Fall Of The Roman Empire Research Articles

CORRECTING MODEL MISSPECIFICATION IN RELATIONSHIP ESTIMATES.

The datasets of large genotyping biobanks and direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies contain many related individuals. Until now, it has been widely accepted that the most distant relationships that can be detected are around fifteen degrees (approximately 8 th cousins) and that practical relationship estimates have a ceiling around ten degrees (approximately 5 th cousins). However, we show that these assumptions are incorrect and that they are due to a misapplication of relationship estimators. In particular, relationship estimators are applied almost exclusively to putative relatives who have been identified because they share detectable tracts of DNA identically by descent (IBD). However, no existing relationship estimator conditions on the event that two individuals share at least one detectable segment of IBD anywhere in the genome. As a result, the relationship estimates obtained using existing estimators are dramatically biased for distant relationships, inferring all sufficiently distant relationships to be around ten degrees regardless of the depth of the true relationship. Existing relationship estimators are derived under a model that assumes that each pair of related individuals shares a single common ancestor (or mating pair of ancestors). This model breaks down for relationships beyond 10 generations in the past because individuals share many thousands of cryptic common ancestors due to pedigree collapse. We first derive a corrected likelihood that conditions on the event that at least one segment is observed between a pair of putative relatives and we demonstrate that the corrected likelihood largely eliminates the bias in estimates of pairwise relationships and provides a more accurate characterization of the uncertainty in these estimates. We then reformulate the relationship inference problem to account for the fact that individuals share many common ancestors, not just one. We demonstrate that the most distant relationship that can be inferred using IBD may be 200 degrees or more, rather than ten, extending the time-to-common ancestor from approximately 300 years in the past to approximately 3,000 years in the past or more. This dramatic increase in the range of relationship estimators makes it possible to infer relationships whose common ancestors lived before historical events such as European settlement of the Americas, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

The role of emerging elites in the formation and development of communities after the fall of the Roman Empire

Elites played a pivotal role in the formation of post-Roman Europe on both macro- and microlevels during the Early Medieval period. History and archaeology have long focused on their description and identification based on written sources or through their archaeological record. We provide a different perspective on this topic by integrating paleogenomic, archaeological, and isotopic data to gain insights into the role of one such elite group in a Langobard period community near Collegno, Italy dated to the 6-8th centuries CE. Our analysis of 28 newly sequenced genomes together with 24 previously published ones combined with isotope (Sr, C, N) measurements revealed that this community was established by and organized around a network of biologically and socially related individuals likely composed of multiple elite families that over time developed into a single extended pedigree. The community also included individuals with diverse genetic ancestries, maintaining its diversity by integrating newcomers and groups in later stages of its existence. This study highlights how shifts in political power and migration impacted the formation and development of a small rural community within a key region of the former Western Roman Empire after its dissolution and the emergence of a new kingdom. Furthermore, it suggests that Early Medieval elites had the capacity to incorporate individuals from varied backgrounds and that these elites were the result of (political) agency rather than belonging to biologically homogeneous groups.

The impact of climate change on the agriculture and the economy of Southern Gaul: New perspectives of agent-based modelling.

What impact did the Roman Climate Optimum (RCO) and the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) have on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire? Our article presents an agent-based modelling (ABM) approach developed to evaluate the impact of climate change on the profitability of vineyards, olive groves, and grain farms in Southern Gaul, which were the main source of wealth in the roman period. This ABM simulates an agroecosystem model which processes potential agricultural yield values from paleoclimatic data. The model calculates the revenues made by agricultural exploitations from the sale of crops whose annual volumes vary according to climate and market prices. The potential profits made by the different agricultural exploitations are calculated by deducting from the income the operating and transportation costs. We conclude that the warm and wet climate of the Roman period may have had an extremely beneficial effect on the profitability of wine and olive farms between the 2nd century BCE and the 3rd century CE, but a more modest effect on grain production. Subsequently, there is a significant decrease in the potential profitability of farms during the Late Antique Little Ice Age (4th-7th century CE). Comparing the results of our model with archaeological data enables us to discuss the impact of these climatic fluctuations on the agricultural and economic growth, and then their subsequent recession in Southern Gaul from the beginning to the end of antiquity.

