Draft:Periodisation of Roman civilisation

The periodisation of Roman Civilisation covers historical interpretations developed during the modern era of the Roman res publica, (known as Rome). This incorporates the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, the Western Roman Empire, and the Eastern Roman Empire.

Differing opinions exist on what type of continuity existed across the two-millennia era of Rome's history, as well as when different periods start, what they are called and why they are different. Although Rome the state started in the City of Rome, over time it would expand outside of the city and eventually the city was not part of the state. The dominance and control of the city of Rome underlined some of the contemporary disputes of who could claim to be representing the people of Rome (Romans), and which continues today in disputes over modern historiography. A revised view of the history beyond the elites has also driven recent scholarship. Competing interpretations have been motivated to define the origin of Western civilization.

Overview

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The major narrative for over 200 years since its publication in 1776, been taken primarily from historian Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire who began the modern English study of Roman history.[1][2] His work made a profound impression on Theodor Mommsen and Ronald Syme who in turn shape the views of modern historians.[3][4] It wasn't until 1936 that scholars such as Arnaldo Momigliano began to question Gibbon's view.[5][6]

In 1953, art historian Alois Riegl provided the first true departure, writing that there were no qualitative differences in art and no periods of decline throughout Late Antiquity.[7] In 1975, the concept of "history" was expanded to include sources outside ancient historical narrative and traditional literary works.[8] The evidentiary basis expanded to include legal practices, economics, the history of ideas, coins, gravestones, architecture, archaeology and more.[9][10] In the 1980s, syntheses began to pull together the results of this more detailed work.[11]

Anthony Kaldellis, a post-classical scholar of the 21st century, has been challenging how we define Roman history.[12]

"Labels are important, but so are the narratives that sustain them. It is from stories that identities derive their essence, and the narrative of Byzantium is a Roman one as well as a Christian one. That may put it on a bigger map. In finding itself again, Romanía can change our understanding of Roman history broadly. § We should think Big, in bigger terms even than the 1,123 years that elapsed between the foundation and conquest of Constantinople. Let’s try to think even bigger, remembering that “Byzantium” was invented through an attempt to pare history down to a manageable size, by postulating that one phase of the Roman empire was “essentially” different from the others, thereby cutting Roman history into smaller bits. Other than scholarly convenience, there is no good reason to do this. There was only ever one Roman res publica. It began as a city on the Tiber in Italy, expanded to encompass a huge empire, and, in the process, it became an idea: the city had become a world, to which the name Romanía was given by the fourth century AD. [...] There were no major turning points in the history of Rome / New Rome that require us to invent new labels or essences. It was all one history. Is our historical vision broad enough for this conception?"

Summary of issues

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Periodisation

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William Green states[13]:

"Periodisation is among the most prominent and least scrutinised theoretical properties of history. Scholars assert that history constitutes a seamless garment, but they cannot render the past intelligible until they subdivide it into manageable and coherent units of time. Once firmly drawn and widely accepted, period frontiers can become intellectual straitjackets that pro foundly affect our habits of mind—the way we retain images, make associations, and perceive the beginning, middle, and ending of things."

Italian humanists Leonardo Bruni, Flavio Biondo and Petrach provided the model that the Roman Empire fell due to barbarian invaders.[14][15] It was their ancestral civilisation and they were reacting to German incursions in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire’s claim to be successors of Rome. This would follow with the protestant revolution where the Lutheran's supported the view, as it aligned with when the Papacy started its 1000 year dominance, though their motive was to frame it against religious corruption and not Germanic invasions of Italy. This view would further magnify during the Enlightenment’s battle against the church and be captured for posterity with Edward Gibbons Opus Magnum.

Enlightenment figures had a millennium-long prejudice of European history, for this new abstraction that was now being called the middle ages.[16] Gibbon's history with its criticism of medieval Christianity, neatly aligned with the emerging tripartite periodisation that was emerging from the West, with the history of Rome to 476 and the fall of Constantinople in 1453. However, it would be the invention of a second abstraction, the renaissance, that would develop the ancient, medieval and modern periodisation that would come to define Western history.[17]

Jacob Burckhardt's creation of the renaissance to explain the changes in Italy was a major historiographical event.[18]

Origin of Western Civilisation

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The fall of Rome (with the western Roman Empire), influenced by Gibbon, was constructed by European and American intellectuals who feared the collapse of the 18th century civilisation they belonged to.[19] This view was challenged by what we now call Late Antiquity.

