Hartmut G Ziche | Université de Guyane (original) (raw)

Books by Hartmut G Ziche

Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies is a collection of essays which focuses on the art of que... more Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies is a collection of essays which focuses on the art of questioning; it is about ideas and analytical experiment. Ancient economic history has developed enormously since the publication of M.I. Finley’s The Ancient Economy in 1973. Much new material has been brought to bear on the debate on the character of economic life in the Greek and Roman world. But, at the same time, discussions have been going round in circles. This is because not enough attention has been given to the questions ancient historians ask and the concepts with which they approach the economy. In this collection, an attempt is made to renew the terms of the debate by presenting a wide variety of new analytical approaches to ancient economic history ranging from literary theory, cross-cultural comparison, statistical analysis of archaeological data to neo-institutional economics and model-building.

Contributors: Jean Andreau, Peter Fibiger Bang, Viviane Françoise Baesens, Kevin Greene, Mamoru Ikeguchi, Willem M. Jongman, Elio Lo Cascio, Jørgen Christian Meyer, Neville Morley, Sitta von Reden, Hartmut G. Ziche.

Papers by Hartmut G Ziche

Mass and Elite in the Greek and Roman Worlds. From Sparta to Late Antiquity, 2017

It should be fairly uncontroversial to state that the late Roman socio-economic elite, composed o... more It should be fairly uncontroversial to state that the late Roman socio-economic elite, composed of curials, senators, clerics, bureaucrats and military officers – social groups between which numerous crossovers exist –, is more heterogeneous than its early imperial, just landowning counterpart. It is still fairly safe to assume that given the heterogeneity of the new elite, with economic, legal and functional privileges combining to define elite status, the class may show more internal fluidity than the class of provincial and central landowners of the high Empire. However, in order to modelise the impact of the late imperial elites on state, institutions, economic development and society, we really need some understanding not only of the internal dynamics of the elites, but also concerning the permeability of the elites to inferior social strata.
Much of the debate on social mobility in the Roman empire – as Alexander Skinner has pointed out recently –1 really is not about social mobility in a modern sense, but rather focuses on “mobility” inside a very narrow segment of imperial society. What we really would like to know when we speculate about the impact of the late Roman elites, is whether poor men without privileges of legal status can become rich – sufficiently frequently for such a phenomenon of true social mobility to be systemically relevant –, and whether this perhaps is more frequent than rich men with legal and social privileges disappearing from sight.
Yet here is the problem: only members of the elite are visible to us through written or epigraphical traces, and the evidence of true social mobility from self-confessed self-made men is so sporadic as to be anecdotal. Looking for a statistically relevant number of “moissonneurs de Mactar” seems a lost cause.
This paper therefore will try to formulate a theoretically plausible model for how, given the general socio-economic framework of the late Empire, members of the largely invisible mass might manage to join the social and economic elites. We will distinguish between different types of economic settings – rural/urban and agrarian/commercial – and also attempt to estimate how frequently plausible models of social mobility are likely to operate successfully.

Ancient economies, modern methodologies: …, Jan 1, 2006

This paper discusses the economic role(s) of bishops under the later Roman Empire. Its aim, on th... more This paper discusses the economic role(s) of bishops under the later Roman Empire. Its aim, on the one hand, is to examine whether the dual function of bishops, at the same time clerics and managers of Church property, has an impact on their economic behaviour and leads to the emergence of an ecclesiastical economy which can be distinguished from the rest of the late Roman economy. On the other hand the paper also explores the impact economic activity and the integration into a wider imperial economy have on the clerics themselves, i.e. whether in the face of the Church becoming increasingly mainstream in the 4th century, its clerics can potentially developand maintain -a different and original socio-economic stance.

Le problème de l'analyse historique, opposée à la simple description historique, se pose pour tou... more Le problème de l'analyse historique, opposée à la simple description historique, se pose pour tous les domaines de l'histoire. Traditionnellement la solution de ce problème a été un procédé inductif, la reconstruction d'une réalité historique à partir de données objectives et l'élaboration de conclusions analytiques sur cette base. Cette forme d'histoire pose des problèmes généraux parce que le passage de la description à la compréhension analytique n'est nullement automatique. Le problème se pose d'une façon encore plus aiguë en histoire ancienne où les limites de l'evidence rendent la partie descriptive de l'induction assez aléatoire. Une solution à ce problème est un procédé déductif où la réalité historique est reconstruite à partir d'un schéma théorique générale: un modèle. Cet article traite quelques problèmes de cette modélisation, modèle universel et modèle spécifique, modèle quantifié et non-quantifié, ainsi que leur application à l'histoire ancienne, surtout économique. Sur l'exemple du développement économique de l'Empire romain tardif il discute les problèmes de sélection de facteurs pertinents pour la construction d'un modèle ainsi que le processus d'établissement d'interrelations logiques entre les facteurs retenus: l'objectif étant non seulement le contournement du problème de l'evidence, mais surtout la présentation du modèle en histoire ancienne comme un outil analytique supérieur à l'induction.