Waiting for Today’s Barbarians: How the Fall of the Roman Empire Is Anachronistically Exploited to Serve a Contemporary Discriminatory B/Ordering and Othering Agenda

ABSTRACT In this paper, we analyze the “Colosseum interview” of former U.K. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in which he pleads for fierce border control against refugees, “like the Romans did.” His speech act is exemplary of a trend among especially conservative and/or far-right politicians and thinkers who are warning of a possible fall of the E.U., like the Roman Empire, if it does not “control its borders.” Close reading and deconstructing his phantasmagorical claims, we showcase how Johnson follows a worrying populist tradition of selectively and anachronistically glorifying the Roman past to legitimize contemporary antagonistic b/ordering and othering practices. We argue that precisely the normalization of such dog-whistle speech acts, where historical events are farcically tragedized to fit violent political agendas, potentially paves the way for future tragedies to emerge.

Europe Without America

This essay examines the historically anomalous nature of the contemporary US-led European security order in the context of other distinctive aspects of European history. These include the absence of a long-lasting hegemon since the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe’s rise and global dominance, and its instigation of the two world wars which brought its own destruction. The essay argues that America’s role as effectively a non-territorial hegemon allowed Europe largely to reconcile the ‘impossible trinity’ of unity, security and liberty which had previously eluded it. However, this anomalous and relatively happy period could soon end if, due to US internal political dynamics or a need to strategically prioritise East Asia, the American Leviathan withdraws from its function as Europe’s security provider.

СИСТЕМА МІР ВАГИ ВЕЛИКОБРИТАНІЇ, КРАЇН ПІВНІЧНОЇ АМЕРИКИ І ОКЕАНІЇ

The territory of the islands of Britain and Ireland was inhabited by people in prehistoric times. Numerous megalithic monuments remain from this culture. In the first millennium BC, Celtic tribes moved there from continental Europe, who later mixed with the local population. The maritime trade of the ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean with the population of the British Isles is reported by some historical sources of the antiquity. This trade was conducted by exchanging goods for goods. There is no information in historical sources about the measures, in particular weights, used by the ancient population of the British Isles in production and trade. In the first century BC, the Romans conquered the territory of Britain. They established their own system of measures, including weights, and their own monetary system. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the V century, Germanic tribes such as the Angles, Saxons, and Utes invaded Britain. At first, they created several kingdoms here, and in the IX century, they united into a single Anglo-Saxon state. It was during the Anglo-Saxon period from the V to the XI centuries that the foundations of the modern British System of Measures and Monetary System were laid. In the formation of the British weight system, units of weight measures of the Celts, Romans and Germans were used. Norms of weight measures were approved in the laws of the Anglo-Saxon kings of the X–XI centuries, which have survived to this day. The conquest of Britain in 1066 by the Norman Duke William did not make changes to the system of weight measures used here. Over the centuries, from time to time, for the purpose of improvement, royal decrees and laws amended these measures. The transformation of the weight measurement system for a thousand years can be studied precisely by analysing the materials of English legislation. In the XVI–XX centuries, Great Britain became a colonial power, whose possessions covered vast territories in the North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Here, the colonial administration introduced the British system of weight measures, but the local population used their own measures along with the British ones. After the gradual disintegration of the British colonial empire, some new states that were formed on the site of its former possessions – the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – continued to use British standards of weight measures. The British system of weight measurements is made public in the USA. Nowadays, the British system of weight measures, along with the metric, is officially considered the state in the United Kingdom.

The Fall of Rome, Apocalyptic Elements and Perception of the End Times in Augustine's De civitate Dei

Bu çalışmada Augustinus'un (ö. 430) ahir zamanla ilgili görüşleri ve özellikle De civitate Dei adlı eserinin son üç bölümündeki düşünceleri analiz edilmektedir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda Augustinus'un konu ile ilgili görüşlerinin tarihsel, teolojik ve toplumsal bağlamları incelenmiştir. Augustinus, ahir zamanla ilgili olarak Kutsal Kitap'ta geçen bazı metinlerin basit ve doğrudan yorumlanmaması gerektiğini savunurken, aynı zamanda bu metinlerin sembolik anlamlarının da altını çizmektedir. Bunu yaparken dönemin din adamları ile yapmış olduğu yazışmalar baz alınmış ve bu yazışmalar neticesinde ahir zaman beklentisine sahip olan Hıristiyanların görüşlerinin Augustinus tarafından hangi gerekçelerle kabul edilmediği incelemeye konu edilmiştir. Çalışmanın bir diğer odak noktası, bedenin dirilişi ve bin yıllık hükümdarlık kavramlarıdır. Augustinus, bin yıllık hükümdarlık kavramının sembolik bir anlam taşıdığını öne sürmektedir. Bu yorumları yaparken Yeni Ahit'teki ilgili metinlere başvuran Augustinus, daha sonra çifte diriliş öğretisinin asıl kaynağı olan Yuhanna'nın Vahiy kitabını tartışmaktadır. Neticede binyılcı beklentilerin, tarihin her döneminde popüler olduğu ve bu beklentilerin, insanların dünyanın sonuna dair endişeleri ile ilişkilendirildiği görülmektedir. Bu nedenle Kutsal Kitap metinlerinin, "binyılcılığın" sürekli bir olasılık olarak görülmesine izin verdiği hesaba katıldığında, bu beklentilerin günümüzde ve gelecekte de popülerliğini koruyacağı anlaşılmaktadır.

