On Libanius and Semi-Random Thoughts

I’m taking a brief detour from my reading up on early Christianity by diving into Libanius. This wasn’t intentional, at least the thought that this would be a detour. Part of the plan was to read more on 4th century culture overall, and look at both the philosophical arguments about various competing belief systems and how Christianity was integrated into existing culture. However, while it’s clear that Libanius doesn’t care for Christianity all that much, he doesn’t come out and directly contest it in his writings, not really. The changing culture of his times colors Libanius’ writings in less obvious ways but I’m going to save that discussion for later.

Instead I’m going to point out something which pops up all the time in sources, throughout the Medieval period (and I imagine before and after as well) which is a commonality to the way people talk about things today (professional historians or folks who’ve read a fair amount can quit reading now if you like). I informally title this, Kids These Days (consider this to be accompanied by a deep sigh). In Norman (2000), Libanius’ Oration 62 (using Norman’s numbering system) is titled, “Against Critics of His Educational System.” The title is pretty self-explanatory. Some individual or group accused Libanius of being a poor teacher of rhetoric and he sets out to defend himself.

I’m going to focus on this statement, “Instead I will proceed to the crux of this disastrous business. You see, parents no longer threaten their children or bar them from the table or the baths if they are negligent, nor yet do they punish them so, or threaten that they will expel them, disinherit them, leave their inheritance to someone else. They can’t approve but they dare not blame. They have changed position with them, so that the sons wear angry looks and the parents cower before them. Students get this licence and sleep, snore, drink, and get drunk, and hold high revelry, and make it plain to the teachers that, unless they put up with any and everything, they will go off to someone else and their fathers won’t stop them. And the wretched parents, as Andromache did, connive at their sons’ desires.” 1

Yup, those kids – they aren’t like they used to be. And it’s all their parents’ fault. This, along with wistful recollections of “the good old days” come up all the time in the sources. The reason I like this is it displays a commonality of attitudes and opinions from over 1500 years ago with those of today. Now Medievals and Ancients thought differently from us; I’m certain of it. The experiences which formed them as individuals and as groups were profoundly different from the experiences of those of us living today in western culture. They viewed the world through another lens, one which resulted in different thought processes, responses to stimuli, etc., etc., from us. (I have a draft of an entire post on this). However with all the differences between their world and ours, some common themes exist, including complaining about the younger(next) generation.

I’m pretty early on with Libanius. I’ve read A.F. Norman’s (2000) Translated Texts for Historians book and am currently finishing Cribiore’s The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch. I still have the four Loebs to go through but this has been interesting reading so far and if time allows, I’m planning to discuss him in a bit more depth once I finish. He has some interesting and somewhat surprising opinions on corporal punishment of students, less surprising yet disturbing comments on women, and overall there’s his bitterness. I’ll wait to expand on it later but he comes across as someone who is either unable or unwilling to change with the times. There are interesting contrasts to draw between Libanius and someone like Themistius. Both were classically trained pagans and as Roman culture changed Themistius thrived and Libanius complained.

On to the semi-randomness. I found this anecdote humorous anyway. Once I finish reading Libanius I plan to move on to Symmachus. I have a book of his letters translated by Salzman and Roberts (2011). The other English language translation of his material that I’ve been able to find is his Relationes (uncertain if this a complete or partial collection) by Barrow (1973). It seems that used copies of this are going for upwards of $200. Fortunately, Purdue libraries has a copy and in checking the catalog, I found that it’s available to check out. Ordinarily I would have expected this to be housed in the Humanities, Social Science and Education Library (HSSE – commonly pronounced “hissy”). Instead it’s in the Hicks Library Repository.

The repository is interesting. Basically, these books aren’t on shelves where you find one and take it to circulation to check out. Instead they’re stored in some fashion (I’ve never been back there) and to check them out you go to the repository desk, fill out a request card and the librarian gets it for you. I don’t think anyone will find it surprising that these books tend to be those not checked out very often.

Poor Symmachus – if he only knew. I had a meeting on campus yesterday and after it ended I headed to the lower level of Hicks, filled out the card, the librarian took it, and entered the information in the computer.