The term Spätantike, literally "late antiquity", has been used by German-speaking historians since its popularization by Alois Riegl in the early 20th century.[20] It was given currency in English partly by the writings of Peter Brown, whose survey The World of Late Antiquity (1971) revised the Gibbon view of a stale and ossified Classical culture, in favour of a vibrant time of renewals and beginnings, and whose The Making of Late Antiquity offered a new paradigm of understanding the changes in Western culture of the time in order to confront Sir Richard Southern's The Making of the Middle Ages.[21]

Anthony Kaldellis's The New Roman Empire: a history of Byzantium is the most recent graduate level narrative of the eastern Roman Empire. His history has the goal to dismantle "obsolete ideologies and the cognitive dissonance required to maintain them" and posits the eastern Roman Empire is the actual origin of the West's core elements, and not Ancient Rome.[22]

Terms and dates

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"First Roman Kingdom", "Second Roman Kingdom"

Ancient Rome

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The tradition states Rome was founded on 21 April 753 BC. However, archaeological evidence does not align with this. Pottery shards discovered in the Forum Boarium indicate human activity in the area around the Bronze age.[23]

Mary Beard points to the Constitutio Antoniniana as a fundamental turning point, after which Rome was "effectively a new state masquerading under an old name".[24]

"Archaic Rome"

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"Early Roman Republic", "Middle Roman Republic", "Late Roman Republic",


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Also related: Later Roman Empire, "High Roman Empire", "Low Roman Empire" and Roman imperial period

Historians consider Augustus as the first Roman emperor though there was no formal office of emperor as Augustus took various Republican roles. Mary Beard claims the Empire's creation predates the Emperor and that Pompey makes a good claim to be the first emperor.

The term Later Roman Empire was first used by J. B. Bury. It was replaced by late antiquity in the second half of the 20th century as the dominant paradigm by historians.[25]

High Roman Empire relates to the period 27BC and 235AD, the era starting with Augustus and the ending with the crisis of the third century. The Low Roman Empire is the period that follows until the end of the western Roman Empire in 476.

The Roman Imperial Period starts with the accession of Augustus in 27BC and ends with the conclusion of the crisis of the third century in 284AD.

  • Hartwin Brandt : Die Kaiserzeit. Römische Geschichte von Octavian bis Diocletian (The Imperial Period. Roman history from Octavian to Diocletian.) 31 BC–284 AD. Beck, Munich 2021
  • Dietmar Kienast : Römische Kaisertabelle. Grundzüge einer römischen Kaiserchronologie (Roman imperial table. Basics of a Roman imperial chronology) Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1990, 1996, 2004 (3rd edition), ISBN 3-534-18240-5 .
  • Michael Sommer : Römische Geschichte II. Rom und sein Imperium in der Kaiserzeit (Roman History II. Rome and its Empire in the Imperial Period) (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 458). Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-45801-8 .

Principate and Dominate

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Mommesen and the English constitutionalist school have long defined the powers of the emperor legally conferred on him.[26] Mommesen's distinction had the affect of showing the sharp 'Republican' contrast of the principate with the dominate, with the later having reference to the Persian imperial court.[27] Mommsen's approach was eventually rejected by historians, partly because he exaggerated the role of law played in the course of Roman state formation.[28] Following Syme's shift in viewing Roman history, the principate is now seen as a variant of monarchy. [29]

Jochen Bleicken believes the terms Principate and Dominate used in modern scholarship for periodisation are not suitable.[30] Its usage has less to do with the Romans and more to the citizens of the 19th and 20th centuries, contrasting the freedoms of the earlier times to the despots of later that linked with the Napoleons and other despots of their time who they had thrown out.[31]

Eastern Roman Empire and Western Roman Empire

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Orientale imperium and Occidentale imperium started being used to refer to the two parts of the Empire by the early fifth century.[32] Orientale imperium may have first been used earlier when referring to the period when Zenobia controlled the east.[33] Orientale imperium was highly uncommon in classical and late antique Latin, and its use was more after the 6th century.[34]

