Roman Imperial Coinage. Volume X


Book Description

This tenth volume of Roman Imperial Coinage completed the first edition of the series founded by Mattingly and Sydenham in 1923. Its layout is based on the division between the eastern and western parts of the empire, and the reigns of successive emperors. A further section deals with imitative coinages struck by certain of the barbarian peoples. There are detailed accounts of the monetary system and mints, and of the coin-types and legends. The catalogue comprises some 1,800 entries, each individually numbered, and illustrated by 80 plates. (NP The coinage is discussed not only in its historical setting, but also in a comprehensive and documented conceptual context, making RIC X essential reading for students of the late Roman and Byzantine period, as well as for collectors. This seminal volume is reprinted by Spink in 2018 to make it available again to all those interested in this fascinating period of Roman Imperial coinage. (NP) Dr John Kent joined the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum in 1953, and was Keeper from 1983 until his retirement in 1990. As well as being an editor of the Roman Imperial Coinage series , he is the author of Roman Imperial Coinage Volume VIII (1981).




Roman Coins and Their Values Volume 5


Book Description

The current revision of this popular work marks a radical departure from the envisioned aims of the original edition. This fifth and final volume of the 'Millennium edition' contains a comprehensive listing of the Roman coinage of the period AD 337-491 together with background information on the history of each reign and the principal characteristics of its coinage. The catalogue is organized primarily by ruler with the issues then subdivided by denomination and by reverse legend and type.




Galla Placidia


Book Description

The astonishing career of Galla Placidia (c. 390-450) provides valuable reflections on the state of the Roman empire in the fifth century CE. In an age when emperors, like Galla's two brothers, Arcadius (395-408) and Honorius (395-423), and nephew, Theodosius II (408-450), hardly ever ventured beyond the fortified enclosure of their palaces, Galla spent years wandering across Italy, Gaul and Spain first as hostage in the camp of Alaric the Goth, and then as wife of Alaric's successor. In exile at the court of her nephew in Constantinople Galla observed how princesses wield power while vaunting piety. Restored to Italy on the swords of the eastern Roman army, Galla watched the coronation of her son, age six, as the emperor of the western Roman provinces. For a dozen years (425-437) she acted as regent, treading uneasily between rival senatorial factions, ambitious church prelates, and charismatic military leaders. This new biography of Galla is organized according to her changing roles as bride, widow, bereaved mother, queen and empress. It examines her relations with men in power, her achievements as a politician, her skills at establishing power bases and political alliances, and her efficiency at accomplishing her desired goals. Using all the available sources, documents, epigraphy, coinage and the visual arts, and Galla's own letters, Hagith Sivan reconstructs the turning points and highlights of Galla's odd progression from a bloodthirsty princess at Rome to a bride of a barbarian in Gaul, from a manipulative sister and wife of emperors at the imperial court at Ravenna to a beggar at the court of her relatives in Constantinople, and from a devious regent of the western Roman empire to a collaborator of popes in Rome.




Culture and Society in Medieval Galicia


Book Description

In Culture and Society in Medieval Galicia, twenty-three international authors examine Galicia’s changing place in Iberia, Europe, and the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds from late antiquity through the thirteenth century. With articles on art and architecture; religion and the church; law and society; politics and historiography; language and literature; and learning and textual culture, the authors introduce medieval Galicia and current research on the region to medievalists, Hispanists, and students of regional culture and society. The cult of St. James, Santiago Cathedral, and the pilgrimage to Compostela are highlighted and contextualized to show how Galicia’s remoteness became the basis for a paradoxical centrality in medieval art, culture, and religion. Contributors are Jeffrey A. Bowman, Manuel Castiñeiras, James D'Emilio, Thomas Deswarte, Pablo C. Díaz, Emma Falque, Amélia P. Hutchinson, Amancio Isla, Henrik Karge, Melissa R. Katz, Michael Kulikowski, Fernando López Sánchez, Luis R. Menéndez Bueyes, William D. Paden, Francisco Javier Pérez Rodríguez, Ermelindo Portela, Rocío Sánchez Ameijeiras, Adeline Rucquoi, Ana Suárez González, Purificación Ubric, Ramón Villares, John Williams †, and Roger Wright.




