CLST 277-16-016: The World of Late Antiquity

Study Questions

Monday 15 March

• Congratulations on completing our first exam!
• So that the exam becomes a part of your long-term learning, keep thinking about the questions it posed. If you had had all the time in the world to answer, what more could you have said to take your answers even further? What other passages could you have cited to support and extend the arguments you made? What even broader implications can you see, in this longer perspective, to the questions you explored?

• Connect Julian's Letter to the Senate and People of Athens to what we have been reading about Julian in Ammianus: when did Julian write this piece? What was he trying to do?
• How does Julian describe the way he has conducted himself as Constantius's Caesar? What conflicts has he faced? How has he responded to opposition?
• How does Julian describe his more-distant family history with Constantius? What does he say about Gallus? about Eusebia?

Wednesday 17 March

• Analyze the argumentative structure of Julian's appeal To the Senate and People of Athens. What fundamental principles does he invoke -- emphatically and less-emphatically? How does he connect these principles to his audience?
• How does Julian use narrative to help support his appeal: how does he turn his recital of events into evidence against Constantius and for himself?
• Compare and contrast Julian's narrative of events from when Constantius made him Caesar to the date of writing, to what we have read in Ammianus. Assuming that this letter either is or closely resembles some of Ammianus's source material, how did Ammianus modify Julian's account? What different implications do they each bring out in the story they both tell, where they differ in its details?

• Julian appointed Claudius Mamertinus, a civilian official from a distinguished family in Roman Gaul, to the office of consul for 362, shortly after Constantius's death left Julian as the sole claimant to imperial rule. It had long been a tradition of the Roman empire that appointees to the consulate (when emperors did not take the office themselves, as they did regularly) delivered a formal speech thanking the emperor for their appointment, on 1 January, the day they took office. Our reading tonight is Mamertinus's speech of thanks.
• Besides expressing gratitude for the great honor of the consulate, what does Mamertinus discuss in the speech? What would Julian and the members of his court who had come with him from Gaul be learning here for the first time? What would other members of the audience be learning from Mamertinus's speech?
• Compare and contrast how Mamertinus uses narrative to advance his speech (what ends does he serve with it?) to the way the Panegyrist of 313 and Nazarius use narrative to praise Constantine I in the selections of their speeches we have read.

Friday 19 March

• How does Mamertinus's speech fit in to the framework of ceremonial inaugurating him as consul? To what elements of ceremonial does he refer in the speech? How do they help to shape his themes?
• How does Mamertinus use the imagery of adventus in describing Julian's crossing out of Gaul and occupying the Danube region? How does that imagery recast Julian's actions?
• What themes and arguments of Julian's propaganda against Constantius (especially in the Letter to the Senate and People of Athens) does Mamertinus echo? What does he omit? What different emphases does he create, now that Constantius has died peacefully and Julian has become uncontested Augustus?
• How does Mamertinus use a personal voice in his speech, presenting himself as an individual amid this very formal, ceremonial setting?
• How does Mamertinus present Julian's individual qualities, in Gaul, in the Danube region, and in Constantinople on the morning of 1 January 362? What do they have to do with the formal and deeper messages of his speech?

• How does Julian, according to Ammianus, inaugurate his sole reign as Augustus? What does he do to change policies and tendencies of Constantius's reign?
• What problems does Julian encounter at Antioch, while he is preparing for his great expedition against the Persian Empire? What other projects does Julian undertake at this time?
• Our translation omits parts of Ammianus's geographical excursuses, but from the sample left in and notations of where they have been cut, what hypotheses can you formulate about how Ammianus uses his spatial and ethnographic digressions within his narrative of history?

Monday 22 March

• In what ways does place organize Ammianus's narrative? Why? In what ways does location matter in historical events? in a historical perspective?
• What impression of Julian emerges from the incidents Ammianus reports about how he administers justice?
• What impression of Julian emerges from the projects and attitudes Ammianus reports about how he set about reviving official paganism in the Roman Empire? What attitude to Christians does Ammianus display? to Jews? What values shape Ammianus's judgments in religious matters?
• How does Ammianus begin to forecast disaster for Julian's Persian campaign? How does his attitude to the campaign relate to his judgments on Julian more generally? on the proper work of Roman emperors?