Talks by Hartmut G Ziche

The acceptance of new concepts of government and of new ideologies in the Roman Empire depends to... more The acceptance of new concepts of government and of new ideologies in the Roman Empire depends to a significant extent on their presentation and perception as neither new nor revolutionary, but as proven and traditional. The acceptance of Christianity as the cult guaranteeing divine protection for the empire and of the Christian Church as a close associate of imperial power is no exception. In this sense the question of the first Christian emperor was not one of antiquarian curiosity, but an issue of crucial political importance in the long period of Christianity and traditional cults coexisting. The ultimate success of the Christian Church depended – not solely, but also not negligibly – on the imposition of the idea that the Christian god and his bishops had been the choice of Constantine, the new Augustus, the founder of a successful dynasty and a renewed empire. This paper will look at how memories of Constantine were constructed to validate a christianising empire with an irrevocably Christian future or to dismiss a Christian interlude as a temporary aberration to be corrected to return the empire to its former glory. We are going to examine on the one hand the construction of a Christian emperor by Eusebius, an emperor not merely tolerant of the Christian Church, but personally chosen by God, a sponsor of the Church not as a matter of political expediency, but aiming for the salvation of the empire. The founder not just of a new eastern centre of government, but of a new Rome, breaking with the errors of the old pagan capital. While Eusebius without doubt – one merely has to look at present popular perception – was quite successful in creating the memory of a first Christian emperor, the project was far from complete even by the beginning of the fifth century, as we are going to illustrate by looking at Zosimus' polemical New History where the author tries to combine the memory of a traditional pagan emperor with the idea of Constantine as merely a fake Christian. While throughout the fourth and fifth century the success of the Christian Church was obviously conditioned by its capacity to attract members of the landed elites into its ranks and to accumulate property to become itself a major economic factor, the idea that this was as it should be, or indeed a dangerous aberration, remained dependent on a Christian or not Christian Constantine.

Despite the universal claim implicit in the term, 'Classics', bringing together academic fields a... more Despite the universal claim implicit in the term, 'Classics', bringing together academic fields as diverse as philology and archaeology or history and philosophy, is concerned only with the study of the Mediterranean and surrounding continental areas during the Greek and Roman periods, a millennium stretching from roughly 500 BCE to 500 CE. However, it is no mere accident that this particular field of civilisational studies even today does not call itself 'Graeco-Roman Studies' or 'Mediterranean Studies'. Since the Middle Ages it has in fact been accepted that the Graeco-Roman period represented a highpoint of civilisation against which all subsequent and foreign civilisations had to be measured. This idea of the ancient Mediterranean being the 'classical' standard of comparison, the study and emulation of which being the only valid foundation of modern thought and civilisation, has subsequently been exported by Europe to its colonies across the five continents. In academia the study of Classics became a marker of colonial achievement, providing tangible proof that the colonies not only were part of a universal culture, but also that they had reached intellectual parity with Europe. Classical associations such as the Classical Association of New South Wales, founded in 1909, or the Classical Association of South Africa, established in 1927, were founded to promote the study of Classics in the periphery and to demonstrate that colonial universities were catching up. Given how Classics has been ideologically charged in the past, it is thus hardly surprising that in the 21 st century the discipline finds itself in the line of fire of various movements advocating the 'decolonisation' of teaching curricula, of science and of academic thought in general. Rome, like Rhodes, must fall to liberate the post-colonial periphery from the insidious oppression of European thought. This paper aims to achieve two things. In a first part we propose to analyse the reasons why an at first sight dry academic subject, which after all includes the study of broken transport amphorae, could become an important marker of identity in the periphery. Why Classics both by its promoters in the 19 th and 20 th century and by its detractors in the 21 st came to be seen as relevant in defining relations between the periphery and the centre of the modern world-system. In a second part we would like to narrow the focus of the paper to the sub-discipline of ancient history and make some suggestions as to how the politico-academic proposition that progress in the study of history of the periphery can best be achieved by eliminating the influence of ancient history is actually a fallacy. History, we are going to argue, can not be compartmentalised, and hence the continued study of Rome is as relevant to progress in peripheral historiography as it is to further advances in the history of Europe. Roma deve cair. História antiga na periferia pós-colonial Hartmut G.Ziche Universidade da Guiana Francesa Apesar da afirmação universal implícita no termo, "Clássicos", reunindo campos acadêmicos tão diversos como filologia e arqueologia ou história e filosofia, preocupa-se apenas com o estudo do Mediterrâneo e das áreas continentais adjacentes durante os períodos grego e romano, um milênio estendendo-se de aproximadamente 500 aC a 500 dC. No entanto, não é um mero acidente que este campo particular de estudos civilizacionais ainda não se denomine "Estudos Greco-Romanos" ou "Estudos Mediterrânicos". Desde a Idade Média, de fato, foi aceito que o período greco-romano representava um ponto alto da civilização, contra o qual todas as civilizações subseqüentes e estrangeiras tinham que ser medidas. Esta ideia do antigo Mediterrâneo sendo o padrão "clássico" de comparação, cujo estudo e emulação, sendo o único fundamento válido do pensamento moderno e da civilização, foi subsequentemente exportado pela Europa para suas colônias nos cinco continentes.

