No / We take a look at the revolutionary findings from the largest investigation of an Iron Age hillfort ever undertaken in Scotland, which shed new light on life on the edge of the Roman Empire.

Inaug. Diss.--Universität Bonn. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universität Marburg, 1913. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [vii]-ix).

No description available.

This thesis is an attempt to address the surprising lack of study into the question of usurpation in late antiquity. During a period defined by a textual corpus (289-389), the thesis looks at how usurpers and usurpation were presented in the panegyrics delivered to emperors and their courts. That usurpation features very heavily in this corpus should tell us something in itself, but it is a feature of these texts which has hardly been observed. The thesis shows how the panegyrics employed aggressive rhetorical tactics that sought not to bury usurpers in silence but rather to glory in their destruction and to create characters for the usurpers and their regimes that were designed to reinforce the legitimacy claims of the victorious emperor. The language of the panegyrics concerning usurpers and usurpation is thus virtually worthless as a tool to reconstruct the historical actualities of the people and times that they discuss. It cannot be used, as some scholars have done, to give insight into the working of particular usurpations. But the study also demonstrates that the panegyrics are far too valuable a body of sources to simply ignore, as many more scholars have tended to do. The panegyrics demonstrate the beginnings of the processes of memory sanction, or damnatio memoriae, that were imposed upon defeated usurpers and, as such, give us a valuable insight into how imperial Romans recorded their history and conceived of the power structures through which they were governed. Panegyrics are vital to our understanding of usurpers and usurpation because they are the first step in the process of understanding why our narrative sources are so unreliable concerning such men.

This thesis presents a new systematic arrangement of the coinage of the Gallic Empire as the basis for a revised edition of Roman Imperial Coinage. The coinage of all denominations, gold, silver and bronze, are unified into a single structure of issues. In 260, Postumus revolted against the Roman emperor Gallienus and took control of the Gauls. The chronology of his reign and of his successors is reviewed. The short reign of Domitianus II is interpreted as a revolt against the elevation of Tetricus. A rearrangement of Tetricus’s coinage supported by the epigraphic evidence proves that the elevation of Tetricus II to the Caesarship must be redated from 273 to 272. The location of the mints is discussed. Conclusive hoard evidence proves that the main mint was located at Trier, and not at Cologne. The study of iconography implies that choices were not necessarily made by the imperial authorities, but that more freedom was given to engravers than is usually assumed. The use of earlier coins as an iconographic repertoire strongly suggests that earlier coins were brought to the mint to be melted down. Metrological analyses of gold coins of the Gallic emperors show for the first time that silver was deliberately added to the alloy, following a practice introduced by Valerian and continued by Gallienus. The debasement of the ‘silver’ coinage is studied in parallel with its contemporary evolution within the Central Empire. Coin circulation is used in order to determine the frontiers of the Gallic Empire. It is demonstrated that the Gallic Empire reached its apogee between 262 and 265, ruling over Britain, the Gauls, Hispania and Raetia. The nature of the Gallic Empire is discussed. It is argued that this ‘Empire’ should not be viewed as a form of separatism, as often claimed, but as the unintended result of a status quo following Postumus’s acclamation and the long postponement of a final confrontation against the emperor of Rome.