• Ammianus mentions Julian's Misopogon (Greek for "Beard-Hater") in Book 22.14. Compare and contrast Ammianus's picture of what Julian tried to do at Antioch, and how the Antiochenes reacted, to what Julian says. What expectations did Julian and Ammianus each hold about how urban life works? Where do their expectations differ?
• How does Julian satirize his own physical person in Misopogon? How does the physical image fit in with the moral values he claims for himself? How does he contrast himself with the Antiochenes?
• What does Julian say about his education in Misopogon? Why does he discuss it in such a public document?

Wednesday 24 March

• How does Julian fit together physical, moral, and political self-portrait in his Misopogon? What is "satirical", and what seems to be meant more "straightforwardly"? Which aspects of his self-characterization does Julian seem to expect will help persuade the Antiochenes to change their reactions to him? Why?
• How does religion figure in Misopogon? In what ways does Julian recognize that he and the Antiochenes differ in their views of religious matters? Nevertheless, how does he attempt to change their views?
• What does Julian say he has tried to do to improve city life in Antioch? What considerations motivated him? What assumptions has he made about what would work? How well has it worked? Why? How does what Julian says in Misopogon attempt to make up any deficiencies?

• Compare and contrast what John Chrysostom says about St. Babylas to what Julian says in Misopogon about his efforts to revive worship of Apollo at the shrine. How do they each conceive of divine powers and their relationships to the place? How do they each conceive of an emperor's role in public religion?
• Chrysostom composed the Homily on St. Babylas almost two decades after Julian was in Antioch; what concerns from Julian's visit are still actively relevant?

Friday 26 March

• Use the accounts of Julian, John Chrysostom, and Ammianus to determine the mundane facts that occurred to bring the relics of St. Babylas to the shrine of Apollo at Daphne, to take them away again, and then to burn the shrine. Who wanted to do what by moving the relics where, and/or by analyzing the relics' movements and the fire as they do? What does the episode show about how and why physical space was contested ideologically by late antique Christians and Pagans?
• What effectiveness does John attribute to St. Babylas's relics, before and after the fire? What events does John use to argue his case? What principles of how phenomenology works does his argument have to presume?
• How does John portray Julian: what larger significance for Christian memory does he assign "the Apostate"?

• How does Augustine frame his Confessions: what does he claim to be doing by giving this account of himself? to whom? why?
• How does Augustine analyze (since he says he cannot exactly remember his own experiences of this period) what he must have done and felt as a baby? What forces does he say operate in a baby's life?
• What aspects of his boyhood and schooling does Augustine discuss? Why does he choose them to discuss? How did he, and how does he, react to literature?
• When Augustine was a boy, which members of his family believed what religiously? How did their beliefs affect their relationships as a family?
• What happens to Augustine at puberty? How does his father react? Why?
• What did the "Pear-Tree Incident" actually amount to? Why does Augustine dwell on it so?

Monday 29 March

• What missions of autobiography do Augustine's Confessions perform? What else do they do? Review the outline of Augustine's career (pp. 19-20).
• What audience(s) does Augustine address? How can each audience connect his story to its own concerns?
• How do autobiographical narrative and the other modes of writing in the Confessions connect to one another? How do they form a single text, as a whole?
• How does Augustine combine different perspectives on the events and emotions of his life: what he experienced and felt at the time, what he feels now looking back on it, what he expects different other people, or his God, to think in reaction to his own multiple perspectives?

• Review Books 1-2 and continue reading through Books 3-4.
• How does Augustine say he reacted to literature, including the literary qualities of Christian scripture? What attracted him? What didn't?
• What aspects of Manichaean doctrine does Augustine recall (Book 3.6 and following)? In what light does he portray this phase of his spiritual life? How did Monica react?
• How does Augustine reflect on astrology? How does this subject relate to his spiritual concerns?
• What happens to Augustine's friend at Thagaste? Why does it affect Augustine as it does?
• How does Augustine pursue his interests in beauty and in philosophy? What do these subjects have to do with one another, and with his other spritual interests at the time? How does he look back on his investigations?
• Reminder! Second progress report on project due Wednesday 3/31. Thank you.