Исчезла ли античность в городах Малой Азии задолго до падения Римской империи? (Рец. на кн.: Pont, A.-V. La fin de la cité grecque: métamorphoses et disparition d’un modèle politique et institutionnel local en Asie Mineure, de Dèce à Constantin / A.-V. Pont. – Genève : Droz, 2020. – XIII, 585 р. (Hautes études du monde gréco-romain ; vol. 57))

Introduction. The publication is a review of a monograph by Anna-Valerie Pont, Professor of the Sorbonne, devoted to an attempt to determine the time of the disappearance of an ancient city (polis) on the material of Asia Minor. Analysis and results. There is an extensive and complex source base of research in terms of composition and quality, which includes both scanty reports of late Antique and early medieval written heritage, as well as archaeological data, among which the author legitimately highlights epigraphic material. As criteria for the extinction in the city, it is the ancient indicators of public life that have priority: the decline in the functioning of self-government institutions by urban communities, a decrease in the activity of wealthy citizens in organizing spectacles, subsidizing essential products, an increase in the specific weight of imperial bureaucratic control and local management, an increase in the influence of Christians on public processes in policies. The review indicates that the French researcher actually ignored the evolution of municipal property (the degradation of which in the chronological framework under consideration was very modest). In fact, the evolution of such estates as curiales and plebs (whose position at the time under consideration was by no means catastrophic) was also left aside. The social historical realities in the monograph are touched upon only insofar as they are related to institutional elements (the work of city councils, the implementation of magistracies, etc.). The author of the review points out that such a method of analyzing late-antique processes is outdated and goes back to the Enlightenment views on the fall of the Roman Empire. The review focuses on the legitimacy of the priority of epigraphic monuments for the disclosure of the stated topic (due to the insufficiency of narrative sources). However, consideration of the reduction in the number of such monuments at the turn of the 3rd – 4th century (compared with the times of the classical Empire) as an indicator of the extinction of the antique parameters of the policy is doubtful.

Cereal farming practices in Italy during the 1st millennium CE: An integrated approach to regionality

This study investigates the cereal farming practices of the Italian peninsula during the first millennium CE, with a particular focus on the Early Middle Ages. Using non-parametric multivariate statistics and a dimensionality reduction algorithm (PERMANOVA; nMDS), this research presents and compares 177 archaeobotanical caryopses assemblages from three areas of Italy. The results showed that differences in cereal farming practices between Northern and Southern Italy were not statistically significant during the Roman period, but became significant during the early medieval period. The research suggests that after the collapse of the Roman Empire, northern peasants had more autonomy in selecting their crops, while southern farmers were more resistant to change. These findings challenge the prevailing assumption that early medieval peasants across the entire peninsula uniformly adopted cereal crops like millets and rye. Overall, the study sheds new light on the diversity of cereal farming practices in early medieval Italy and presents a comprehensive collection of cereal macroremains from mainland Italy.

Book Review: The Conquest of Ruins: The Third Reich and the Fall of Rome by Julia Hell

Book Review: <i>The Conquest of Ruins: The Third Reich and the Fall of Rome</i> by Julia Hell

Electrochemistry of Lead As the Basis of Adoption of Lead Technologies in History

