Antiquité Tardive - Late Antiquity - Spätantike - Tarda Antichità

This study based on iconography (mainly funeral), archaeology and texts aims at showing how the influence of the Christian religion on the modes of dressing equally applied to cut, fabric, colour and decoration not only of clothes themselves, but also headgear and shoes, in order to lead the faithfull towards a simple and moral way of living and limit the exuberance of dressing. The function of dress is to cover the body and thereby to insulate and protect the soul. These restrictions on dress code express themselves in two forms: one private, looking for simplicity and banning luuxury and pomp, the other public, manifesting itself in the systematic intervention of the ecclesiastical authorities, through sermons and letters as well as through explicit canonical norms. Members of the clergy initially dressed in the same manner as laymen. A differentiation appeared only at the end of the VIth century, as a result of novelties introduced by German ethnic groups. Monks, alternatively, differentiated themselves by a severe dress uniformly worn by all of them: dark tunic, coarse clogs, a woolen waistband. As a symbol of his new life, the monk removed his secular clothes and put on his new uniform, frequently at a deposition ceremony. Spinning, weaving, sewing and embroidery were activities for women which received a positive assessment from the Holy fathers.

Starting from the contributions presented in the three main sections of the Colloque, some general remarks are presented, with the aim of underlining the main results of the meeting and at the same time of suggesting possibilities of further investigations. They concern the nature and limits of the material sources; the connection between their different classes and their historical interpretation; the relations between the dress worn and the dress represented; the contribution of the study of cloth and clothing to a better understanding of Late Antiquity.

L’idée selon laquelle l’ “Antiquité tardive” est une période distincte dotée de son existence propre n’est pas une invention de ces cinquante dernières années, mais a une longue histoire qui remonte au début du 20e siècle. Riegl a montré que l’art de l’époque romaine tardive possédait ses caractères propres, distincts et tout à fait positifs. L’école de la Religionswissenschaft a attiré l’attention sur une religiosité spécifique de l’époque tardive. En se fondant sur ces nouveaux points de vue, Spengler a construit sa “Magische Kultur”. Quand il eut fini d’écrire son Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, Marrou se rendit compte qu’il venait de décrire le représentant d’une civilisation intellectuelle originale, d’une culture dont son livre est resté l’exposé de référence. Les spécialistes qui, de nos jours, travaillent sur l’Antiquité tardive ont pu faire fond sur le travail de ces prédécesseurs, tout comme sur celui de bien d’autres qui ont traité cette période soit comme l’arrière-saison de l’Antiquité classique, soit comme le début de la chrétienté médiévale. Mais que l’historien/ne traite l’époque romaine tardive comme une période dotée de son existence propre, ou qu’il/elle la rattache étroitement à ce qui précède ou à ce qui suit, son choix en faveur de telle ou telle périodisation est, d’ordinaire, fortement influencé par des considérations étroitement en rapport avec son propre univers.

Dans la Chronique, Jérôme attribue à l’année 326/327 la conversion d’Arnobe et la rédaction de l’Adversus Nationes, date qui a paru être contredite par la notice du De viris illustribus où le floruit d’Arnobe est placé sous le règne de Dioclétien. L’A. entreprend de démontrer que les deux notices ne se contredisent pas, que rien ne s’oppose à une rédaction de l’Adversus Nationes en 326/327 et que des éléments internes militent même en faveur de cette datation.

