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result(s) for
"Constantius II"
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Dream Divination in a Context of Social Disruption: Julian’s Vision of the Two Trees
The late Roman discourse on divinatory dreams and their interpretation reflects a context of cultural fragmentation. The political turbulence of the 350s to 360s was due partly to the ongoing external war with the (Persian) Sasanians, but also to the internal struggle between the heirs of Constantine for rule over the Roman empire, still undergoing a process of Christianization when Julian was acclaimed Augustus in 360. A third arena of fragmentation was religious beliefs and practices during the 350s and 360s. The contested transformation of Rome in the religious sphere was the context of Julian’s dynastic vision of the two trees, received in late 358 or 359.
Journal Article
THE ROMAN EMPERORS AS SLAVE TRAFFICKERS
Roman emperors played an important role in the slave trade by confiscating slaves from private individuals and alienating them to others. Some slaves may have used the system to their own advantage. Constantine is notable for his use of slaves in property confiscation.
Journal Article
The Functions of Homonoia in the Rhetoric of Constantius II: Persuasion, Justification of Coercion, Propaganda
Using a set of examples drawn from imperial concern with Christian theological unity in the fourth century, this essay describes the heretofore unremarked-on functioning of homonoia concepts in addition to persuasion: justification of coercion and propaganda. Grounded in the idea that unanimity and consensus are natural goods, the rhetorical form persuaded through eliciting a desire to participate in those natural goods. Such rhetoric implicitly justified coercive social policy (a.k.a. punishment) when positive persuasion proved insufficient. Additionally, imperial pundits could assert the desirability of consensus as a form of propaganda when “unanimous” decisions were publicized to imply a lack of dissent and make it harder for other would-be dissenters to find allies, therefore decreasing the likelihood of dissent elsewhere.
Journal Article
Ammianus Marcellinus’ Future Signs
Predicting the future is contentious. In the fourth century competing claimants tried to define who could consult the signs and interpret them. Ammianus’ use of future signs in his history, especially in the Julianic books, responds to this contemporary debate. His Julian interprets them correctly in his struggles with Constantius II but then fails to do so during his disastrous Persian campaign. Future signs continue to feature in the narrative after Julian’s death. This article argues that Ammianus’ abundant use of future signs is a distinct feature of his work that should be read in a late fourth century context.
Journal Article
Amm. 20.8.3–4, Quid Claudius Iulianus, a militibus Augustus appellatus, Constantio II binis litteris ad posteritatem adtentior scripserit
I took into account an Ammianus passage, namely 20,8,3–4, where the text edited by all modern scholars has been marked with two crosses to show that the text is not sure. As a matter of fact in every modern edition we read: [
]
†
†
. Here the adverb
causes problems, because the reader expects to find
without
. A solution is to place
after
as Pighi and Seyfarth did to substitute
with
. But such a solution is too arbitrary. Another solution was proposed by Petschening, i.e. to replace
with
. But the difference between
and
was too reduced and a similar difficulty occurred also with
. However, I considered more attentive the reading of the manuscript Fuldensis, the father of all manuscripts which transmitted Ammianus’ text, and found that the word
, which caused the problem, did not exist and was produced by modern editors from the following reading:
m1
m2 (
= Fuldensis). Here
seems to have been introduced in order to explain the infrequent word
:
of the first hand of
. The word
was a gloss, and the reading of the second hand of
was produced by dividing and eliminating
, the gloss, in this way:
, where
(
) was read
, considering the great similarity of
and
in Carolingian script, and added to
/. This produced
and what remained of
(
) was read
which for its part was considered an abbreviation of
. On the other hand, I found in Ammianus some other examples of this behaviour employed by the librari, e.g. 22,8,29
// Clark Rolfe Selem Seyfarth Fontaine Viansino
m1
m3. In this case
and the letter
added over and
from
has produced
, with the letter
deleted and another
placed over, thus arriving finally at the expression:
(i.e.
)
m3. A clear example how the
of
worked.
Journal Article
Ammianus Marcellinus’ Future Signs
Predicting the future is contentious. In the fourth century competing claimants tried to define who could consult the signs and interpret them. Ammianus’ use of future signs in his history, especially in the Julianic books, responds to this contemporary debate. His Julian interprets them correctly in his struggles with Constantius II but then fails to do so during his disastrous Persian campaign. Future signs continue to feature in the narrative after Julian’s death. This article argues that Ammianus’ abundant use of future signs is a distinct feature of his work that should be read in a late fourth century context.
Journal Article
The Functions of Homonoia in the Rhetoric of Constantius II
Using a set of examples drawn from imperial concern with Christian theological unity in the fourth century, this essay describes the heretofore unremarked-on functioning of homonoia concepts in addition to persuasion: justification of coercion and propaganda. Grounded in the idea that unanimity and consensus are natural goods, the rhetorical form persuaded through eliciting a desire to participate in those natural goods. Such rhetoric implicitly justified coercive social policy (a.k.a. punishment) when positive persuasion proved insufficient. Additionally, imperial pundits could assert the desirability of consensus as a form of propaganda when “unanimous” decisions were publicized to imply a lack of dissent and make it harder for other would-be dissenters to find allies, therefore decreasing the likelihood of dissent elsewhere.
Journal Article
Through the eye of a needle
Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure.Through the Eye of a Needleis a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity.
Peter Brown examines the rise of the church through the lens of money and the challenges it posed to an institution that espoused the virtue of poverty and called avarice the root of all evil. Drawing on the writings of major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Brown examines the controversies and changing attitudes toward money caused by the influx of new wealth into church coffers, and describes the spectacular acts of divestment by rich donors and their growing influence in an empire beset with crisis. He shows how the use of wealth for the care of the poor competed with older forms of philanthropy deeply rooted in the Roman world, and sheds light on the ordinary people who gave away their money in hopes of treasure in heaven.
Through the Eye of a Needlechallenges the widely held notion that Christianity's growing wealth sapped Rome of its ability to resist the barbarian invasions, and offers a fresh perspective on the social history of the church in late antiquity.
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