Jotabe and Leuke Kome: Customs gates from Byzantine to Roman time (original) (raw)

Camiz, A. (2022), From Constantinople to Rome along the via militaris, in M. Ricci ed., Medways Open Atlas, LetteraVentidue Edizioni, Siracusa, pp. 512-517, ISBN: 978-88-6242-735-7.

M. Ricci ed., Medways Open Atlas, LetteraVentidue Edizioni, Siracusa,, 2022

The Mediterranean that we are describing in the Medways research is divided in two parts by an ancient line. This line dates back to the time of Diocletian who introduced the tetrarchy dividing the Roman Empire into separate administrative domains, one in the East and one in the West. Perhaps this line has shifted today from its original position, but it is still there, and the ongoing war in Ukraine seems to be a consequence of that very same line. In order to reconnect these two divided parts of the Mediterranean, and of the surrounding landscapes, we would like to build a narrative related to the road that connected the two capitals of the Eastern and Western Roman Empire. We will poetically move, as in an imitation game, from Constantinople to Rome along the so-called via militaris. This route was actually a network of roads that connected the two capitals of the empire through the Balkans. The via militaris gradually replaced by importance the older via Egnatia, which connected Constantinople to Durrës, then across the Adriatic Sea to Brindisi, and finally to Rome along the Via Appia. After the tetrarchy, when the Empire moved its gravity centre towards the Balkan area, the via militaris became the main infrastructure of an itinerant principality. It is no coincidence that Constantine the Great was born in a city along this path, Naissus (Nis).

"Proceedings of the Plenary Sessions. The 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies" edited by Emiliano Fiori and Michele Trizio

Proceedings of the Plenary Sessions. The 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, 2022

OPEN ACCESS: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-590-2 The present volume collects most of the contributions to the plenary sessions held at the 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, and incisively reflects the ever increasing broadening of the very concept of ‘Byzantine Studies’. Indeed, a particularly salient characteristic of the papers presented here is their strong focus on interdisciplinarity and their breadth of scope, both in terms of methodology and content. The cross-pollination between different fields of Byzantine Studies is also a major point of the volume. Archaeology and art history have pride of place; it is especially in archaeological papers that one can grasp the vital importance of the interaction with the so-called hard sciences and with new technologies for contemporary research. This relevance of science and technology for archaeology, however, also applies to, and have significant repercussions in, historical studies, where – for example – the study of climate change or the application of specific software to network studies are producing a major renewal of knowledge. In more traditional subject fields, like literary, political, and intellectual history, the contributions to the present volume offer some important reflections on the connection between Byzantium and other cultures and peoples through the intermediary of texts, stories, diplomacy, trade, and war.

A private “manual” of byzantine law in the south of Italy

2015

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the ties of Italy with the power, the culture and the East law, with several discontinuities, continued for more than five centuries. The events related to this rapport present many elements of complexity and show major signs of interference. It is important to note that this enduring connection, following the re-conquest of the territories of our Country, allowed the propagation of the Justinian Corpus Juris and the post-Justinian legal production in the high Middle Age. Although at different times, it encouraged the birth of various law’s study and teaching centers in Italy. It is true that between civil and religious conflicts, between Lombard supremacy and arab invasions, between the Papal State and local lords in search of autonomy, the Byzantine imperial authority was forced to reduce considerably its sphere of influence in Italy mainly to focus, from the IX century, on the southern regions. It was especially with the advent of Emper...