Cassiodorus and the Rise of the Amals: Genealogy and the Goths under Hun Domination

1989 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 103-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Heather
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
World Order ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Formative Stage ◽  
River Danube ◽  
Historical Importance ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Creation

From the mid-third century, Gothic tribes inhabited lands north of the river Danube; they were destined, however, to play a major role in the destruction of the Roman Empire and the creation of the medieval world order. In the last quarter of the fourth century, in the face of Hun attacks, some Goths (those commonly known as Visigoths) fled into the Roman Empire, winning a famous victory at Hadrianople in 378 and sacking Rome in 410. They later moved further west to found a kingdom in southern Gaul and Spain. Of equal historical importance are those Goths (usually known as Ostrogoths) who remained north of the Danube under Hun domination from c. 375 to c. 450. They too then entered the Empire, and, under Theoderic the Great, established a kingdom in Italy which is known to us through Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Ennodius. Much less well known, however, is the formative stage of their history when the Ostrogoths endured Hun domination, and it is on our sources for this period that this study will concentrate.

scholarly journals Brooches from the Cemetery of Opushki and Their Role in Costume (According to the 2003–2020 Excavation Materials)

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-39
Author(s):  
Anastasia А. Stoianova
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cervical Vertebrae ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Cultures

This paper presents a review of the brooches from the cemetery of Opushki located in the central area of the Crimean foothills. The cemetery was used from the first century BC to the fourth century AD by peoples of various archaeological cultures. 72 of 318 graves excavated there contained brooches. The total number of complete and fragmented brooches discovered there is 190. The largest group comprises one-piece bow-shaped brooches with returned foot and the brooches with flattened catch-plate from the first to the first half of the third century AD. There is a series of brooches made in the Roman Empire, with the most numerous group of plate brooches. There are a few violin-bow-shaped brooches, highly-profiled brooches of the Northern Black Sea type, two-piece violin-bow-shaped brooches with returned foot, and brooches with curved arched bow (P-shaped): great many pieces of these types occurred at other sites from the Roman Period in the Crimean foothill area. In Opushki, brooches appeared in all types of burial constructions, and mostly in the Late Scythian vaults from the first century BC to the second century AD. They accompanied graves of women, men, and children. In the overwhelming majority of cases, one burial was accompanied with one and rarely two brooches; there is only one burial of a child with three clasps. Most often brooches occurred at the chest, in rare cases on the shoulder, near the cervical vertebrae, pelvic bones, or outside the skeleton. It is noteworthy that a great number of brooches was found in the burials of children of different ages, from 1- to 8-12-year-old. Apparently, brooches as a part of the child’s costume were used throughout the child’s life from the very infancy. Generally, the brooch types from the cemetery of Opushki, their distribution in the assemblages and location on the skeletons correspond to the general pattern typical of barbarian cemeteries in the Crimean foothill area dated to the Roman Period.

Monumental Writing and the Expansion of Roman Society in the Early Empire

1996 ◽  
Vol 86 ◽  
pp. 22-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Woolf
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Imperial ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Latin Epigraphy ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Subsequent Rise

The vast majority of surviving Roman inscriptions originated in a cultural phenomenon that is characteristic of, and in some senses defines, the early Roman Empire. At the end of the last century B.C. — roughly co-incident, then, with the transition to autocracy, the Roman cultural revolution, and the formative period of provincial cultures throughout the Empire — an epigraphic boom occurred, in Italy and in every province of the Empire. That explosion of new inscriptions, and the subsequent rise and fall of an epigraphic culture, was experienced by eastern and western provinces alike, in Greek as well as in Latin epigraphy. Many regional epigraphies remain to be characterized in terms of their chronology, but such local studies as have been done strongly suggest that, although there was certainly some inter-regional variation in the scale, rate, and timing of this phenomenon, in its broad outlines this pattern was very widespread. Across the entire Empire, the number of inscriptions set up each year began to rise from the Augustan period and increased more and more steeply through the second century. In every region that has been examined in detail, the majority of extant inscriptions were produced in the late second and early third centuries. The peak or turning-point seems to have been reached at slightly different times in each area. But everywhere the subsequent decline was much faster than the original rise, reaching a new low between the middle and the end of the third century A.D. Epigraphy does survive into the fourth century — in most areas of the Empire, if not in most cities — but late imperial inscriptions are very much rarer and differ markedly from early imperial examples in genre, form, and style.

