Cet article étudie la relation qui existe entre d’un côté les complexes épiscopaux et les églises de pèlerinage, de l’autre les rues à colonnade et les avenues. Les complexes de ce type ont d’abord joué un rôle plutôt passif dans l’urbanisme. Ils étaient insérés, au même titre que les autres monuments publics plus classiques, derrière les colonnades encadrant les axes de circulation principaux, notamment dans le but d’assurer leur visibilité à un emplacement central. Dans un second temps, les cathédrales et églises de pèlerinage assumèrent un rôle résolument plus actif dans la définition des espaces urbains, en suscitant cette fois la construction de nouvelles rues à colonnade. Celles-ci, en tant que type architectural, sont ainsi devenues partie intégrante de complexes épiscopaux plus larges. On note en outre le maintien, dans cet environnement « chrétien », du rôle de monuments traditionnellement associés à ces rues, tels que les tétrapyles et autres arches. Les raisons de cette assimilation sont doubles : ces complexes attiraient un public nombreux et nécessitaient un accès facile, mais plus encore, les chefs de l’Église ont rapidement saisi l’intérêt hautement représentatif de ces structures pour l’exaltation des activités ecclésiastiques, non seulement à l’intérieur même des complexes, mais également au-delà de leur limites pour s’étendre à la rue à colonnade qui leur était associée.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 263-286
- DOI 10.1484/J.AT.5.103192
- Authors
This paper will discuss the image of the cavalryman in the sources of the late Roman Empire. It aims to refute Anthony Kaldellis’ thesis on the preface of the History of the wars of Justinian. Unlike the American scholar, I argue here that much of the authors of the time, including Procopius, were favourable to the development of cavalry in the Roman army. This demonstraties a significant change in Roman atitudes towards warfare. Indeed, while the legionary infantryman was seen as a major symbol of the Roman military ethos during the early Empire, the mounted warrior gains visibility in the sources from the late third century onwards. This change is due to the raising of State guerrilla warfare to the rank of main defensive strategy by the late Roman Empire and has also connections with the emulation of “barbarian” military tactics. It goes along with a renewal of the official dicourse on mounted archery, once depreciated by classical authors. Julian, Procopius and Agathias do not hesitate to make of the hippotoxotês the Homeric warrior par excellence, exceeding in value all other types of fighters. Official art and religion are not to be outdone; so much so that the figure of cavalryman, caparisoned in the oriental way and equipped with the nomadic bow finally outshines that of the heavy infanmtryman in many documentary fields. The analysis thus reveals the importance of cultural factors in the understanding of ancient military history. If the inertia of the classical ideology may hinder the adoption of new practices, the integration of foreign militry traditions must be justified by the dominnat culture to be considered legitimate. This evolution of the discourse on war is not without consequences for the entire imperial military policy.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 255-262
- DOI 10.1484/J.AT.5.103191
- Authors
Cet article compare Jean Chrysostome et Eusèbe d’Émèse dans leur rôle de commentateurs de la Genèse. Chrysostome était avant tout prêcheur et moraliste : l’article examine en quoi ses sermons sur la Genèse reflètent ses fonctions de pasteur. De son côté, Eusèbe était fondamentalement un commentateur qui s’efforçait d’expliquer les passages difficiles à comprendre. L’un et l’autre suivaient la tradition de l’exégèse biblique de l’École d’Antioche, dont le premier représentant connu est Théophile, prêtre d’Antioche en 169-177 et auteur d’un Hexaemeron. L’article conclut en suggérant que l’École d’Antioche a combiné les traditions exégétiques du monde chrétien de langue grecque avec celles du christianisme syriaque de Mésopotamie.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 243-253
- DOI 10.1484/J.AT.5.103190
- Authors
The partition magister equitum / magister peditum had an administrative rather than tactical or strategical meaning. Moreover, the titles magister equitum et peditum and magister utriusque militiae did not appear, nor had the same use in both partes. In the eastern half of the Empire, under the reign of Valens, mag. equ. et ped., then mag. utr. mil. were created, first for the regional generals, then for the praesentales. The western part kept the traditional partition mag. equ. / mag. ped. until 395, then the title mag. utr. mil. was introduced in the West by Stilicon, but had a different meaning than in the East: it was a distinction that only one general at a time could obtain (except for retired generals).
