Viggen

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fascinating article! In hindsight, Constantine’s victory does look like a watershed. One year later, 313 A.D., with a Christian now living in Caesar’s palace, Christianity would be granted legal status (the so-called Edict of Milan). According to the standard interpretation, Constantine’s vocal support for his new faith virtually ensured pagan Rome would morph into a Christian empire. Over the next half century, sacrifice would be outlawed, temples locked. Christian demographics would swell, as Romans — perhaps more than 50% of the empire by the mid 4th century, according to Rodney Stark — abandoned their tired traditions. (For context, the number of Christians during Constantine’s day is estimated at 10 percent). Unfortunately, there is a lot missing from this picture. Christian visibility did increase everywhere after Constantine’s victory, from Jerusalem to Spain. The fourth century A.D. was also a time of church councils, at Arles, Nicaea, and Serdica, meetings attended by opinionated bishops. Indeed, because of the sheer amount of this surviving Christian evidence, it really can look — for scholars interested in early Christianity — as if the whole Roman world had changed with one man’s conversion. Yet new evidence suggests Romans did not leave their traditions behind as quickly as once thought. The archaeological record from some of the most well-documented cities, like Ostia outside Rome, shows that traditional religion remained a vibrant part of urban and domestic life during this time. The most recent study of the religious identity of Roman senators also suggests that, when it came to embracing Christianity, the majority of that august body remained committed to “paganism” for most of the fourth century. Even with Constantine’s conversion — and the remarkable fact that a Christian was now serving openly as the head of state — Christians remained a minority religion for much longer than people suspected. full article at Medium.com

A list at the Times Here are 10 things you thought you knew about the Romans but didn

In the first episode in a new series exploring Rome from the bottom up, Professor Mary Beard asks not what the Romans did for us, but what the Empire did for Rome. All roads lead to Rome, but this isn

As you might have noticed the forum does look a bit different today! Our previous forum software reached its "end of life", so I had to make a decision either to shut it down or invest money and upgrade it to the newest version. Even though the forum discussion slowed down considerably over the years, i still believe there is more than enough interesting content and still enough contributors that it deserves to live on in a fresh and secure environment. So here it is the newest version of our forum software. I appreciate if you guys check it for any bugs and little errors so I can forward it to the developers to iron any bugs out you might encounter! Thanks!

..this is a sentence from an interview by J. Rufus Fears the David Ross Boyd professor of Classics at the University of Oklahoma on an interivew about democracy (regarding the current Egypt crisis) .... the Romans learned from history. They knew they would go the way of all great empires and what mattered was the legacy that they left behind. ...did they know? via NPR

Battles can make or break states and change the destiny of nations forever. As such, they represent some of humanity’s most important events. While there have been dozens of important, interesting battles over the past five thousand years of recorded warfare, here are five that changed history forever, though by no means is this list exhaustive. Instead, I have selected a wide range of battles from across different regions and times and have specifically avoided focusing on more well-known modern battles, many of which will be covered by The National Interest soon to mark the end of the Napoleonic Wars and World War II. Milvian Bridge (313) Manzikert (1071) Second Battle of Tarain (1192) Battle of Ain Jalut (1260) Battle of Cajamarca (1532) via National Interest Whats on your list?

..so fellow Brits, apparently in about 500 years it is all over.... Britain is experiencing the same decline as Rome in 100BC, with the collapse of civilisation inevitable, a scientist has warned. Dr Jim Penman, of the RMIT University in Melbourne, believes Britons no longer have the genetic temperament to advance because of decades of peace and a high standard of living. He claims that the huge success of the Victorian era will not be repeated because people in the UK have lost the biological drive for innovation. via The Telegraph

...fascinating article, The Augustan-era geographer Strabo also mentioned these tamers of the crocodile: "When crocodiles were brought to Rome to be exhibited, they were attended by some of the Tentyritæ. A reservoir was made for them with a sort of stage on one of the sides, to form a basking-place for them on coming out of the water, and these persons went into the water, drew them in a net to the place, where they might sun themselves and be exhibited, and then dragged them back again to the reservoir." Possible depictions of these men are often seen in the popular Nilotic scenes from the late Republic and early empire, the most famous of which is called the Palestrina mosaic, from a city just to the East of Rome. via Forbes

At an archaeological dig near Lake Küçükçekmece in Istanbul, Turkish researchers are working at uncovering the ancient city of Bathonea, but it’s an Amber necklace uncovered in the process that’s causing a lot of excitement for historians and archaeologists. Not just any necklace, the Viking-period Amber necklace may provide the long sought after evidence of a Viking presence in ninth century Turkey. via New Historian

