Download or read book Amalasuintha written by Massimiliano Vitiello and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Massimiliano Vitiello situates the life and career of the Ostrogothic queen Amalasuintha (c. 494/5-535), daughter of Theoderic the Great, in the context of the transitional time, after the fall of Rome, during which new dynastic regimes were experimenting with various forms of political legitimation. A member of the Gothic elite raised in the Romanized palace of Ravenna, Amalasuintha married her father's chosen successor and was set to become a traditional Gothic queen—a helpmate and advisor to her husband, the Visigothic prince Eutharic—with no formal political role of her own. But her early widowhood and the subsequent death of her father threw her into a position unprecedented in the Gothic world: a regent mother who assumed control of the government. During her regency, Amalasuintha clashed with a conservative Gothic aristocracy who resisted her leadership, garnered support among her Roman and pro-Roman subjects, defended Italy from the ambitions of other kings, and negotiated the expansionistic designs of Justinian and Theodora. When her son died unexpectedly at a young age, she undertook her most dangerous political enterprise: forming an unmarried coregency with her cousin, Theodahad, whom she raised to the throne. His final betrayal would cost Amalasuintha her rule and her life. Vitiello argues that Amalasuintha's story reveals a key phase in the transformation of queenship in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, a time in which royal women slowly began exercising political power. Assessing the ancient sources for Amalasuintha's biography, Cassiodorus, Procopius, Gregory of Tours, and Jordanes, Vitiello demonstrates the ways in which her life and public image show the influence of late Roman and Byzantine imperial models on the formation of female political power in the post-Roman world.
Download or read book People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy 489 554 written by Patrick Amory and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-10-16 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The barbarians of the fifth and sixth centuries were long thought to be races, tribes or ethnic groups who toppled the Roman Empire and racist, nationalist assumptions about the composition of the barbarian groups still permeate much scholarship on the subject. This book proposes a new view, through a case-study of the Goths of Italy between 489 and 554. It contains a detailed examination of the personal details and biographies of 379 individuals and compares their behaviour with ideological texts of the time. This inquiry suggests wholly new ways of understanding the appearance of barbarian groups and the end of the western Roman Empire, as well as proposing new models of regional and professional loyalty and group cohesion. In addition, the book proposes a complete reinterpretation of the evolution of Christian conceptions of community, and of so-called 'Germanic' Arianism.
Download or read book Theodahad written by Massimiliano Vitiello and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2014-07-31 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Educated in Platonic philosophy rather than the military arts, the Ostrogothic king Theodahad was never meant to rule. His unexpected nomination as co-regent by his cousin Queen Amalasuintha plunged him into the intrigues of the Gothic court, and Theodahad soon conspired to assassinate the queen. But, once alone on the throne, his lack of political experience and military skill made him ineffective at best and dangerously incompetent at worst. Defeated by the Byzantine emperor Justinian, Theodahad was killed by his own subjects. In Theodahad, Massimiliano Vitiello rigorously investigates the ancient sources in order to reconstruct the events of Theodahad’s life and the contours of sixth-century diplomacy and political intrigues. Painting a picture of an unlikely king whose reign helped spell the end of Ostrogothic Italy, Vitiello’s book not only illuminates Theodahad’s own life but also offers new insight into the sixth-century Mediterranean world.
Download or read book Theoderic the Great written by Hans-Ulrich Wiemer and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-25 with total page 660 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full-scale history of Theoderic and the Goths in more than seventy-five years, tracing the transformation of a divided kingdom into a great power In the year 493, the leader of a vast confederation of Gothic warriors, their wives, and children personally cut down Odoacer, the man famous for deposing the last Roman emperor in 476. That leader became Theoderic the Great (454–526). This engaging history of his life and reign immerses readers in the world of the warrior-king who ushered in decades of peace and stability in Italy as king of Goths and Romans. Theoderic transformed his roving “warrior nation” from the periphery of the Roman world into a standing army that protected his taxpaying Roman subjects with the support of the Roman elite. With a ruling strategy of “integration through separation,” Theoderic not only stabilized Italy but also extended his kingdom to the western Balkans, southern France, and the Iberian Peninsula. Using sources as diverse as letters, poetry, coins, and mosaics, Hans-Ulrich Wiemer brings readers into the world of Theoderic’s court, from Gothic warriors and their families to the notables, artisans, and shopkeepers of Rome and Ravenna to the peasants and enslaved people who tilled the soil on grand rural estates. This book offers a fascinating history of the leader who brought peace to Italy after the disintegration of the Roman Empire.