“The goal of the symposium is to draw together the collective interests of scientists and engineers skilled in moving along the path from ideas to profits.” Illustrative of that process at the global level is the use of lead throughout history. The adoption of lead in key technologies is based not only on its ease of corrosion but also on competing political and economic interests. Some of the underlying chemistry and surrounding decision making are of interest and are the subject of this talk. 1) White lead paint and (2) sugar of lead were adopted in the Roman Empire due to the ease of corrosion of lead and continued, in the case of paint, into the 1970s. 3) One theory for the fall of the Roman Empire is due to lead intake, in part, from lead water pipes. This theory will be briefly examined in the context of other lead uses. 4) The politics, science, and, then current understanding of lead health issues, were debated at the time of widespread adoption of lead piping (1850s) as will be explored up and to current politics in Flint and current epicenter of lead pipe issues (Chicago). 5) Lead acid batteries were the leading propulsion choice for vehicles in the 1890s. How money shaped the race between lead acid battery and gasoline powered vehicles is explained. An understanding of these competing interests and alternative technologies may inform challenges of adoption of technology today.

Gibbon’s Christianity: Religion, Reason, and the Fall of Rome by Hugh Liebert (review)

Gibbon’s Christianity: Religion, Reason, and the Fall of Rome by Hugh Liebert (review)

In Defiance of History: Orosius and the Unimproved Past by Victoria Leonard (review)

Reviewed by: In Defiance of History: Orosius and the Unimproved Past by Victoria Leonard Jamie Wood Victoria Leonard In Defiance of History: Orosius and the Unimproved Past New York: Routledge, 2022 Pp. xxii + 199. $136.00; £120.00. Having worked on another of the less celebrated historians of late antiquity, Isidore of Seville, I have much sympathy with Victoria Leonard's approach to the Seven Books of Histories against the Pagans, written by the priest Orosius. Challenging what has until recently been the fairly widespread scholarly condemnation of the universal historian's abilities, Leonard deftly demonstrates that he was in fact an original author who deployed historical production to intervene actively in the religious changes of the late fourth and early fifth centuries. Of course, such shifts did not occur in a vacuum, and Orosius's intervention was at least in part intended to help members of his Christian audience make sense of their religion's place within the late Roman politico-military complex. Rather than judging Orosius in terms of his failure to live up to the standard of classical historiography (or its late antique standard-bearers) or on the basis of Augustine's apparent unease with elements of the Seven Books of Histories, Leonard seeks to understand the author on his own terms. In this sense, the book builds on recent work by Peter van Nuffelen (Orosius and the Rhetoric of History [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012]), which demonstrated how Orosius's "Christian" vision of history was grounded in a thoroughly ancient [End Page 257] education. Without denying his classical formation, Leonard's historiographical analysis seeks to contextualize Orosius in relation to the efforts of Christian intellectuals in the decades around 400 in order to comprehend what Christian imperial rule meant for their faith and, more specifically, in order to respond to the charge that Christianity had brought about the fall of Rome (9). This campaign reached its zenith, in the Latin West at least, with Augustine's City of God, the intellectual heft of which did much to overshadow Orosius's work, if not the enthusiasm of medieval copyists (over 275 manuscripts of the Seven Books of Histories survive) (2). After an introduction that surveys previous historiography and articulates the monograph's rehabilitative intent, Leonard proceeds to unpack Orosius's approach to writing history (Chapter One), beginning with the important question: "What is the Historiae?" This is particularly pertinent because the text does not fit neatly into any pre-existing historiographical genre, whether ancient (e.g., classical history) or more recent (e.g., late antique epitome). Nor does Orosius provide a programmatic statement of intent at the beginning of the work or reveal much about himself that can enable us to figure out what he was trying do to. This is not to say that the Spanish priest was an unreflective practitioner of the historian's craft, for the vast scope of his work meant that he had to make a series of decisions about dating and what to include and exclude and, on occasion, make explicit reference to the method that he was applying. Indeed, Leonard argues that Orosius's style throughout is "self-conscious" (36) and that he deliberately wove together various literary genres in a work of historiographical innovation that offers a politicized vision of his "Christanized historical model" (38). The following three chapters demonstrate quite convincingly how Orosius put this project into practice, from his vision of a Christian ordering of universal time (Chapter Two), his presentation of imperial power (Chapter Three), and his filtering of military affairs through a Christianizing lens (Chapter Four). Chapter Two shows brilliantly how chronology is not neutral. Orosius arranged his text according to a range of different temporal criteria and deployed a variety of dating mechanisms to thoroughly Christianize past time, his organization of the work around the Incarnation quite reasonably being posited as a precursor to the b.c/a.d. scheme (69). Chapter Three shows how, contrary to previous analyses that have focused on Orosius's emphasis on the synchronism between Augustus and Christ, his vision of the relationship between empire and Christianity was more complicated, ambiguous even. Rather than a universalizing vision of cooperation...

