Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aske Damtoft Poulsen ◽  
Arne Jönsson
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  
Roman Historiography

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Memory Theory ◽  
Religious Ritual ◽  
The Past ◽  
Roman Historiography ◽  
Religious Material ◽  
Exact Repetition

The Introduction contextualizes the study in terms of existing scholarship on Tacitus, cultural memory theory, and the study of Roman religion. Roman paganism, with its emphasis on exact repetition of rituals as they have been performed for centuries, is particularly fruitful when analyzed using cultural memory theory as developed by scholars such as Jan Assmann, Maurice Halbwachs, and Pierre Nora: religious ritual is viewed as a key component in any society’s efforts to create a lived version of the past that helps define cultural identity in the present. Tacitus’ own background as a quindecimvir, one of the most important priestly colleges in the Roman state cult, as well as the conventions surrounding the treatment of religion in Roman historiography, are likely to have informed his interest in religious material.

scholarly journals Exemplary History: Competition in Roman Historiography

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (29) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catalina Balmaceda
Keyword(s):  
Great Part ◽  
Perceived Value ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Historiography ◽  
The One

A great part of the perceived value of history in the ancient world was connected with its educational function. In one way or another, it was regarded as a beneficial guide to conduct or as magistra vitae (Cicero, De Oratore II, 36). To give political instruction and advice on the one hand (Polybius, I, 1, 2), and to provide exempla, were two major aims of history. This paper will argue that by narrating the history of the past, historians not only judged past actions or people, and provided useful moral examples to their contemporaries, but also stimulated a type of competition between past and present times. By recording good examples to be imitated and bad ones to be avoided, the Roman historians promoted the code of values of the maiores for their own time, fostered action and, to a certain extent, became significant indicators to Roman society. This competitive aspect of Roman historiography is illustrated here in three distinct categories, analysing the work of major Roman historians: Sallust, Livy and Tacitus.

Psychoanalysis and the antinomies of an archaeologist: Andrea Carandini, the ruins of Rome, and the writing of history

2021 ◽  
pp. 095269512098059
Author(s):  
Tom McCaskie
Keyword(s):  
Personal Life ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Human History ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scholarly Publications ◽  
Personal Approach ◽  
Roman Historiography

Freud’s fascination with the ruins of ancient Rome was an element in the formation and development of psychology. This article concerns the intersection of psychoanalysis with archaeology and history in the study of that city. Its substantive content is an analysis of the life and career of Andrea Carandini, the best-known Roman archaeologist of the past 40 years. He has said and written much about his changing views of himself and about what he is trying to do in his approach to the recuperation of the Roman past. His scholarly publications and autobiographical testimonies are at the core of this article. After an early commitment to Marxism that ended in disenchantment and a crisis in his personal life, Carandini spent a decade undergoing psychoanalysis with the Chilean-born expatriate Ignacio Matte-Blanco. The latter gained a following as a theorist who built upon Freud’s ideas about the unconscious by producing a set of mathematically inspired concepts concerning the workings of temporality in human history in which emotional intuition took priority over the rational(izing) logic of empiricism. Much influenced by his psychoanalyst, Carandini developed a highly personal approach to the writing of archaeology and history. These writings are explored here in terms of Roman historiography, and in the wider arena of formulations of how the past is to be addressed and written about.

Observations of the continuum near the galactic centre

1967 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 405
Author(s):  
F. J. Kerr
Keyword(s):  
Galactic Centre ◽  
The Past ◽  
Centre Region ◽  
The Continuum

A continuum survey of the galactic-centre region has been carried out at Parkes at 20 cm wavelength over the areal11= 355° to 5°,b11= -3° to +3° (Kerr and Sinclair 1966, 1967). This is a larger region than has been covered in such surveys in the past. The observations were done as declination scans.

The Origin of the Moon and its Relationship to the Origin of the Solar System

1962 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 133-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold C. Urey
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
The Moon ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Origin Of The Moon

During the last 10 years, the writer has presented evidence indicating that the Moon was captured by the Earth and that the large collisions with its surface occurred within a surprisingly short period of time. These observations have been a continuous preoccupation during the past years and some explanation that seemed physically possible and reasonably probable has been sought.

On The Possibility of an Autonomous History of Modern Southeast Asia

1961 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. W. Small
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

It is generally accepted that history is an element of culture and the historian a member of society, thus, in Croce's aphorism, that the only true history is contemporary history. It follows from this that when there occur great changes in the contemporary scene, there must also be great changes in historiography, that the vision not merely of the present but also of the past must change.

Stellar Evolution

1962 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
M. Schwarzschild
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Stellar Evolution ◽  
Space Craft ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Substantial Body ◽  
Individual Stars ◽  
The Past ◽  
Evolution Of Galaxies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fast Flow

It is perhaps one of the most important characteristics of the past decade in astronomy that the evolution of some major classes of astronomical objects has become accessible to detailed research. The theory of the evolution of individual stars has developed into a substantial body of quantitative investigations. The evolution of galaxies, particularly of our own, has clearly become a subject for serious research. Even the history of the solar system, this close-by intriguing puzzle, may soon make the transition from being a subject of speculation to being a subject of detailed study in view of the fast flow of new data obtained with new techniques, including space-craft.

Novae in the Magellanic Clouds

1979 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 96-101
Author(s):  
J.A. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Large Magellanic Cloud ◽  
Magellanic Cloud ◽  
Magellanic Clouds ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
The Past ◽  
Spectroscopic Information ◽  
Objective Prism ◽  
The University ◽  
Small Cloud ◽  
Low Dispersion

During the past several years, a systematic search for novae in the Magellanic Clouds has been carried out at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The Curtis Schmidt telescope, on loan to CTIO from the University of Michigan is used to obtain plates every two weeks during the observing season. An objective prism is used on the telescope. This provides additional low-dispersion spectroscopic information when a nova is discovered. The plates cover an area of 5°x5°. One plate is sufficient to cover the Small Magellanic Cloud and four are taken of the Large Magellanic Cloud with an overlap so that the central bar is included on each plate. The methods used in the search have been described by Graham and Araya (1971). In the CTIO survey, 8 novae have been discovered in the Large Cloud but none in the Small Cloud. The survey was not carried out in 1974 or 1976. During 1974, one nova was discovered in the Small Cloud by MacConnell and Sanduleak (1974).

Immunoferritin localization of intracellular antigens in positively stained frozen sections

1978 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-169
Author(s):  
K. T. Tokuyasu
Keyword(s):  
Surface Tension ◽  
Water Surface ◽  
Thin Layers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Positive Staining ◽  
Frozen Sections ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ultrathin Frozen Sections ◽  
Definition Of

During the past investigations of immunoferritin localization of intracellular antigens in ultrathin frozen sections, we found that the degree of negative staining required to delineate u1trastructural details was often too dense for the recognition of ferritin particles. The quality of positive staining of ultrathin frozen sections, on the other hand, has generally been far inferior to that attainable in conventional plastic embedded sections, particularly in the definition of membranes. As we discussed before, a main cause of this difficulty seemed to be the vulnerability of frozen sections to the damaging effects of air-water surface tension at the time of drying of the sections.Indeed, we found that the quality of positive staining is greatly improved when positively stained frozen sections are protected against the effects of surface tension by embedding them in thin layers of mechanically stable materials at the time of drying (unpublished).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document