Some recent books on late antiquity that have caught my eye. First up, more on Claudian in Pierre Laurens' La dernière muse latine: Douze lectures poétiques, de Claudien à la génération baroque, reviewed by the State University of Milan's Massimo Gioseffi in BMCR:
The first essay can be taken as a representative example of the
author's interests and methodology. It concentrates on a cycle of seven
Latin (and two Greek) epigrams by Claudius Claudianus, concerning a
crystal ball enclosing a drop of water. According to Laurens, the
epigrams form a unity and do not simply involve the idea of "variation
on a theme", nor are they exploiting the artistic possibilities of the ekphrasis,
as is usually said; indeed, they aim to describe the substance of the
crystal and the unity of the depicted object (according to the
ancients, rock-crystal was ice hardened by excessively intense
freezing). As a consequence, the epigrams try to replace the real
object with words and to create through words an entity as solid and
complicated as the real one, in which hardened ice (crystal) and fluid
ice (water) are mixed together. This means that, according to Laurens,
the nine epigrams are different steps leading the reader to appreciate
how water freezes or ice thaws and the one turns into the other. It
also means that, like the Bible, natural phenomena can be read equally
in two different ways: both literally (a crystal ball enclosing a drop
of water, an extraordinary but futile object) and -- more deeply --
positing that inclusion, mobility and contiguity beget a general
incredulity about the principle of identity, so that readers are forced
to reflect upon the uninterrupted transformations of things into one
another. If this is true, Claudian is not to be regarded any more as a
pure artist or as a follower of the art for art's sake doctrine, but
rather as a philosopher or a didactic poet, interested in the rules
that establish the fluctuation and the progress of ideas, and in
everything that can explain how an abnormal fact becomes normal.
The second is Karin Mosig-Walburg's Römer und Perser: vom 3. Jahrhundert bis zum Jahr 363 n. Chr reviewed by M. Weiskopf also at BMCR:
Chapter 5 discusses the beginnings of a more serious conflict, one
ending with a status quo ante following the failure of Sasanian
thrusts. Modern reconstructions of events present a variety of
sequences (p. 193), but Mosig-Walburg takes as her fixed point the
death of Constantine I (22 May 337): Shapur II's military preparations
are assigned to the year 1 October 336-30 September 337, and the date
of Shapur's embassy requesting the abolition of the 298 treaty to late
spring of 337. The tipping point for Shapur (pp.235-239) was his
concern over Constantine's plans to reorganize imperial administration,
including the creation of a special command, "rex", assigned to
Hanniballianus, placing him atop allied--and restive--minor kings and
satraps. General Narseh's defeat by Rome at Amida and Shapur's failed
siege of Nisibis permitted the continuation of an unsteady peace at the
end of 337, when neither side could continue the fight. Chapter 6
removes the force of Eusebius' desire to make Constantine a
prototypical Christian emperor. Mosig-Walburg argues that neither
Constantine nor Constantius thought in terms of a 'crusade', at best a
modern retrojection of later religious tensions.
And finally at BMCR, The History of Zonaras from Alexander Severus to the Death of Theodosius the Great reviewed by Ohio State's Anthony Kaldellis:
In the early- to mid-twelfth century, Ioannes Zonaras wrote a
historical epitome that covered sacred and Jewish history down to
Titus' capture of Jerusalem (in six books) and then Roman history from
the kings to the death of Alexios I Komnenos in 1118 AD (in another
twelve books). In addition to Zonaras' prologue and postscript,
Banchich and Lane have here translated books 12.15-35 and 13.1-19,
which contain a continuous narrative of the years 235-395 AD and are
based on a number of now-lost sources. In a brief introduction,
Banchich reviews the facts of Zonaras' life and the state of the
scholarship on the question of his sources. The bulk of the book
consists of his commentary on the two translated sections of the
history, which includes information about people and events, references
to the most proximate surviving sources for the period, and
supplementary translations of corresponding passages in Byzantine
sources that preserve similar or divergent traditions to those in
Zonaras. These translations in the commentary are printed in parallel
columns when it is warranted. The commentary does not aim to present
recent scholarship on the events of this period (which would have been
a vast and not especially useful undertaking in this context). The
research into the late antique and Byzantine historiographical
tradition is thorough and spot-checks indicate that the translations,
both of Zonaras and the other sources, are reliable. Anyone who has
worked with these sources will appreciate the depth and range of the
labor required to produce a usable commentary such as this. The book
makes a valuable contribution to the study of the historiographical
tradition and its sources, and will also provide a new angle of study
for those interested in the history of those years, especially the
obscure events of the mid-third and early fourth centuries. The readers
of this Review need not be reminded how often "late," i.e., Byzantine,
sources provide unexpectedly crucial evidence for antiquity.