Librarian: “I’m sorry. This is available but we don’t have it here.” Uh-oh, modern technology (in this case the online catalog) has betrayed me again.
Me: “Where is it, HSSE?” (I was mentally wondering about parking availability near another library – HSSE is close though – and how well my leg would hold up if this meant extensive walking)
Librarian: “We have a repository for the repository for books which are checked out very infrequently. If you submit a request we’ll get it and send you an e-mail when it arrives.”

I found this funny. Ol’ Symmachus evidently doesn’t get much play. I’m not mad at all – I have four more volumes of Libanius to get through and am back on campus in about three weeks so I’ll request it a couple of days ahead of time. I’ve always believed that when it comes to the amount of his material translated into English, Symmachus is woefully underrepresented, at least when compared to how often he’s mentioned in modern books. The Salzman and Roberts volume is a step in redressing this, but this repository for the repository thing may help explain the reason for it.

Beyond that, I apologize for not posting much lately. I’m still working through my post-op backlog of work. I’ve also been working back through my old posts and fixing links in WordPress so they aim readers to WP, not Blogger. I’m back to August, 2010 and once I finish I’m going to close the Blogger site, except for a redirect post. And I’m about 1500 words into my Cameron review which I need to finish.

1 Libanius, Or. 62.24-5.

Barrow, Reginald Haynes, ed., Prefect and Emperor: The Relationes of Symmachus, A.D. 384. Oxford: Oxford University Press (1973). ISBN: 978-0198144434.

Cribiore, Raffaella, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press (2007). ISBN: 978-0-691-12824-5.

Norman, A.F., trans & ed., Antioch as a Centre of Hellenic Culture as Observed by Libanius. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (2000). ISBN: 9-780853-235958.

Salzman, Michele Renee and Roberts, Michael, The Letters of Symmachus: Book 1. Atlanta, Georgia: Society of Biblical Literature (2011). ISBN: 9-781589-835979.

 

The Alamanni: A Roman Myth

I recently finished reading John Drinkwater’s The Alamanni and Rome 213-496. Caracalla to Clovis. I started a review a few days ago and it’s been kicking my butt (I can’t seem to really do it justice in less than 3,000 or so words) so I’ve decided to throw in the towel and compose a brief post about the Alamanni, in particular how Rome viewed — and used — them. Re Drinkwater; This was a good book with a LOT of information. He’s a bit selective in the use of some of his sources and he has this annoying habit of bringing up an issue, devoting maybe one sentence to it without summarizing arguments and throwing you to a footnote, sometimes to something which is out of print. I grew to dread anything footnoted, “Drinkwater, 1983a.”1 There are also stretches where it seems to me that he’s making a logical argument rather than one based on evidence but, while it has a few warts, overall this is a good book. I was fortunate to find a used copy at Kalamazoo this year and I’ll be using it a lot in this post.

Now I don’t have space on this blog to post anything beyond a very brief summary of all this (and historians reading this blog can take a nap during this if you like – unless you find a mistake in which case I appreciate corrections) but the Alamanni may be the single best example of how Rome created barbarian tribes and exaggerated the threat they posed for their own ends. There isn’t a single reason for this; the reason likely varied from Emperor to Emperor. One reason pretty much has to be to emphasize their own military successes and their role as the protector of the Empire and the Roman people however there were undoubtedly others. To me, one of the main reasons this was effective was because the population had been given accounts of a barbarian threat for so long that they were ready to believe that there was some massive foreign force ready to invade and destroy Rome, restrained only by the bravery and actions of Roman soldiers and the Emperor.

