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Visigoths and Romans after 410
185–194Views:430In 410, the Roman Empire was shaken to its core after Rome was sacked by the Visigoths. The Barbarian attacks and the emergence of the usurpers created a severe crisis in the Western Roman Empire. The study of contemporary authors reveals that the crisis engendered a change in attitudes. For the Empire to be reconstructed, the traditional Roman, anti-barbarian attitude had to be changed, and living together and cooperating with the Goths was now a must. The change in attitude can be detected in Orosius’ work, a formerly anti-barbarian author who places Athaulf’s speech at Narbonne in the centre. The marriage of the Visigoth king with Galla Placidia (414), the Romanization of the Goths, their imperial service, and their new relationship with Romans as described in the speech is all a solid basis for a reestablishment of Goth-Roman relations and the creation of a new federal agreement, which actually took place in 418.
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Quirinius’ Sacrifice (Silius Italicus: Punica 4,192–215)
57–75.Views:259Contrary to historical accounts, Silius inserts a preliminary encounter into his account of the Battle of Ticinus in the Punica in which, prior to facing Hannibal’s army, the Romans fight against the Gauls led by the Boian Crixus (4,143–310). Among Crixus’ victims, we found three soldiers whose names recall early kings of Rome: Tullus, Remulus, and Quirinius. After a brief overview of the significance of these names, the paper focuses on the character of Quirinius (4,192–215). I interpret this episode through three approaches. 1) Quirinius’ death recalls, by inversion, the miraculous survival of L. Sergius Silus (Plin. Nat. 7,104–106), 2) his plan to kill Crixus evokes the ritual of seizing and offering of the spolia opima, while 3) his being certain of impending death makes his case reminiscent of the devotio. Quirinius’ self-sacrifice thus can be seen as contributing to the Elder Scipio’s victory over Crixus, and is also paralleled by how the general’s life will be saved through external help (coming from the gods and his son) in the second half of the battle.
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The Gems in the Ustinow Collection, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo
101-141Views:394Scientifically, the collection’s primary importance is its Middle-Eastern origin; collections of gemstones from the Middle East have rarely been published unlike those from European archaeological sites. Thus the possibility opens up to compare finds from the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire with a focus on similarities and differences. While in the western provinces the gemstones typically spread during the era of the Roman Empire, in the eastern provinces the use of seals and gemstones goes back several thousand years. It follows that in the western regions, representations of the official themes of the age of the emperors, including the characteristic figures of gods of the state religion (Jupiter, Minerva, Mars, Venus Victrix), are the most common. In contrast, the eastern provinces saw the spread of representations of local gods (Zeus Ammon, Zeus Heliopolitanos, Sarapis) or the Hellenistic types of the Greek gods (Apollo Musagetes, Aphrodite Anadyomene, Hermes Psychopompos). However, there were figures of gods that were equally popular in both regions, such as Tyche–Fortuna, Nike–Victoria, Eros–Amor, Dionysos–Bacchus, Heracles–Hercules. Each of these became rather popular in the Hellenistic World, spreading basically spontaneously throughout the entire Roman Empire. There was a similar unity in the popularity of represenations of animals, too.
The eastern region was, however, characterised by the relatively large number of magic gemstones. There is a piece among these which has no exact analogy (Cat. 69) and its analysis sheds new light on the previous interpretation of similar pieces. The popularity of magic gemstones is highlighted by the fact that some of their motifs became distorted beyond recognition in the popularisation process. Understandably, Sasanian gemstones and seals, which revived the Romans’ dying custom of sealing for some time, were also typical of the eastern regions. What is conspicuous is that the stone cameos (agate, sardonyx) so common in the western regions are completely missing from the collection, while there is a fair number of glass cameo pendants made in the eastern regions.
From an educational and community cultural aspect, the significance of the Ustinow collection lies in the fact that it represents several historical and cultural eras between the fourth century B.C. and the fifth century A.D. for the benefit of the interested public, private collectors, and students of archaeology and the antiquities. The gemstones may be small, but the representations on them can be extraordinarily rich in meaning. With adequate enlargement and due professional expertise, which this catalogue aims to promote, all this information can come to life in front of us, allowing us a glimpse into the lives and thoughts of the citizens of a Mediterranean world two thousand years back. -
The role of archaisms in the Latin inscriptions of the Roman Empire: some new considerations in light of computerized dialectology
147–169Views:297This paper aims to reconsider the role of archaisms in epigraphy and, above all, their possible dialectal value. Indeed, according to a traditional theory, provinces that were colonized earlier by the Romans preserved archaic varieties of Latin. Scholars have often used inscriptions to support this idea, particularly in the case of Hispania, but the results of this paper, which rely on the methodology of modern Computerized Dialectology, are negative in this regard.
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Empire and invention: the Elder Pliny's heurematology ("Nat." VII 191–215)
123–135Views:273This paper focuses on the catalog of inventions and inventors that concludes book VII of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia (Nat. VII 191-215). While the list is certainly a fundamental source for the largely lost tradition of Greek invention-catalogs, the literary, rhetorical, and intellectual-historical importance of Pliny’s heurematography has, to date, rarely been appreciated for its own merits. I argue that, in spite of the seemingly irregular and heterogeneous character of the catalog, the underlying rhetorical strategy of Pliny’s heurematography allows the list to become a teleological narrative. As I argue, Pliny’s main goal is to show the Romans’ historical merit in unifying the whole Mediterranean world through the appropriation of its cultural and technological patrimony.
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The Lombars' Move into Italy
135–144Views:260The present study disputes stereotypes in historical scholarship related to the Lombards’ move into Italy and takes a position contrary to those common views. It calls into question the idea that the Lombards entered Italy as ruthless conquerors and holds the view that they moved into Italy from Pannonia not unlike the foederati in the late Roman Empire on the basis of an agreement concluded with the Romans. The author disputes the idea that King Alboin set out on this journey together with all his people in a single move in the spring of 568, and maintains on the grounds of various logistical considerations that the Lombards migrated to Italy in a number of groupings (so-called farae) stretched over a longer period of time and along diverse routes.
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Camillus – the surveyor?
19–25.Views:315In the end of the fifth book of Livy’s history there is a grand speech of Camillus against the proposal that Romans should move to Veii. Although this speech is the highlight of the first pentad, it is followed by a closing chapter which is full of words and expressions that are specific to land surveying. The present paper aims to examine the vocabulary of Livy and show that it is related to land surveyors’ terminology.