Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul
Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul

Author: Ralph Mathisen

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2011-05-01

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0292729839

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Skin-clad barbarians ransacking Rome remains a popular image of the "decline and fall" of the Roman Empire, but why, when, and how the Empire actually fell are still matters of debate among students of classical history. In this pioneering study, Ralph W. Mathisen examines the "fall" in one part of the western Empire, Gaul, to better understand the shift from Roman to Germanic power that occurred in the region during the fifth century AD Mathisen uncovers two apparently contradictory trends. First, he finds that barbarian settlement did provoke significant changes in Gaul, including the disappearance of most secular offices under the Roman imperial administration, the appropriation of land and social influence by the barbarians, and a rise in the overall level of violence. Yet he also shows that the Roman aristocrats proved remarkably adept at retaining their rank and status. How did the aristocracy hold on? Mathisen rejects traditional explanations and demonstrates that rather than simply opposing the barbarians, or passively accepting them, the Roman aristocrats directly responded to them in various ways. Some left Gaul. Others tried to ignore the changes wrought by the newcomers. Still others directly collaborated with the barbarians, looking to them as patrons and holding office in barbarian governments. Most significantly, however, many were willing to change the criteria that determined membership in the aristocracy. Two new characteristics of the Roman aristocracy in fifth-century Gaul were careers in the church and greater emphasis on classical literary culture. These findings shed new light on an age in transition. Mathisen's theory that barbarian integration into Roman society was a collaborative process rather than a conquest is sure to provoke much thought and debate. All historians who study the process of power transfer from native to alien elites will want to consult this work.

Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages
Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages

Author: Barbara H. Rosenwein

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780801474163

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This highly original book is both a study of emotional discourse in the Early Middle Ages and a contribution to the debates among historians and social scientists about the nature of human emotions.

Rhetoric and Contingency
Rhetoric and Contingency

Author: DS Mayfield

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-10-26

Total Pages: 1115

ISBN-13: 3110701774

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Human life is susceptible of changing suddenly, of shifting inadvertently, of appearing differently, of varying unpredictably, of being altered deliberately, of advancing fortuitously, of commencing or ending accidentally, of a certain malleability. In theory, any human being is potentially capacitated to conceive of—and convey—the chance, view, or fact that matters may be otherwise, or not at all; with respect to other lifeforms, this might be said animal’s distinctive characteristic. This state of play is both an everyday phenomenon, and an indispensable prerequisite for exceptional innovations in culture and science: contingency is the condition of possibility for any of the arts—be they dominantly concerned with thinking, crafting, or enacting. While their scope and method may differ, the (f)act of reckoning with—and taking advantage of—contingency renders rhetoricians and philosophers associates after all. In this regard, Aristotle and Blumenberg will be exemplary, hence provide the framework. Between these diachronic bridgeheads, close readings applying the nexus of rhetoric and contingency to a selection of (Early) Modern texts and authors are intercalated—among them La Celestina, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Wilde, Fontane.

The Fall of Rome
The Fall of Rome

Author: Bryan Ward-Perkins

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2006-07-12

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0191622362

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Why did Rome fall? Vicious barbarian invasions during the fifth century resulted in the cataclysmic end of the world's most powerful civilization, and a 'dark age' for its conquered peoples. Or did it? The dominant view of this period today is that the 'fall of Rome' was a largely peaceful transition to Germanic rule, and the start of a positive cultural transformation. Bryan Ward-Perkins encourages every reader to think again by reclaiming the drama and violence of the last days of the Roman world, and reminding us of the very real horrors of barbarian occupation. Attacking new sources with relish and making use of a range of contemporary archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans, in a world of economic collapse, marauding barbarians, and the rise of a new religious orthodoxy. He also looks at how and why successive generations have understood this period differently, and why the story is still so significant today.

Greek and Latin Letters in Late Antiquity
Greek and Latin Letters in Late Antiquity

Author: Pauline Allen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-09-10

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1108916457

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This is the first general book on Greek and Latin letter-writing in Late Antiquity (300–600 CE). Allen and Neil examine early Christian Greek and Latin literary letters, their nature and function and the mechanics of their production and dissemination. They examine the exchange of Episcopal, monastic and imperial letters between men, and the gifts that accompanied them, and the rarer phenomenon of letter exchanges with imperial and aristocratic women. They also look at the transmission of letter-collections and what they can tell us about friendships and other social networks between the powerful elites who were the literary letter-writers of the fourth to sixth centuries. The volume gives a broad context to late-antique literary letter-writing in Greek and Latin in its various manifestations: political, ecclesiastical, practical and social. In the process, the differences between 'pagan' and Christian letter-writing are shown to be not as great as has previously been supposed.

Horace on Poetry
Horace on Poetry

Author: C. O. Brink

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-06-09

Total Pages: 665

ISBN-13: 0521283094

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Originally published in 1982, this is the culminating volume in Professor Brink's great study of Horace's critical writings. The book contains a full edition of the Letters to Augustus and Florus, presented on the same lines as that of the Ars Poetica in the preceding volume. The edition is followed by a very detailed commentary which seeks to justify his text of the poems, and on this basis leads to an assessment of style and subject matter in the two epistles. In the second half an attempt is made to unravel the complexities of Horace's mode of composition and to determine the scope of the critical epistles against the background of Augustan poetry. The complete three-volume commentary constitutes one of the fullest scholarly commentaries on Horace's critical writing. It will continue to be of great value to all with an interest in this much-debated subject.