Roman Empire Research Articles

ГЕНЕАЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ КОНСТРУКЦИИ ИМПЕРАТОРА КОНСТАНТИНА ВЕЛИКОГО И ИХ ВОСПРИЯТИЕ ЧЛЕНАМИ ЕГО СЕМЬИ

The House of Constantine the Great is one of the most significant imperial dynasties in the history of the Roman Empire. The history of this dynasty begins with the reign of Emperor Constantius Chlorus (reigned 293–305 AD), but his son Constantine in 310 AD announced that the ancestor of the family was Emperor Claudius Gothicus (reigned 268–270). Most modern researchers consider this genealogical construction a fiction. The study of the reasons that prompted Constantine to choose this "ancestor", as well as the means by which the emperor reinforced this genealogical scheme, comes to the fore. The article deals with the reports of official sources (panegyrics, inscriptions and coins) about the relationship of the house of Constantine with Claudius Gothicus, as well as variants of the genealogical scheme proposed by ancient authors. Their diversity is due to the vagueness of official data: Claudius was presented in them as avus of Constantine, i.e. either his grandfather or ancestor in the general sense of the word. The article also pays attention to the perception of family tree by members of the Constantine’s family (his brothers, sons and nephew Julian). Sources at your disposal allow us to assert that the members of the dynasty agreed with the version of kinship voiced by Constantine, but, like him, did not comment on the very degree of that kinship. In addition, Julian even tried to present himself as a more worthy descendant of Claudius Gothicus than his uncle.

Neighbours of the Apsaros Fort. Local Tribes on the Black Sea Coast during the Principate

In the second half of the first century ce, the Romans built a fort at the mouth of the river Apsaros on the coast of Colchis. A Roman garrison was stationed there also in the second century and first half of the third. One of the reasons for fortifying the estuary of the river, given by both Pliny the Elder and Arrian, was the immediate vicinity of the kingdom of Iberia. Both Roman authors also described the local tribes living on the coast between Trebizond and Apsaros and further north. One wonders whether they were the indigenous population of the region and what kind of a relationship they had with the Roman Empire. This study searches for answers to these questions in the preserved written sources and in the archaeological record.

Romans and Greeks in Early Imperial Lydia and Phrygia

This paper collects the evidence for corporate groups of “Romans and Greeks living at (village toponym)” in Lydia and western Phrygia in the early Roman imperial period. The author discusses seven honorific inscriptions and dedications, three of them very recently published; four derive from the near vicinity of Akmoneia in western Phrygia, reflecting the large number of resident Romans in the region. The author offers a detailed commentary on a newly published honorific inscription from Kastollos in Lydia, including various new readings and restorations (no. 1). The author discusses the precise meaning of the formula “Romans and Greeks” and the chronological and geographic distribution of the formula. Three of the seven inscriptions honour locals granted Roman citizenship by Mark Antony (no. 6) or Augustus (nos 1 and 3), and the author uses numismatic evidence to discuss the social standing of these newly enfranchised Roman citizens within their Lydian and Phrygian communities.

Mortars in the Archaeological Site of Hierapolis of Phrygia (Denizli, Turkey) from Imperial to Byzantine Age

Hierapolis of Phrygia, an archaeological site in southwestern Turkey, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988. During archaeological campaigns, 71 mortar samples from public buildings were collected, dating from the Julio-Claudian to the Middle Byzantine period. The samples were analyzed using a multi-analytical approach including polarized optical microscopy (POM), digital image analysis (DIA), X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) and SEM–EDS to trace the raw materials and understand the evolution of mortar composition and technology over time. During the Roman period, travertine and marble were commonly used in binder production, while marble dominated in the Byzantine period. The aggregates come mainly from sands of the Lycian Nappe and Menderes Massif, with carbonate and silicate rock fragments. Variations in composition, average size and circularity suggest changes in raw material sources in both Roman and Byzantine periods. Cocciopesto mortar was used in water-related structures from the Flavian to the Severan period, but, in the Byzantine period, it also appeared in non-hydraulic contexts. Straw became a common organic additive in Byzantine renders, marking a shift from the exclusively inorganic aggregates of Roman renders. This study illustrates the evolving construction technologies and material sources used throughout the city’s history.

Imports and Market Integration in the Roman Mediterranean

The degree and nature of integration that existed within Roman economies is a crucial but so far unresolved question within the study of ancient economic history. This paper aims to test the level of market integration in the Roman Mediterranean by comparing amphora distributions from the late Republican period and Principate with those of Late Antiquity in Rome, three northern Adriatic cities (Aquileia, Padua, Verona) and Ephesus with the predicted transport costs provided by ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World. The intention is to analyze whether price determined the distribution of staple goods in the Roman Empire, as it does in a modern market economy environment, or whether other factors (e.g., state orders, elite connections etc.) were more important in shaping ancient economic practices.

