Vandalia: Identity, Policy, and Nation-Building in Late-Antique North Africa

<p>In 534, after the conquest of the Vandal kingdom, Procopius tells us that the emperor Justinian deported all remaining Vandals to serve on the Persian frontier. But a hundred years of Vandal rule bred cultural ambiguities in Africa, and the changes in identity that occurred during the Vandal century persisted long after the Vandals had been shipped off to the East: Byzantine and Arabic writers alike shared the conviction that the Africans had, by the sixth and seventh centuries, become something other than Roman. This thesis surveys the available evidence for cultural transformation and merger of identities between the two principal peoples of Vandal Africa, the Vandals and the Romano-Africans, to determine the origins of those changes in identity, and how the people of Africa came to be different enough from Romans for ancient writers to pass such comment. It examines the visible conversation around ethnicity in late-antique Africa to determine what the defining social signifiers of Vandal and Romano-African identity were during the Vandal century, and how they changed over time. Likewise, it explores the evidence for deliberate attempts by the Vandal state to foster national unity and identity among their subjects, and in particular the role that religion and the African Arian Church played in furthering these strategies for national unity. Finally, it traces into the Byzantine period the after-effects of changes that occurred in Africa during the Vandal period, discussing how shifts in what it meant to be Roman or Vandal in Africa under Vandal rule shaped the province's history and character after its incorporation into the Eastern Empire.</p>

Vandalia: Identity, Policy, and Nation-Building in Late-Antique North Africa

<p>In 534, after the conquest of the Vandal kingdom, Procopius tells us that the emperor Justinian deported all remaining Vandals to serve on the Persian frontier. But a hundred years of Vandal rule bred cultural ambiguities in Africa, and the changes in identity that occurred during the Vandal century persisted long after the Vandals had been shipped off to the East: Byzantine and Arabic writers alike shared the conviction that the Africans had, by the sixth and seventh centuries, become something other than Roman. This thesis surveys the available evidence for cultural transformation and merger of identities between the two principal peoples of Vandal Africa, the Vandals and the Romano-Africans, to determine the origins of those changes in identity, and how the people of Africa came to be different enough from Romans for ancient writers to pass such comment. It examines the visible conversation around ethnicity in late-antique Africa to determine what the defining social signifiers of Vandal and Romano-African identity were during the Vandal century, and how they changed over time. Likewise, it explores the evidence for deliberate attempts by the Vandal state to foster national unity and identity among their subjects, and in particular the role that religion and the African Arian Church played in furthering these strategies for national unity. Finally, it traces into the Byzantine period the after-effects of changes that occurred in Africa during the Vandal period, discussing how shifts in what it meant to be Roman or Vandal in Africa under Vandal rule shaped the province's history and character after its incorporation into the Eastern Empire.</p>

The Retrenchment of One Roman Empire, the Resurgence of Another

By the middle of the ninth century, the Eastern Empire in Constantinople had begun a long recovery under the Macedonian dynasty. Although the rhetoric of decline and renewal was used to explain the necessity of the coup that brought Basil I, the first member of the dynasty, to power, the stability of the dynasty meant that emperors like Leo VI and authors writing about later Macedonian emperors like Constantine VII also often evoked the Antonine idea of renewal without decline. The tendency for tenth-century Macedonian rulers to rule alongside co-emperors meant that this rhetoric could blame the co-emperor for problems while affirming the basic continuity of the dynasty. After discussing the Macedonian dynasty, which ended in the 1050s, the chapter concludes by looking at the return of the rhetoric of decline in authors like Michael Psellus and Michael Attaleiates who worked in the troubled 1070s.

Sosipatra as a Wife, Mother, and Widow

This chapter explores what Sosipatra’s late adolescent/early adult life might have been from her betrothal to Eustathius to the time when she began teaching in Pergamum. It describes family life for someone such as Sosipatra. It will endeavor to answer questions such as what her household responsibilities would have been, what difficulties and dangers she may have faced in bringing her children into the world and bringing them up, what role might she have played in their education, and so forth. It uses what is known from the late ancient eastern Empire about adolescence, betrothal, marriage, childbirth and childrearing, and widowhood to weave a plausible picture of the life of Sosipatra.

The Constitutio Antoniniana and Private Legal Practice in the Eastern Empire

One of the greatest surprises that the papyri from Egypt brought to the founding fathers of Roman legal scholarship was the extent to which new citizens after 212 CE remained faithful to their own, non-Roman, legal traditions. This loyalty provided the main theme for Mitteis’ Reichsrecht und Volksrecht, and the field for the notorious dispute between Ernst Schönbauer and Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz regarding the rationale behind this apparent continuity. Since then greater emphasis has been placed on the many aspects in which the local practice did in fact change in the decades after 212 CE. The almost universal assumption has been that in the absence of an ad hoc legal disposition or construction, the new situation would de iure have required the population to submit to the rules of Roman law in every aspect of their legal practice. This assumption, and the theories that it has fostered, will be reassessed together with some of the most notorious instances of adaptation, or rather the lack of it, to the demands of Roman law.

Ancient Architecture and Urbanism in Western Europe (pre-Roman, Roman)

Looking into the architecture and urbanism of a particular geographic section of the vast Roman Empire makes sense, both because of the great diversity of cultures that preceded Roman conquest in all those territories and because social and economic conditions varied region by region. This bibliography covers the 2nd century bce to the turn of the 4th century ce. The fields that explore issues of Roman architecture over the last century have moved from questions that presuppose a central coordinated authority that meant to produce empire-wide unity, with architecture being a key visualization of Roman power, to questions that look more carefully for local motives and adaptations that emerged from the confrontation with Roman power. Similarly, analysis of Roman urban patterns have moved over the decades from inquiries that presuppose an underlying homogeneity in the ritual underpinnings of city planning (and the economic systems that sustained them) to questions of how topography, religion, and local status structures both caused and resulted from regional adaptations. This bibliography presents studies drawn mainly from the 1980s to the present with an intention to introduce key texts that have shaped and summarized the fields. After a brief bibliography of sources for pre-Roman urbanism in the west, there are presented a variety of works that study subregions: specifically, the three Iberian provinces of Taraconnensis, Beatica, and Lusitania; the four Gallic provinces of Narbonensis, Aquitania, Lugdunensis, and Belgica; the two Germanic provinces of Germania Inferior and Superior; and the province of Britannia. Roman architecture in Italy and in the provinces of western North Africa, the Danube region, and the eastern empire are the subjects of other bibliographies in this series. After these regional treatments come two bibliographies that approach the subject differently; the first listing studies of particular building types in the western provinces, and the second offering archaeological syntheses of specific Roman cities or sites. Finally, a concise list of major periodicals and online resources pertinent to the subject is appended.