Download or read book Aspar and the Struggle for the Eastern Roman Empire AD 421 71 written by Ronald A. Bleeker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-04-07 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full-length biography in English of Aspar, the eastern Roman general and statesman, this book explores his central role in the history and politics of the fragmenting Roman Empire in the fifth century. It also considers what his life and career may suggest as to the differing fates of the eastern and western parts of the empire. Taking a chronological approach, Bleeker guides us through what is known of Aspar's life and his changing influence in the eastern Roman army and court. Born and raised in Constantinople, Aspar primarily viewed and presented himself as a Roman general, consul, and senator. Yet he also stood outside the Roman mainstream in two important ways–as a member of the empire's “barbarian” military leadership and as a devout Arian Christian. Early chapters treat his formative military experiences with the Persians, a Roman usurper in Italy, the Vandals in Africa, and the Huns of Attila, while later chapters focus on Aspar's political role in resolving the two imperial succession crises that struck the eastern Roman empire in the mid-fifth century and his extended struggle to control the succession to Leo I. Bleeker builds on earlier studies in three ways. First, previous work has largely concentrated on the role of “barbarian” generals in the western Roman empire, while much less attention has been paid to similar figures (such as Aspar) in the east. Secondly, while important recent work has explored the prevalence of “child-emperors” in the late-fourth and early-fifth centuries, this book suggests a further evolution of the imperial role in the mid-fifth century. Finally, while previous studies of this period have focused on Aspar's late career role in the succession struggles, a full study allows us to see how and why his relations with other key figures within and outside the eastern Roman government changed over the course of his lengthy career.
Download or read book Aspar and the Struggle for the Eastern Roman Empire A D 421 471 written by Ronald A. Bleeker and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The first full-length biography in English of Aspar, the eastern Roman general and statesman, this book explores his central role in the history and politics of the fragmenting Roman Empire in the 5th century. It also considers what his life and career may suggest as to the differing fates of the eastern and western parts of the empire. Taking a chronological approach, Bleeker guides us through what is known of Aspar's life and his changing influence in the eastern Roman army and court. Born and raised in Constantinople, Aspar primarily viewed and presented himself as a Roman general, consul, and senator. Yet he also stood outside the Roman mainstream in two important ways - as a member of the empire's "barbarian" military leadership and as a devout Arian Christian. Early chapters treat his formative military experiences with the Persians, a Roman usurper in Italy, the Vandals in Africa, and the Huns of Attila, while later chapters focus on Aspar's political role in resolving the two imperial succession crises that struck the eastern Roman empire in the mid-5th century and his extended struggle to control the succession to Leo I. Bleeker builds on earlier studies in three ways. First, previous work has largely concentrated on the role of "barbarian" generals in the western Roman empire, while much less attention has been paid to similar figures (such as Aspar) in the east. Secondly, while important recent work has explored the prevalence of "child-emperors" in the late-fourth and early-fifth centuries, this book suggests a further evolution of the imperial role in the mid-fifth century. Finally, while previous studies of this period have focused on Aspar's late career role in the succession struggles, a full study allows us to see how and why his relations with other key figures within and outside the eastern Roman government changed over the course of his lengthy career"
Download or read book History of the Eastern Roman Empire A D 802 867 written by John Bury and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Power Game in Byzantium written by James Allan Evans and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-12-22 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: >
Download or read book Free At Last written by Teresa Ramsby and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-01-02 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on recent dynamic visual, literary and archaeological work on Roman freedmen, this book examines the impact of freed slaves on Roman society and culture.
Download or read book Polybius and Roman Imperialism written by Donald Walter Baronowski and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-05-09 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the complex reaction of the Greek historian Polybius to the expansion of Roman power, embracing admiration and support tempered by detachment of different kinds, personal, cultural, patriotic and intellectual.
Download or read book The Roman Book written by Rex Winsbury and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was a Roman book? How did it differ from modern books? How were Roman books composed, published and distributed during the high period of Roman literature that encompassed, among others, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Martial, Pliny and Tacitus? What was the ‘scribal art’ of the time? What was the role of bookshops and libraries? The publishing of Roman books has often been misrepresented by false analogies with contemporary publishing. This wide-ranging study re-examines, by appeal to what Roman authors themselves tell us, both the raw material and the aesthetic criteria of the Roman book, and shows how slavery was the ‘enabling infrastructure’ of literature. Roman publishing is placed firmly in the context of a society where the spoken still ranked above the written, helping to explain how some books and authors became politically dangerous and how the Roman book could be both an elite cultural icon and a contributor to Rome’s popular culture through the mass medium of the theatre.