Exiles, Not Enemies: Petrine Self-Determination in the Face of Empire

Exile was part of the juridical system of the late Republican and early Imperial Rome. 1 Pet 2.11 adopts the language of exile to identify its audience’s place within the world. Subsequent verses indicate a disparity between their own place and the world, or wider community, but fall short of rejecting wholesale the apparatus of the Roman state and its socio-political conventions. The apparent self-identification of the community as exiles is a potential claim for autonomy, self-determination, and high status. Claims for exile in the context of the Diaspora (1 Pet 1.1) might also embrace a claim to be considered Jewish, members of an ancient tradition protected by long precedent, and so protected from some legal threats.

Crafting history in real time: The count-duke of Olivares, the Holy Roman Empire and generalissimo Wallenstein on the Spanish stage (1632–1634)

This essay explores the portrayal of Albrecht von Wallenstein’s downfall on the Spanish stage during the Thirty Years’ War. El prodigio de Alemania (1634), a play written by Calderón de la Barca and Antonio Coello, serves as a topic of study for understanding international politics of the time. The death of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden at the Battle of Lützen (1632) marked a turning point in the career of Wallenstein, who had played a significant role as the general commander during the conflict. The play itself was a product of Prime Minister Olivares’ domestic and international policies and aimed to legitimize specific ideological interests. The essay focuses on the manipulation of theatre as a means of enhancing the reputation of the Spanish monarchy and examines how the construction of the play allows us to comprehend the strained relations between Spain and the Holy Roman Empire during the war. It also scrutinizes the modifications made to the literary product to align with the changing political realities and illuminates the significance of Spanish theatre in crafting historical narratives and propagating political ideologies during the first half of the seventeenth century.

Renaissance Self-Fashioning after 44 Years: Hybridity, Conversos, Individuation, and littérature totale

Abstract While Stephen Greenblatt’s 1980 book, Renaissance self-fashioning: from More to Shakespeare, was methodologically innovative within the field of literary criticism, his work also grew from the roots of Jacob Burckhardt’s old cultural history, and his method of new historicism developed alongside the new cultural history. Although certain parts of Burckhardt’s arguments have been discarded, the work of Greenblatt and others has continued to build upon his foundation. Courtiership, anxiety, and the relationship between outward and interior identities, text and context, hybridity, and individuation are all useful concepts for constructing less monolithic understandings of early modern identities. With a European scale, this article traces early modern historiography and literary criticism from the nineteenth century to 2024 and introduces historical examples of identity formation from early modern England, France, Iberia, the Italian peninsula, and the Holy Roman Empire. The article reflects upon early modern examples of self-fashioning in the light of Burckhardt, the Annales, Greenblatt, and others who have contributed to our understanding of agency and identity up to the present day, arguing that these historians and literary scholars have worked together to answer questions that are fundamentally psychological in nature.

MAGUS (Model for the Analysis of Geomorphological Urban Systems): From Conception to Validation on the Historic City Center of Turin (Italy)

This study introduces and tests the MAGUS (Model for the Analysis of Geomorphological Urban Systems), a GIS-based methodological framework designed to analyze the complex interplay between urbanization and natural landscapes. Focusing on the historical evolution of Turin city center (Italy), the research employs an interdisciplinary approach to examine how urban expansion has interacted with pre-existing geomorphological features. The study leverages historical documents, digitized and georeferenced within a cartographic space, to reveal the relationships between natural and anthropogenic landforms from the Roman period through the 20th century. A key innovation of MAGUS is the integration of Multi-Temporal Markers (MTM) and Volumetric Unit of Building (VUB), which enhances the accuracy of historical data analysis. The results demonstrate that urbanization significantly alters the natural landscape in the historic city center of Turin, where the stratification of urban expansion phases partially obscures the original landform. By overlaying topographical data with historical urban expansion maps, the research highlights the concealed geomorphological elements beneath Turin’s urban fabric. This interdisciplinary study not only contributes to the field of urban geomorphology but also provides a foundation for future research into the impacts of urbanization on natural landscapes, which is increasingly critical as urban populations continue to grow.