Brennus, who led the Gauls during their 4th century, BC sack of Rome, continued to receive mention in literary sources through the fifth century. Caesar’s Gallic Wars, while a wonderful historical source, exaggerated the strength of the barbarians for Caesar’s own purposes. Even Tacitus, who seems to have really tried to get things right, portrays various barbarian groups as cohesive entities. Beyond this there were accounts of Marcus Aurelius’ Marcomannic Wars and an Iuthungi invasion into Italy somewhere around 271.2

This is the start of the myth. For the most part, the myth holds true for other barbarians along the Rhine, it’s just that for the Alamanni, the Roman creation is even more extreme. So who, or what, were the Alamanni? This is an interesting question. Drinkwater believes they were a bunch of folks who happened to live in the region between the Rhine and Danube which was lost to Rome in the 3rd century, part of the former Germania Superior. Their arrival was as what I’d characterize as “just folks.” Scattered small bands of people arrived from various places and settled in the region over a period of time. Drinkwater says, “Whatever the original meaning of the term ‘Alamanni’ and the manner in which it became attached to a certain set of people, the lesson of fourth century history and archaeology is that there was no invasion by a single, fully fledged people or consciously related association of tribes.”3

Drinkwater thinks they weren’t much of anything, as an entity, until at least the fourth century. To this point they consisted of tribal groups capable of developing a war-party of around 600, large enough to cause some serious damage if they crossed the Rhine and raided into the Empire but not sizable enough to represent any sort of invasion threat. In contrast, Thomas Burns believes they began to form a confederacy, coalescing around the Iuthungi, in the 270’s and 280’s. Figuring out the “truth” of this is one of those interesting pieces of history which historians argue over and which I enjoy reading about.4

The Alamanni, even more than the other barbarian “groups” appear to have been a diffuse group without really answering to a central authority. Nobody knows what or how the Alamanni thought of themselves. They didn’t write any books. When they were first mentioned in light of a Germanic campaign in 213, it appears likely that you could consider Dio’s Alamanni to actually be, People who happen to live in the region the Romans call Alamannia.5

Now every Human society has some sort of social structure, formal or not. I’m not saying that these folks didn’t but based on their extremely rural settlement patterns it seems likely that for much if not all of the third, and even into the fourth century, this structure would have been very local.

As time went on this slowly changed. These small clusters coalesced into larger groups and signs of local elites appears. Settlements became large enough that local industry and craftmanship, particularly with iron, appear. During the fourth century a new type of settlement appeared on hillsites. These are only occasionally walled but seem to indicate a vertical stratification of society and the appearance of local elites. These elites likely held positions of authority and it seems that by the mid-fourth century this had become at least somewhat hereditary. It’s hard to say where in the hierarchy residents of these sites ranked — this likely varied from site to site — however it’s hard to avoid believing that they would have asserted effective control over the immediate surroundings, at least to the extent that agricultural production would have been directed towards supplying their needs. Still, even here the geographic area likely controlled by these elite centers was relatively small and could not have represented large numbers of people. 6

From a Roman perspective, the Alamanni achieve stardom during the middle of the fourth century. In 354 Constantius II attacks the Alamanni in response to extensive raiding in Gaul, resulting in an eventual peace treaty and Constantius adopting a title recognizing this victory (which was achieved without casualties). Ammianus Marcellinus notes that seven Alamanni Kings, led by Chnodomarius, band together against Julian in 357 and are able to raise a force which Ammianus numbers at 35,000 at Strasbourg.7

By now you’re probably saying to yourself, “The Alamanni were a myth? What myth? They raised a pretty big army for that time, crossed the Rhine and attacked Rome. Doesn’t sound like a myth to me.”

While not always literally true, I’m quite fond of the old saying that myths are usually distortions based on fact. In this case, that seems true. Clearly the Alamanni had become more organized by the mid-fourth century. However the simple fact (I’m giving Ammianus the benefit here) that this consisted of the banding together of seven kings says to me that they weren’t very organized. There’s no reason to believe that Chnodomarius was any sort of “super king” embodied with the right to command all of these others. If that type of kingship was inherent with the Alamanni, I think we’d have heard much more of them both before and after the mid-fourth century. It’s also apparent that, in an extraordinary circumstance, these kings were able to work together, though how well is a matter for debate – they certainly lost, badly.