Historical and legal prerequisites of the formation of the basis of pharmaceutical activity in the Ancient world

The article examines the historical and legal foundations of the formation of the foundations of pharmaceutical activity in the ancient world, which determined the specifics of its further development. The topicality of the topic is due to the fact that the effective legal support of pharmaceutical activity as the most accessible source of obtaining the necessary medicines and medical products for citizens in the conditions of a pandemic and war has become extremely important. But in order to predict the direction of modernization of any legal phenomenon, it is necessary to first of all study the conditions of its occurrence and stages of development. Therefore, in order to determine directions for improving pharmaceutical legislation, it is considered necessary to investigate the prerequisites for the emergence of pharmaceutical activity as an object of its regulation.To achieve the goal, the author used a wide methodological toolkit of legal science, including methods of hypothetical and reverse analysis and synthesis, casual analogy, extrapolation, comparison, logical and axiomatic methods.According to the results of the research, it is summarized that pharmacy (the prototype of modern pharmaceutical activity) originated as an element of ancient medicine and began to develop in its composition until it was separated into an independent type of activity. This period in the history of pharmacy can be conditionally divided into three major stages. The first, and the longest, begins with the appearance of man and ends with the emergence of writing in early civilizations. We have not found any documentary sources that would indicate that the provision of medical (including pharmaceutical) assistance during this period was normalized. The second period lasts several millennia and ends in the 1st millennium BC, when medicine, and with it pharmacy, first became the object of scientific attention. The third period marks the flowering of ancient medicine, including pharmacy, and is characterized by the first attempts to standardize such activities by the norms of Roman law. This stage ends in parallel with the fall of Rome in the 5th century. not. It was during this period that the foundations of pharmacy were laid, which in many ways determined the process of the further separation of pharmacy into an independent type of activity.

Urban Crises and the Contours of the Late Antique Empire through the Lens of Antioch

This introduction sets the stage for three essays that each address different crises in the late antique history of Antioch. The essay considers some of the difficulties presented by various methodological lenses for “reading” the urban experience of a city such as Antioch and provides a framework for understanding the cultural meaning of the late antique urban landscape and the modern discourse concerning the role of cities in the Roman Empire. The essay also considers the rhetoric of Antioch in late antique sources and the intersection of that rhetoric with the centrality of cities in the maintenance of the Roman Empire. The essay suggests that the complicity of the cityscape in modern narrative frameworks for the fall of the Roman Empire has produced teleologies that inflect the understanding of disaster and crisis at Antioch and elsewhere in the Roman Empire.

HughLiebert: Gibbon's Christianity: Religion, Reason, and the Fall of Rome. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022; pp. 196.

Journal of Religious HistoryEarly View BOOK REVIEW Hugh Liebert: Gibbon's Christianity: Religion, Reason, and the Fall of Rome. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022; pp. 196. Martin George Holmes, Corresponding Author Martin George Holmes [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0003-2729-7636 University of Otago[email protected]Search for more papers by this author Martin George Holmes, Corresponding Author Martin George Holmes [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0003-2729-7636 University of Otago[email protected]Search for more papers by this author First published: 23 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.12970Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue RelatedInformation

:Souvenirs and the Experience of Empire in Ancient Rome

:<i>Souvenirs and the Experience of Empire in Ancient Rome</i>

Whose Midwest?