The last imperial period of Roman North Africa begins and ends in narratives of invasion and conq... more The last imperial period of Roman North Africa begins and ends in narratives of invasion and conquest: Belisarius' campaign of 533/4, celebrated in glorious and oddly archaic triumph in Constantinople, and the bumbling imperial defense – or daring Muslim conquest, depending on perspective – ending in the fall of Roman Carthage, not once, but twice, in 695 and again in 698. Much emphasis in the historiography of late Roman North Africa has been placed on military events, both traditionally and also more recently in Walter Kaegi's 2010 study on Byzantine collapse and Muslim conquest. And yet, looking beyond high drama and hyperbole in both contemporary and more modern accounts, one cannot fail but wonder at the relatively minor forces engaged both in the 530s and in the late seventh century. North Africa, especially Proconsularis and Byzacena, was arguably the most wealthy and most densely urbanised territory of the Roman West. Its loss in the fifth century precipitated the fall of western imperial government, and in the seventh century it was capable of sponsoring Heraclius' successful bid for the imperial throne. So, should not the Vandal kingdom have been capable of a much stronger opposition against Justinian's reconquest, should not Justinian II and Leontius have done much more to defend North Africa? In order to gain a better understanding of how North Africa rather easily re-entered and re-exited imperial control, this paper is looking at the interaction between imperial institutions and regional socioeconomic development. Two questions are going to be examined. First we are looking at the outcomes of a century of Vandal government: to what extent did the Vandal kingdom, despite its strongly imperial ideology, weaken structures of state government and administration, thus perhaps strengthening control by socioeconomic elites, both "Vandal" and "Afro-Roman" landowners, over bureaucratic and institutional government? Secondly we have to ask whether the imperial government in the sixth and seventh century ever was truly successful in what Justinian's legislation proudly proclaimed was a reestablishment of the status quo ante. Did North Africa really become fully integrated into bureaucratic imperial government, did it become an "ordinary" part of the Empire? That the West in general and North Africa in particular remained important to Constantinople is not in question, one could point to Constans II move to Syracuse in the 660s, but what we are going to argue is that the imperial government in the long run failed to demonstrate its essential relevance for the efficient administration of North Africa to the local elites. North Africa was imperial, but imperial institutions remained weak.

When in the fifth century the leaders of barbarian warbands on Roman territory switched from the ... more When in the fifth century the leaders of barbarian warbands on Roman territory switched from the pursuit of subsidies and employment by the imperial court to the establishment of their own royal courts, only few members of the Roman provincial elites, who would have had the means to do so, raised private armies to oppose them. One explanation why on the whole post-Roman kings and their courtiers were so easily accepted by the landowning elites is that these new courts often were rather modest affairs, lacking the splendour and ostentatious display of wealth and power of the imperial capitals. Sidonius for instance explicitly comments on the modesty and sobriety of the Visigothic court of Theodoric in Gaul. Being invited by the king, he says, was rather like being invited to the private home of a member of the Gallo-Roman aristocracy. Provincial senators thus may have adapted to life under barbarian kings in part because the wealth gap between them and their rulers was reduced, and less tax and rent income was required to maintain political rulers in a class of wealth and consumption of their own. North Africa however was (perhaps) different, the imperial splendour of the Vandal court of Thrasamund was celebrated by poets like Florentinus, and Procopius remarks on the love of luxury of the Vandal aristocracy. And yet, here as well – some major "unpleasantness" between Catholics and Arians left aside – Afro-Roman landowners seem to have taken the Vandals in their stride. This paper will examine the relations between three major concentrations of wealth in Africa, Roman landowners on the one side and the Vandal court and the new landed Vandal elite on the other. We are going to ask to what extent wealth and property were redistributed when the Vandal kings took over the proconsular palace in Carthage and established their followers on confiscated land nearby. in terms of socio-political relations we will attempt to clarify how the Afro-Roman elites saw their position with regard to the royal court and the new Vandal landowners around Carthage. Were they wealthy men at a (slightly) richer man's court – the model Sidonius puts forward for Gaul – or were they, in a more classical and imperial mode, wealthy provincials yet qualitatively separated from a quasi-imperial court and governing elite?