Ten Greek and Latin inscriptions which make use of the title Filius Augustorum are here under examination; they invite us to reopen a study of the fourth tetrarchic college which will be continued in a second part. In this first part, most of these epigraphs are reedited with textual emendations and for all of them more precise datings and historical interpretations are proposed. In order to check the previous views that the title Filius Augustorum was instituted on the 11th of November 308, merely as a quite unimportant addition to the title Caesar, it proved necessary, in such a period of deep disagreements, to relate each document to its originating from a specific political area. This approach to the problem allowed us to attach a chronological meaning to some differences attested in Maximinus’ and Constantine’s imperial titulatures. Since most of these inscriptions style those two emperors either as Caesar (n. 1-2) or as Filius Augustorum (n . 3-8), while mainly originating from the regions submitted to Galerius’ direct administration, there is a clear indication that the new title was established in order to supersede that of Caesar and consequently to design a new imperial rank, superior to that of Caesar and closer to that of Augustus. With this new development of the tetrarchic theology, Galerius tried to pacify Maximinus’ violent protest against Licinius’ appointment straight to the rank of Augustus, which is echoed by Lactantius and Eusebius. Nevertheless Maximinus’ opposition went on, taking forms attested by some papyri and coins issued at Antiochia and Alexandria. He even seems to have dictated to Galerius the compromise made visible by the twofold titulature which we restored at Kabyle for Maximinus (n. 9), as well as by the coinage at Nicomedia. In that way, an evolution of Maximinus’ and Constantine’s official titulature in the central and oriental parts of the Empire may be reconstructed, which allows a more precise dating of the inscriptions that style them Caesar (until the end of December 308), Filius Augustorum (from January 309 onwards), or Augustus (from (possibly) May 310) and bears witness to the outstanding crisis between 308 and 311.

Ammianus Marcellinus takes the conflict between the citizens of Lepcis Magna and the comes rei militaris per Africam Romanus as a prime example to illustrate the policies of Valentinian I (AD 364- 375). The emperor is criticised for the extent of corruption under his rule as well as for his leniency towards criminal but high-ranking officials (27. 9. 1-4; 28. 6. 1-29). Satisfaction for the sufferings of the Tripolitan city was allegedly owed solely to sempiternus Iustitiae vigor, since the latter prevented the culprits from escaping their due punishment which they had undergone mainly during the reign of Gratian (AD 375-383) (30. 2. 9-12). For the sake of these intentions, the ‘moral historian’ is prepared to blur the plot significantly, even accepting various inconsistencies within his account, which, in turn, are mirrored in modern literature. Notwithstanding, some scholars have shed light on events behind the scenes by revealing facets of factionalism at court or of the more general dispute between civil- and military-minded officials. But, on the whole, a systematic decomposition of the entire drama is required to differentiate clearly between suggestions and basically reliable facts. Thus the dispatch of the elder Theodosius to Africa in AD 373 as well as the scrutiny of Romanus’ correspondence, which furthered the final three acts of the affair, were obviously due to the suspicion that the count had some responsibility for Firmus to rebel. However, the incriminations turned out to be unfounded and Romanus was therefore reinstated, a fact hitherto ignored and further buried under the inept conjecture of proscripti instead of praescripti (28. 6. 26). These circumstances also have a considerable impact on the understanding of the trial at Milan in AD 377, last in the chain of events but the first and only compromise.

Saint Augustine’s sermon 302 is a monitory discourse delivered around AD 409/412 at Hippo in the aftermath of the brutal lynching of a corrupt imperial agent by some of the common people exasperated by his exactions. We analyse this riot in its social context and explain some of its implications for our understanding of the political culture and behaviour of the urban plebs in late Antiquity. Analysis reveals that the man killed was a custom officer acting in collusion with the tax collectors in the port of Hippo. The rioting crowd was composed not only of merchants and their servants, but also of craftsmen and shopkeepers, their employees and the young men of their families. The anatomy of the riot reveals that the murder of the corrupted officer was perpetrated only after the popular grievances had been loudly expressed and the authorities had failed in punishing the criminal. The murder is also viewed by the activists and their passive supporters alike as a capital punishment and as a right of the people. This popular disturbance may have been a “governmental catastrophe” to the authorities and it surely called into question the credibility of Augustine as a bishop and patron for his failure to intervene in favour of the victims of the corrupted officer before the riot. Nevertheless, the measures considered by Augustine to counteract a new riot are additional evidence of the vigour of this form of popular intervention in the life of the city.

