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The History of the Roman Empire 1911–1960
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
Within the past five decades a great volume of work has advanced our knowledge of the Roman Empire. No single essay can hope to describe this mass in detail or even to consider fully the many cross-currents of opinion. If there is a common tide in recent scholarship, it flows less clearly than did the course of investigation in the nineteenth century. Here I shall try first to single out some of the main forces which have shaped the views of the present and past generations; then shall comment on developments in the utilization of evidence and on shifts in the areas of our principal concern; and finally shall suggest an assessment of the present position of research on the Roman Empire.
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- Copyright © Chester G. Starr 1960. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
1 See also Fifty Years of Classical Scholarship, ed. Platnauer, Maurice (Oxford, 1954Google Scholar), and Guida allo studio della civiltà romana antica, ed. Ussani, Vincenzo, 2 vols. (Naples, 1952–1953Google Scholar); I have surveyed a number of aspects in the bibliographical essay of Civilization and the Caesars : The Intellectual Revolution in the Roman Empire (Ithaca, 1954)Google Scholar.
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18 Into this broad field I cannot enter here. The rise of Christianity is still sundered too widely from the general course of imperial history.
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26 Though excavation and publication have necessarily become team projects, it is interesting to observe how important remain the vision and energy of a leader.
27 The continuing appearance of Fasti archaeologici (1946– ) is a welcome guide.
28 Rarely, moreover, do archaeologists criticize faulty techniques of their colleagues as frankly as has Sir Mortimer Wheeler recently, JRS XLVIII (1958), 211–12Google Scholar; as a result, the non-expert may be led astray.
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30 One must mention, though with regret, the diatribe by the late Berenson, Bernard, The Arch of Constantine (London, 1954)Google Scholar; for it illustrates well how views on modern art may affect assessments of imperial artistic development.
31 See the bibliographies in Catalogo della Mostra augustea della romanità (Rome, 1939)Google Scholar; and Schober, Arnold, ‘Zur Entstehung und Bedeutung der provinzialrömischen Kunst’, Jahreshefte XXVI (1930), 9–52Google Scholar.
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37 Note the complaint of Claudius that his orders with respect to the imperial post had been unable to withstand nequitiae hominum (ILS 214). It is to be hoped that the second edition of Prosopographia imperi Romani (1933–43) will be continued. See also Crook, John, Consilium Principis (Cambridge, 1955)Google Scholar.
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39 Though Altheim, Franz, Die Soldatenkaiser (Frankfurt, 1939)Google Scholar, went much further than did Alföldi.
40 To give but one example, the mass of Libanius’ work has recently served as base for Harmand, Louis, Libanius, Discours sur les patronages (Paris, 1955)Google Scholar; Pack, Roger A., Studies in Libanius and Antiochene Society under Theodosius (Diss. U. of Michigan, 1934)Google Scholar; Petit, Paul, Libanius et la vie municipale à Antioche au IVe siècle après J.-C. (Paris, 1956)Google Scholar reviewed and discussed in JRS XLVII, 236 ff., and Les étudiants de Libanius (Paris, 1957)Google Scholar; and a number of essays.
41 On the other hand, Ernst Stein's virtually complete omission of the intellectual side in Geschichte des spätrömischen Reiches I, 284–476 n. Chr. (Vienna, 1928)Google Scholar left out basic factors.
42 Some explanations are noted by Baynes, Norman H., ‘The Decline of the Roman Power in Western Europe. Some Modern Explanations’, JRS XXXIII (1943), 29–35Google Scholar; and by Rostovtzeff, , Soc. and Econ. Hist of the R. Emp. 1 (1957 ed.), 535 ffGoogle Scholar. See also especially Lot, Ferdinand, La fin du monde antique et le début du moyen age (Paris, 1927)Google Scholar; Cambridge Economic History of Europe I (Cambridge, 1942)Google Scholar; Latouche, Robert, Les grandes invasions et la crise d'Occident au Ve siècle (Paris, 1946)Google Scholar.
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44 Dessau, Hermann, Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit I–II (Berlin, 1924–1930)Google Scholar, broke off in-complete, and was not rounded as far as it went; such recent studies as those by Luigi Pareti and the co-operative Storia di Roma are not yet finished and do not entirely meet the need.
45 Burck, Erich, in editing Richard Heinze's Vom Geist des Römertums (Leipzig, 1938)Google Scholar, observes that Heinze was led by World War I and the postwar troubles from an aesthetic consideration of Latin literature to semantic and other studies (p. 278).