Whose Midwest? Paul Finkelman (bio) "They're Selling postcards of the hanging,they're painting the passports brown,The beauty parlor is filled with sailors,the circus is in town… And I look out tonight From Desolation Row." Bob Dylan, 1965 Much of my scholarship has focused on race and race relations in the Midwest. Thus, I was genuinely delighted to review a book that would help explain the very complicated and contentious history of race in the Midwest and how such issues play out today. For example, I thought the authors might explore why Iowa, which jump-started Barack Obama's presidential aspirations in the 2008 caucuses, and voted for him twice for president, then twice voted for Donald Trump. Sadly, this book offers few answers or insights to such questions. One major problem with this book is its use—or failure to use—evidence, and the authors' apparent lack of understanding of basic U.S. history. They make assertions that are only partially accurate or demonstrably untrue, such as the truly weird claim that such states as Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan "all enrolled more soldiers [in the Civil War] than New York or anywhere else in the East." (61) In fact, New York enrolled more than 400,000 soldiers in the War, about the same as the combined total of these four states. Pennsylvania, another eastern state, enrolled 360,000 soldiers. The authors are quite open about their strategy of skewing evidence to make their points, noting they will make their arguments "through a selective analysis" of data. (40) They are also aggressive about reading into the past what they "see" as the intentions of actors. This is not exactly the "alternative facts" of Kellyanne Conway, but it comes close. [End Page 111] I: Who Can Write About the Midwest? Throughout this book the authors tell personal stories—they call them "reflections." They seem to feel a need to establish their bona fides to write about the Midwest. Professor Halvorson grew up in Muskegon, Michigan, which establishes her Midwest-street cred. Professor Reno went to graduate school in Ann Arbor and lived in Livonia and Ypsilanti, Michigan and we assume this makes him an expert on the vast area of the Midwest. For a scholarly book, I find this odd. By their standard, the Englishman Edward Gibbon should never have written The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Robert Caro, the son of a Jewish immigrant from Poland, should not have won a Pulitzer for writing about Lyndon Johnson of Texas, and David Blight, a White man from Flint, Michigan, should not have won the Pulitzer for a book about Frederick Douglass, a Black man from Maryland. But, since the authors think that one must be connected to the Midwest to understand it, I suppose I should establish my street cred. I did my Ph.D. in Chicago, lived in South Shore and Hyde Park, and delivered pizzas and once served as an election judge on the south side. I later taught at Chicago-Kent Law School, living in downtown Chicago. I currently hold a chair at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. I have taught at Hamline University in St. Paul, Cleveland State University, University of Akron, and Washington University in St. Louis. I edit a book series on the Midwest at Ohio University Press, and I have been a consultant to historic homes in both St. Louis and in Muscatine, Iowa. I have published many articles and book chapters on slavery and civil rights, Native American history, and ethnic and religious persecution in the Midwest. I am the co-editor of A History of Michigan Law, which won a "best book" prize from the Michigan Historical Society and was named a notable Michigan book by the Library of Michigan. And I once got fogged in for two days after lecturing at Michigan Tech, on the Upper Peninsula. So much for my bona fides. II: Defining the Midwest This book is supposed to be about "the Midwest," but we are quickly told it is "not a book about the Midwest, the place, or Midwesterners." Rather it is about something called "place making." (11) The...

EDWARD GIBBON’S THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE BYZANTINE STUDIES

Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is an iconic book which inspired many works in various disciplines like the fields of cinema and literature besides of being considered one of the masterpieces in the field of history writing. Gibbon also had a great impact on the field of Byzantine studies by negative image of Byzantine Empire that he portrayed in his book, and by many scholars he is named among those who are mainly responsible for nearly a century-long apathy towards Byzantine history. In this study, the negative impact of Gibbon’s work on the field of Byzantine studies will be mentioned in detail, an effort will be made to reveal the framework of the author’s negative view about Byzantine Empire by the medium of original text of the book, and the factors that shaped this negative view, the Enlightenment thought being in the first place, will be discussed.

Крушение Римской империи в метафорах и образных сравнениях

The article analyzes the historiographic array concerning the collapse of the Roman Empire in terms of the use of verbal constructions by the authors, related to figurative comparisons. As a research task, an attempt was defined not only to classify various options for figurative comparisons, but to reveal their semantic content as well. Figurative comparisons and metaphors used by researchers of Roman history to indicate the process of its decay and liquidation are typologized and brought into the system. It is noted that this aspect found its most consistent presentation only in the work of A. Demandt, a representative of German historiography. The article summarizes the historiographical material relating to different periods; it was revealed that the method of figurative comparison has not lost its relevance today. The degree of originality or, conversely, universality is declared as a criterion indicator, which substantiates the classification of various “images” of the Roman Empire undertaken in the article. In the coordinates of the above gradation, an overview is given of such figurative comparisons as “building” / “construction” / “structure” (of Roman statehood), “ship”, “colossus”, “state mechanism”, “state organism”, etc. In addition to the fairly common images, the article highlights and describes the semantic characteristics of the original images of the fall of the Roman Empire - such as “Cheshire cat”, “weakened old man”, “renaming of the company”, etc. It has been noted that the metaphorical nature of the presentation does not always correlate with the genre of narration or the volume of the research undertaken. The article indicates figurative comparisons of a wide historiographical range - from I. Newton and J. Ruban to modern German and English-language publications.