Description
Book SynopsisNo people is nameless, and lists of words are as old as writing systems. And yet, both subjects can appear unpromising to historians. This volume shows the contrary by examining the various meanings and functions of ethnonyms in Late Antiquity: added to catalogues of provinces, they reflect the political messages and the regulating power of the imperial bureaucracy; included in schoolbooks, they mirror educational practices and reveal the geographical and ethnic landscapes taught at school; placed on a map, they help make sense of the world in times of transition.
Table of ContentsPreface List of Figures Abbreviations General Introduction 1 Ethnonyms and Ethnicity: Some Methodological Reflections 2 Ethnonyms: Identifying the Sources 3 Listing Ethnonyms alongside Other Cognitive Processes and Literary Strategies Part 1: Listing and Declaiming Ethnonyms Introduction 1 Listing in Late Antiquity 2 Aesthetics of Listing – the Example of Decimus Magnus Ausonius 1 The Laterculus Veronensis 1 The Forgotten Attachment: The Ethnic Catalogues 2 The Gentes of the Far North and West 3 The Gentes of the Rhine 4 The Gentes of the Danube 5 The Non-European Gentes 6 Conclusions: Lexical Adaptations and Ethnic Transformations in Late Antique Gaul Part 2: Listing and Memorizing Ethnonyms Introduction 1 Lists for Learning 2 Listing Ethnonyms in Schoolbooks – Vibius Sequester and Lucius Ampelius 2 The Cosmographia of Julius Honorius 1 From a Student, for Future Students 2 Gentes of the Eastern Quarter 3 Gentes of the Western Quarter 4 Gentes of the Northern Quarter 5 Gentes of the Southern Quarter 6 Conclusions: The Educational Value and Political Overtones of Lists of Place Names and Ethnonyms Part 3: Listing and Locating Ethnonyms Introduction 1 Conceptualizing and Listing Space 2 And yet it moves. Beyond Lists in Late Antique Geography 3 The Expositio totius mundi et gentium 1 A Curious Author and a Peculiar Guidebook of the Roman World 2 A (Partially) Utopian and (Very Much) Ethnic East 3 A (Mostly) Civic terra Romanorum and the gentes barbarorum at Its Borders 4 Ethnic and Spatial Identities in the Expositio 4 The Tabula Peutingeriana and Its Ethnonyms 1 Introduction 2 The Ethnonyms on the Tabula Peutingeriana: General Aspects 3 Beyond the Rhine: Really a Medieval Addition? 4 Ethnic Double Names 5 A (Relatively) Unimaginative Ethnic Landscape 6 Persae: Explicit and Implicit Traces of a Special Ethnonym 7 Conclusions: Ethnonyms and a Geography of Otherness General Conclusions Bibliography Index
