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23990 results in Ancient history

Page 885 of 1200

  • 1 - The Severan dynasty

  • from PART I - NARRATIVE
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 1-27

  • Summary

    Septimius Severus was born in Lepcis Magna in Africa in 145. The character of Severus' regime was inevitably influenced by the bloodshed, confiscations and terror associated with civil war, and by his dependence on the army. In the Severan era, of the equestrian procurators known to have military experience, about 57 per cent still had held one or more posts in the traditional equestrian militia. The proportion of ex-centurions and tribunes of the guard promoted to procuratorial posts remained roughly similar to that in the second century. The Severan army fought two civil wars, two difficult campaigns in the east, and a costly war in Britain while remaining a powerful effective force, loyal to the dynasty at the accession of Caracalla and Geta, and even after the murder of Geta. Severus himself became a worthy commander-in-chief. He recruited three new legions in Italy, perhaps for the war against Albinus.

  • 8 - Provinces and frontiers

  • from PART III - THE PROVINCES
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 212-268

  • Summary

    Under the Severan emperors there was a significant advance of the limits of territory under direct Roman occupation, in Mesopotamia to the river Tigris and in Africa to the northern fringes of the Sahara desert. Only in the later years of Severus Alexander, last of the Severan dynasty, were there indications of new threats to stability along the northern and eastern frontiers. The half-century between the death of Severus Alexander and the accession of Diocletian appears to have been dominated by inroads of peoples from the north and Persian aggression from the east. The years of stable relations with Germans and Sarmatians across the middle Danube came to an end around the middle of the third century. The general character of Roman frontier deployment in the European provinces has long been known but only recently have there emerged detailed accounts of the eastern frontier between the Black Sea and the Red Sea.

  • 7b - Epiclassical law

  • from PART II - GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 200-211

  • Summary

    The classical period of Roman law is conventionally taken to end in 235 with the death of Alexander Severus. The third-century rescripts which survive cluster into groups. The vast bulk of surviving rescripts is from the reign of Diocletian. The reign of Diocletian saw the compilation of two codifications of imperial rescripts, the Codices Gregorianus and Hermogenianus. The first evidently collected rescripts from the reign of Hadrian up to 291, while the second covered 293-4. The Codex Gregorianus was evidently divided into fifteen or sixteen books up to forty in a book. The five books of sententiae attributed to Paul were the most successful and widespread of epiclassical juristic works. They were used already by the compiler of the Fragmenta Vaticana in about 320 and they were given a boost by being officially approved by Constantine. Some odd surviving works may be best attributed to activity in the schools in the epiclassical period.

  • 2 - Maximinus to Diocletian and the ‘crisis’

  • from PART I - NARRATIVE
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 28-66

  • Summary

    The fifty years following the death of Severus Alexander were among the most disruptive ever experienced by the Roman Empire. Historians conventionally refer to them as a period of 'crisis', which began in 235, reached its peak around 260, and then gradually yielded to the ministrations of a series of reforming emperors, ending with Diocletian. The outstanding characteristic of this crisis was war, both civil and foreign. C. Iulius Verus Maximinus was a man of late middle age. Though of relatively humble stock, he had exploited the opportunities for promotion in the reformed army of Septimius Severus, winning high rank and equestrian status. Between 235 and 285 the Roman Empire experienced great dislocation and distress. The principal causes of these disturbances have now been generally agreed by historians and may indeed be inferred from what Diocletian eventually did to bring them to an end.

  • 5 - The army

  • from PART II - GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 110-130

  • Summary

    The disposition of the Roman army in 235 shows in general terms the main strategical pre-occupations of the empire. Twelve legions and over 100 auxiliary units were concentrated along the Danube from Raetia to Moesia Inferior, while a further eleven legions and over eighty auxiliary units guarded Rome's eastern territories from Cappadocia to Egypt. Aurelian strengthened the army by recruiting two thousand horsemen from Rome's erstwhile enemies the Vandals, and also received offers of troops from the Iuthungi and the Alamanni. This was very much in the Roman tradition of recruiting good fighting peoples from the periphery of the empire and channelling them into the Roman system. Diocletian inherited a long-established military structure, in which many key provinces contained two legions and auxilia. Constantine significantly altered the balance of Rome's military forces established by Diocletian. In the context of the early fourth century, Constantine's arrangements probably provided the best chance of preserving the territory and prestige of the Roman Empire.

  • 6c - The government and administration of the empire in the central decades of the third century

  • from 6 - The emperor and his administration
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 156-169

  • Summary

    The unified political control of the Roman Empire was the issue principally at stake, and the very foundations of the legitimation of imperial power seemed to change both markedly and rapidly. In this respect the accession of Maximinus and his refusal to come to Rome to endorse his designation at the centre of the empire are revealing, for they already show signs of a breakdown in that delicate equilibrium between the senate and the army which had hitherto guaranteed the process of imperial legitimation. On a number of occasions during the two centuries before the Severans, the central authority had intervened in the internal affairs of the Italian urban communities. The administrative areas in which the central government interfered were few and far between, and were those that somehow lay outside the territorial boundaries within which the magistrates of individual towns were allowed to act.

  • 14 - The Sassanians

  • from PART V - THE NON-ROMAN WORLD
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 461-480

  • Summary

    The rise of the Sassanians is better documented than subsequent history, but even so there are conflicting versions of the origin of Ardashir. The first capital of Ardashir in Fars most likely was at Firuzabad, then known as Gor, although later in the reign of Ardashir it received the name Ardashir-khwarreh 'the glory of A', probably in honour of his victories over the Parthians. The Sassanians respected and feared the mighty Roman Empire and continued to designate the later Byzantine state by the same name, although they knew that different peoples lived in the enemy state and served in its armies. The Romans too learned to respect the Sassanians more than they had the weaker Parthians. Perhaps the most significant changes in outlook, culture and society in the third and fourth centuries, both in the Roman and the Sassanian worlds, were the changes in religion which marked the end of the old 'pagan' religions and the flowering of 'universal' religions.