The Roman and Byzantine Limes in Cyrenaica

1953 ◽  
Vol 43 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 65-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. Goodchild
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Military Organization ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Jewish Revolt ◽  
The Military

Although Cyrenaica ranked, under the earlier Empire, as a senatorial province, it was too exposed to barbarian attack to be left undefended; and there is ample evidence that it had its own garrison—probably a small one—from the first century A.D. onwards. This garrison was evidently inadequate to prevent the outbreak of the Jewish Revolt of A.D. 115, and may consequently have been strengthened; but it was the crisis of the mid-third century that showed all too clearly the insecurity of the isolated Cyrenaican plateau. The Marmaric tribes invaded the province, and Cyrene itself seems to have been overwhelmed. The Diocletianic reforms resulted in the creation of a new ‘middle-eastern’ command under the Dux Aegypti Thebaidos utrarumque Libyarum, but the loss of the chapter of the Notitia Dignitatum enumerating the units stationed in the two Libyas makes it difficult to reconstruct the military organization of these provinces at the end of the fourth century. The works of Synesius help to fill the lacuna and at the same time provide a vivid picture of life in an invaded area.

The Late Roman Agora and the State of Civic Organization

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. VLADKOVA
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Civic Organization ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman

The second half of the third century marks an important period in the history of Lower Moesia and the Balkans. It coincides with the economic and political crisis which spread across the Roman Empire and affected all levels of society. This chapter reviews the evidence for the character of the agora in Nicopolis ad Istrum during the late Roman and early Byzantine periods. First, it explains the historical context and then describes the epigraphic finds — which cease with the reign of Aurelian. It also details the coins that were discovered and their implications for continued use of the agora during the fourth century and on into the fifth and sixth centuries. Even so, archaeological excavations have demonstrated that there is no reason to believe that the agora served its original purpose beyond the middle of the fifth century, when flimsy structures were erected over the remains of the former civic centre. Occupation is still attested during the first half of the sixth century before the remaining buildings were destroyed by fire.

Introduction

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas V. Hoyt ◽  
Kenneth H. Shatten
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Scientific Interest ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
Rainy Weather ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
The Face

About 400 years before the birth of Christ, near Mt. Lyscabettus in ancient Greece, the pale orb of the sun rose through the mists. According to habit, Meton recorded the sun’s location on the horizon. In this era when much remained to be discovered, Meton hoped to find predictable changes in the locations of sunrise and moonrise. Although rainy weather had limited his recent observations, this foggy morning he discerned specks on the face of the sun, the culmination of many such blemishes in recent years. On a hunch, Meton began examining his more than 20 years of solar records. These seemed to confirm his belief: when the sun has spots, the weather tends to be wetter and rainier. Theophrastus reported these findings in the fourth century B.C. Other ancient accounts concerning the sun and weather are vague. If one stretches one’s imagination, some comments by Aratus of Soli, Virgil, and Pliny the Elder may touch on this subject. What happened to the original records used by Theophrastus? Perhaps these and related scientific data were burned in the fire that destroyed the Library at Alexandria around A.D. 300. Other possible ancient accounts have vanished. Two thousand years passed. The Roman Empire rose and fell, the Dark Ages lasted a thousand years, and Europe entered the Renaissance. The 1600s reveal perhaps half a dozen scattered references to changes in the sun and their effect on weather. After a few more references in the 1700s, scientific interest in the sun waned. Following Sir William Herschel’s comments on sunspots and climate in 1796 and 1801, about 10 scientific papers touched on the sun’s influence on climate and weather. The next two decades contain about 10 or so references to this topic. Shortly after a paper by C. Piazzi Smyth appeared in the proceedings of the Royal Society in 1870, the field exploded. This paper stimulated scientists such as Sir Norman Lockyer, Ferguson, Meldrum, and others to think about solar and terrestrial changes. Meldrum, a British meteorolo gist in India, considered Indian cyclones. His tabular values are compared with sunspot numbers in Figure 1.1.