Wednesday 31 March

• How do episodes of Augustine's life prefigure patterns of interactions, conflicts and concerns that recur later -- or, conversely, how do later episodes replay, complicate, and deepen patterns that have happened before? Think of specific examples.
• Trace the theme of individuation in Augustine's Confessions: how does he come to feel himself as an individual, distinct from other people and (at varying levels) from God's will? What consequences does individuation entail?
• Trace the theme of communication in the Confessions. How does it relate to Augustine's other concerns in this work? To how many other concerns can you relate it?
• In how many different ways does Augustine connect his life and concerns to universal themes such as cosmic order and the human condition? Be able to discuss specific examples.

• Have a wonderful holiday!
• Review Books 1-4 and continue reading through Books 5-6.
• How does Augustine begin to find problems with Manichaean doctrine? How has he signalled these difficulties in his narrative, before he comes to the time when he confronts them? How does he try to solve them: where does he look for clarification? Does he find it? How does he react?
• Trace the developments of Augustine's career, as he goes from teaching at Thagaste to Carthage to Rome to Milan. What does he tell us about the profession of literature and rhetoric? How does his own professional experience compare to his experience as a student?
• How does Augustine encounter Ambrose? How do they interact?
• How does Monica react to differences in Christian observation in Italy from in Africa?
• What parts of Alypius's life-story does Augustine include in his Confessions? Compare and contrast Alypius to Augustine. What is their relationship like?

Wednesday 7 April

• Trace important relationships Augustine records in his Confessions: how have they each shaped his life and spiritual quest? What have others given him, both as they have shared experiences and as he reflects? What has he given to the others in his life? Here are some important relationships, to get you started; what others can you identify?

  Monica		mistress		Ambrose
  Alypius		friend in Thagaste		Faustus
  Nebridius		literature		God

• Which experiences and characteristics of Alypius parallel Augustine's? Which are different? How does Augustine's partial narration of Alypius's life serve Augustine's literary purposes in the Confessions as a whole?

• Trace imperial succession from the death of Julian to the reign of Theodosius I -- roughly, the same period as the events of Augustine's life we have been reading in his Confessions so far. What important events were shaping the life of the empire?
• How were social classes organized in the later Roman empire? Why did they matter? What do these considerations suggest about the concern Augustine's family and friends felt for his education and career: what was he going to be able to do?
• How did social class relate to local and imperial administration in the later Roman empire? Who did what? How did the emperors endeavor to make sure important functions continued to be performed?
• This would be a good point at which to review Cameron Ch. VIII, too, which we read before with attention particularly to economic considerations: how do social systems fit in?

Friday 9 April

• Reviewing Augustine's Confessions against the background of late antique social systems as Cameron describes them, what indications of ethnicity, class, and wealth can you trace? What does Augustine show about how patronage operated? How (at least in his life) did rhetoric function publicly?
• On what basis, or bases, did Jovian, Valentinian, Valens, Procopius, Gratian, and Valentinian II derive legitimacy as emperors? Who made them emperors? What considerations helped, or didn't help, keep them emperors?

• Review the major military events of the reigns of Constantine, his sons, and Julian. What pressures caused them? What pressures did they put on Roman governmental systems? What other problems ensued?
• Trace how the chain of events and pressures continued down to the battle of Adrianople. Who was involved? What did each side want: why did they clash? Compare Ammianus's narrative to Cameron's analysis: what aspects do they each bring out?
• How did aftereffects of Adrianople shape other events and imperial policy, subsequently?
• How were Roman defenses organized?

Monday 12 April

• Who were the limitanei, "frontier troops"? How did they complement the mobile field armies in defense of the later Roman empire: who did what? What other tasks did soldiers perform, and how did they interact with civilians as a result?
• What roles did "barbarians" take in Roman military affairs? To what extent were they assimilated with Romans?
• What aspects of the background of events leading to the battle of Adrianople does Ammianus bring out? How? Why? Where does he assign responsibility for the conflict? How does his judgment in this matter relate to his view of Roman culture in civilian affairs?

• What types of public and religious office are recorded on funerary and other honorary inscriptions of the Roman aristocrats Symmachus (pagan), Praetextatus (pagan), Nicomachus Flavianus (pagan), and Petronius Probus (Christian)?
• What positions and qualities are recorded on funerary and other honorary inscriptions of aristocratic Roman women such as Paulina (wife of Praetextatus), Cloelia Concordia (chief Vestal), and Proba (wife of Probus)?
• What types of concerns does Symmachus discuss in his letters? N.b.: these letters represent as very small sampling of a very large collection, and the proportions of different types of letters selected are not representative of the collection as a whole.