Download or read book The Age of Justinian written by J. A. S. Evans and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-04 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Age of Justinian examines the reign of the great emperor Justinian (527-565) and his wife Theodora, who advanced from the theatre to the throne. The origins of the irrevocable split between East and West, between the Byzantine and the Persian Empire are chronicled, which continue up to the present day. The book looks at the social structure of sixth century Byzantium, and the neighbours that surrounded the empire. It also deals with Justinian's wars, which restored Italy, Africa and a part of Spain to the empire.
Download or read book The Writings of Medieval Women written by Marcelle Thiebaux and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published in 1994: The period surveyed in this anthology extends from the eve of Christianity's triumph, in the third century, to the new age of expansion in the fifteenth century, an age marked by the advent of printing pressed, the European discovery of the Caribbean islands, which Columbus called the Indies, the relentless stripping of medieval altars by Church reformists, and perhaps a diminution of female autonomy.
Download or read book Belisarius written by Ian Hughes and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2009-01-15 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A military history of the campaigns of Flavius Belisarius, the greatest general of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Justinian. Back in the 6th century, Belisarius twice defeated the Persians and reconquered North Africa from the Vandals in a single year at the age of 29, before going on to regain Spain and Italy, including Rome (briefly), from the barbarians. This book discusses the evolution from classical Roman to Byzantine armies and systems of warfare, as well as those of their chief enemies: the Persians, Goths, and Vandals. Belisarius: The Last Roman General reassesses Belisarius’s generalship and compares him with the likes of Caesar, Alexander, and Hannibal. It is also illustrated with line drawings and battle plans as well as photographs.
Download or read book The Writings of Medieval Women written by Marcelle Theibaux and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Royal and saintly women are well-represented here, with the welcome addition of women from the Mediterranean arc...Garland has done a solid job of presenting this book." -- Arthuriana "The Anthology gives a fine sense of the great range of women's writing in the Middle Ages." -- Medium Aevum
Download or read book The Empress Theodora written by James Allan Evans and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2003-10-01 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a biography of the burlesqe actress who became the trusted partner of Byzantine emperor Justinian in both marriage and government affairs.
Download or read book The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples written by Herwig Wolfram and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2005-03-18 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the Germanic peoples and their kingdom between the 3rd and 8th centuries, as they invaded, settled in and transformed the Roman empire.
Download or read book Justinian written by John Moorhead and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The reign of Justinian (527--65) was a key phase in the transition from the Roman empire of classical times to the Byzantine empire of the Middle Ages. Justinian himself, born of peasant stock in a provincial backwater, was one of the greatest rulers yet, despite prodigious achievements, he remained an outsider in the sophisticated society of Constantinople. Here, John Moorhead reinterprets Justinian as man and monarch, together with his formidable empress, the ex-actress Theodora, and assesses the evidence from their time for the evolution of a distinctively medieval world.
Download or read book History of the Goths written by Herwig Wolfram and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an overview on the formation of the Gothic tribes, their migrations, and the later history of the Ostrogothic and Visigothic settlements.
Download or read book Galla Placidia written by Hagith Sivan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The astonishing career of Galla Placidia (c. 390-450) provides valuable reflections on the state of the Roman empire in the fifth century CE. In an age when emperors, like Galla's two brothers, Arcadius (395-408) and Honorius (395-423), and nephew, Theodosius II (408-450), hardly ever ventured beyond the fortified enclosure of their palaces, Galla spent years wandering across Italy, Gaul and Spain first as hostage in the camp of Alaric the Goth, and then as wife of Alaric's successor. In exile at the court of her nephew in Constantinople Galla observed how princesses wield power while vaunting piety. Restored to Italy on the swords of the eastern Roman army, Galla watched the coronation of her son, age six, as the emperor of the western Roman provinces. For a dozen years (425-437) she acted as regent, treading uneasily between rival senatorial factions, ambitious church prelates, and charismatic military leaders. This new biography of Galla is organized according to her changing roles as bride, widow, bereaved mother, queen and empress. It examines her relations with men in power, her achievements as a politician, her skills at establishing power bases and political alliances, and her efficiency at accomplishing her desired goals. Using all the available sources, documents, epigraphy, coinage and the visual arts, and Galla's own letters, Hagith Sivan reconstructs the turning points and highlights of Galla's odd progression from a bloodthirsty princess at Rome to a bride of a barbarian in Gaul, from a manipulative sister and wife of emperors at the imperial court at Ravenna to a beggar at the court of her relatives in Constantinople, and from a devious regent of the western Roman empire to a collaborator of popes in Rome.
