Month: May 2019

The Fifth Century: Age of Transformation

Edited by Jan Willem Drijvers and Noel Lenski, The Fifth Century: Age of Transformation. Proceedings of the 12th  Biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference, has come out (catalogue Bari: Edipuglia).

The fifth century CE represents a turning point in ancient history. Before 400 the Roman Empire stood largely intact and coherent, a massive and powerful testament to traditions of state power stretching back for the previous 600 years. By 500 the empire had fragmented as state power retreated rapidly and the political and social forces that would usher in the Middle Ages be-came cemented into place. This volume explores this crucial period in the six broad areas of natural science, archaeology and material culture, barbarian and Roman relations, law and power, religious authority, and literary constructions. Assembling the papers of the twelfth biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference, The Fifth Century: Age of Transformation offers a comprehensive overview of recent research on this pivotal century in all of its ramifications.

Featuring, among other pieces: Veronika Egetenmeyer, ‘”Barbarians” Transformed: The Construction of Identity in the Epistles of Sidonius Apollinaris’ (mentioned on Academia), and Ralph Mathisen, The End of the Western Roman Empire in the Fifth Century CE: Barbarian  Auxiliaries, Independent Military Contractors, and Civil Wars’ (download from Academia).

Habilitation Margot Neger

Margot Neger has made her Habilitationskolloquium at the University of Salzburg on 3 May 2019. Its title was: ‘Spätantike Nachrufe auf Literaten: Die Gedichte des Sidonius Apollinaris auf Claudianus Mamertus und den Rhetor Lampridius (Epist. 4,11,6 und 8,11,3)’. Her Habilitationsschrift is ‘Epistolare Narrationen. Studien zur Erzähltechnik des jüngeren Plinius’.

In Defence of Arvandus

Buongiorno, Pierangelo, ‘Ex vetere senatusconsulto Tiberiano. Nota in margine a Sid. ep. 1.7.12′, in Emmanuelle Chevreau et al. (eds), Liber amicorum. Mélanges en l’honneur de Jean-Pierre Coriat, Paris, 2019, 65-72.
| Academia

By ascribing to Tiberius a law that was only promulgated much later by Theodosius, conceding a longer lease of life to people on death row, Sidonius plausibly wanted to lend greater authority to this law in favour of Arvandus.