Simulation of emissions from pottery kilns in the Roman period

Simulation of emissions from pottery kilns in the Roman period

Envisioning the Panoply of the Roman Torturer

Summary Torture is an important element in the state sanctioned violence of the Roman imperium. Although Romans enjoyed portraying various aspects of daily life with graffiti including gladiatorial combat, they were apparently reluctant to depict the tools used by the torturer. In Roman authors, however, one finds many hints about the nature of the objects that were employed to extract evidence. Although surveys of various implements used in Roman torture have appeared in the scholarly literature, it is worthwhile to gather into one investigation what is currently known and include images of objects that have survived antiquity that are from the panoply of the carnifex. To better envision the suffering of the victims of torture, a new analysis of those tools is warranted.

Review of S. Maréchal, Bathing at the edge of the Roman Empire. Baths and bathing habits in the north-western corner of continental Europe (The Archaeology of Northern Europe 2), Turnhout: Brepols 2023

Review of S. Maréchal, Bathing at the edge of the Roman Empire. Baths and bathing habits in the north-western corner of continental Europe (The Archaeology of Northern Europe 2), Turnhout: Brepols 2023

When Rulers Came to Town: Jews, Christians and Urban Processions in Medieval France and the Holy Roman Empire

The festive entry of a monarch into medieval cities was an elaborate social drama involving the whole urban population. This article investigates how Jews were involved in these ceremonies in medieval France and the Holy Roman Empire, refuting previously held assumptions of their forced and marginalised roles. By demonstrating that Jews were actively included in these urban rituals, embracing local customs to welcome Christian rulers and using an array of distinctive objects to express their identity, much like other civic groups, this study argues that medieval Jews were part of an elaborate choreographed performance through which civic belonging was expressed. As Jewish participation spanned both the formal and logistical aspects of these events, medieval urban processions provide an effective case study on how religious minorities were woven into both the social and ceremonial fabric of medieval urban life.

Challenging the Significance of the LALIA and the Justinianic Plague: A Reanalysis of the Archaeological Record

Summary The Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA), and the Justinianic Plague, were recently suggested as the possible culprits for settlement contraction and population decline that supposedly occurred in the 6th c. CE. According to some who support this claim, these changes contributed to the weakening of this empire, which eventually led to the loss of vast territories and its defeat by the Persians and Arabs in the first half of the 7th c. CE. The assumptions that climate and plague had devastating impacts in the 6th c. CE are largely based on selected textual evidence, and archaeological evidence outside of the boundaries of the Eastern Roman Empire. As the current article will show, it seems that these assumptions are inherently incorrect as vast amounts of evidence, including archaeological survey data, settlement patterns, shipwreck analyses, pottery distribution in the Mediterranean and other material, indicate that there was no decline in the 6th c. CE. On the contrary, it is possible that there was a peak in population size in the second half of the 6th c. CE, suggesting that the LALIA and the Justinianic plague were limited in their impact.

Kapłanki kultu cesarskiego hiszpańskich prowincji w inskrypcjach honoryfikacyjnych

From Augustus’ times imperial cult priesthood became the highest public function available for women in the Roman Empire. Worshipping the emperor and his family was also a form of showing loyalty of the province to the central power. Flaminicae or sacerdotes, as the priestesses were called in Spanish provinces, were attested in funeral and honorific inscriptions. This article focuses on the second type of the texts. Based on twelve inscriptions from Lusitania and Baetica, the merits of women and the honours they received will be analysed in order to picture the relationships of priestesses with their communities.

Why Civilizations Collapse: The Cruciality of Social Solidarity and the Dangers of Its Absence

This essay examines the complexities of civilizational collapse, proposing that it is not a singular event but a prolonged process driven by internal conflicts and external threats. It begins by defining the concept of collapse and uses historian Jared Diamond’s perspective to analyze how internal strife, such as loss of cultural identity, conflicting ideologies, and political division, can initiate the decline of a civilization due to a fragmentation of social solidarity. The essay then uses historical examples of the Islamic and Roman Empires to illustrate the importance of social solidarity for the survival of civilizations. It also discusses the internal challenges faced by modern civilization, including issues brought about by globalization, political polarization, East-West conflicts, global supply chain shortages, and how these factors can erode solidarity, posing a risk of collapse to the contemporary “world civilization.” The essay concludes by highlighting that internal conflicts and the absence of social solidarity are the primary causes of civilizational collapse, a theory that remains relevant for understanding the challenges faced by the global civilization today.