Byzantine Empire and Empire of the Greeks

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Starting with Charlemagne's Libri Carolini in the 790s, the Franks used the term "Empire of the Greeks" (Latin: Imperium Graecorum) and attacked the legitimacy of eastern Roman Empire.[35] This term held sway in Western-European written history until the 19th century to describe the Empire, despite the contemporary inhabitants and competing western-Asian empires elsewhere still calling them Roman (or Rûm).[36][37]

Initially, "Byzantine" referred to the inhabitants of Constantinople.[38] It was only following the demise of the Empire in the 15th century that Laonikos Chalkokondyles first used the word "Byzantine" to describe the state.[39] Hieronymus Wolf's Historiæ Byzantinæ, which includes Chalkokondyles, marks the start of Byzantine studies.[40] Du Cange, Montesquieu and Finlay popularised the term through their works.[41] It was not until the 19th century that the 8th-century term "Empire of the Greeks" was replaced with the modern convention of the "Byzantine Empire".[42]

According to Anthony Kaldellis[43]

The Crimean War had a profound—and unrecognized—impact by forging a new distinction between "Byzantine/Byzantium" and "Greek/Greece," in a context in which the "Empire of the Greeks" had become a politically toxic concept to the Great Powers of Europe. In response, European intellectuals increasingly began to lean on the conceptually adjacent and neutral term Byzantium in order to create a semantic bulwark between the acceptable national aspirations of the new Greek state, on the one hand, and its dangerous imperial fantasies and its (perceived) Russian patrons, on the other.

The start date varies according to differing interpretations. Some use the Diocletian reforms, the foundation of Constantinople, council of Chalcedon in 451, the fall of the western Roman Empire, the loss of lands to the Arabs or the proclamation of Charlemagne as dates when the eastern Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire. The traditional view set by Gibbon and the revised view by Late Antiquity historians that emerged from Germany and England dominate the interpretations. Newer scholarship, such as by Anthony Kaldellis, reject the term all together and that there was no start date as it was a continuation of the Roman Empire.

Terms used by the inhabitants

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  • The names the inhabitants used for their state in the post-classical era were ‘Imperium Romanum’, Ῥωμαίων Βασιλεία, Ῥωμαίων Πολιτεία, ‘Ρωμανία’, Ῥωμαίων αρχή, Ῥωμαίων ηγεμονία[44]


Specific issues that question the continuity of the state

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Historians have explored how life of ordinary Romans was different and which supports the differing views of the changed state of Rome. They include:

  • νόμος ἔμψυχος, nómos émpsychos, the "living law" (also Lex animata). Augustus insisted that he was not νόμος ἔμψυχος -- he was subject to the law but everyone else was answerable to him.[45] This is in contrast to when in 364 CE and onwards, Themistius began to express court ideology that emperors were considered νόμος ἔμψυχος, nómos émpsychos.[46] (This would later be codified by Justinan and be known in medieval Europe as the Lex animata)
  • social class and questions of citizenship and how one enters and rises in the political career track
  • the amphitheaters and ludi, the aqueducts and baths, visual culture, elite domus and villa life,
  • whether you read from a roll or a codex
  • Constantinian shift
  • The wearing of the toga and its significance
The toga was a symbol of the Roman citizen.[47] Clothing like language, was beneficial in defining Roman identity in a society where this identity was unstable.[48] This was due the composition of the ruling class changing with extended Roman citizenship as well as external cultural influences as well.
  • Roman Religion
Roman religion used to be seen as something in decline and a form of social control, and modern historians now see it as central to understanding culture.[49] Edward Gibbon held the view that Christianity is what corrupted the Roman Empire and led to its demise, whereas Anthony Kaldellis views Christianity as bringing no economic, social, or political changes to the state other than being more deeply integrated into it.[50]
  • Roman language
Mommsen's view that language was a crucial vehicle for national integration is a product of the times he lived in where "nation", "state" and "national language" where become closer..[51]

