Draft:Periodisation of Roman civilisation
The modern historiography of Rome is concerned with the historical interpretations developed the late modern era for the state of Rome that underlies Roman civilization. This includes the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic, Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire.
Differing opinions exist on what type of continuity existed across the entire 2206 year period of Rome's history and when different periods start. 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 true citizens of Rome (Romans), and which continues today in disputes over modern historiography. A revised view of the history beyond the elites and Roman citizens (who were free men) has also driven recent scholarship. Competing interpretations have been motivated to define the origin of Western civilization.
Summary of issues
Origin of western Civilization
Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire "began the modern study of Roman history in the English-speaking world".[1] 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 civilization they belonged to.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4]
Kaldellis's The New Roman Empire: a history of Byzantium is the most recent graduate level narrative of the eastern 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 the classical Roman Empire.[5]
Periodisation of Ancient Rome
Formation
Archaeological evidence does not align with Roman tradition.
Conclusion
The fall of the western Roman Empire versus the fall of the Republic and ending of the principate.
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".[6]
Periodisation and terminology of the Byzantine Empire
Use of the term
It replaced the term "Empire of the Greeks" as convention in the 19th century. According to Anthony Kaldellis [7]
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.
Empire of the Greeks
Starting with Charlemagne's Libri Carolini in the 790s, the Franks used the term "Empire of the Greeks" (Latin: Imperium Graecorum) in order to undercut the Byzantine claim to be the continuation of the Roman Empire.[8]
Start date
It varies according to differing interpretations. Some use the Diocletian reforms, the foundation of Constantinople, the fall of the western Roman Empire, the loss of lands to the Arabs or the proclamation of Charlemagne as dates when the Roman Empire became Byzantine. The traditional view set by Gibbon and the revised view by Late Antiquity historians that emerged from Germany and England have a heavy presence today. 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.
Specific issues
Historians have explored how life of ordinary Romans was different and which supports the differing views of the changed state of Rome. Examples include:
- 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
- Roman religion
- Constantinian shift
The wearing of the toga and its significance
Clothing like language, was beneficial in defining Roman identity in a society where this identity was unstable.[9] This was due the composition of the ruling class changing with extended Roman citizenship as well as external cultural influences as well. The toga was a symbol of the Roman citizen.[10]
See also
- Roman historiography
- Historiography of Romanisation
- Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire
- Historiography of Christianization of the Roman Empire
Notes
References
Citations
- ^ Beard, Mary (2015-10-20). SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. Profile. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-1-84765-441-0.
- ^ 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.
- ^ A. Giardana, "Esplosione di tardoantico," Studi storici 40 (1999).
- ^ 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.
- ^ Kaldellis, Anthony (2023 November). The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium. Oxford University Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-0-19-754935-3.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Beard, Mary (2015-10-20). SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. Profile. pp. 529–530. ISBN 978-1-84765-441-0.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.