Hello everyone, UNRV has be a part of my life since far beyond 2003 when it officially launched, so to say goodbye is not easy believe me. I struggled the last couple of years with health issues, work and a busy life thanks to my two children born in 2012 and 2015. Time was in the last years always an issue for me, i never had enough time to do the things i wanted to do and eventually there is a point where it is better to find someone who has the time and is able to make hopefully more out of UNRV than i was able to do the last few years... I am giving the site and all that comes with it to Peter Kay who lives in the UK is a professional website manager for a company and has a big interest in history particularly the ancient Roman period. I will stick around of course and will assist Peter as much as i can, none of your already submitted reviews are lost and will eventually be published. It feels weird for the first time ever not be the emperor here anymore but how did they sing in Frozen... Let it go...... Feel free to get in contact with me via this forum or viggen@gmail.com Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been an honor to serve you....!

Hello Peter, thanks for taking over UNRV, i stay around and help whenever there is help needed! Front page looking nice! cheers viggen

Interesting paper Alaric I (c. 370-410AD), King of the Visigoths, sacked Rome for the second time in over eight centuries of history. Historians suggest that malaria, probably contracted either in Rome or in the Pontine Marshes, was responsible for his sudden death in Cosenza (Calabria) in the autumn of 410AD, where he was allegedly buried in the River Busento. In this article, we aim to examine this hypothesis through a full pathographic reassessment of the most likely cause of Alaric's demise. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26970917 ...should be interesting for late antiquity gurus like @sonic

Pax Romana is a rather gentle but comprehensive refutation of this view – or at least a solid thesis by the author that 'the pendulum has swung too far'. In this book author and scholar Adrian Goldsworthy looks at Rome and its empire in a series of detailed studies – from conquest, to administration and frontier defences – and asks 'Did the Pax Romana really exist?' And if it did, was it beneficial for the people who lived under it...? ...continue to the review of Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World by Adrian Goldsworthy

Thanks @Maty for another great review!

Book Review by Philip Matyszak An Empire worth defending The ancient Romans were brutes. They wantonly invaded a succession of gentle, tree-hugging native peoples and set up a harsh, exploitative empire that did nothing for its unfortunate subjects but expose them to rampant corruption and prohibitively high taxation, and all the while a predatory army and swarms of bandits pillaged what was left. The above paragraph is something of a parody of the way that modern revisionist historians portray the Roman empire. Nevertheless there can be little doubt that views of ancient Rome have recently changed. Perhaps from revulsion at the more unsavoury practices of modern colonial empires, there is a modern trend to portray Rome as uniquely savage, violent and a force for bad in the ancient world. Pax Romana is a rather gentle but comprehensive refutation of this view – or at least a solid thesis by the author that 'the pendulum has swung too far'. In this book author and scholar Adrian Goldsworthy looks at Rome and its empire in a series of detailed studies – from conquest, to administration and frontier defences – and asks 'Did the Pax Romana really exist?' And if it did, was it beneficial for the people who lived under it? At the start of the book, one is entitled to have doubts. The Romans were not gentle conquerors. As we read of Caesar in Gaul, the callousness and at times downright barbaric behaviour of the Romans is impossible to ignore. However, as Goldsworthy points out, not everyone suffered in the same way. Some leaders sided with the Romans from the outset and were gently and willingly romanized. What this section shows very well is that the Romans were always but one of the players in a highly complex game of regional politics in which a multiplicity of factors influenced the protagonists. Another point which the author makes repeatedly is that we should not make the mistake of judging the Romans by one standard – that of 21st century Europe – and everyone else in the ancient world by another. The Romans were people of their time, and those were not gentle times. The Germans were every bit as warlike as the Romans, and aggressively expansionist too. Those gentle Britons did not live in hill forts because they enjoyed the view, and for a 'peaceful' people they were remarkably skilful and practised when it came to fighting off Caesar's legions. As Goldsworthy remarks, the Romans saw nothing wrong with having an empire. They were very proud of it, and they were unequivocal that this empire was for the benefit of the Romans. Yet no other people before or since were so ready to share being Roman with 'subject peoples', to make once-foreign cities imperial capitals (as Rome ceased to be one), and to serve under emperors whose ancestors had been conquered by those Romans. The section on the Roman frontier is especially revealing in this context. We see the frontiers not as a simple set of fortifications, but as part of a complex and interwoven web of political, economic and military interactions. There is, as Goldsworthy remarks, a certain irony that the frontiers were so effective that some modern critics deem that they were unnecessary. By the end of this book – and it is not a short read – one has a clear idea of how Rome's empire worked. There is no attempt to whitewash Rome into a benevolent and altruistic overlord. But the Romans were above all pragmatists. They had worked out that peaceful provinces were easier to govern, that contented subjects needed fewer soldiers to control them, and prosperous provinces paid more taxes. So the Pax Romana strove for peace, content and prosperity, and succeeded to a remarkable degree. Not because of modern notions of morality, not out of philanthropy, but because it was the most efficient way to run an empire. ...more Book Reviews! Roman Empire by C. M. Wells The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather Julius Caesar's Disease: A New Diagnosis by Galassi and Ashrafian Adrian Goldsworthy was born in 1969. He was educated up to the age of sixteen at Westbourne House Preparatory School and Westbourne Boys College in Penarth, South Wales. He attended the Sixth Form at Stanwell Comprehensive School for his A-Levels. From there he went to St John's College, Oxford University and took a First in Ancient and Modern History. Remaining at St John's, he was awarded a D.Phil. in Literae Humaniores (Ancient History) in 1994. The topic of his thesis was 'The Roman Army as a fighting force, 100 BC-AD 200'. A modified version of this was subsequently published in the Oxford Monographs series under the title of The Roman Army at War, 100 BC - AD 200 (1996). This remains in print and is one of the best selling works in the series. Philip Matyszak is a British non-fiction author, primarily of historical works relating to the ancient world. Matyszak has a doctorate in Roman history from St John's College, Oxford. In addition to being a professional author, he also teaches ancient history for Madingley Hall Institute of Continuing Education, Cambridge University. Tell us your opinion - Submit your Review - Buy the book! Book Review of Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World - Related Topic: Five Good Emperors Bibliography Get it now! Pax Romana for the UK ________________________________ Archive