See also

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Notes

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References

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  1. ^ Jordan 1969, pp. 83, 93–94.
  2. ^ Beard, Mary (2015-10-20). SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. Profile. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-1-84765-441-0.
  3. ^ Bowersock, G. W. (1988). "Gibbon's Historical Imagination". The American Scholar. 57 (1): 35. ISSN 0003-0937. JSTOR 41211487.
  4. ^ Humphries, Mark (2002). "In Mommsen's Shade: Roman Historiography, Past and Present". Classics Ireland. 9: 28–45. doi:10.2307/25549953. ISSN 0791-9417. JSTOR 25549953.
  5. ^ Testa 2017, p. xiii.
  6. ^ Bowersock, Glen W. (1996). "The Vanishing Paradigm of the Fall of Rome". Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 49 (8): 31. doi:10.2307/3824699. ISSN 0002-712X. JSTOR 3824699.
  7. ^ Testa 2017, pp. x, xi.
  8. ^ Testa 2017, pp. xxi–xxii.
  9. ^ Rives 2010, p. 250.
  10. ^ Jordan 1969, pp. 93–94.
  11. ^ Testa 2017, p. xi.
  12. ^ Kaldellis, Anthony (2019). Byzantium Unbound. Arc Humanities Press. pp. 43–44, 45. ISBN 978-1-64189-199-8.
  13. ^ Green, William A. (1992). "Periodization in European and World History". Journal of World History. 3 (1): 13–53. ISSN 1045-6007. JSTOR 20078511.
  14. ^ Green, William A. (1992). "Periodization in European and World History". Journal of World History. 3 (1): 18–20. ISSN 1045-6007. JSTOR 20078511.
  15. ^ Mommsen, Theodore E. (1942). "Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'". Speculum. 17 (2): 226–242. doi:10.2307/2856364. ISSN 0038-7134. JSTOR 2856364.
  16. ^ Green, William A. (1992). "Periodization in European and World History". Journal of World History. 3 (1): 23. ISSN 1045-6007. JSTOR 20078511.
  17. ^ Green, William A. (1992). "Periodization in European and World History". Journal of World History. 3 (1): 24. ISSN 1045-6007. JSTOR 20078511.
  18. ^ Green, William A. (1992). "Periodization in European and World History". Journal of World History. 3 (1): 25. ISSN 1045-6007. JSTOR 20078511.
  19. ^ Bowersock, Glen W. (1996). "The Vanishing Paradigm of the Fall of Rome". Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 49 (8): 29–43. doi:10.2307/3824699. ISSN 0002-712X. JSTOR 3824699.
  20. ^ A. Giardana, "Esplosione di tardoantico," Studi storici 40 (1999).
  21. ^ Glen W. Bowersock, "The Vanishing Paradigm of the Fall of Rome" Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 49.8 (May 1996:29–43) p. 34.
  22. ^ Kaldellis, Anthony (November 2023). The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium. Oxford University Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-0-19-754935-3.
  23. ^ Cornell 1995, p. 48.
  24. ^ Beard, Mary (2015-10-20). SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. Profile. pp. 529–530. ISBN 978-1-84765-441-0.
  25. ^ Cameron, Averil (2019-09-24). "Byzantine Matters": 114. doi:10.23943/princeton/9780691196855.001.0001. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  26. ^ Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew (1982). "Civilis Princeps: Between Citizen and King". The Journal of Roman Studies. 72: 32–48. doi:10.2307/299114. ISSN 0075-4358. JSTOR 299114.
  27. ^ Bleicken 1978, p. 6.
  28. ^ Zhongxiao, Wang (2022-02-21), "Theodor Mommsen and His Legacy in the Study of the Early Roman Empire: A Critical Review", Western Historiography in Asia, De Gruyter, pp. 203–204, retrieved 2024-05-14
  29. ^ Zhongxiao, Wang (2022-02-21), "Theodor Mommsen and His Legacy in the Study of the Early Roman Empire: A Critical Review", Western Historiography in Asia, De Gruyter, pp. 205–206, retrieved 2024-05-14
  30. ^ Bleicken 1978, p. 28.
  31. ^ Bleicken 1978, p. 30.
  32. ^ Cristini, Marco (2022-05-18). "Orientale imperium: A Note on the Dating of the Historia Augusta". Mnemosyne. 76 (1): 145–152. doi:10.1163/1568525X-12347328. ISSN 0026-7074.
  33. ^ Cristini, Marco (2022-05-18). "Orientale imperium: A Note on the Dating of the Historia Augusta". Mnemosyne. 76 (1): 145–152. doi:10.1163/1568525X-12347328. ISSN 0026-7074.