Terres insulaires, sociétés terriennes

L’objectif de l’histoire comparée est d’établir, à travers la comparaisons de deux ou de plusieur... more L’objectif de l’histoire comparée est d’établir, à travers la comparaisons de deux ou de plusieurs formations historiques concrètes – qui ne sont pas nécessairement liées dans le temps ou dans l’espace –, des tendances, des causalités et des connections du développement historique. Autrement dit, l’histoire comparée permet de passer de l’analyse des formations concrètes à l’analyse des types historiques théoriques. Ce passage à un niveau d’abstraction supérieur offre par la suite – fonctionnellement comme les idéaux-types weberiens – des modèles d’analyse pour des ensembles historiques concrets, qui pour des raisons d’absence de matériel ou de méthodes historiographiques pertinentes ne peuvent pas, ou difficilement, être traités à travers des approches plus traditionnelles.
La Méditerranée et la Caraïbe préindustrielles possèdent un nombre considérable de caractéristiques communes qui, et cela sera le postulat de notre présentation, laissent supposer que les deux ensembles historiques pourraient être traités dans le cadre d’un paradigme commun que nous appelons pour l’instant « systèmes-monde maritimes préindustriels ». Notre présentation se veut un prolegomenon pour établir d’une part une série de caractéristiques historiques, notamment géo-historiques et socioéconomiques, qui peuvent justifier une approche comparée. D’autre part nous chercherons à définir quelques champs d’analyse historique, surtout dans le domaine socioéconomique, où l’appel à un paradigme théorique superposé peut servir pour combler des lacunes de documentation ou de méthode. Nous envisageons dans un premier temps d’établir quelques repères de comparaison dans les domaines du contact des populations, de la diffusion de modèles économiques et de la stratification socioéconomique.

Textbooks of late antiquity, attempting to visualise the settlement of barbarian groups like the ... more Textbooks of late antiquity, attempting to visualise the settlement of barbarian groups like the Visigoths or the Vandals on a modern map, normally have difficulties doing so. Should “barbarian territories” be shown as just the settlement area – in so far as for instance in the Visigothic example this is roughly known –, should barbarian kingdoms be shown according to imperial provincial boundaries – in so far as those are known –, or should we attempt to show rough areas of influence – to the extent that this can be reconstructed from narrative sources?
The difficulty of defining the borders of barbarian territory in fact closely mirrors the difficulty of defining what is late antiquity. If late antique is taken to mean simply late Roman, then borders have to be defined according to imperial administrative criteria. If late antique is merely shorthand for both late Roman and post-Roman, borders again have to be drawn with reference to imperial criteria, separating imperial from no longer imperial space. But what if late antique is defined as a self-contained sui generis period, both late and post-Roman and at the same time neither?
The barbarian kingdoms of the 5th century defy the concept of clear administrative boundaries historians working under a late Roman or post-Roman paradigm would like to impose on them. While indeed they represent state-like entities, like client kingdoms and the Empire itself, they exist within imperial space and their inhabitants can move freely across the “borders” a neat cartographer would like to draw. Even more unsettling to our modern thinking, there is no indication that Roman provincials in Gaul or Africa necessarily think of themselves as living behind a border which separates them from the rest of the Empire and its shared socio-economic and cultural space.
Based on a modelisation of the nature of barbarian “states”, and taking into account contemporary opinions on territorial boundaries, this paper will attempt to clarify to what extent we can consider barbarian entities to be defined by borders and what these “borders” practically mean, both from an imperial point of view and for the provincials living in a fragmenting late antique political space.

Dans toute la panoplie militaire, aussi bien de l'infanterie que de la cavalerie, le cingulum, la... more Dans toute la panoplie militaire, aussi bien de l'infanterie que de la cavalerie, le cingulum, la ceinture militaire, est l'élément le plus distinctif du soldat romain, du haut Empire jusqu'à l'antiquité tardive. Le cingulum a des fonctions pratiques, servant pour porter l'épée et le poignard du soldat, mais aussi symboliques, incluant des amulettes protectrices parmi ses plaques décoratives. Les modèles de la seconde moitié du IVe siècle, qui peuvent atteindre une largeur de dix centimètres et qui sont toujours décorés avec des plaques en métal, au moins sur le front, offrent peut-être même une certaine protection réelle limitée. Or, le cingulum est bien plus qu'un simple équipement militaire utilitaire, comme une uniforme moderne, il identifie le soldat comme servant l'empereur. « Prendre » ou « déposer le cingulum » reste l'expression courante pour entrer et sortir de la carrière militaire, même à partir du moment où à la fin du IIe siècle l'épée n'est plus accrochée au cingulum, mais plutôt au balteus, une ceinture en bandoulière.
Le fait que l'expression ne change pas, même quand le cingulum perd la plupart de ces fonctions militaires concrètes, montre que très tôt le cingulum passe de la ceinture militaire au symbole du service militaire pour l'empereur. Cette évolution des fonctions du cingulum, du support pour les armes du soldat au support de l'identité du soldat, préfigure ce qui nous intéresse principalement dans cette communication : le rôle du cingulum comme marqueur d'identité commune de classe, ainsi que de loyauté des élites tardo-antiques, militaires et civiles, envers l'empereur.