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 195-221
- DOI 10.1484/J.AT.5.103187
- Authors
This paper re-examines the administrative evolution of the province of Tripolitania from its creation under the tetrarchy to the latest evidence relating to Roman rule. The case of Tripolitania is emblematic, despite its inevitable specificity; its study can be useful in order to explore, more generally, questions such as the way central government dealt with border districts in the later Roman empire, the problems of attribution of civil and military powers, the competition between the holders of such powers, and the possible interferences between the provincial authorities and the authorities operating at an interprovincial level. The author tries to make order in the scattered evidence related to Tripolitania and other north African provinces, which often has not been sufficiently explored or properly inter preted; new data obtained from a re-reading or re-assembling of some inscriptions from Sabratha and Leptis add further elements to the discussion. The evolution of Tripolitania is framed within the political and administrative history of North Africa: in fact, this specific case cannot be properly understood without examining in parallel the interrelated evolutions of the other African provinces and how they were affected by the reorganization by Diocletian, the establishment of the comitiva Africae, the introduction of frontier duces… This paper also explores the network of relations between the various authorities in the province – the governor, the local elites, the individual cities and the provincial assembly – and the powers external to the province, from the vicars to the imperial court.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 177-194
- DOI 10.1484/J.AT.5.103186
- Authors
Provincia Lucania is the name used by sources in Late Antiquity to define the part of ancient regio III which the Diocletianic reforms included as one of the most productive regions of suburbicarian Italy. The heterogeneity of the studies carried out in the past and the treatment of archaeological and philological data together with statistical examples, even extended to non investigated parts, underestimate the exact content of textual, epigraphic and mapping sources about this land as well as the connections which existed between distant but culturally very close localities. The topographic analysis of the provincia also take place together with the surveyors’ texts, in such a way that the evolution of the landscape from the 5th to the 11th centuries emerges by comparing and relating the latter to the reality. The different versions of Tabula Peutingeriana, the itineraria and the so-called Liber Coloniarum> or are here decoded and open up new perspectives to analyze a still largely unknown territory.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 223-234
- DOI 10.1484/J.AT.5.103188
- Authors
Salsa of Tipasa holds an original place among the female figures of martyrdom. The narrative of her Passion, structured by stereotypes, is centered on three violent events (the destruction of the idol by the young girl, then comparison to Judith; the lynching of the martyr; the effective intercession of the holy Salsa who defeats the tyrannical violence of Firmus). The aim of this narrative description is to legitimize her martyrdom and her holiness, thus enabling her to be part of a process of construction of memory.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 235-242
- DOI 10.1484/J.AT.5.103189
- Authors
Following the enactment of Gratian’s rescript, Priscillianists were expelled from the episcopal sees they had so eagerly achieved. Given the seriousness of their situation, they decided to march to Rome in the hope that, by presenting themselves in person before the Pope Damaso, they could reverse the position they were in. Although Sulpicius Severus’s account provides little information about the route followed by the Priscillianists, we believe that it is possible to offer a plausible reconstruction of the path that led Priscillian and his companions to the Eternal City. In this task, we will take account of every source traditionally employed for the study of Priscillianism, as well as information provided by the main itineraria known in Roman times.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 157-176
- DOI 10.1484/J.AT.5.103185
- Authors
We here confront the contradictory opinions more or less recently expressed about Eusebius’attitudes toward images, as attested in several of his texts. Even if it is necessary to be cautious in such matters – given the impossibility of producing any true proof -, it appears, firstly, that the Letter to Constantia may probably be held as an authentic Eusebian testimony, and that some figurative works of art elsewhere mentioned by the Caesarean bishop (mainly at Constantinople and Paneas) certainly were of genuine Christian character; and, secondly, that if Eusebius clearly manifests an opposition to the concept of the portrayal of the Divine Being, his position about allegorical or narrative representations might have been more tolerant – and even favourable.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 137-142
- DOI 10.1484/J.AT.5.103183
- Authors
The religious “Tendenz” of the Historia Augusta has long been a contentious issue among specialists; only by paying close attention to the richly-layered inter-textuality of the work can it be established how acquainted the author was with the niceties of Christian culture, biblical and patristic, and their Jewish core. Samples culled from the biographies of Avidius Cassius, Heliogabalus, Geta, and the two Maximini showcase a cogent literary strategy of juggling parodic allusions to Christianity; the Vita Maximini duo, particularly, would appear to revolve around the inversion of specific chunks of the Gospel of Luke. The epistles of Saint Paul too come in for some tough love. The whole polemical aspect of the Historia Augusta through the cover up of jest and ribaldry must therefore be maintained against the skeptical bowdlerization of the collection some of the most recent scholarship amounts to. It also provides clues that point in the direction of the great Pagan statesman Nichomachus Flavianus senior as our elusive writer.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original
- Pages 143-155
- DOI 10.1484/J.AT.5.103184
- Authors
- Jean-Fabrice Nardelli
- Stéphane Ratti