The Provincial List of Verona

1923 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 127-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Bury
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Military Organization ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military

§ 1. The exact measure of the originality of Diocletian's statesmanship has not yet been taken. ‘Like Augustus,’ said Gibbon, ‘Diocletian may be considered the founder of a new empire’ and these words express the accepted view. In the whole work of pulling the Empire together, which went on from A.D. 270 to 330, the three outstanding actors were Aurelian, Diocletian, and Constantine, and the part played by Aurelian was indispensable for the restitutio orbis. It was he who destroyed the Principate, notwithstanding the negligible episode of Tacitus. It was he who founded the autocracy; Diocletian who regularized and systematized it. Two new things Diocletian certainly did, one of which was a success and the other a failure though not a fruitless one. His division of the Empire into Dioceses was permanent for nearly three hundred years. His throne system led to disaster and disappeared; yet the territorial quadripartition which it involved was afterwards stereotyped in the four Prefectures, and Nicomedia pointed to Constantinople. But in many of the other changes which distinguished the Empire of Constantine from the Empire of Severus and which have generally been regarded as inventions of Diocletian, it is becoming clear that he was not the initiator but was only extending and systematizing changes which had already been begun. The separation of civil from military powers in provincial government had been initiated by Gallienus (the importance of whose reign has in recent years been emerging). Some of the characteristics which mark the military organization of the fourth century had come before Diocletian's accession. Mr. Mattingly's studies in the numismatic history of the third century have been leading him, as he tells us, to similar conclusions.

scholarly journals I.—Clay Disks from Tarentum

1883 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 156-157
Author(s):  
P. G.
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Artistic Value ◽  
The Third ◽  
Image Position

Among the objects brought from Tarentum by the Rev. G. J. Chester are certain disks of clay of some interest, though not of artistic value. They are circular and flat or cheese-like in form, with a diameter of 3½ to 3¾ inches, and a thickness of about ¾ of an inch. The inscriptions are impressed in the clay by means of a stamp, and run thus:The order in date is that followed in the list. No. 1 is oldest, and the shape of the м seems to indicate that it may date from the fourth century B.C.; the other three are probably not earlier than the third century. Later they can scarcely be, for after that time the obol gave way to the Roman denarius and sestertius as a measure of value at Tarentum.

Principes cum Tyrannis: Two Studies on the Kaisergeschichte and its Tradition

1993 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 491-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Burgess
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Common Source ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Natural Assumption ◽  
Ammianus Marcellinus ◽  
The Third ◽  
Historia Augusta ◽  
Selection Of

The Kaisergeschichte (KG) was a set of short imperial biographies extending from Augustus to the death of Constantine, probably written between 337 and c. 340. It no longer exists but its existence can be deduced from other surviving works. Amongst the histories of the fourth century – Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Festus, Jerome's Chronici canones, the Historia Augusta, the Epitome de Caesaribus, and, in places, even Ammianus Marcellinus and perhaps the Origo Constantini imperatoris (Anonymi Valesiani pars prior) – there is a common selection of facts and errors, and common wording and phrasing in their narratives between Augustus and the death of Constantine, especially in their accounts of the third century. A natural assumption is that later historians copied earlier ones, yet later historians include information not contained in earlier ones, and historians who could not have known each other's work share similarities. For example, it looks as though Aurelius Victor was copying Eutropius, yet Victor wrote before Eutropius, and Eutropius contains information not in Victor and does not reproduce Victor's peculiar style or personal biases, things which he could hardly have avoided. Therefore Eutropius cannot be copying Victor. Since neither could have copied the other, there must therefore have been a common source. In his Chronici canones Jerome appears at first to be simply copying Eutropius. Yet when he deviates from Eutropius, his deviations usually mirror other histories, such as Suetonius, Victor, Festus, even the Epitome and the Historia Augusta, two works that had not even been written when Jerome compiled his chronicle and that did not use, and would never have used, the Christian chronicle as a source. Jerome was hurriedly dictating to his secretary, he had no time to peruse four or five works at a time for his brief notices. There must have been a single source that contained both the Eutropian material and the deviations common to Jerome and the other works. That source was the KG. It is the purpose of this paper to add to the above list of authors who relied upon the KG two other writers whose work can be shown to have derived, either at first hand or later, from the KG: Polemius Silvius and Ausonius.

scholarly journals Mogontiacum: czynniki rozwoju

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leszek Mrozewicz
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Military Base ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Real City

The history of Mogontiacum spans the period from 17/16 BCE to the end of the fourth century CE. It was a strong military base (with two legions stationed there in the first century) and a major settlement centre, though without municipal rights. However, the demographic and economic development, as well as the superior administrative and political status enabled Mogontiacum to transform – in socio-economic and urbanistic terms – into a real city. This process was crowned in the latter half of the third century with the construction of the city walls.