Malgré le fait que les manuscrits appellent l'œuvre de Victor de Vita une historia, et malgré son... more Malgré le fait que les manuscrits appellent l'œuvre de Victor de Vita une historia, et malgré son utilisation comme source narrative pour les évènements en Afrique du Nord entre les années 430 et 480 par les historiens modernes, Victor n'écrit pas des res gestae dans le style classique des historiens de l'antiquité tardive. Son œuvre reflète en fait le caractère généralement hybride et innovant de son temps, mélangeant des genres littéraires établis comme l'histoire ecclésiastique avec les témoignages de martyrs ou encore les polémiques politiques.
Cette communication s'intéresse à la question comment Victor réussit à établir une narrative persistante des Vandales comme barbares archétypiques, guère mieux que les Huns et certainement plus malfaisants que d'autres bêtes noires de l'historiographie tardive comme par exemple les Visigoths. Nous allons démontrer que le succès de Victor pour détruire la réputation du royaume vandale réside en grande partie dans une approche originale qui impose une équation narrative entre Vandales et Ariens, opprimant des Romains, tous Chrétiens orthodoxes. Il s'agit d'une stratégie narrative efficace qui permet à Victor de se servir aussi bien des stéréotypes barbares établis, que des stéréotypes plus récents des hérétiques pour peindre un tableau particulièrement noir du peuple vandale.

Mass and Elite in the Greek and Roman Worlds. From Sparta to Late Antiquity, 2017

Ancient economies, modern methodologies: …, Jan 1, 2006

Terres insulaires, sociétés terriennes

"Together with clerics and bureaucrats, soldiers and especially military officers are a component... more "Together with clerics and bureaucrats, soldiers and especially military officers are a component of the late Roman socio-economic elite which contributes considerably to reshaping the traditional relationships of social and economic power between landowners, ordinary citizens and indeed the imperial state. Their perceived impact on the curial class is visible in Libanius' complaints about military patronage around Antioch, and their real impact can be guessed at from their probable contribution to urbanisation in heavily militarised areas like the Rhine frontier. Yet unlike clerics with their extensively preserved correspondence, Augustine or Basil of Caesarea come to mind, and also unlike bureaucrats who at least for their upper echelons are well documented by the historians of late antiquity, the military elite is not very visible.
Certainly, there are exceptions for the very top of the class, individuals like Stilicho who can be placed at the intersection between military and imperial elite, and there are some stray finds like Flavius Abinnaeus from Egypt whose “archive” has been preserved, but in general, and despite the old stereotype of the militarised late Empire, military men are rather discreet.
This paper will attempt to modelise the plausible impact of military men on the curial elite in the fourth and into the fifth century. Impact both in purely economic terms - how much investment potential can we assume soldiers and officers to reasonably possess to compete with the curials as the traditional landowning class of the Empire? - and in socio-economic terms – how much combined economic and patronal influence are military men likely able to muster to interfere with the patron-client relationships of the curial class?
The fact that curial “flight” into the military is rare – at least when compared to the numbers of curials sneaking into the bureaucracy or the Church – should caution us against expecting too much. But the fact that individuals like Abinnaeus exist, and the expectation by Libanius that his anti-military stance will strike a chord with his contemporaries suggest that it might be worthwhile to think about the many thousands of discreet officers and retired officers of the late Roman army in more modelised terms. Looking at military stipends and fiscal advantages we can estimate how likely military landowners of curial level are, and modelising relationships of power and patronage in the countryside we can estimate how disruptive the new military of the late Empire actually is to the way of life of the municipal elites."