Cynics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Bracht Branham
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Dominant Ideologies ◽  
History Of

Cynicism (originating in the mid-fourth century bc) was arguably the most original and influential branch of the Socratic tradition in antiquity, whether we consider its impact on the formation of Stoicism or its role in the Roman Empire as a popular philosophy and literary tradition. The self-imposed nickname ‘Cynic’, literally ‘doglike’, was originally applied to Antisthenes and to Diogenes of Sinope, considered the founders of Cynicism, and later to their followers, including Crates of Thebes and Menippus. It emphasizes one of the most fundamental and controversial features of Cynic thought and practice – its radical re-examination of the animal nature of the human being. Their decision to ‘play the dog’ revolutionized moral discourse, since humans had traditionally been defined by their place in both a natural (animal → human → god) and a civic hierarchy. By calling such hierarchies into question, Cynicism re-evaluated the place of humankind in nature and the role of civilization in human life. Cynicism includes an innovative and influential literary tradition of satire, parody and aphorism devoted to ‘defacing the currency’ (that is, the dominant ideologies of the time). It proposes a new morality based on minimizing creaturely needs in pursuit of self-sufficiency (autarkeia), achieved in part by physical training (askēsis), and on maximizing both freedom of speech (parrhēsia) and freedom of action (eleutheria) in open defiance of the most entrenched social taboos; and an anti-politics which sees existing governments as a betrayal of human nature, and traditional culture as an obstacle to happiness. In their place, Cynics advocated an immediate relationship to nature and coined the oxymoron kosmopolitēs or ‘citizen of the cosmos’. However the literary, ethical and political elements of Cynicism are interrelated, all are most easily defined by what they oppose – the inherited beliefs and practices of classical Greek civilization. The virtual loss of all early Cynic writings means that the history of Cynicism must be reconstructed from much later sources dating from the Roman Empire, the most important of which is Diogenes Laertius (third century ad).

scholarly journals Żołnierz i służba wojskowa w świetle kościelnych źródeł normatywnych z IV i V wieku

Vox Patrum ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 353-373
Author(s):  
Andrzej Hołasek
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Church

At the beginning of the fourth century the legal situation of Christians in the Roman Empire changed dramatically. Thanks to the Emperor Constantine they were no longer persecuted, and their faith became religio licita. From that point onwards the views of Christians on the state began to evolve. It was a long-term process, and happened at a varied pace. One of the aspects of this transformation was the change of Christian attitude to military service. It needs to be said that, from this perspective, the Church legislative sources have not been examined in a great detail. This article aims to take a closer look at several of the sources that include Church regulations relating to military service of the fourth and fifth cen­turies. These include, i.a., Canons of Hippolytus; Letters of St. Basil; Apostolic Constitutions and Canons of the Apostles. In addition, the article discusses the rel­evant contents of synodal and council canons from said period. These regulations show the adaptation of Church legislature to the new circumstances, in which the Roman state stopped being the persecutor and became the protector of Christianity. The analysis of numerous documents confirms that Christians were present in the Roman army already in the third century. Because of the spilling of blood and the pagan rites performed in the army, the Church hierarchs strongly resisted the idea of allowing Christians to serve in the military. Church regulations from the third century strictly forbade enlisting in the army, or continuing military service for those who were newly accepted into the community, for the reasons mentioned above. From other documents, however, we learn that the number of Christians in the army was nonetheless increasing. Many were able to reconcile military service with their conscience. At the beginning of the fourth century emperor Constantine granted Christians religious freedom. He allowed Christian soldiers to abstain from invoking pagan gods while swearing military oath (sacramentum), and to participate in Sunday services. The empire was slowly becoming a Christian state. It is for this reason that in the Church regulations from the fourth and fifth century we find accep­tance for the presence of Christians in the army. Even though killing of an enemy required undertaking penance, it was no longer a reason for excommunication with no possibility of returning to the Christian communion. The Church expected Christian soldiers to be satisfied with their wages alone, and to avoid harming oth­ers through stealing, forced lodging or taking food. The Church in the East no lon­ger considered it wrong to accept gifts for the upkeep of clergy and other faithful from the soldiers who behaved in a correct manner. From the mid-fourth century performing religious services started being treated as separate from performing a layperson’s duties. For this reason the bishops, in both parts of the empire, de­cided that clergy are barred from military service. In the West, those of the faithful who enlisted with the army after being baptised could no longer be consecrated in the future. In the East, the approach was less rigorous, as the case of Nectarius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, shows. By the end of the fourth century, the West adopted very strict rules of public penance for soldiers – the Popes reminded in their letters to the bishops in Spain and Gaul that after performing the public pen­ance, the soldiers were forbidden to return to the army. We should not forget that the change in the attitude of the Church to military service was also affected by the political-military situation of the Empire. During the fourth and fifth centuries its borderlands were persistently harassed by barbar­ian raids, and the Persian border was threatened. Let us also remember that the army was not popular in the Roman society during this period. For these reasons, the shifting position of the Church had to be positively seen by the Empire’s ruling elites. The situation became dramatic at the beginning of the fifth century, when Rome was sacked by barbarians. Developing events caused the clergy to deepen their reflections on the necessity of waging war and killing enemies. Among such clergymen was St. Augustine, in whose writings we may find a justification of the so-called just war. Meanwhile, in the East, the view that wars can be won only with God’s help began to dominate.