Pax Romana is a rather gentle but comprehensive refutation of this view – or at least a solid thesis by the author that 'the pendulum has swung too far'. In this book author and scholar Adrian Goldsworthy looks at Rome and its empire in a series of detailed studies – from conquest, to administration and frontier defences – and asks 'Did the Pax Romana really exist?' And if it did, was it beneficial for the people who lived under it...? ...continue to the review of Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World by Adrian Goldsworthy

A man stumbled across a Roman villa in his back garden which is being hailed as the most significant discovery of its kind for a decade. Luke Irwin, from Wiltshire, was laying an electricity cable in his barn when he uncovered a mosaic underground... The find has been proclaimed by Historic England as “unparalleled in recent years”. After an eight-day dig, archaeologists uncovered more of the ‘elaborate’ and ‘extraordinarily well-preserved’ villa, thought to be one of the largest ever found in the country. ...via Independent

thanks, always nice to get feedback!

The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather The fall of the Western Roman Empire is a topic that is at the heart of any complete analysis of Roman civilization and one that has held immense fascination for centuries. Its causes are a contentious and well-traveled path scholars (and amateurs) have argued since Gibbon. It is a daunting task, even for an established professor of classics to tackle, and Peter Heather tackles it with an intelligent, well-argued work of over 450 pages that takes the reader on an examination of the military and political aspects of that era. The layout is also well thought out even containing 19 pages of succinct biographies of key individuals mentioned, a timeline, a glossary of important terms of late antiquity, a healthy amount of notes one would expect from a scholar and a bibliography. Perhaps my only disappointment is with the bibliography, seeing the attention to detail given in the layout of this work I wished Heather would have included a narrative bibliography rather than a mere listing... ...read the full review of The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather

...this review has now been updated to the new layout!