Victor of Vita's work, despite being called a historia in the manuscript tradition, and despite t... more Victor of Vita's work, despite being called a historia in the manuscript tradition, and despite the fact that its main use by modern historians has been as a narrative source for events in North Africa between the 430s and 480s, is not a history along the lines of the generally classicising res gestae histories produced by late antique historians. It is on the other hand a typical product of late antique literature in the sense that it happily mixes established literary genres such as church history, martyr stories and political invective. And if we are to follow traditional interpretations of the work, it is also hybrid in purpose, giving an account of orthodox Christians in Africa under Vandal rule and soliciting action from the imperial government.
While Courtois' 1955 monograph has long been the definitive word on Victor, there has been considerable new interest and reinterpretation of his work over the last ten years with new critical editions in French (Lancel, 2002) and German (Vössing, 2011), as well as with studies by Howe (2007) and Fournier (2008).
This paper is interested in studying how Victor succeeds in establishing an enduring narrative of the Vandals as the archetypal barbarians, one step short of the Huns (perhaps), but well beyond the usual late antique villains like for example the Visigoths. Victor's success in this may seem surprising, because his principal interests is clearly doctrinal, Arianism versus orthodoxy. However, his conflation of Arians with Vandals and of Catholics with Romans has often made modern readers perceive Victor's story rather as one of classical Roman-barbarian opposition. Vandals have not become vandals because they sponsor Arianism and persecute Catholics, but because they are cruel, destructive and uncivilised.
Barbarology and barbarian stereotypes are well established in Roman historiography, but Victor, as we will attempt to show, is once again original in the sense that he blends traditional barbarian tropes with the still relative new stereotyping of heretics.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of Roman senatorial families in the fourth century had th... more Despite the fact that the vast majority of Roman senatorial families in the fourth century had their origins only in the third century – even those belonging to the most wealthy dynasties like the Petronii, first consul in 261, or the Anicii, first consul in 198 – the senators of Rome, one could think of Symmachus for instance, liked to present themselves as the exclusive guardians and the embodiment of a millennial tradition of romanitas. The creation of a second senate in the East by Constantine and Constantius thus could be seen as both a compliment and a threat. A compliment in the sense that it implied an acknowledgement by the imperial government that without the romanitas embodied in the senators transferred to the East, Constantinople could not be a proper imperial centre. A threat in the sense that recruiting lots of eastern provincials and bureaucrats to the Senate clearly manifested the superiority of imperial power, the undisputable supremacy of the emperor who could create his own Senate and senatorial class.
This paper intents to examine the nature of the senatorial elite which resulted from the creation of a second Senate in the mid-fourth century, more precisely the question of whether we are dealing with one fairly coherent senatorial class, now spread over two locations, or whether in fact the institution of a second House created a split in the senatorial class and the Senate. We will examine whether we are dealing with a group whose members are all still styled clarissimi (or better), but who in fact diverged not only in ideological and political outlook, but also in socioeconomic circumstances.
Two propositions need to be discussed. On the one hand we are going to examine whether late fourth century eastern senators significantly differed in their relationship to the emperor and in their perception of their own status. This discussion necessarily needs to look forward also into the fifth century in order to decide whether we are dealing with “new men” who quickly assimilate into a traditional self-perception of what it means to be a senator or whether we are looking at a senate which is set to remain permanently more “imperial” than its more “senatorial” counterpart in Rome.
More importantly this paper will look into the acquisition of wealth by the eastern part of the senatorial class and the emergence of patterns of conspicuous consumption – in the form of praetorian games for example. What we have to decide is whether the eastern senators are not only able to rapidly acquire fortunes comparable to the wide-spread landholdings of senators in the West, but also whether they are, or become prepared to employ their wealth in the patterns of private, public and patronal expenditure still common in the West.
What needs to be established is whether the fourth century sets the clarissimi on a path of becoming two politically and ideologically distinct Senates and whether these two Senates coincide with two distinguishable socioeconomic classes within the general senatorial elite of the late Empire.

In the traditional historiography of the Roman empire, the 5th century ce is the period during wh... more In the traditional historiography of the Roman empire, the 5th century ce is the period during which the western provinces are lost to the Empire and replaced by a series of new barbarian or post-Roman kingdoms. Visigothic, Burgundian, Suevic, Vandal and Ostrogothic kings take the place of imperial governors and prefects. The Roman empire gradually becomes an eastern Mediterranean state called Byzantium. However, with the rise of “transformation historiography” during the last 25 years, it has also become accepted that the history of the West is more complex and that Rome and post-Rome effectively coexist. Not only in the relationships between an imperial state and the post-Roman kingdoms, but also within the political, economic and social relationships between the “Romans” and the “barbarians” in the western territories.
This paper will propose two modelised perspectives on how imperial or how barbarian the Western provinces in the 5th century can be seen to be, opposing an inside – how do contemporaries perceive the space they are living in? – and an outside perspective – what are the kingdoms from the point of view of modern historical analysis?
Schematically there are three different models of analysing the kingdoms: states competing with the imperial state, states within a state or sub-state administrative and political entities. Depending to some extent on time and on which particular kingdom we are talking about, all three models have explanatory strengths and weaknesses. A confrontation with an inside perspective, derived from writers like for example Sidomius, is interesting not only because it allows to illustrate the modern models, but also and perhaps primarily because it shows how and why this perspective differs from what seems plausible to the modern historian.

In 627, after five years of intense warfare following the Persian occupation of much of the imper... more In 627, after five years of intense warfare following the Persian occupation of much of the imperial East, Heraclius succeeded in what all his predecessors since Galerius in 299 had failed to achieve: he besieged Ctesiphon and forced the Persian emperor Kavadh II to accepted a peace treaty which so weakened the Sassanian monarchy and state that the empire subsequently collapsed with little resistance before the advancing Arab armies. Heraclius “great” victory moreover was won by a severely weakened Roman empire: without the resources of Syria and Egypt, occupied by Persia, without support from the Balkans, largely occupied by various Slavs, payed for almost exclusively by the accumulated treasure of the sole Church of Constantinople. The reversal of imperial fortunes by Heraclius, from near-total defeat to near-total victory, leaves us with an interesting question: if destroying Persia was so comparatively easy – if only an emperor was prepared to risk everything on an all or nothing attack on the Persian centre – why did emperors as diverse as Julian and Justinian, and despite at times strident anti-Persian propaganda, consistently fail to significantly alter the strategic balance between the two empires between the 4th and the 7th century?
This paper is going to examine some aspects of the Roman-Persian relationship which throughout most of late antiquity made a stable opposition and coexistence with Persia useful to the Empire. Advantages which must have been at least implicitly acknowledged by the Roman leadership if we want to understand why, despite strong propaganda imperatives, no emperor before Heraclius was prepared to assume the considerable risks of an attempt to decisively destroy Persia. Three aspects of Roman-Persian relations are going to be examined: Persia's political, economic and strategic value to the Roman empire. In the domain of politics we are going to argue that Persia, and limited warfare with Persia, served as a significant element of imperial legitimacy for Roman emperors, in economic terms Persia not only provided a stable transit point for some of the Empire's eastern luxury imports, but the overall stability of relations also insured that much of the Empire's economic resources remained available for use elsewhere – Justinian's western campaigns for instance. As to strategy, we will attempt to show that the opposition to one “superpower” was by and large preferable to the unpredictable risks of confrontation with numerous smaller political entities which the western part of the Empire failed to manage and which continued to threaten the East in the Balkans.