Some North African Turning Points in Christian Apologetics

2006 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
W. H. C. FREND
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
North African ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The North ◽  
The Face ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Christian Apologetics

Apologetics take their place beside miracles of healing and courage in the face of persecution as an important means of furthering the early Christian mission. In the first two centuries AD, when the popular perception was that Christianity was closely allied to Judaism, the argument from Old Testament prophecy was important. In the third century, however, as the Church gained ground among the educated classes in east and west, the emphasis changed to an attempt to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity over its pagan rivals as a philosophy with a more convincing understanding of the role of providence. Apologists in the north African tradition, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Arnobius and Lactantius, all played their part in this process. The prophecies of the Old Testament had to be confirmed by other prophecies, notably the Sibylline oracles and the sayings of Hermes Trismegistus. Finally, in the fourth century, many north Africans who, like Augustine for ten years, adhered to Manichaean Christianity relied wholly on these authorities, rejecting the Old Testament altogether.

The Transformation of Cities in Late Antiquity within the Provinces of Macedonia and Epirus

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-P. SODINI
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
General Situation ◽  
Local Production ◽  
The Third ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
The City

The provinces of Epirus and Macedonia, although divided into distinct regions by their mountains, were important for the Roman Empire, particularly because they were crossed by the via Egnatia which snaked its way eastwards, serving as the vital link between Rome and Constantinople at a time when insecurity was increasing along the Danubian frontier. From the middle of the third century, cities in this part of the Empire were under threat and their fortifications were reinforced in the fifth (Thessalonika) and sixth centuries (Byllis under Justininian). There was prosperity in the fourth century and beginning of the fifth. During the fifth century, the houses of Philippi were partly transformed into workshops. The sixth century was difficult and the second half was especially bleak. However, contacts between east and west were still maintained, along with local production. From 540–550, however, barbarian invasions and plague worsened the general situation. Graves appeared inside the city walls. Archaeology (Slav pottery and fibulae) and texts (Miracula Sancti Demetrii) all demonstrate how hard times were from the 580s to the 630s.

Coins and Continuity in the Dutch River Area at the End of the Third Century AD

2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-87
Author(s):  
Antony Kropff ◽  
Jos P.A. Van der Vin
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Striking Similarity ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
The Third ◽  
Special Character

The coin series from sites in the Dutch River area show a break during the last three decades of the third century and the first decade of the fourth century AD. Coins minted for Aurelian and his successors to the throne up to Constantine I are very scarce for all sites. The break has been interpreted to indicate the end of occupation of castella and settlements around AD 275. When the site finds from the Dutch River area are presented in the form of an adapted histogram however, the coin series show a striking similarity to site finds from Roman Britain, where, on the whole, continuity was safeguarded during the third century. The article argues that this gap in the coin series – detectable all over the western part of the Roman Empire – is caused by the special character of coin circulation during this period in the west and does not indicate the end of activities on the site that provided the coins. Coin finds even seem to suggest continuity during this period for a number of sites in the Dutch River area.

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