This dissertation investigates one subset of the many "signs and symbols" representative of traditional Roman religion at Ostia -- its temples and sanctuaries. It uses this body of evidence to foreground a discussion of social and cultural transformation from the 3rd through 6th c. C.E. This period witnessed the decline of traditional religious practices and the rise of a more prominent Judaism and Christianity. Earlier treatments of this topic, however, have often approached the material by assembling a catalogue of buildings, documenting limited incidences of new construction or repair evidenced throughout the Late Roman town. This project, by contrast, instead of beginning with material dated to the "twilight years" of Roman Ostia, starts with the first records of excavation at Ostia Antica. It is these archaeological reports, some comprehensive, others more impressionistic, which document the eclectic nature of objects, sculpture, and architecture that were frequently found preserved throughout the town. These reports represent a new starting point for reconstructing the appearance of the Late Antique city. Drawing upon this material, each of my four chapters takes one element of the traditional landscape (the Capitolium, the so-called Temple of Hercules, the Sanctuary of Magna Mater, or the cult of Vulcan) and then interweaves one or more facets of Christianity or Judaism in order to reveal, dialectically, the dynamism of urban change. Socially and economically, Ostia itself witnessed significant changes during this time. This dissertation provides new answers to when, why, and how those changes took place. It reveals how ambitious architectural projects of the Late Roman Empire continued to achieve stature by visually engaging with both the presence and prestige of earlier monuments. Uncovering new evidence with which to challenge the concept of a late 4th c. "pagan revival," my research, in particular, suggests that accommodation of the past, not urban conflict, was a dominant social model. Finally, I suggest that a broad view of traditional and Christian festivals, from the 4th c. through 6th, shows how new cults, like those of Aurea or Monica, mother of Augustine, simultaneously preserved and transformed the city's traditions into the Early Middle Ages. / text

This thesis focuses on change and persistence of the structure of the international system. It attempts to address the question why hierarchic structures prevailed during the Ancient and Classical eras (3000 B. C. ? 1500 A. D. ). The thesis compares and contrasts the Roman Empire (the Pax Romana period 1st century B. C. -3rd century A. D. ) and the Chinese Empire (the T?ang Dynasty 618-907 A. D. ) as hierarchic structures and the multi-state system of ancient Greece (8th-4th century B. C. ) and the multi-state system of ancient China (The Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Period 722-221 B. C. ) as anarchic structures. The thesis suggests that the moral purpose of the state, the competitive security environment, the desire for benefits and geopolitical and strategic advantages played the major role in the immediate transformation from anarchy to hierarchy. The thesis asserts that the generation of common goods, the decline in transaction costs and the success in securing the commitment of the members and the legitimacy of the system enabled and encouraged the persistence of hierarchic structures. It also re-emphasizes that whereas the persistence of hierarchic systems depends on the existence of several factors, only one factor can promote the persistence of anarchic structures e. g. the moral purpose of the state.

This thesis examines the way the medium of mosaics was adapted locally by the cities of Antioch (modern Antakya, Turkey) and Thysdrus (modern El Djem, Tunisia) during the second and third centuries CE. Compositional differences indicate different conceptions of the medium and locally specific iconography draws on viewers’ local knowledge and experience to situate the city and its inhabitants within the broader context of the Roman empire.

The development of political modernity in Europe entailed a process whereby formerly important political forms increasingly lost significance and were transformed in a long process that led to the separation of individuals from political power, in the distinctive shape of modern (depoliticised) civil society and the state. The thought of G.W.F Hegel (1770–1831), which has fundamentally shaped the modern understanding of these developments, came to its maturity at the most advanced stage of this process, while the French Revolution was transforming the continental world. He thought through this process from a very early stage in his development (1800–4), and thereby formed the essentials of his political theory. But on the cusp of this modernity Hegel seemed to affirm what has appeared to many as the old powers that had disappeared in the formation of the modern state – the Stände. For many he thereby turned his political thought into an apparent anachronism. This dissertation, however, will argue that Hegel’s thought remains fundamentally modern and not at all anachronistic in its affirmation of the Stände. On the contrary, it is only through an examination of the concept of the Stände in Hegel’s thought, that one can fully understand the essentially institutional focus of his politics. This dissertation will argue for the significance of the concept of the Stände through historically situating Hegel’s thought and its engagement with the modern tradition. It will do so through a methodological examination of the concept in Hegel’s early period (1800–4) where the institutional character of his politics is first shaped and formed, in the perspective of insights from his mature political philosophy (1820/21). In so doing it will show how the concept of the Stände and the institutionalism it implies form Hegel’s unique response to the development of modern civil society.