Whether they attacked Rome or acted primarily out of self-defense is at least somewhat debatable, and pretty dependent on POV. By this time the Alamanni had become a pretty useful client group. Alamannia seems to have become one of the first places Rome went to find some extra troops to serve locally in the army. During the usurpation of Magnentius the Alamanni may have been used by Constantius to weaken the usurper by encouraging them to raid into Gaul. Unfortunately, if this is what happened, they didn’t stop once Magnentius was defeated. Constantius had to move into Gaul to achieve his bloodless victory (see above). Things didn’t end there though as the Franks continued attacks to the north, including taking Cologne and Alamanni began settling on the western bank of the Rhine, providing Julian, once he was given command of the Western army, with a good excuse to attack.8

In any case, by 357 the Alamanni were able to band the forces of seven kings together at Strasbourg. Here they were a threat, at least in numbers. However in the ensuing battle they seem to have been less so. Ammianus provides a fairly detailed account of the battle where it appears that the Roman force was in some jeopardy, however his casualty figures of 6,000 Alamanni and 247 Romans tells a different story.9

Julian wasn’t finished with the barbarians. He proceeded to attack Alamanni settlements on both sides of the Rhine, completely driving them out of Roman territory, and took his army through Alamanni territory, destroying settlements and crops. Of course in 361 he was declared Emperor and left the area for the civil war that didn’t happen as Constantius died.

The Alamanni still show up after this but it appears that from this point forward they are largely mentioned either as raiding into Roman territory, or as clients and allies. Rome engaged in a strategy of gift-giving and payments and Alamanni periodically served in and with the Roman army. Based on the narratives, it appears that their high point came in the 350’s. This did not stop Roman Emperors from being willing to consider military success against raiders to be significant victories. Orators continued to trumpet Roman successes. The barbarians, including the Alamanni, continued to be considered a threat looming on the borders.

Based on the sources, unless you accept that the Suebi/Suevi mentioned as crossing the Rhine in 405/6 were another name for Alamanni, they never again really threaten Rome. Their final significant mention comes in 496 or 497 when Clovis defeats them at Zülpich.10 Drinkwater believes that from about 450, in the wake of the dissolution of the Hunnic Empire, the Alamanni began a process of becoming increasingly organized which, if the process had been allowed to run its course, may have led to their forming a kingdom such as the Visigoths, Burgundians, or Franks. However for them the process began too late and Zülpich ended any chance of this happening. By 506/7 Clovis and the Franks had taken over Alamannia and they became part of the Merovingian kingdom.

Ultimately, the Alamanni were never much of a threat to Rome. They caused some trouble through raiding and Constantius may have started a process where for a brief period they began settling on Roman lands, but they were never organized to the point where they could seriously think of invading. Their one major organization under Chnodomarius amounted to a bunch of kinglets gathering their forces in response to Roman attacks. Beyond this, most of their activity consisted of warbands crossing the Rhine to engage in pillaging raids, often in response to Rome reducing their subsidies. This obviously sucked if you happened to be a raided settlement and some Roman citizens were undoubtedly killed but they were never going to take over Roman territory by force.

But folks in Rome and Constantinople didn’t know this. They were hundreds of miles from the frontier. Messages from the border provinces likely focused on what was going wrong, not when everything was fine. Most of all, depictions of barbarians in literature, triumphs celebrated for victories over barbarians, barbarians being killed during state games, and oratory, all supported the concept of a barbarian menace, only kept from Rome’s door by the valor of its leaders.

Occasionally barbarians could be a real threat. The Goths in the wake of Adrianople show this, and if Chnodomarius had won at Strasbourg things would likely have gone badly for local residents of the area, until another Roman force could have cleaned things up. For the most part though, the image of barbarians threatening Rome, or even the border provinces of the Empire, is a Roman myth until the fifth century. This is true for various barbarian groups including the Franks and Burgundians. It is particularly true for the Alamanni, a group that never really achieved the sort of structure necessary to become a real threat to the Empire.

1 In case you’re curious, this refers to, Drinkwater, John F., Roman Gaul: The Three Provinces, 58 B.C.-A.D. 260. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press (1983). ISBN: 978-0-8014-1642-2. Based on Amazon and Cornell University Press (using the search term, “Drinkwater”), it appears to be out of print.

2 Drinkwater, 2003, pp 70-75, argues that this invasion may have occurred in 260 and the event of 271 was more along the lines of a raid or foraging incursion, motivated by Aurelian ending subsidies which had been established following the earlier invasion. In any case, this threat evidently impressed the Roman people enough to inspire the construction of the Aurelian Walls. For an example of the persistence of the memory of the fourth century BC Gallic invasion, see Themistius, Or.3.43c, delivered in 357 in honor of Constantius.

