IMC 2013: Sessions
Session 1310: Texts and Identities, IV: Violence, Legitimacy, and Identity during the Transformation of the Roman World
Wednesday 3 July 2013, 16.30-18.00
| Sponsor: | Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien / Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies, Universiteit Utrecht / Faculty of History, University of Cambridge |
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| Organisers: | E. T. Dailey, School of History, University of Leeds Gerda Heydemann, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien / Institut für Geschichte, Universität Wien |
| Moderator/Chair: | E. T. Dailey, School of History, University of Leeds |
| Paper 1310-a | Military Violence and Political Legitimacy in the Burgundian Civil War (Language: English) Index terms: Military History, Political Thought |
| Paper 1310-b | Hamstrung Horses?: Timothy Barnes, Constantine's Legendary Flight to His Father, and the Legitimacy of His Proclamation as Emperor in 306 (Language: English) Index terms: Military History, Political Thought |
| Paper 1310-c | Lower Class Illegitimate Violence in the Late Roman West (Language: English) Index terms: Military History, Political Thought, Social History |
| Abstract | This session examines the often strained relationship between military violence and political legitimacy in Late Antiquity. Adrastos Omissi questions recent interpretations of Constantine's claim to the imperial throne, asking whether Constantine’s proclamation was in fact an act of usurpation. Mike Burrows investigates the contravention of legitimate rights to violence by members of lower social orders in the 5th-century West (urban riots, slave resistance, etc.), asking what motivated people to rebel against the imperial order, and what impact such actions had on the transformation of the Roman world and particularly the re-formation of the state(s). Glenn McDorman examines the Burgundian civil war of 500-01 and the interplay of military violence, political legitimacy, and textual rhetoric: was this understood by contemporaries as mere fratricidal barbarian violence, or as political usurpation that was resolved within the late Roman legal tradition? |