Book Review by Michael Mates Michael Edward Moore received his higher education at the University of Michigan, taking a B.A. in 1984 (Phi Beta Kappa) and a Ph.D in 1993. At Michigan he studied with Czeslaw Milosz and Hans Küng. Dr. Moore's research centers on ecclesiastical, legal and scholarly traditions of Europe from late antiquity through the Carolingian Empire. His work encompasses the history of medieval politics, the history of scholarship, the papacy, liturgy, royal law, canon law, and the "history of history." Recently he has begun to study the history of philology and hermeneutics. This detailed, carefully argued book shows how Christian bishops used their mastery of moral, social and spiritual power, along with law and tradition, to guide the formation and governance of the Frankish kingdoms. The period covers the Gallic period, the conversion and baptism of Clovis I (c 508 AD), the deposition of the Merovingians in 751, the missionary conquests of Charlemagne (King 768-814, Emperor 800-814), and the breakup of the unified empire after the death of Charlemagne’s son Louis the Pious in 840. Moore cites nearly 100 bishops’ councils during the period, and dozens of royal laws and edicts. Moore argues that the church’s “power to shape and guide a society rather than coerce it,” (p 2), was based on: • the elite (and urban) origin of bishops (drawn mostly from the aristocracy); • their status as an ascetic ordo (order) charged with protecting the kingdom and the poor by prayer and alms; • the general respect accorded the church by the people and the aristocracy; • the church’s monopoly of spiritual power and authority; • the provision of sanctuary to those fleeing persecution or prosecution; • the wealth gained by churches and monasteries from donations of the pious; • the permanence of written in contrast to oral law; • the architectural dominance and attractive beauty of basilicas; • bishops’ eagerness to defend their own diocesan turf; • the steady accretion of legal and moral codes in hundreds of church councils; • the adaptation of laws and traditions (tribal, Roman, Biblical) to current situations; and • their circular tonsure, which made them look older and therefore more authoritative. In one of his many brilliant and well-expressed metaphors, Moore summarizes the bishops’ success over five centuries in developing a Christian kingship: “so much royal fabric seemed to absorb an episcopal dye” (p 7). “Kings were offered a lofty role they could play only in concert with bishops” (p 140). Kings and nobles did from time to time attempt to enforce their authority against that of the church. The most intriguing story concerns the henchmen of King Childebert (496-558), and their pursuit of an enemy of the king who had taken refuge in a church. Mindful that it was unlawful to invade the holy place, and following the letter if not the spirit of the law, the men climbed on the roof, tore off tiles, and threw them down on the victim, killing him (p 192). But overall, the “integration of royal and episcopal power” (p 254), under the guiding hand of the church, continued apace, reaching its apogee in the reign of Charlemagne as emperor (800-81). Near the end of the united empire, the highs and lows stand out. Louis the Pious negotiated on equal terms in the 820s with the Byzantine Emperor Michael in their condemnation of the Pope’s excessive veneration of icons. Later, in 833, Louis made public penance before bishops at Compiègne, where he had to be physically restrained by bishops as they removed his sword belt (p 335). The penance related to Louis’s alleged misdeeds in an era of “treason, royal rebellion and civil war” (p 332). ...more Book Reviews! The Late Roman Army by Pat Southern The Oxford Classical Dictionary by Hornblower and Spawforth Empire Of Pleasures by Andrew Dalby As always with this historical period, it is a pleasure to encounter again the splendidly barbarian names (Sisebut, Grimoald, Wamba), and to read the odd examples of decayed Latin, such as that of the Bobbio Missal. However, for the most part, and in tribute to their maintenance of literary standards in often rough times, the bishops wrote a generally solid legal and Christian Latin, which Moore translates extensively, with the original in footnotes. (Very occasionally, Moore cites some Latin and French without translation.) It is an even greater pleasure to read the grand sweep of over half a millennium, supported by, but never bogged down by the details that support the thesis. Michael Mates earned his PhD in 1982 at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena CA, writing his dissertation on St. Patrick and the British Church. After seminary, he taught in Pakistan, and then worked as a U.S. diplomat with the Department of State, serving in Islamabad, Canberra, Karachi, Cluj (Romania), Columbia (District of) and Chisinau (Moldova), before retiring in 2011 to Monroe, Washington State, and starting a new career as co-landscaper at his hectare of gardens, lawns and forest, and brewer of black-fudge garden compost. Tell us your opinion - Submit your Review - Buy the book! Book Review of A Sacred Kingdom - Related Topic: Germania Inferior - Germania Superior Bibliography Get it now! A Sacred Kingdom for the UK ________________________________ Archive

This detailed, carefully argued book shows how Christian bishops used their mastery of moral, social and spiritual power, along with law and tradition, to guide the formation and governance of the Frankish kingdoms. The period covers the Gallic period, the conversion and baptism of Clovis I (c 508 AD), the deposition of the Merovingians in 751, the missionary conquests of Charlemagne (King 768-814, Emperor 800-814), and the breakup of the unified empire after the death of Charlemagne’s son Louis the Pious in 840... ...continue to the review of A Sacred Kingdom: Bishops and the Rise of Frankish Kingship by Michael E. Moore

This detailed, carefully argued book shows how Christian bishops used their mastery of moral, social and spiritual power, along with law and tradition, to guide the formation and governance of the Frankish kingdoms. The period covers the Gallic period, the conversion and baptism of Clovis I (c 508 AD), the deposition of the Merovingians in 751, the missionary conquests of Charlemagne (King 768-814, Emperor 800-814), and the breakup of the unified empire after the death of Charlemagne’s son Louis the Pious in 840... ...continue to the review of A Sacred Kingdom: Bishops and the Rise of Frankish Kingship by Michael E. Moore

great stuff @Legio17 and thanks to @Gordopolis for this wonderful review!