Historiography of Rome and Its Empire – serie

Cassius Dio: The Impact of Violence, War, and Civil War is part of a renewed interest in the Roman historian Cassius Dio. This volume focuses on Dio’s approaches to foreign war and stasis as well as civil war. The impact of war on Rome as well as on the history of Rome has long be recognised by scholars, and adding to that, recent years have seen an increasing interest in the impact of civil war on Roman society. Dio’s views on violence, war, and civil war are an inter-related part of his overall project, which sought to understand Roman history on its own historical and historiographical terms and within a long-range view of the Roman past that investigated the realities of power.

Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography contains 11 articles on how the Ancient Roman historians used, and manipulated, the past. What did they seek to accomplish by participating in its re-creation, what tools did they have at their disposal to do so, and which underlying conceptualisations of history can we glimpse behind their efforts? Key themes include the impact of the transformation from Republic to Empire on the production of history, the nature of intertextuality in historical writing, and the frontiers between history and other literary genres. The volume, edited by Aske Damtoft Poulsen and Arne Jönsson, encompasses diverse approaches to the study of Roman history and historiography, with contributors from the UK, US, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and Italy.

Cassius Dio (c. 160–c. 230) is a familiar name to Roman historians, but still an enigmatic one. His text has shaped our understanding of his own period and earlier eras, but basic questions remain about his Greek and Roman cultural identities and his literary and intellectual influences. Contributors to this volume read Dio against different backgrounds including the politics of the Severan court, the cultural milieu of the Second Sophistic and Roman traditions of historiography and political theory. Dio emerges as not just a recounter of events, but a representative of his times in all their complexity.

Ammianus Marcellinus composed a history of the Roman empire from 96 AD to 378 AD, focusing on the mid-fourth century during which he served in the army. His experience as a soldier during this period provides crucial realia of warfare, while his knowledge of literature, especially the genre of historiography, enabled him to imbue his narrative with literary flair. This book explores the tension between Ammianus’ roles as soldier and author, examining how his military experience affected his history, and conversely how his knowledge of literature affected his descriptions of the Roman army.

The histories of early Rome written in antiquity by the likes of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus include many sensational stories, from the she-wolf suckling the twins to the miraculous conception of Servius Tullius and the epiphany of the Dioscuri at Lake Regillus. Even the more sober parts of the narrative are of dubious historicity, and certainly include a good deal of rhetorical invention, aetiologies and folktales. The essays composing this volume attempt to analyse these stories to explore the porous boundaries and the hybrid borrowings between myth, history and historiography, and the limits of historical knowledge.

This book analyses late antique historiography and epideictic texts, focusing on how divine knowledge of imperial futures safeguarded the legitimacy of Roman emperors. It begins with Constantine and his tetrarchic colleagues (A), before moving to Constantius II and Julian (B), then Valens (C), and ending with Theodosius and Honorius (D).The impact of future knowledge in these texts could be felt both in the present circumstances of their composition and in perpetuity, as visions of the future reflect either the confidence or boastful arrogance of history’s protagonists, their divine inspiration or doom, and ultimately, their place in imperial memory.