Category: Article

Impact of Climate Change

An article on ‘The impact of climate change on the agriculture and the economy of Southern Gaul: New perspectives of agent-based modelling’ by Nicolas Bernigaud et al. was published online in PLoS One 2024, 19(3), e0298895. It tentatively confirms, among other things, the decline in agricultural profitability in Late Antiquity due to deteriorating climatic conditions.

Abstract

What impact did the Roman Climate Optimum (RCO) and the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) have on the rise and fall of the Roman Empire? Our article presents an agent-based modelling (ABM) approach developed to evaluate the impact of climate change on the profitability of vineyards, olive groves, and grain farms in Southern Gaul, which were the main source of wealth in the roman period. This ABM simulates an agroecosystem model which processes potential agricultural yield values from paleoclimatic data. The model calculates the revenues made by agricultural exploitations from the sale of crops whose annual volumes vary according to climate and market prices. The potential profits made by the different agricultural exploitations are calculated by deducting from the income the operating and transportation costs. We conclude that the warm and wet climate of the Roman period may have had an extremely beneficial effect on the profitability of wine and olive farms between the 2nd century BCE and the 3rd century CE, but a more modest effect on grain production. Subsequently, there is a significant decrease in the potential profitability of farms during the Late Antique Little Ice Age (4th-7th century CE). Comparing the results of our model with archaeological data enables us to discuss the impact of these climatic fluctuations on the agricultural and economic growth, and then their subsequent recession in Southern Gaul from the beginning to the end of antiquity.

Starostin on Late Antique Chronology

Dmitry Starostin writes on ‘Astronomical Cycles and Late Antique Chronology’ in arXiv:2403.03682 [physics.hist-ph], 6 March 2024, 24 pp.

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Heightened eschatological sensitivity is in evidence among the historians writing in the 5th century caused by the irregularities of the lunisolar calendar and its particular realization, the Easter calendar. Crucial years include 410, 467 and 476. Sidonius on p. 13.

Cadili on the Consular Robe

Luca Cadili, ‘In tunica Iouis: Sidoine Apollinaire et les antiquités romaines’, RET 12 (2022-2023) 39-50.

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Abstract: In the panegyrics in honor of Avitus, Majorian, and Anthemius (carm. 7, 5, and 2), Sidonius Apollinaris gives detailed accounts of the consular robe the three emperors donned on different official occasions, proving a strong acquaintance with the ceremonies and the rituals of power involved in the imperial court protocol of his time. Such a familiarity has enabled him to retrace even the remotest history of this topic, as can be inferred from his reworking of a passage from Juvenal, which provides us with a most vivid and thorough description of the Roman triumphator’s garments and the celebration of his victory, as occurring in the Republican and early Imperial Age. By doing so, in a very original way, Sidonius shows that the military cloak the late antique consuls used to wear to make known their social status, the trabea or palmata, had indeed a very revered ancestor, having stemmed from the tunica palmata, the palm decked-robe in which, since the oldest times, victorious generals were shrouded on the very day their triumph was solemnized by their fellow citizens.

Clay on Wilderness and Civilization

John-Henry Clay, ‘Claiming the Wilderness in Late Roman Gaul’, JECS 30 (2022) 403-32.

Abstract. To the educated classical mind, the cosmos was built on a dichotomy between order and chaos that permeated the physical and natural world. Wilderness was a manifestation of chaos, while human civilization reflected the principles of order. Due to a tradition of classical education, this dichotomy helped structure the response of educated Gallo-Romans to the Christian desert tradition as its ideals spread to the west. Despite the appeal of monastic asceticism, its association with the desert provoked suspicion among those trained to regard wilderness as the antithesis of civilization and culture. It is, however, possible to detect an evolution in attitudes over the last century of Roman rule in Gaul, as successive generations responded to social and political transformations and developed new ways of relating to the natural world. Includes discussion of Paulinus of Nola, Sulpicius Severus, Rutilius Namatianus, John Cassian, Eucherius, Sidonius Apollinaris, and other authors.