Water and fire in the battle of Strasbourg: Ammianus Marcellinus, 16.12
By Fabrizio Feraco, University of Calabria
The final chapter of the 16th book of the Res Gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus is dedicated to the description of the battle of Strasbourg, during which the Romans, led by Julian, defeated a huge force of Alamanni in 357. As several scholars have highlighted (cf. Rosen; Bitter; Brodka), the description of Ammianus is based on the contrast between the Romans and the barbarians and, in particular, between Chnodomarius, king of the Alamanni, and Julian.
Appian’s Narrative of the “Asiatic Vespers” and Comparison with Genocide Narratives in the earlier Judaeo-Christian Literary tradition
By Daniel Hunter, Rutgers University - New Brunswick
The “Asiatic Vespers”, a series of mass killings that occurred in c. 88 BCE against Romans and Italians living along the coast of western Anatolia, stands as the most horrifying incident of the First Mithridatic War and yet it is simultaneously glossed over as part of a “scholarly amnesia that has smoothed over the frequent violence of Rome’s annexation of the east (Alcock, 14).” The primary narrative account is that of Appian of Alexandria’s Mithridateios 4.22-23.
Tacitus and the ‘Noble’ Barbarian Family as Hostage
By Kelsey Schalo, University of Cincinnati
To understand the relationship between Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum and Tacitus’ Germania, scholars have analyzed how Tacitus critiques Rome by using the ‘noble’ barbarian ‘other’ to condemn deteriorating Roman morals (O'Gorman 1993, Timpe 2007 and 2008, Rives 2011, Krebs 2011, Milnor 2011). Tacitus replaces Caesar’s characterization of the Germans as wild with a ‘noble savagery’ unmistakable in their humble, chaste home life (Germ. 4-5, 15-27).
Firmus and the Crocodiles Revisited: Egyptian Imagery and Imperial Anxiety in the Historia Augusta’s Life of the Four Tyrants
By Kathryn Langenfeld, Clemson University
Within the fictive imperial biographies known as the Historia Augusta, parodic intertexts often trump historical fact (Rohrbacher, Cameron). This preference is apparent in the collection’s Life of the Four Tyrants.
“It’s Murder to Found a Colony”: Roman (Re)foundations in Livy
By Devin Lawson, Bryn Mawr College
Stories of colonial foundation have long drawn the attention of scholars. Although initially mined as historically reliable documents, skepticism soon arose about their accuracy. In the 1990s, scholars such as Carol Dougherty and Irad Malkin pioneered the study of cultural poetics, which views these stories as literary, rather than historical, documents that can reveal how later colonists viewed and constructed their identity, especially the aspects defined by colonial experience.