  34. ^ Cristini, Marco (2022-05-18). "Orientale imperium: A Note on the Dating of the Historia Augusta". Mnemosyne. 76 (1): 145–152. doi:10.1163/1568525X-12347328. ISSN 0026-7074.
  35. ^ O'Brien, Conor (June 2018). "Empire, Ethnic Election and Exegesis in the Opus Caroli (Libri Carolini)". Studies in Church History. 54: 96–108. doi:10.1017/stc.2017.6. ISSN 0424-2084. S2CID 204470696.
  36. ^ Browning 1992, "Introduction", p. xiii: "The Byzantines did not call themselves Byzantines, but Romaioi–Romans. They were well aware of their role as heirs of the Roman Empire, which for many centuries had united under a single government the whole Mediterranean world and much that was outside it."
  37. ^ Tarasov & Milner-Gulland 2004, p. 121; El-Cheikh 2004, p. 22
  38. ^ Theodoropoulos, Panagiotis (April 2021). "Did the Byzantines call themselves Byzantines? Elements of Eastern Roman identity in the imperial discourse of the seventh century". Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. 45 (1): 25–41. doi:10.1017/byz.2020.28. ISSN 0307-0131. S2CID 232344683.
  39. ^ Kaldellis, Anthony (2022). "From "Empire of the Greeks" to "Byzantium"". In Ransohoff, Jake; Aschenbrenner, Nathanael (eds.). The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe. Harvard University Press. pp. 349–367. ISBN 978-0-88402-484-2.
  40. ^ Ben-Tov, Asaph (2009). Lutheran humanists and Greek antiquity Melanchthonian scholarship between universal history and pedagogy. Brill. pp. 106–8. ISBN 978-90-474-4395-7. OCLC 929272646. as cited in Clark, Frederic (2022). "From the rise of Constantine to the fall of Constantinople". In Ransohoff, Jake; Aschenbrenner, Nathanael (eds.). The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe. Harvard University Press. p. 333. ISBN 978-0-88402-484-2.; Kaldellis, Anthony (2022). "From "Empire of the Greeks" to "Byzantium"". In Ransohoff, Jake; Aschenbrenner, Nathanael (eds.). The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe. Harvard University Press. pp. 351, 353. ISBN 978-0-88402-484-2.; Rosser, John H. (2012). Historical Dictionary of Byzantium. Scarecrow Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-8108-7567-8. Archived from the original on 9 April 2022. Retrieved 21 April 2023.
  41. ^ Vasiliev, Alexander (1958). History of the Byzantine Empire, 324–1453, Volume I. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 13.
  42. ^ Rosser 2011, p. 1
  43. ^ Kaldellis, Anthony (2022). "From "Empire of the Greeks" to "Byzantium"". In Ransohoff, Jake; Aschenbrenner, Nathanael (eds.). The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe. Harvard University Press. pp. 366–367. ISBN 978-0-88402-484-2.
  44. ^ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26609804_Some_Questions_Concerning_the_Terminology_used_in_Narrative_Sources_to_Designate_the_Byzantine_State
  45. ^ "10. Conclusion: Singulare et Unicum Imperium", Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, University of California Press, p. 409, 2019-12-31, retrieved 2024-05-13
  46. ^ Tussay, Ákos (2022). A History of the nomos empsychos idea (Thesis). Miklós Könczöl, Szilárd Tattay. doi:10.15774/PPKE.JAK.2022.010.
  47. ^ Rochette, Bruno (2018). "Was there a Roman linguistic imperialism during the Republic and the early Principate?". Lingue e Linguaggio (1/2018): 119. doi:10.1418/90426. ISSN 1720-9331.
  48. ^ Rochette, Bruno (2018). "Was there a Roman linguistic imperialism during the Republic and the early Principate?". Lingue e Linguaggio (1/2018): 118. doi:10.1418/90426. ISSN 1720-9331.
  49. ^ Humphries, Mark (2002). "In Mommsen's Shade: Roman Historiography, Past and Present". Classics Ireland. 9: 44. doi:10.2307/25549953. ISSN 0791-9417. JSTOR 25549953.
  50. ^ Kaldellis 2023, p. 141,186,342.
  51. ^ Humphries, Mark (2002). "In Mommsen's Shade: Roman Historiography, Past and Present". Classics Ireland. 9: 34. doi:10.2307/25549953. ISSN 0791-9417. JSTOR 25549953.

Bibliography

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Category:Roman historiography