Download or read book Silent Eloquence written by Ismene Lada-Richards and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the greatest aesthetic attractions in the ancient world was pantomime dancing, a ballet-style entertainment in which a silent, solo dancer incarnated a series of mythological characters to the accompaniment of music and sung narrative. Looking at a multitude of texts and particularly Lucian's "On the Dance", a dialogue written at the height of pantomime's popularity, this innovative cultural study of the genre offers a radical reassessment of its importance in the symbolic economy of imperial and later antiquity. Rather than being trivial or lowbrow, pantomime was thoroughly enmeshed in wider social discourses on morality and sexuality, gender and desire and a key player in the fierce battles about education and culture that raged in the ancient world. A close reading of primary sources, judiciously interlaced with a wealth of interdisciplinary perspectives, makes this challenging book essential for anyone interested in the performance culture of the Greek and Roman world.
Download or read book The Politics of Roman Memory written by Marion Kruse and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2019-10-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did it mean to be Roman after the fall of the western Roman empire in 476, and what were the implications of new formulations of Roman identity for the inhabitants of both east and west? How could an empire be Roman when it was, in fact, at war with Rome? How did these issues motivate and shape historical constructions of Constantinople as the New Rome? And how did the idea that a Roman empire could fall influence political rhetoric in Constantinople? In The Politics of Roman Memory, Marion Kruse visits and revisits these questions to explore the process by which the emperors, historians, jurists, antiquarians, and poets of the eastern Roman empire employed both history and mythologized versions of the same to reimagine themselves not merely as Romans but as the only Romans worthy of the name. The Politics of Roman Memory challenges conventional narratives of the transformation of the classical world, the supremacy of Christian identity in late antiquity, and the low literary merit of writers in this period. Kruse reconstructs a coherent intellectual movement in Constantinople that redefined Romanness in a Constantinopolitan idiom through the manipulation of Roman historical memory. Debates over the historical parameters of Romanness drew the attention of figures as diverse as Zosimos—long dismissed as a cranky pagan outlier, but here rehabilitated—and the emperor Justinian, as well as the major authors of Justinian's reign, such as Prokopios, Ioannes Lydos, and Jordanes. Finally, by examining the narratives embedded in Justinian's laws, Kruse demonstrates the importance of historical memory to the construction of imperial authority.
Download or read book Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World written by Martin Bommas and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World brings together scholars and researchers working on memory and religion in ancient urban environments. Chapters explore topics relating to religious traditions and memory, and the multifunctional roles of architectural and geographical sites, mythical figures and events, literary works and artefacts. Pagan religions were often less static and more open to new influences than previously understood. One of the factors that shape religion is how fundamental elements are remembered as valuable and therefore preservable for future generations. Memory, therefore, plays a pivotal role when - as seen in ancient Rome during late antiquity - a shift of religions takes place within communities. The significance of memory in ancient societies and how it was promoted, prompted, contested and even destroyed is discussed in detail. This volume, the first of its kind, not only addresses the main cultures of the ancient world - Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome - but also look at urban religious culture and funerary belief, and how concepts of ethnic religion were adapted in new religious environments.
Download or read book Taming Anger written by Kostas Kalimtzis and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Homer to Aristotle, understanding anger and harnessing its power was at the core of Hellenic civilization. Homer created the framework for philosophical inquiries into anger, one that persisted until it was overturned by Stoicism and Christianity. Plato saw anger as the guardian of justice and Aristotle conceived of it as bound to friendship. Yet both showed that anger can become a guardian of injustice and a defender of our psychological abnormalities. Plato claimed that reason is a tertiary factor in controlling anger and Aristotle argued that non-cognitive powers can issue commands for anger's arousal - findings that shed light as to why cognitive therapeutic approaches often prove to be ineffective. Both proposed nurturing the thumos, the receptacle of anger and the seat of self-esteem. Aristotle's view of public anger as an early warning sign of social dissolution continues to be relevant to this day. In this carefully argued study, Kostas Kalimtzis examines the theories of anger in the context of the ancient world with an eye to their implications for the modern predicament.
Download or read book The Fall of the Roman Empire written by Peter Heather and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2007-06-11 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows how Europe's barbarians, strengthened by centuries of contact with Rome on many levels, turned into an enemy capable of overturning and dismantling the mighty Empire.