Wednesday 14 April

• How do the dedicatory inscriptions of late-fourth-century Roman aristocrats portray the public and private lives of their subjects? What social roles and interactions between dedicator and dedicatee do they reflect? What other social values can be read on stone?
• As pontifex maior, supervising various public priesthoods of the Roman state, what sorts of things does Symmachus's correspondence show he had to worry about? What attitudes and basic assumptions shape his responses to the situtations that arose?
• How do many of Symmachus's letters (in fact, the bulk of his letter-collection as a whole) help to support his social networking? What functions are important for them to perform? How does Symmachus make these letters sound better than routine and perfunctory?

• What arguments does Symmachus advance in favor of the Altar of Victory? How does it, according to him, relate to the well-being of the Roman state? How do emperors' acts concerning the Altar reflect on them as emperors, and on the success of their reigns? What values underlie his arguments?
• What arguments does Ambrose advance against the Altar of Victory? How does he account for the religious history of the Roman state? What values and assumptions underlie his arguments?

Friday 16 April

• Trace the history of the Altar of Victory in the Senate-House of Rome. What function did it have in traditional Roman state religion, before Christianity came to contest it? What did it represent to Christian Romans, by 382? When they put it back into contention [who did what, when? what do I mean, "back" into contention?], what additional significances did the Altar come to represent for pagan senators? In short, why is this episode important?
• Compare and contrast the religious principles Symmachus cites in his Memorandum to Valentinian II with the religious concerns reflected in the selection of his other letters we have read. How does he endeavor to make the Altar acceptable to a Christian emperor -- what types of arguments does he use? How fairly does the Memorandum represent the concerns that exercised Symmachus in his supervisory role of pontifex maior?
• How does Ambrose pick up and reinterpret elements of Symmachus's Memorandum in order to argue against the Altar? How fairly does he depict the elements and operation of pagan public cult? What world-view does he appropriate for his Christian cause, against Symmachus and the Altar?

• What does Ambrose say in Letter LI that would encourage Theodosius to listen to him at all? What types of authority does he then utilize in order to criticize Theodosius's actions?
• How does Ambrose, in Letter LVII, summarize his epistolary debate with Symmachus over the Altar of Victory? How does he go about criticizing Eugenius's actions?
• How does Ambrose react to Theodosius's victory over Eugenius, by the actions he reports and in Letter LXI itself? What requests does he make?

Monday 19 April

• Outline Group A's presentation on Julian's Oration in Praise of Eusebia. What new information did they present? What does it tell us about Julian? about Eusebia? about orations-in-praise? What connections can you make between their work and the other material covered by this course?
• Trace the historical events that provoked, respectively, Ambrose's Letters LI, LVII, and LXI.
• What strategies does Ambrose use in his letters to construct a position of authority for himself as bishop? What relationship does he construct between his own authority and the authority of emperors? How (at least in Ambrose's view) are the relationships of power to be negotiated?

• Correct the spelling error in the middle of the e-text of Theodosian Code 16.1.2 (hint: it's one of the ones that makes your instructor gnash her teeth). Feel good about your superior knowledge.
• What measures does Theodosius take in his legislation to promote his religious views? What does he permit? What does he ban?
• How does Theodosius define correct religion: what criteria does he use?
• What emotional weight does the language of Theodosius's laws put behind their substantive provisions?
• How did the sixth-century pagan historian Zosimus read Theodosius's religious legislation?

Wednesday 21 April

• How did Theodosius, in his capacity as emperor, relate the role and power of emperor to the Christian religion(s) and the Church? Compare and contrast to other emperors' interventions in religious matters. Be prepared to discuss specific incidents.
• Trace the dynamics of Theodosius's religious relationship with Ambrose, as witnessed in the material we have studies. What types of authority does each utilize? To what ends? To whose advantage?

• How much of Claudian's panegyric for the joint consulate of the brothers Probinus and Olybrius focuses directly on them? What other material does Claudian include?
• How does Claudian portray Theodosius, in the aftermath of his battle against Eugenius?
• How does Claudian utilize the personifications of Rome and Tiber River?