Late Roman Spain and Its Cities


Book Description

This groundbreaking history of Spain in late antiquity sheds new light on the fall of the western Roman empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. Historian Michael Kulikowski draws on the most recent archeological and literary evidence in this fresh an enlightening account of the Iberian Peninsula from A.D. 300 to 600. In so doing, he provides a definitive narrative that integrates late antique Spain into the broader history of the Roman empire. Kulikowski begins with a concise introduction to the early history of Roman Spain, and then turns to the Diocletianic reforms of 293 and their long-term implications for Roman administration and the political ambitions of post-Roman contenders. He goes on to examine the settlement of barbarian peoples in Spain, the end of Roman rule, and the imposition of Gothic power in the fifth and sixth centuries. In parallel to this narrative account, Kulikowski offers a wide-ranging thematic history, focusing on political power, Christianity, and urbanism. Kulikowski’s portrait of late Roman Spain offers some surprising conclusions, finding that the physical and social world of the Roman city continued well into the sixth century despite the decline of Roman power. Winner of an Honorable Mention in the Association of American Publishers’ Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards in Classics and Archeology




A Companion to Ancient Macedonia


Book Description

The most comprehensive and up-to-date work available on ancient Macedonian history and material culture, A Companion to Ancient Macedonia is an invaluable reference for students and scholars alike. Features new, specially commissioned essays by leading and up-and-coming scholars in the field Examines the political, military, social, economic, and cultural history of ancient Macedonia from the Archaic period to the end of Roman period and beyond Discusses the importance of art, archaeology and architecture All ancient sources are translated in English Each chapter includes bibliographical essays for further reading




Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity


Book Description

The economy of the late antique Mediterranean is still largely seen through the prism of Weber's influential essay of 1896. Rejecting that orthodoxy, Jairus Banaji argues that the late empire saw substantial economic and social change, propelled by the powerful stimulus of a stable gold coinage that circulated widely. In successive chapters Banaji adduces fresh evidence for the prosperity of the late Roman countryside, the expanding circulation of gold, the restructuring of agrarian élites, and the extensive use of paid labour, above all in the period spanning the fifth to seventh centuries. The papyrological evidence is scrutinized in detail to show that a key development entailed the rise of a new aristocracy whose estates were immune to the devastating fragmentation of partible inheritance, extensively irrigated, and responsive to market opportunities. A concluding chapter defines the more general issue raised by the aristocracy's involvement in the monetary and business economy of the period. Exploiting a wide range of sources, Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity weaves together different strands of historiography (Weber, Mickwitz, papyrology, agrarian history) into a fascinating interpretation that challenges the minimalist orthodoxies about late antiquity and the ancient economy more generally.




The Symbolic Language of Royal Authority in the Carolingian World (c.751-877)


Book Description

This book is not a conventional political narrative of Carolingian history shaped by narrative sources, capitularies, and charter material. It is structured, instead, by numismatic, diplomatic, liturgical, and iconographic sources and deals with political signs, images, and fixed formulas in them as interconnected elements in a symbolic language that was used in the indirect negotiation and maintenance of Carolingian authority. Building on the comprehensive analysis of royal liturgy, intitulature, iconography, and graphic signs and responding to recent interpretations of early medieval politics, this book offers a fresh view of Carolingian political culture and of corresponding roles that royal/imperial courts, larger monasteries, and human agents played there.




The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity


Book Description

Late Antiquity witnessed a dramatic recalibration in the economy of power, and nowhere was this more pronounced than in the realm of religion. The transformations that occurred in this pivotal era moved the ancient world into the Middle Ages and forever changed the way that religion was practiced. The twenty eight studies in this volume explore this shift using evidence ranging from Latin poetic texts, to Syriac letter collections, to the iconography of Roman churches and Merowingian mortuary goods. They range in chronology from the late third through the early seventh centuries AD and apply varied theories and approaches. All converge around the notion that religion is fundamentally a discourse of power and that power in Late Antiquity was especially charged with the force of religion. The articles are divided into eight sections which examine the power of religion in literature, theurgical power over the divine, emperors and the deployment of religious power, limitations on the power of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the use of the cross as a symbol of power, Rome and its transformation as a center of power, the power of religion in the barbarian west, and religious power in the communities of the east. This kaleidoscope of perspectives creates a richly illuminating volume that add a new social and political dimension to current debates about religion in Late Antiquity.