Novel application of SANS provides quantitative non-destructive identification of forming techniques in late Roman and early medieval pottery from Pannonia

Within archaeological studies of ancient pottery, understanding the techniques used to form vessels from unfired clay provides significant information on the history of technology and economic systems, as well as wider cultural practices and social interactions. We introduce here a new analytical methodology, using small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) to investigate pottery forming techniques through the preferential orientation of nanoscale objects within pottery fabrics. Significantly, SANS is non-destructive, suitable for both coarse and fine-textured pottery fabrics, provides quantitative data, enables fast-throughput of samples, and is not significantly affected by surface modifications occurring after the primary forming stage. The use of SANS is systematically investigated through over 400 measurements of experimental vessels, and also compared with X-ray microtomography and neutron tomography. The results show that SANS can be used to differentiate wheel-throwing, coil-building, percussion-building, and coil-wheeling techniques. The archaeological application of SANS is demonstrated through a case study of 50 late Roman and early medieval (fourth–sixth century AD) pottery sherds from Hungary, spanning the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the arrival of Barbarian polities into the region. The findings show a transition in production from predominantly wheel-throwing to coil-wheeling, but also coil-building, percussion-building, percussion-wheeling, and drawing. Such changes appear to reflect the disintegration of large-scale centrally organised Roman economic systems, and the diversification of production, consistent with the more diversified technological and cultural backgrounds of the producers themselves.

Long-Term Settlement Dynamics in Ancient Macedonia: A New Multi-Disciplinary Survey from Grevena (NW Greece)

This paper discusses the evolution of human settlement in ancient Macedonia from the Neolithic to the Late Roman periods, based on the results of a new multi-disciplinary and multi-scale archaeological survey in northern Grevena (NW Greece). Building upon an unpublished (legacy) survey, we developed a GIS-structured workflow that integrates site-revisiting and surveying strategies (material collection and test pits) with multi-temporal remote-sensing analyses, offering analytical information about site distribution, characterisation, dating, and taphonomy. Notably, the new study led to a 64% increase in the number of known sites. The combined results indicate that prehistory is less represented in the surface record than historical periods, likely due to the impact of soil erosion episodes. The Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age saw increased site numbers and the emergence of a settlement structure that characterised the area until the Hellenistic period. During the Roman period, the pattern shifted from a seemingly limited use of the landscape towards a model of more extensive habitation. This was driven by the appearance of new rural sites that introduced a land-use regime designed to support agricultural intensification by implementing anti-erosion measures, such as field terraces.

Tracing the origin of raw materials used for the production of ancient ceramics: a case study of multi-period archaeological sites in the Turopolje area (Continental Croatia)

The selection of raw materials for ancient pottery production was influenced by a variety of technological and cultural factors, underscoring the importance of characterising these materials to understand the technology of ancient societies. This research examines ancient ceramics from two multi-period archaeological sites: Staro Čiče-Gradišće (Neolithic, Copper Age, Copper/Early Bronze Age, Early Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, Roman period, and Late Mediaeval period) and Kurilovec-Belinščica (Early Bronze Age and Middle/Late Bronze Age), alongside potential clayey raw materials collected near these settlements. Using a multi-analytical approach (optical microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, mass and emission spectrometry, and laser granulometry), the research aims to determine the characteristics of the paste recipes (raw clay and tempers) and to examine the type and provenience of the raw materials used for ancient pottery production over different periods of the past (from the Neolithic to the Late Mediaeval period). The results showed that ancient potters preferred to use moderately plastic, sandy clay, while Bronze Age potters often used highly plastic clay. Potters utilised various non-plastic tempering materials, such as sands and gravels, grog, and mollusc shells, with their choice being influenced by the need to enhance technological properties as well as by regional and culturally determined pottery traditions. Most of the ceramics are of local origin, made from easily available raw materials that represent flood sediments of the nearby Sava River. However, non-local materials were detected in Neolithic samples, indicating the presence of exchange networks among those communities.

Versammeln, besprechen, beschließen

Different forms of diets, councils and assemblies shaped the political landscape of late medieval and early modern Europe, and especially the Holy Roman Empire. Princes and clerics, the representatives of towns and of monasteries came together in various constellations to discuss problems, adopt decisions and perform rituals. It has been repeatedly suggested that it might be fruitful to compare these different forms of assemblies. The actual attempts to do so, however, often remain unsatisfactory even to their own authors. What is still required is a systematic comparison in the hope of creating a typology of assemblies. At a summer school held in Lübeck in 2019, some initial ideas were put forward on how to undertake such an staggering endeavor. A catalogue of criteria for comparing different forms of assemblies would need to include how often they were convened, who their participants were (both by number and status), what issues were discussed (their content and intended scope), what procedures were obtained for discussion and decision-making, how they interrelated with other types of assemblies, what the aim of the meeting was and how it was attained. These criteria can also help one to grasp how one type of assembly changed over time. An initial comparison led to the conclusion that the different forms of meetings may have assembled a different set of participants and discussed different issues, yet they employed strikingly similar procedures and underwent a similar process of institutionalization.