Download or read book Emotion Genre and Gender in Classical Antiquity written by Dana Munteanu and published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book was released on 2013-05-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This tightly focused collection of essays by a distinguished group of scholars analyses the degree to which expressions of emotion in ancient literature and art become an 'artistic' rather than a 'social' construct. To what degree do literary genres, philosophy and visual arts produce expectations for the arousal of certain emotions? Are the emotions of women, for example, represented differently in different genres? How and why do literary genres and visual arts concentrate on specific emotions and stylise them accordingly, and how do particular emotions relate to gender within literary texts? The book will be of interest to all students and scholars of classical literature and gender studies.
Download or read book Law and Drama in Ancient Greece written by and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between law and literature is rich and complex. In the past three and half decades, the topic has received much attention from literary critics and legal scholars studying modern literature. Despite the prominence of law and justice in Ancient Greek literature, there has been little interest among Classical scholars in the connections between law and drama. This is the first collection of essays to approach Greek tragedy and comedy from a legal perspective. The volume does not claim to provide an exhaustive treatment of law and literature in ancient Greece. Rather it provides a sample of different approaches to the topic. Some essays show how knowledge of Athenian law enhances our understanding of individual passages in Attic drama and the mimes of Herodas and enriches our appreciation of dramatic techniques. Other essays examine the information provided about legal procedure found in Aristophanes' comedies or the views about the role of law in society expressed in Attic drama. The collection reveals reveal how the study of law and legal procedure can enhance our understanding of ancient drama and bring new insights to the interpretation of individual plays.
Download or read book Controlling Desires written by Kirk Ormand and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2018-01-10 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Comprehensive, reader-friendly, richly detailed, forthright, subtle, and very clear, Controlling Desires is the only handbook on ancient sexuality that works persistently to offset modern readers' assumptions about sex and sexuality, to challenge the notion that sexuality is natural and universal, and to bring out the differences between ancient and modern discourses of sex—or, even, between ancient and modern experiences of desire. As such, it is a very helpful resource for students working on the history of sexuality in classical antiquity, because it shows how such a history might be possible and what is actually historical about sexuality." —David M. Halperin, University of Michigan, author of One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, Saint Foucault, and How to Do the History of Homosexuality Since its first publication in 2009, Controlling Desires has been widely lauded as an accessible introduction to sexual practices, attitudes, and beliefs in the classical world. Treating Greece and Rome in separate sections, with ample cross-references and comparisons, Kirk Ormand presents a wide array of evidence from literary texts and visual arts, including two new chapters on Greek vase painting and Roman artifacts and wall paintings.
Download or read book The Myth of Paganism written by Robert Shorrock and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional and still prevalent accounts of late antique literature draw a clear distinction between 'pagan' and 'Christian' forms of poetry: whereas Christian poetry is taken seriously in terms its contribution to culture and society at large, so-called pagan or secular poetry is largely ignored, as though it has no meaningful part to play within the late antique world. The Myth of Paganism sets out to deconstruct this view of two contrasting poetic traditions and proposes in its place a new integrated model for the understanding of late antique poetry. As the book argues, the poet of Christ and the poet of the Muses were drawn together into an active, often provocative, dialogue about the relationship between Christianity and the Classical tradition and, ultimately, about the meaning of late antiquity itself. An analysis of the poetry of Nonnus of Panopolis, author of both a 'pagan' epic about Dionysus and a Christian translation of St John's Gospel, helps to illustrate this complex dialectic between pagan and Christian voices.
Download or read book Aetius written by Ian Hughes and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2012-07-19 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The history of Aetius’ life and his dealings with Attila . . . [and] of the (western) Roman Empire throughout the pivotal fifth century.” —Ancient Warfare Magazine In AD 453, Attila—with a huge force composed of Huns, allies, and vassals drawn from his already-vast empire—was rampaging westward across Gaul (essentially modern France), then still nominally part of the Western Roman Empire. Laying siege to Orleans, he was only a few days march from extending his empire from the Eurasian steppe to the Atlantic. He was brought to battle on the Catalaunian Plain and defeated by a coalition hastily assembled and led by Aetius. Who was this man that saved Western Europe from the Hunnic yoke? Aetius is one of the major figures in the history of the late Roman Empire and his actions helped maintain the integrity of the West in the declining years of the Empire. During the course of his life he was a hostage, first with Alaric and the Goths, and then with Rugila, king of the Huns. His stay with these two peoples helped to give him an unparalleled insight into the minds and military techniques of these “barbarians” which he was to use in later years to halt the depredations of the Huns. Ian Hughes assesses Aetius’ fascinating career and campaigns with the same accessible narrative and analysis he brought to bear on Belisarius and Stilicho. “A lively, often insightful account of the declining years of Roman power in the West which will be of interest to students of Roman history, the onset of the Dark ages and early Byzantine history.” —The New York Military Affairs Symposium