3 From Drinkwater, 2003, p 45.

4 See Burns, 2003, p. 278 and Drinkwater, 2007, p 80. For Drinkwater, it takes his entire Chapter 3, “Settlement,” pp 80-116, to really get a handle on his position. For one thing, he prefers the terms “Elbgermanic” and “proto Alamanni” which infer that who the Romans called Alamanni were mainly “just people.”

5 Drinkwater, 2003, p 44 has a short discussion of some modern historians believing Dio’s mention of Alamanni to be a later addition by translators and explains why he disagrees with this. Cassius Dio’s Roman History 78.13.4-6 discusses the 213 campaign which consists of Caracalla running around and deciding to build forts and cities here and there which does not give me the impression that the Alamanni were capable of any sort of organized resistance.

6 Two interesting perspectives are provided here. Drinkwater, 2003, pp 100-3 believes these were rarely walled and is careful to call them “hill-sites.” He also proposes that the Romans may have assisted with the construction of some of these sites as a means of getting locals to assist with Roman security just across the Rhine. Edward James, 2009, pp 142-3 calls these hill-forts and adds some interesting details including evidence of relatively sophisticated trading activity such as the presence of scales, weights and silver ingots.

7 I’m not going to list all of the Ammianus mentions of the Alamanni. Let’s just say that they are prominent, first appearing in Book 10 of his History with their final mention in Book 27. However XVI.12 describes the Battle of Strasbourg and the subsequent campaign is covered in XVII.1. Eutropius, writing(probably) in 369 in his Breviarium, X.14, doesn’t use exact numbers but says that, “Julian, with only a modest force, overwhelmed vast numbers of Alamanni at Strasbourg …” Drinkwater, 2003, pp 238-9 believes the Alamanni numbered in the neighborhood of 15,000.

8 Drinkwater footnotes multiple sources for this; Libanius, Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, Zosimus and Ammianus. I don’t have Libanius but I have the other four and I’ll quote from my translation of Socrates III.1.26, “For the barbarians whom the Emperor Constantius had engaged as auxiliary forces against the tyrant Magnentius, having proved of no use against the usurper, were beginning to pillage the Roman cities.”

9 Ammianus VI.12.63 for casualties. While the number of Alamanni dead can probably be summarized as Ammianus saying, “The Romans killed a whole bunch of them,” the number of Roman dead is likely to be fairly accurate.

10 Gregory of Tours, Historiae 2.30. I’ve mentioned before (see note 15) how it seems that Gregory can’t really be trusted when talking about things which happened either a long time before or geographically distant from when and where he was however this event was so seminal to the formation of the Merovingian kingdom that it seems likely that his account is substantially true. Of course Gregory is more concerned with Clovis’ conversion than the battle itself.

Bird, H. W., trans., Eutropius: Breviarium. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (1993). ISBN:978-0-8532-3208-7.

Burns, Thomas S., Rome and the Barbarians, 100 B.C.-A.D. 400. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN: 978-0-8018-7306-5.

Cary, Earnest, trans., Dio’s Roman History. Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library (1961).

Drinkwater, John F., The Alamanni and Rome 213-496. Caracalla to Clovis. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2007). ISBN: 978-0-19-929586-5.

Heather, Peter and Moncur, David, ed. & trans., Politics, Philosophy and Empire in the Fourth Century: Select Orations of Themistius. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press (2001). ISBN: 978-0-8532-3106-6.

James, Edward, Europe’s Barbarians, AD 200-600. Harlow: Pearson Education (2009). ISBN: 978-0-582-77296-0.

Rolfe, John C., trans., Ammianus Marcellinus: History (3 vols). Cambridge: Loeb Classical Library (2000).

Socrates Scholasticus, The Eccelesiastical History. Nu Vision Publications (2007). ISBN: 978-1-5954-7906-8. NOTE: This is one of these cheap OOP reprint editions which I bought a few years ago when I was poorer and not concerned with making blog posts. It doesn’t even say who the original translation was by, which is weak. I have several of these and someday I should start updating them, at least if I’m going to keep citing them.