This article discusses evidence for early Byzantine onomastics from 6th century Greek scholia referring to several Latin legal texts. The first of these scholia is to be found in the so called Paraphrasis Theophili, the only extant Greek version of Justinian’s Institutes (II, 20, 29). This scholion deals with the Latin terms nomen (kyrion onoma), cognomen (eponymon) and praenomen (chrematismos), and explains the last of them by the example of provincial governors who include the names of their benefactors in their polyonymies. This remark, for which there seems to be no parallel in early Byzantine literature, is of special interest for the study of administrative and social history. The benefactors referred to in this scholion are powerful persons, known in contemporary Latin texts as advocati, intercessores, patroni or suffragatores, whose influence on the emperor may be decisive in matter of appointments. The inclusion of their names in polyonymies is, however, difficult to demonstrate on the basis of the epigraphical and papyrological evidence now available (some polyonymies are discussed in detail). The article discusses some similar phenomena in the onomastics of the late republic and the early empire, and argues that the emergence of this practice in polyonymies of early Byzantine provincial governors can best be explained by the evolution of the suffragium (sale of offices) at the end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th. The second scholion discussed in this article refers to a rescript of Gordian III (Codex Justinianus VI, 23, 4). The author of this scholion gives the imperial gentilicia Iulius and Flavius as examples for praenomen/chrematismos. This suggests that he has in mind the widely attested practice by which late Roman military and civil officials adopted the genticilium of the emperor and placed it as their first name. The same scholion includes the term patronymia, which is, however, absent from the original rescript. According to the author, patronymia is the inclusion of ancestors’ (progonoi) names in polyonymies of dignitaries (archontes). The third scholion, which refers to a rescript of Diocletian (Codex Justinianus IX, 25, 1), defines patronymia as the indication of the name of the father. As for praenomen/chrematismos, the author gives two pairs of names, Paulus Aemilius and Aelius Sentius, and adds that this had been the custom (ethos) in Beirut and Tyre. While the examples are rather literary reminiscences which have nothing to do with either Beirut or Tyre, there seems to be no reason to doubt that a certain onomastic practice, which is not easy to define, survived in these two cities longer than elsewhere in the late Roman East. The last case which is examined in this article is that of a problematic rescript by Diocletian (Codex Justinianus VII, 16, 9), which seems to consider the cognomen as incompatible with servile status. It is argued that this difficulty should not be attributed to an error in the manuscript tradition, and that the authors of Greek scholia referring to this rescript, writing just a few years after the promulgation of the Justinian Code, were aware of this difficulty. The article concludes with three appendices which study the onomastic terms kyrion onoma (and its equivalents), patronymia/patronymikon, and chrematismos.

This article examines a group of letters of the Variae concerning the building of an Ostrogothic fleet by Theoderic. These letters, though well known, lack detailed analysis in modern historiography. The author deals with the relationship between the Goths (and Germanic peoples in general) and the sea. It is possible to maintain that even if navigation was not an obstacle to barbaric settlement in the empire, maritime culture did not characterize the traditions of the Goths. Gothic mentality viewed the sea with the same feeling of distrust as the Romans did.

Cet article cherche à explorer les origines et le développement de l’enceinte monastique, de l’Afrique d’Augustin à l’Italie de Benoît, en rapprochant les données textuelles et les maigres traces archéologiques. Alors que les monastères envisagés par Augustin étaient des structures plus ou moins ouvertes au monde extérieur, les monastères en Italie, à l’époque de Benoît, sont devenus des espaces circonscrits dans une enceinte imperméable. L’expérience de la vie communautaire menée dans une clôture diffère fondamentalement de celle d’une communauté physiquement ouverte sur l’extérieur. Ainsi la présence ou l’absence de murs périphériques autour des monastères a pu exercer une forte influence sur la conception et la réalité quotidienne de la vie conduite à l’intérieur. Dans la dernière partie de l’article, l’auteur suggère que la pensée “semi-pélagienne» et en particulier les écrits de Jean Cassien ont influencé la théologie monastique et propose d’interpréter l’apparition de murs autour des monastères en Italie au VIe siècle comme la représentation architectonique d’un nouveau paradigme de la vie cénobitique.