"The permanent imperial bureaucracy, emerging under the Tertrarchy and consolidating in the 4th c... more "The permanent imperial bureaucracy, emerging under the Tertrarchy and consolidating in the 4th century, is one of the major features distinguishing late antiquity from the early empire of the first three centuries ce. The functioning and characteristics of bureaucratic government are an important distinctive factor in A.H.M. Jones Later Roman Empire, and they continue to play a central rôle also in later works like Malcolm Errington's Roman Imperial Policy. It is not least because of the existence of a permanent, and to some degree autonomous bureaucracy that the late Empire can lay claim to being a pre-modern state; as opposed to a simple autocratic monarchy or an oligarchic system organising the interests of the socio-economic elites. The survival of the Notitia Dignitatum, a systematic organigramme of imperial government, as well as the evidence of the Codes, create an impression of familiarity, and many modern historians have shown little hesitation to call the late Roman bureaucracy an “administration” and its officeholders “civil servants”.
However, looking behind the façade of late Roman texts which seem to be normative, it is quite clear that officia and officiales are very different from modern government offices and civil servants, and that comites are not ministers. While it makes analytical sense for Jones to propose chapters on Administration and Civil Service, separate from his treatment of Government on the one hand and Senators and Honorati on the other, I would contest that for late Roman contemporaries these distinctions would have appeared immediately meaningful. Indeed one could argue that the imperial bureaucracy is only one aspect of resource distribution and political control – perhaps just more formal than other equally important factors – and that bureaucrats are part of a continuum of socio-economic elites which include curials, senators, clerics and soldiers.
This paper is going to examine some aspects of the second part of this proposition, i.e. it is going to discuss the nature of the emerging bureaucratic “class”. Two opposing hypotheses need to be examined. On the one hand we can treat bureaucrats as a fundamentally “new” group, an elite defined by its bureaucratic status and depending on formal membership in the imperial administration for its economic advancement. This view is reinforced for example by the observation that being an officialis, like being a curial or a clarissimus, is a hereditary status, or that the exercise of patronage by bureaucrats depends for the most part on the office they hold. On the other hand the recruitment of bureaucrats clearly shows that the group is partially drawn from both the traditional landowning elites of curials and senators. The political actions, especially of high ranking bureaucrats, also demonstrate that their influence on imperial policy is conditioned by their social background beyond the formal criterion of office rank.
In conclusion, whether we consider bureaucrats as a separate social, economic and political group, or whether we see bureaucratic status as rather an additional criterion tagged on to members of already constituted socio-economic groups is an important question for the nature of late Roman government. Are we dealing with new players in late imperial politics, or do we rather have the same players, but some of them now wear the cingulum of office?"

"The late imperial bureaucracy, emerging from the transition between the 3rd and the 4th century,... more "The late imperial bureaucracy, emerging from the transition between the 3rd and the 4th century, represents one of the fundamental distinguishing factors which define late antiquity and the late Empire as coherent historical formations. Alongside the equally new ecclesiastical elite, the late Roman bureaucracy constitutes one of two additional groups of socio-economic elite joining the traditional landowning elites of the senatorial and curial class. Also like the ecclesiastical elite, the new bureaucratic elite, in its overwhelming majority, is not recruited from sub-landowning elite social strata, but is drawn from the literate and educated segment of imperial population, in other words the curial class.
Legislation from the 4th century makes it quite clear that the “disappearance” of curials into the bureaucratic class was perceived by the imperial state as a problem for the functioning of the cities and hence the structural basis of the Empire. Still, emperors never took decisive action to stop the drain of curials and potential curials into the bureaucratic elite – where would alternative recruits have come from? – and neither did the curial class itself; even though it was legally required to prevent its members from leaving their curial obligations.
The question this paper is going to ask is why the curial class collaborated quite eagerly in a process of social transformation which at first sight implies its own weakening. After all, the new bureaucrats not only mean missing candidates for council membership, but also strong competitors in the exercise of patronage over rural and urban clients. The model we are going to propose to solve this contradiction will look at curial and bureaucratic elites as constituent members of one integrated urban elite. Political and economic interests of curials and bureaucrats often are conflicting – still probably no more than for instance between principales and ordinary curials – but they are also frequently converging and actually enhance the potential for social advancement and economic enrichment in both groups. An urban elite split into curials and bureaucrats, we are going to argue, is able to control a larger share of economic surplus than the less diversified municipal elites of the high empire did."