Thorpe, Lewis, trans., Gregory of Tours: The History of the Franks. London: Penguin Books (1974). ISBN: 9-780140-442953.

 

Rutilius Claudius Namatianus and His Trip from Rome to Gaul

In 417 a wealthy Gallo-Roman by the name of Rutilius Claudius Namatianus traveled from Rome to his estates in Gaul. Then he wrote a poem about his trip, De Reditu Suo. And we have some of it, a big chunk of one book and a bit of a second. Cool, right?

Unfortunately, the poem doesn’t reveal quite as much about the fifth century as either Hydatius’ Chronicle or Salvian’s book on what God was really up to then, but it has some interesting information. In particular, following the sack of Rome and Visigothic occupation of much of Gaul, it provides another window into what contemporary inhabitants of the Roman Empire thought of things. In contrast to the above authors, Namatianus does not seem to believe the world is falling apart. Quite the opposite; based on this poem he believes things have turned a corner and are looking up. Besides showing the attitude of an elite Roman during this specific time it also is a nice illustration of how quickly things were changing in the second decade of the fifth century.

The edition I read is a reprint of something that was originally published in 1907. In many ways it’s equally interesting to read what folks thought about all this a hundred years ago though I’ll save a discussion of that for the end of this post.1

As usual, a brief bio seems to be in order, and this will indeed be brief. We don’t know when or where Namatianus was born and we have no idea when or where he died. We know little of him at all actually though we do find out that his father was pretty high on the Roman food chain and Namatianus tells us that the same held true for himself. 2

From the content of the poem we learn that Namatianus has estates in Gaul and is evidently a member of the wealthy landowning class. The point of this trip is that he is going to tend after his estates in Gaul which are in need of care.

The poet provides a great deal of detail about the trip, including how far his party traveled and what they saw each day. For the portion covered by the poem (not all of it survives) this is a sea voyage from Rome to Pisa with the poem ending after they left the Pisan harbor. This was not a single long sea voyage but a series of short legs as they traveled along the Italian coast and spent each night on shore. The editor of this edition believes the dates of the surviving portion of the poem are from September 22 to November 21. 3

Many people appreciate the poem for its descriptive elements and how Namatianus portrays the various cities and landmarks he passed along the way. For myself, I’m more interested in what it says about the state of the Empire in the year 417, when this trip took place.

At that time the Visigoths, who had been living in Gaul, had recently moved to Spain where they stayed for a brief period before they received lands in Gaul through a treaty signed in 418. The Visigothic journey through the Empire to that point was a fairly convoluted one. Alaric had sacked Rome in 410, then moved to the south of Italy where he died. His brother, Athaulf, took over the leadership and moved them back north into Gaul where they remained until being driven into Spain by Constantius in 415.

Namatianus makes several references in the poem to the Goths and the damage they have caused, both to Rome and Gaul. He speaks of how his Gallic fields have been marred by war and demand his attention so he can build anew. 4

Namatianus clearly believes that Rome will recover. Early in the poem he spends substantial time praising the city, professing his love for Rome and describing how, while she has been harmed, she has recovered from greater depths than this. The Goths are a temporary setback. Rome is eternal. The Gods (there is little doubt he is a pagan) have and will continue to protect her. Her greatness has perhaps been marred a bit but this is a small setback. Rome is recovering, as are his estates. In contrast to Hydatius, Salvian and Sidonius Apollinaris, Namiatus believes that, for this snapshot in time, 417, Rome is strong and in no danger. 5

There are two other items that caught my attention. First, Namatianus hates Jews. He absolutely reviles them. They are a “filthy race” and one is “An animal that spurns at human food.” An interesting question is whether he distinguishes between Jews and Christians. I suspect he is well-informed enough to do so. This does not, of course, mean that he believes the differences between the two are substantial. He may even be using his vilification of Jews as a way to express similar feelings toward Christians. He takes the opportunity to criticize the monks of Capraria as mad and says that they are punishing themselves deservedly for evil. It’s impossible to say if his feelings towards the monks are extended to all Christians but it is certainly possible. 6