This survey article considers two recent publications dealing with the corpus of the Panegyrici Latini: a new edition with translation in Italian and an essay derived from an English PhD. Reading them provides a good opportunity for presenting a comprehensive overview of recent research on this famous collection. A major emphasis is put on the role of epidictic rhetoric and on the relationship between emperors and provincials as they appear in these speeches.

Without embarking in a detailed discussion of some important recent publications, the Author briefly considers the problem of the two editions of Eunapius’ History, and further the related question of the confutation by Sozomen of a pagan version of Constantine’s conversion. These reflections on the materials at our disposal and some developments in learning lead us to confirm the existence of two editions of Eunapius’ History. The first one was a self-governing formulation, the second one was a rewriting taking account of the Annales of Nicomachus Flavianus senior. As a corollary, Sozomen’s confutation is addressed against the pagan version of Constantine’s conversion, which is to be found in the first edition of Eunapius’ History, thus confirming previous studies which were recently challenged.

The conferences which commemorated the 1500th Anniversary of the Ostrogothic settlement in Italy opened a decade of innovative studies on Ostrogothic Italy (493-554). The resolute personality of king Theoderic the Great still concentrates, as it previously did, the attention of historians, both to his building activities and his ability to preserve “civilitas”. However, the bolder studies are to be found either in relation to the institutional definition of the power held in Italy by the Ostrogothic kings or in the debate about the ethnic character traditionnaly attributed to the Gothic people. The authors of the period under consideration, Cassiodorus, Ennodius of Pavia, Jordanes, the Anonymus Valesianus, are the subjects of numerous editions, translations and new commentaries which stimulate this growing interest in the Ostrogothic period among the specialists of late Antiquity.

This review article is based on H. C. Noeske’s monumental work on coin finds in the dioceses of Egypt and Oriens in the Late Antique and Early Byzantine period. The catalogue (vol. 2) publishes in the Francfort school format all hoards and site finds known to the author, either from his personal examination (notably the circa 12,000 coins from the Egyptian pilgrimage site of Abu Mina) or from publications. The corpus of some 100,000 specimens thus assembled and the (almost too numerous) figures and graphs derived therefrom (vol. 3) are commented upon in volume 1. In Egypt bronze coin finds (reflecting rather production than circulation) reach a maximum in the late 4th c. The great gap starting from the 430s to 498 is in fact observed also in the West (e.g. in Africa) and is compensated for (not only in Egypt or Palestine) by plentiful cast imitations. After the monetary reform of Anastasius I, the situation in the two dioceses largely differs : the new heavy bronze coin (follis) and its fractions penetrate in Oriens rather quickly if not dominantly but are very late and rare in Egypt which applies the reform along specific lines going back to Ptolemaic metrology. As regards bronze the diocese remains thus isolated down to the Arab conquest or even later ; the 12 nummi coin being imitated again in the late 7th c. In Syria and Palestine, Umayyad Arab-Byzantine imitations are much more plentiful, but this major phenomenon is hardly considered in the book. This article gives supplementary information on that topic and discusses some of the issues raised by the circulation of gold in the long run : the influence of military payments and the Valentinianic refining of gold on hoarding patterns, possible reasons for the lack of 5th c coins in hoards, longer hoarding periods in 6th c deposits, contrast between the contracted ones of the Persian war (610-616 ca) and the extended ones of the late 7th c which the Arab conquest did not influence, Byzantine solidi penetrating Umayyad territories down to the major break induced by Abd al-Malik’s reform. The present data on gold and bronze coin finds are clear evidence for the greater wealth of both dioceses as compared with Illyricum, Pontus and Asiana or even many parts of the West and their high degree of monetization, source of the later power and prosperity of the Umayyad Caliphate.

Bulletin critique Histoire et archéologie de l’Antiquité tardive Régions Philologie et sources Notes de lecture Comité de rédaction de la revue et Conseil d’administration de l’Association pour l’Antiquité Tardive Principales abréviations de la revue Publications reçues par la revue entre janvier et décembre 2004 Recommendations to authors Instructions aux auteurs