"The later Roman Empire has now been near universally accepted as a historical entity distinct fr... more "The later Roman Empire has now been near universally accepted as a historical entity distinct from the state formations which precede and follow it: an original political and institutional construct. As the turning point in historical scholarship, leaving behind the idea of a late Roman state merely declining from its more sophisticated past, one might well take 1964 and the publication of A.H.M. Jones' The Later Roman Empire, 284–602. A similar paradigm shift has taken place in cultural history, where the works of Peter Brown in the 1970s and 80s – to cite just one eminent example – have established late antiquity as a distinct cultural formation which is more than a degeneration and barbarisation of earlier imperial culture.
At the same time historians of late antiquity have pushed the chronological boundaries of their field of study, laying claim to the third century as a laboratory for many political, economic and cultural features defining late antiquity. At the other end of the spectrum, the post-imperial western kingdoms of the 6th, 7th and even 8th century have increasingly been identified as “succesors” of the late Empire, calques of imperial structures and culture. Taken to its extremes late antiquity and the late Empire (including its succesor states) now span more than half a millenium, and indeed cover considerably more space than the high Empire. However, the very success of the concepts of “late antiquity” and “late Empire” is a problem: how is it possible to treat a period this long as a discrete and cohesive historical formation, where internal similarities and characteristics out-weight the necessarily existing parallels with the before and after late antiquity? The notion that, for example, the empire of the tetrarchs had more in common with the world of post-Roman barbarian kings than it had with the empire of Trajan is not immediately obvious.
To mitigate the awkward problem of a late Empire very extensive in time and yet systemically cohesive, this paper proposes to survey not the characteristics of what makes the late Empire late antique, but to look at the transforming dynamics of late antiquity. Instead of looking at features of late antiquity – which indeed can be very different even between the 4th and the 6th century – it attempts to identify common dynamic trends which can operate in similar and distinctive ways in the relatively different historically realities of the late antique period.
A considerable number of common dynamics plausibly exists throughout the late antiquity, but this paper proposes to preliminarily examine just two fields: institutional and socioeconomic development. In the field of institutions we will study the dynamics driving the evolution of state structures, trying to show that a more or less centralised late Roman state, and indeed a whole set of post-Roman states, can be produced by the varying interplay of a common set of factors. A promising approach here is to look at the reach of state power under changing historical environments. Centres of power in late antiquity, it is plausible to hypothesise, attempt to exercise power efficiently, i.e. try to achieve a maximum of administrative impact for a given amount of power exercised. Depending on socioeconomic and military circumstances this principle of efficient use of state power can produced both a centralised and a decentralised state, to a degree even where decentralisation produces a set of semi-autonomous states.
The amount of power exercised by a state depends to a considerable extent on the socioeconomic makeup of its population. More state power can be exercised for instance over a homogeneously poor population than can be exercised over a population with influential elites pursuing interests not necessarily concordant with those of the state. The second field of dynamics this paper therefore proposes to examine concerns socioeconomic development in late antiquity. To what extent, we can ask, does the development of economic and social elites follow a common trend throughout the late antique period, producing instances of state and society interaction which at first sight do not appear to be systemically related, but yet are consequences of a common dynamic?
"

"The Western and Eastern Roman Empire are modern inventions. Regardless of the number of emperors... more "The Western and Eastern Roman Empire are modern inventions. Regardless of the number of emperors and the degree of cooperation between them, there was, even in late antiquity, just one Empire for its contemporaries. And yet numerous factors seem to divide East from West in the 5th and 6th century: language and christological controversy, the evolution of imperial power and, of course, the diverging strategic and military trends.
This papers will attempt to demonstrate that beyond these superficial differences, the real border increasingly separating East from West is the diverging socio-economic development in the two parts of the Empire. We will try to show that the eventual fate of East and West is fundamentally determined by their respective degree of urbanisation and differences in the distribution and concentration of property within the economic elites."

This thesis presents a model for the finances of the later Roman Empire, roughly the period of th... more This thesis presents a model for the finances of the later Roman Empire, roughly the period of the 4th and 5th century CE. The model is supplemented by a discussion of the methodological problems of model-building. This discussion tries to show to what extent a model can obtain results which have a higher explanatory value than those produced by an empirical analysis of the same problem. The present model for the financial development of the late empire is constructed using four basic factors. These macro-factors of development are in themselves models. They analyse the economic development of the period in question, resource consumption by various groups of economic elite, the economic impact of the imperial superstructure and institutions, specifically the army and the late Roman bureaucracy, as well as the fiscal system which is discussed in terms of an analysis of a redistributive system. The results of this model show that the socioeconomic and socio-political factors which have been discussed are strongly interdependent. The model thus is able to demonstrate the implausibility of theories of economic decline and financial crisis which can be shown to be incompatible with the development of the economic elites and the institutions of the late Roman state which has been observed.