He is even more vitriolic against Stilicho. Stilicho burned the Sybilline Books. He opened the protective barrier of the Alps and allowed Rome to be pillaged. The barbarians were invited into Rome, to commit murder. Nero was horrible for killing his mother but Stilicho was responsible for the death of the mother of the world. Namatianus reviles Stilicho more than anyone or anything else in this poem. 7

There’s one other passage that interested me. In this poem Namatianus discusses various friends of his who he meets along the way. One of these is Victorinus. Victorinus was apparently the deputy for the Prefect whose authority included Britain. While this is well after Rome had abandoned Britain, evidently a Roman official continued to be assigned responsibility for it. Did this mean Rome believed it would take Britain back or was this symbolic only? I can’t say, though based on the rest of the poem it seems likely that Namatianus believed Rome could regain everything it had lost (or at least he wrote a poem which made it seem like he believed it). 8

As I noted above, I went ahead and read through the introductory section. It’s interesting to see how thinking has changed on some items over the past century. For example, Keene does not believe Namatianus would have been capable of showing warmth to a Christian however there are plenty of examples of Christians and Pagans being good friends. There were zealots such as Ambrose and the mob at Alexandria that killed Hypatia however there were also Christians who believed themselves to be advanced philosophers and didn’t behave that way. Keene also depicts the trip as extremely dangerous and the poem does not give this sense at all and at that moment in time there is little reason for it to have been. 9

I don’t believe this poem tells us nearly as much as Hydatius, Salvian or Sidonius, but it does provide some information. In contrast to the writings of the three former authors, for Namatianus Rome is still strong, her future bright. At this specific snapshot in time the threat of the Goths has been lifted, the great landowners are still prosperous and with a little work, life will continue as it always has. One wonders what a poem of his would have looked like ten years later.

1 I debated ignoring the introductory section and decided to read through it, thankfully. I also want to note that while it includes both the English and Latin, the English and Latin do not match up on the facing pages but generally you had to flip a page or two further on to find the matching Latin. This raises an interesting dilemma for notation and I’ve decided that when I reference something the line number will represent where I found the Latin and the page number will reference the English which is what I’ll quote when a quote seems called for. I hope this is clear. Seems a strange way to publish a book but there it is. While my Latin is far from strong the poem contains many proper names and references to geographic locations so I was able to keep track reasonably well, I hope. I suppose this is as good of a place as any to mention that I found this a tough read. Namatianus’ style is florid at best. He’s often called, “The Last of the Roman Poets.” Personally, I think whoever is given that title should have written a better poem.

2 For Namatianus’ father see I.579-585, p 157 where he is Prefect of Tuscany, Quaestor, Prefect of Rome and the Imperial Treasurer. For Namatianus see I.561-4, p 155 where he says, “I of old by office held control over the palace and the soldiery guarding the pious Emperor.” which would make him Magister Officiorum and I.466, p 148 where we learn that he was Praefecti Urbi or Prefect of Rome, like his father.

3 There are several interludes where, for weather or other reasons, the travelers remained in one place for several days. For a discussion of the astronomical signs mentioned in the poem indicating the dates of the trip, see the Introduction, pp 8-9. Also, at the time of this edition the journey was believed to have taken place in 416 while a fragment of the poem discovered later indicates that it took place in 417.

4 For his ravaged lands, see I.19-34, p 111. For references to the Goths see I.39-40, p 113 and a lengthy passage referencing the fall of the Goths and recovery of the earth at I.141-154, p 121. Namatianus refers to them as Getae which can be used to refer to a number of barbarian groups however he’s specific enough with his references that it seems fairly clear that he’s discussing Alaric’s and Athaulf’s Goths.

5 This theme repeats itself several times but nowhere stronger than in this opening section, I.47-204, pp 113-121.

6 For Jews see, I.380-398, p 141. For the monks see, I.440-452, pp 145-7.

7 II.41-60, pp 165-7.

8 I.493-501, pp 149-51.

9 Introduction, p 24 for Keene’s discussion of Namatianus’ likely feelings toward Christians and p 13 for his describing the trip as difficult and perilous.