  • 4 - The Reign of Constantine, a.d. 306–337

  • from PART I - NARRATIVE
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 90-109

  • Summary

    Constantine emerged as victor first over Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge in the late autumn of 312, and then over his erstwhile ally Licinius at Cibalae in 316 and Chrysopolis in 324; however, most of the surviving literature favours and justifies his success. Constantine was to reign as sole emperor from 324 until his death in May 337. The episodes of Constantine's campaign are famously depicted on the arch of Constantine: these include his progress through northern Italy and the siege of Verona, as well as vivid scenes of the defeat of Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge and his army's dramatic engulfment in the Tiber. Constantine's first move during the winter of 312-13 was to strike an alliance with Licinius, cemented by a marriage at Milan between Licinius and Constantine's sister Constantia. Constantine himself was a product of the tetrarchic system and in many respects he behaved no differently from his colleagues and rivals.

  • 18a - Christianity, a.d. 70–192

  • from PART VI - RELIGION, CULTURE AND SOCIETY
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 573-588

  • Summary

    It may have been in Syria that Lucian first encountered Christianity; for not only was he a native of that province, but he says that it was in Syria that the Cynic Peregrinus formed a temporary alliance with the church. Appealing to Greek philosophy in support of Christian teachings, Theophilus produced a learned demonstration that the Pentateuch is superior in antiquity to the literature of Greece. Among the numerous apostolic churches of the Troad Ephesus had the strongest claim on Paul and also purported to house the tombs of John the Apostle and the Virgin Mary. The consumption of pagan offerings is now treated as a heresy, since the idols had been fed with the blood of Christians. Remains of Christianity in Phrygia are prolific, the most famous being the epitaph of Abercius Marcellus. The writings of Paul and Clement show that Greek was the earliest language of the Christians in the capital.

  • 3 - Diocletian and the first tetrarchy, a.d. 284–305

  • from PART I - NARRATIVE
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 67-89

  • Summary

    The two decades of Diocletian's reign saw the re-establishment of political, military and economic stability after half a century of chaos, at the price of a more absolutist monarchy, a greatly expanded army and bureaucracy and a more oppressive tax regime. Probably in 286 or 287, a new feature of the imperial collegiality emerged. Diocletian and Maximian began respectively to use the adjectival epithets Iovius and Herculius, bringing themselves into some sort of relationship with the cognate deities, Jupiter and Hercules. The years 287-90 had also seen important developments in the eastern half of the empire, to which Diocletian had repaired after the appointment of Maximian and perhaps a campaign against the Sarmatians in the autumn, reaching Nicomedia in Bithynia by 20 January 286. Iovius for Diocletian and Galerius, Herculius for Maximian and Constantius, epithets survived in the naming of new provincial divisions in Egypt some years after the end of the first tetrarchy.

  • I - Changes in Roman provincial organization, a.d. 193-337

  • from PART VI - RELIGION, CULTURE AND SOCIETY
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 704-713

  • Summary

    By the start of the period the administration of imperial territories had altered little from the overall pattern established under the Julio-Claudians. Italy retained its traditional autonomy outside the territorial administration, with the role of a few special agencies still defined by the twelve regions into which the peninsula had been divided by Augustus. Elsewhere the provincial system continued with only minor changes until the wholesale reorganization under Diocletian. A total of forty-four defined provincial territories were each administered by a single individual for terms of between one and three years. Governing a province involved uninterrupted residence within the bounds of the territory with responsibility for the conduct of civil and, where these existed, military affairs. Ten of these positions bore the traditional title of proconsul, nominated by the senate at Rome. Two (Asia and Africa) were chosen from among ex-consuls, and eight (Narbonensis, Baetica, Macedonia, Achaea, Creta et Cyrene, Lycia et Pamphylia, Cyprus and Sicilia) from among ex-praetors. Twenty-four senators at any one time served the emperor as provincial governor or legate (legatus Augusti pro praetore provinciae ...), of which eleven (Britannia, Germania Inferior, Germania Superior, Hispania (Citerior) Tarraconensis, Pannonia Superior, Dalmatia, Moesia Superior, Moesia Inferior, Tres Daciae, Cappadocia and Syria) were selected from among ex-consuls and thirteen (Belgica, Lugdunensis, Aquitania, Lusitania, Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia Inferior, Thracia, Bithynia et Pontus, Galatia, Cilicia, Arabia and Palaestina) from among ex-praetors.

  • 6d - The new state of Diocletian and Constantine: from the tetrarchy to the reunification of the empire

  • from 6 - The emperor and his administration
  • Edited by Alan Bowman, Brasenose College, Oxford, Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford, Peter Garnsey, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    08 September 2005, pp 170-183

  • Summary

    In 293, two soldiers, Constantius Chlorus and Maximianus Galerius, were raised to the purple as Caesars. The diarchy was transformed into a tetrarchy. With the partition into four areas, the western parts to Maximian and Constantius Chlorus, the eastern to Diocletian himself and Galerius, the centres of decision were brought closer to the more critical frontier zones. It was an attempt to resolve a structural problem in a large territorial Byzantine empire. To strengthen the new regime a new legitimation of imperial power was devised: one that exploited a particular religious climate, while at the same time aiming to trace its roots in the Roman tradition. The administrative reforms, which were connected with the reorganizations of the army, of taxation and even of the coinage, were an effective response to danger from without and to the threat of disintegration. The main feature of Aurelian's reform was the division of the existing provinces into smaller territorial entities.

Page 885 of 1200