Changes in Urban and Sacred Landscapes of Memphis in the Third to the Fourth Centuries ad and the Eclipse of the Divine Apis Bulls

2018 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-204
Author(s):  
Nenad Marković
Keyword(s):  
Economic Capital ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Gradual Decline ◽  
Sacred Landscapes ◽  
The Third ◽  
Administrative Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Military

Memphis served as a main royal residence and the military, administrative, and economic capital of Egypt for much of its history. The city’s gradual decline had begun already under the Ptolemies, whose true capital was at Alexandria, and important changes in administrative practice during the Roman period diminished its traditional status further. The god Ptah and his earthly manifestation, the divine Apis bull, certainly continued to enjoy both religious and socio-political importance until the first decades of the third century ad at the latest, as will be discussed in the article. Given the fragmentary and haphazard nature of surviving evidence on the site, it is almost impossible to trace a coherent history of traditional Memphite cults beyond this date. This article aims to discuss the decline of the divine Apis bulls in the context of broader historical developments of the third to the fourth centuries ad.

scholarly journals The Garrison of the Roman Fort at Porolissum (Dacia). The Analysis of the Tile-Stamps

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 365-372
Author(s):  
Coriolan Horatiu Oprean
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
The Third ◽  
Building Activity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Military Facilities ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Military

Abstract The author is dealing with the tile-stamps found in the Roman auxiliary fort at Porolissum attempting to establish which of the many units recorded on tile-stamps stayed in garrison at Porolissum. The author of the present article is arguing his own hypothesis on the subject, based on his own excavations at Porolissum and on all the data gathered from the scientific literature. He finally proposes two tables and a graph that correlate all the information on the troops known from the tile-stamps and stone inscriptions, establishing which of them were in garrison at Porolissum and which were only temporarily attached for building activity. At the same time he sets in chronological order the tile-stamps, demonstrating that the three units which built the headquarters building and the gates of the fort (coh III, L VII GF, L III G) were brought to the Porolissum area late in Hadrian‘s reign, to build in stone the fort and other military facilities in the limes area of Porolissum. The permanent garrison of the fort was composed during the 2nd century AD of two infantry auxiliary units, cohors I Brittonum and cohors V Lingonum, while a third one, numerus Palmyrenorum was probably lodged in a smaller fort situated 500 m away, on the Citera Hill. In the third century, cohors V Lingonum was still there, cohors I Brittonum also for Caracalla‘s time (even not recorded by any later inscription, but, at the same time, not attested in another fort), while the smaller Citera Hill fort was out of use and the numerus Palmyrenorum Porolissensium was moved inside the big fort from Pomet Hill. The author is concluding that the garrison of the military site Porolissum was not changed during the Roman rule in Dacia, all the other tile-stamps found belonging to units brought mainly during the 2nd century to built the military facilities of this strengthened sector of the frontier.

The Roman and Byzantine Limes in Cyrenaica

1953 ◽  
Vol 43 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 65-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. Goodchild
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Military Organization ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Jewish Revolt ◽  
The Military

Although Cyrenaica ranked, under the earlier Empire, as a senatorial province, it was too exposed to barbarian attack to be left undefended; and there is ample evidence that it had its own garrison—probably a small one—from the first century A.D. onwards. This garrison was evidently inadequate to prevent the outbreak of the Jewish Revolt of A.D. 115, and may consequently have been strengthened; but it was the crisis of the mid-third century that showed all too clearly the insecurity of the isolated Cyrenaican plateau. The Marmaric tribes invaded the province, and Cyrene itself seems to have been overwhelmed. The Diocletianic reforms resulted in the creation of a new ‘middle-eastern’ command under the Dux Aegypti Thebaidos utrarumque Libyarum, but the loss of the chapter of the Notitia Dignitatum enumerating the units stationed in the two Libyas makes it difficult to reconstruct the military organization of these provinces at the end of the fourth century. The works of Synesius help to fill the lacuna and at the same time provide a vivid picture of life in an invaded area.