Rutilii Claudii Namatiani, De Reditu Suo Libri Duo: The Home-Coming of Rutilius Claudius Namatianus from Rome to Gaul in the Year 416 A.D., Charles Haines Keene, ed., George F. Savage Armstrong, trans. London: George Bell & Sons (1907), Nabu Reprint (2010). ISBN: 978-1-1763-8714-0.

 

Readings on the Roman Empire I: Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire

I’m just back from a week in KC and completely exhausted (when I restore myself I’ll respond to some of the comments that have been posted over the past few days). It’s not because I over-partied or anything (did party a little but not much) but because of ice. Yup – ice in August. My hotel room was situated near the elevators, which was great, I thought. Between myself and the elevators were only a utility room for housekeeping and the vending alcove. And then there was the bane of my existence, the ice machine.

I’m a light sleeper. I’ve mentioned before how, when I drive, I bring a small fan with me for white noise (I flew this time). When someone filled their ice bucket, the resulting sound reaching my room (at least when my head was on the pillow) resembled the primordial roar of a beast intent on destroying whatever had dared to approach its lair. There had to be an echo factor. And when it recharged, it produced more of a warning growl as if it was within its burrow. Tuesday and Thursday nights must have been the party evenings (Thurs. was the last night). I think I woke up six times Tues. and four or five times on Thurs. Fortunately, I managed to restrain myself before I ran into the hallway to confront whoever was agitating the ice machine beast (the thought entered my mind more than once as I woke in a soporific haze). At least, based on the evals & questions, my presentation was well-received and my booth received a lot of traffic. But next time I’m housed next to an angry vending machine, I’m asking to change rooms.

As is my usual custom, I took something to read which I wouldn’t feel compelled to take copious notes on. This was William A. Johnson’s Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2010). ISBN: 978-0-19-517640-7.

This is a good book. What Johnson set out to do was explore and discuss elite literary culture during the Roman Empire from the late 1st century BC into the early 3rd century AD. He used detailed examinations of sources in a case-study format to illustrate the characteristics of literary elites and their peers which formed a restricted, (relatively) closed social circle in the Empire.

Issues discussed include; what were the characteristics of this culture; who were considered members; how might one gain admittance; what type of hierarchy existed within this circle; what were acceptable and unacceptable behaviors of members and; how did members of this circle view themselves and the circle?

I found this to be an interesting and informative book. I knew this literary group existed and that membership in it was fairly restricted, however I was less familiar with specifics such as how a student who was not considered “experienced” might be viewed if he chose to comment on a reading (rather than raising a question), or how a literary elite might respond to a perceived threat or challenge to the group.

I have always known that I must become fairly familiar with and knowledgeable about the Roman Empire to learn about the 4th century and beyond, including the transition to the Medieval Period in Western Europe. This book is very beneficial to me for this purpose. As I finished it, I find myself with a few issues I would like to explore. The continuation of classical literary culture beyond the ending of the Empire is one of the characteristics of Late Antiquity. Ralph Mathisen has argued that the end of this culture can be viewed as an endpoint for Antiquity. I’m familiar with most of the Late Antique “players” and have many of their writings, in translation. I’d like to look into how they continued to view themselves. My sense is that, as their numbers dwindled, they became more open to new admissions to their group, but were unable to find individuals capable of joining.

Another interesting comparison is the contrast between this and Carolingian Literary Culture. I don’t think there’s much of an argument that this existed in the late 8th and 9th centuries. How does this compare with the Roman culture? Was it as restrictive? Were the hierarchies and patterns of acceptable behavior as strict? Most importantly, I think, is; How did members of the Carolingian literary culture view themselves and it? I don’t believe there’s much (any?) evidence for direct continuity between them and the Romans. Did the Carolingians believe there was? Did they view themselves as recreating the Roman culture or did they recognize that this was something new? Did they recognize it as something at all or was this simply an aspect of their environment? Right now I have 22 books on the Carolingians on my “to-read” shelf. I have a sheet of paper with issues I want to be sure to explore tucked in there. The above questions have been added to it.

I don’t have the knowledge to provide a detailed review of this book however I found it useful and an enjoyable read. It’s fairly pricey but if you can find a copy in a library, it’s definitely worth a look.