Download or read book Empresses in Waiting written by Christian Rollinger and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-20 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empresses-in-Waiting comprises case studies of late antique empresses, female members of imperial dynasties, and female members of the highest nobility of the late Roman empire, ranging from the fourth to the seventh centuries AD. Situated in the context of the broader developments of scholarship on late antique and byzantine empresses, this volume explores the political agency, religious authority, and influence of imperial and near-imperial women within the Late Roman imperial court, which is understood as a complex spatial, social, and cultural system, the centre of patronage networks, and an arena for elite competition. The studies explore female performance and representation in literary and visual media as well as in court ceremonial, and discuss the opportunities and constraints of female power within a male dominated court environment and the broader realms of imperial activity. By focusing on imperial women, the volume not only addresses questions of gendered rhetoric and agency but throws into relief general dynamics in the exercise of imperial power during a period in which the classical Mediterranean world at large, as well as the Roman monarchy, underwent crucial transformations.
Download or read book The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire 2 Part Set Volume 3 AD 527 641 written by J. R. Martindale and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-10-15 with total page 822 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the final volume of the three-volume Prosopography which now provides a complete secular biographical dictionary for the Later Roman Empire from AD 260 to 641. This volume begins at the start of the reign of Justinian in 527 and ends at the death of Heraclius in 641. Like its predecessors, this volume has collected the surviving evidence about the personnel of the empire, about members of the senates of Rome and Constantinople and their families, about members of senatorial families still surviving and holding public office in the western lands (Gaul and Spain) no longer under Roman rule. It includes officials serving at the imperial court and in the civil and provincial administration, as well as army personnel at least of the rank of tribune and above. It also includes all persons, male and female, of the status of perfectissimus and above, whether holding office or not, and persons of learning, such as lawyers, doctors, teachers and writers. The project is intended as a tool for research works in the whole field of late empire studies.
Download or read book Rome China and the Barbarians written by Randolph B. Ford and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-23 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of ethnological thought in Greece, Rome, and China and its articulation during 'barbarian' invasion and conquest.
Download or read book Ravenna written by Judith Herrin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 402 AD, after invading tribes broke through the Alpine frontiers of Italy and threatened the imperial government in Milan, the young Emperor Honorius made the momentous decision to move his capital to a small, easy defendable city in the Po estuary: Ravenna. From then until 751 AD, Ravenna was first the capital of the Western Roman Empire, then that of the immense kingdom of Theoderic the Goth, and finally the centre of Byzantine power in Italy. In this engrossing account Judith Herrin explains how scholars, lawyers, doctors, craftsmen, cosmologists and religious luminaries were drawn to Ravenna where they created a cultural and political capital that dominated northern Italy and the Adriatic. As she traces the lives of Ravenna's rulers, chroniclers and inhabitants, Herrin shows how the city became the meeting place of Greek, Latin, Christian and barbarian cultures and the pivot between East and West. The book offers a fresh account of the waning of Rome, the Gothic and Lombard invasions, the rise of Islam and the devastating divisions within Christianity. It argues that the fifth to eighth centuries should not be perceived as a time of decline from antiquity but rather, thanks to Byzantium, as one of great creativity: the period of 'Early Christendom'. These were the formative centuries of Europe. While Ravenna's palaces have crumbled, its churches have survived. In them, Catholic Romans and Arian Goths competed to produce an unrivalled concentration of spectacular mosaics, many of which still astonish visitors today. Beautifully illustrated with specially commissioned photographs, and drawing on the latest archaeological and documentary discoveries, Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe brings the early Middle Ages to life through the history of this dazzling city.
