential and poetic claims that the two poets make. The second voice belongs to St. John of the Cross. Hart’s poem owes much to the kinds of mystical meditation that St. John advocates. The third voice belongs to Synesius of Cyrene, a fifth-century Platonist and bishop, whose poem “Awake My Soul” bears an uncanny resemblance to the pattern of Hart’s work.

Architecture and élite identity in late antique Rome: appropriating the past at Sant'Andrea Catabarbara

2013 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 279-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregor Kalas
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Multiple Identities ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Physical Layers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Elite Identity ◽  
Elite Status ◽  
The Church

The conversion of a fourth-century secular basilica into the church of Sant'Andrea Catabarbara in Rome during the 470s invites a discussion of how architectural adaptation contributed to the identity of its restorer, Valila. More than a century after the praetorian prefect of Italy, Junius Bassus, founded the basilica in 331, a Goth named Valila, belonging to the senatorial aristocracy, bequeathed the structure to Pope Simplicius (468–83). References to Valila's last will in the church's dedicatory inscription were inserted directly above Junius Bassus's original donation inscription, inviting reflections upon the transmission of élite status from one individual to another. The particularities of Valila's legacy as a testator, as indicated in the references to his will in the Sant'Andrea Catabarbara inscription and confirmed by a charter he wrote to support a church near Tivoli, suggest that he sought to control his lasting memory through patronage. Valila's concern for a posthumous status provides a context for interpreting the interior of the Roman church. Juxtaposed to the church's fifth-century apse mosaic were opus sectile panels depicting Junius Bassus, together with scenes of an Apollonian tripod and an illustration of the exposed body of Hylas raped by two nymphs originating from the earliest phase of the basilica. The article proposes that Valila nuanced his élite identity by preserving the fourth-century images and thereby hinted that preservation fostered both the accretion of physical layers and the accrual of multiple identities by a Gothic aristocrat in Rome.

scholarly journals Biography and Life-Writing

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-102
Author(s):  
Christopher Wiley
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Music History ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
History And Criticism ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

This chapter outlines the proliferation of musical biography and life-writing in its multifarious forms across Europe in the long nineteenth century, and its role in establishing and perpetuating the canon, shaping the reception history of specific composers, constructing exemplary lives, providing firm foundations for the intellectual culture of the time, and maintaining a strong relationship to music history and criticism. Two case studies explore distinctive examples of “popular” manifestations of nineteenth-century music-biographical writing by influential authors to educate and entertain wide communities of autodidactic readers. This first concerns a two-volume compilation of anecdotes, surveyed for its reflection of Victorian values and musical preoccupations; the second, a collected biography whose close reading reveals much about the passive role into which women were repeatedly cast in contemporaneous life-writing on the Great Composers. A concluding section considers the extent of the impact and continued indebtedness of modern musical biography and musicology to the legacy of nineteenth-century intellectual developments.

scholarly journals “Jonah’s gourd” and its early Byzantine interpretations

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-51
Author(s):  
Dmitry Kurdybaylo ◽  
Inga Kurdybaylo
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Modern Reader ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
Bible Interpretation ◽  
Early Byzantine ◽  
Patristic Exegesis

Many modern scholars consider the Old Testament book of Jonah being written in a boldly parodic manner. The narrative engages many details that sound humorous for a modern reader. However, from the standpoint of late Antique and early Medieval patristic exegesis, it is often unclear whether Byzantine interpreters perceived such passages laughable or at least inappropriate for a prophetic writing. This study presents a few examples of early Byzantine commentaries to the episode with Jonah and a gourd (Jonah 4:6–11). None of the commentaries expresses any explicit amusement caused by the discussed text. However, the style, method, or context of each commentary appears to be passing the traditional bounds of Bible interpretation. The earlier interpreters adhere to the most expected moral reading of Jonah 4, but they use epithets, metaphors, or omissions, which produce the effect of paradox comparable to the biblical wording itself. The later commentaries tend to involve unexpected and even provocative senses. In such interpretations, God can be thought of as being able to play with a human or even to fool and deceive. What seems us humorous in the Bible, Byzantine commentators take primarily as a paradox, which they did not explain or remove but elaborate further paradoxically. The later an interpreter is, the bolder his paradoxical approach appears. The results of the study provide some clues to understanding how the interpretation of humorous, parodic, or ironical passages were developing in the history of Byzantine intellectual culture.

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