Friday 23 April

• Outline Group 1's presentation on Claudian's Panegyric for the Sixth Consulate of Honorius. What new information did they present? What does it tell us about Claudian? about Honorius? about imperial adventus? What connections can you make between their work and the other material covered by this course?
• How does Claudian use imagery in his Panegyric for the Consulate of Probinus and Olybrius? What types of image does he use? How does he develop them? What associations do his images call up? How closely do they relate to Probinus and Olybrius? Whom else do they praise -- in what ways?

• Trace the narrative line of Claudian's one-book epic, The War against Gildo. What perspective on the war does his introduction display? How close have events come to that result by the end of the book?
• Compare and contrast Claudian's image of Rome in The War against Gildo to his image of her in the Panegyric for the Consulate of Probinus and Olybrius, and to Symmachus's and Ambrose's images in their letters about the Altar of Victory. Also compare the personified province Africa.
• Gildo rebelled from Honorius's control, based in the West and supplying Rome with grain, by switching his administrative allegiance to Arcadius's Eastern administration. How does Claudian portray the relationship between the two brother-emperors? How do their father, the emperor Theodosius I, and grandfather, the general Theodosius, contribute to their interaction?
• How does Claudian portray the role of Honorius's father-in-law and chief general, Stilicho?

Monday 26 April

• How does Claudian use characters, situations, imagery, and language from traditional, pagan poetry in his works? Compare and contrast these traces of old religion with what we know about the composition and religiosity of Claudian's primary audiences: how could they have understood Claudian's poetic idiom so as not to have found it offensive?
• Compare and contrast the dynamic movement of narrative in Claudian's Panegyric for the Consulate of Probinus and Olybrius and The War against Gildo: how much is his poetry oriented towards action, how much towards pageant and display? What does Claudian's poetry tell us about the aesthetic values of his time and place?

• What crises and turning-points does Augustine identify as most important in his journey towards accepting Christian faith? Why? What aspects of himself does he have to assuage? How are they brought to acceptance?
• Which personal relationships work most deeply upon Augustine? Why? When do important revelations or impulses come to him otherwise than through another person?

Wednesday 28 April

• Compare and contrast the moments in Books 7, 8, and 9 when Augustine says he felt spiritual certainty. What impulses move him to this new feeling, each time? What emotional state(s) is he coming out of, to certainty? What factors influence how he feels as the perfect assurance of certainty passes? Analyze how Augustine's narrative leads the reader along an emotional trajectory comparable to what Augustine says he himself experienced.
• For what reasons are human connections essential to Augustine's enjoyment of his faith, as he understands and portrays himself in the Confessions? What connections does he draw with the Incarnation of Christ?
• How do books figure in the final stages of Augustine's conversion? What texts does he read, or hear about other people's reading? How do the texts and these stories affect him? In what ways can his own text, the Confessions, perform similar functions?
• Who was Victorinus? How does Augustine learn his story? In what ways does it set up a model for subsequent developments in Augustine's own story?
• In what ways does Ponticianus's friends' story set up a model for subsequent developments in Augustine's own story?
• What does Augustine do for the autobiographical element of his own Confessions by telling what he tells of Monica in Book 9: what does he tell, and how does it relate to the concerns and devlopments of his own life to the same time? Note that after Book 9 the Confessions step away from autobiographical narration.

• According to Cameron's overview, in what ways did the Roman empire, at least in the West, "decline" or "fall" after the fourth century? What aspects of Roman culture endured?
• Begin your own review of the literary works we have considered this term. What central concerns have emerged? How do literary developments relate to historical changes? Can we identify any elements of a pervasive sensibility in the later Roman empire?

Friday 30 April

• Be able to identify the significance for the later Roman empire of the following dates:

  410

  476

  1453

• Compare and contrast what Cameron reports of Augustine's analysis in City of God of Roman culture and recent history, with what Augustine reports of his own life and spiritual history in Confessions.
• Feel my gratitude for a good semester's work together.

• Prepare for the final exam Wednesday 5 May, 10:20-12:20, Damen 733:
  • Review all assigned reading, and notes you have taken on reading.
  • Review class notes, including from the presentations of student Projects.
  • Review Study Questions for assigned reading and class sessions above and in Study Questions I.
  • Think about Final Exam Study Guide and Midterm Study Guide; in particular, prepare to write one of a choice of essays on the exam.
• Good luck with all your final papers and exams and things!