V. Republican Veii

1961 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 52-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Ward-Perkins
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Roman Poet ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Temple ◽  
The Town

‘O Veii veteres, et vos tum regna fuistisEt vestro posita est aurea sella foro:Nunc intra muros pastoris bucina lentiCantat, et in vestris ossibus arva metunt.’(Propertius IV, 10, 27–30.)So the Roman poet Propertius, writing in the closing years of the first century B.C., only a very short time before the establishment of the Augustan municipality on the site of the ancient town; and it is the conventional reading of the history of Veii that the four hundred odd years intervening between the sack of the town in 396 B.C. and the foundation of the Municipium Augustum Veiens were years of abandonment and desolation. This view has been challenged recently by Dr. Maria Santangelo in her publication of two small jugs of the third century B.C. with archaic latin dedicatory inscriptions, the one from the Portonaccio cemetery, inscribed L(ucius) Tolonio(s) ded(et) Menerva(e), the other from the Campetti votive deposit Caere (or Crere) L(ucius) Tolonio(s) d(edet). These two dedications are evidence not only of the survival of at least two of the sanctuaries, but also of the continuing residence at or near Veii of a descendent of the Velthur Tulumne who dedicated a bucchero cup in the same Portonaccio sanctuary three centuries earlier (Not. Scav., 1930, pp. 341–343), and of the Lars Tolumnius who was killed in battle and whose armour hung, for all to see, in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius (Prop. loc. cit.).

‘Vi barbarorum absumptam’

2015 ◽  
pp. 354-375
Author(s):  
Marcus Reuter
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Military History ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Civilian Population ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Germany ◽  
The Military ◽  
Severan Dynasty ◽  
Auxiliary Unit

This chapter focuses on the military history of Roman Germany during the third century AD. It begins with an overview of the Severan dynasty, with particular emphasis on civil wars and their impact on the army and the civilian population. It then considers the conscription of a new auxiliary unit, cohors I Septimia Belgarum, during the reign of Septimius Severus, before turning to the period between AD 235 and AD 260, which was characterized by the presence of arms and Roman military objects in the civilian settlements of the hinterland of the Upper German–Raetian limes. It also discusses the period from AD 260 to the end of the third century AD, when the Upper German limes gained military importance during the Gallic Empire, and the military situation along the Rhine.

Aspects of Iconography in Romano-British Mosaics: the Rudston ‘Aquatic’ Scene and the Brading Astronomer Revisited

Britannia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 295-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.J.A. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
North African ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
The Third ◽  
Adjacent Room ◽  
The Subject

ABSTRACTThe fourth-century Rudston ‘aquatic’ mosaic is likely to show Oceanus at the centre rather than Neptune, and the dominant position of the head on the floor suggests that the inspiration for it derives, however remotely, from North African models where the scene was common. This is made more plausible by the fact that African influence, as is well known, is also detectable on the famous Venus mosaic by the same mosaicist in an adjacent room in the same building. At Brading, the central figure in the main reception room – a half-naked man with stick, globe and sundial – is identified, not just as a generic ‘philosopher’ type, but specifically as the third-century B.C. astronomer and poet, Aratus, on the basis of comparanda on mosaics, tapestry, silverware and in an illustrated manuscript of his work, thePhaenomena. It is further suggested that the key to reading the damaged larger part of the Brading floor above Aratus might be a Latin translation of his work, possibly that by Avienusc.A.D. 350, if the mosaic is indeed approximately of that date rather than earlier, and that the subject-matter of the panels alluded to constellations described in the poem. A very tentative attempt is made to identify what might have been depicted in the panels, on the basis of the mythology behind the constellations as explained in Latin adaptations of the poem: those of Perseus and Andromeda are illustrated in the surviving panel, and possibly Phaethon and Eridanus, Hercules and the serpent in the Garden of the Hesperides, and conceivably Pegasus at a spring were shown in the other three. It is also suggested that these unusual scenes might have been based on an illustrated manuscript of the work in the possession of thedominusat Brading. Be that as it may, the mosaic does appear to provide further evidence of the depth of classical learning displayed by at least some members of the Romano-British rural élite in the fourth century A.D.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document