Ralph Mathisen

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, History, Faculty Member

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University of Oxford

Ghent University

Wellesley College

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Henry Colburn

Hofstra University

Jo Van Steenbergen

Ghent University

David Alvarez Jimenez

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Francesca Gazzano

University of Genova

Jan N . Bremmer

University of Groningen

Andreas Rhoby

Austrian Academy of Sciences

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Papers by Ralph Mathisen

Changing Times: The Allocation of Land to Barbarian Settlers in the Late Roman World

De Gruyter eBooks, Dec 17, 2023

This discussion has suggested not only that there was a long tradition of assigning land to barba... more This discussion has suggested not only that there was a long tradition of assigning land to barbarian settlers, but also that there continued to be enough land for doing so in the fifth century. This creates a model much less complex, much more consistent with Roman administrative traditions, and much more intuitively attractive than the tax-shares thesis. Indeed, if the primary issue truly was about payment of taxes, then this model for settling barbarians on imperial land and agri deserti would have been much more workable than the distribution of tax-shares. It was suggested in the tax-shares model that the only loser was the government. But in the “distribution of agri deserti and imperial land model,” no one had to be a loser. If agri deserti had been distributed to barbarian settlers, the government would have lost no revenue. This clearly would have been a better idea than confiscating land from senators, which would have created hard feelings and the loss of productive taxable land for the fisc, or granting tax revenues, which likewise would have created hard feelings plus a loss for the fisc, not to mention continuing administrative headaches. But the distribution of agri deserti and land controlled by the res privata meant that there were no losers. No unhappy dispossesed or overtaxed Romans. No barbarians confronted by angry dispossessed landowners or grumpy taxpayers. No need for maintaining an administrative superstructure to deal with tax-shares. And minimal loss to the fisc.

Not ‘the Other’. Barbarians and the End of the Western Roman Empire

Brepols Publishers eBooks, 2021

Ruricius of Limoges and friends : a collection of letters from Visigothic Gaul : letters of Ruricius of Limoges, Caesarius of Arles, Euphrasius of Clermont, Faustus of Riez, Graecus of Marseilles, Paulinus of Bordeaux, Sedatus of Nîmes, Sidonius Apollinaris, Taurentius and Victorinus of Fréjus

Liverpool University Press eBooks, 1999

The Settlement of the Goths in Aquitania: 418 or 419?

T. Honoré, Ulpian. Pioneer of Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 301. ISBN 0-19-924424-3. £55.00

Journal of Roman Studies, Nov 1, 2004

IV. THE LATE EMPIRE 279 account of the archaeological remains of Roman Naples for students of the... more IV. THE LATE EMPIRE 279 account of the archaeological remains of Roman Naples for students of the earlier period and includes documentary sources in the creation of 'an archaeological perspective'. The key theme of the book, though, is what happened to Naples and the towns of Campania in the period of transition between the classical and medieval worlds, and to contribute to the discussion of the survival of Roman towns into the medieval period generally. He notes in passing that 116 of the 372 Roman towns of Italy simply disappeared with no survival of even their location. A key event horizon in the change in Naples' fortune is the decline and virtual abandonment of Puteoli, perhaps caused by its submersion due to bradyseism in the fifth century A.D. Other settlements in the region underwent significant stagnation, if not actual decline. Naples not only took on the role of Puteoli, but became the central trading city of the region-a change from its role as a 'consumer town' amongst many other 'consumer towns' with Puteoli as the dominant central place. This is not to say that there was not dislocation in Naples in this period; there is now clear excavated evidence for the abandonment of buildings. However compared to other places in the region, Naples emerged as the dominant city-ameliorating the effects of population decline via immigration from the other towns of the region. In terms of Naples' linguistic history, A. highlights how by the third or fourth centuries A.D., Latin had replaced Greek as the institutional language, yet in the tenth century, of a sample of 200 documents a third are written in Latin with a Greek script. Conceptually, some might find A.'s definition of urbanism, with central place theory and functionalism at its heart, a little dated with its basis drawn from Richard Hodges' Dark Age Economics (1982). There are some areas that have become central to discussion of towns that are missing: the roles of imagery and ideology of the city are not subjects for this book; ethnicity and cultural identity are mentioned but could be pursued further in this period of dislocation and migration. However, this might be a matter of conceptual quibbles, which might be discussed by others in the future. What we have here is a book that reveals the urban dynamic within the walls and grid of streets laid out by the Greek colonists so many years before. The continuity of that grid is remarkable, but more important in terms of urban history are the changes within the buildings facing onto those streets and the revelation of the lives of the inhabitants of the city. Urban form is shown to be adaptable to new purposes in this book. Overall, this book will take its place within the bibliography on urbanism and will be much referred to. More importantly, the book demonstrates how the evidence of Late Antiquity, revealed through modern excavations, has far more to say with reference to urbanism than its classical predecessor associated with the ideal types of The Roman City.

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People, Personal Expression, and Social Relations in Late Antiquity, Volume I

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Church Councils and Local Authority: The Development of Gallic Libri canonum during Late Antiquity

Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 30, 2014

The collection and compilation of the canons of church councils during Late Antiquity was but one... more The collection and compilation of the canons of church councils during Late Antiquity was but one manifestation of a general spirit of codification of knowledge, learning, and official acts that pervaded the period. The creation of Libri canonum, &quot;books of canons,&quot; in late antique Gaul exemplifies this phenomenon. Gallic collections of canons were intended not only to preserve and propagate the knowledge of the decrees of past church councils, but also in many cases to reinforce the local authority of the places where they were created. In this sense, the compilation of libri canonum manifests another or the trends that characterizes Late Antiquity: a movement toward local as opposed to centralized authority.

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Making Europe: People, Politics, and Culture

Natio, gens, provincialis and civis: Geographical terminology and personal identity in late antiquity

in G. Greatrex, ed., Shifting Genres in Late Antiquity (Ashgate, 2014), 277-289

Resistance and Reconciliation: Majorian and the Gallic Aristocracy after the Fall of Avitus

People, Personal Expression, and Social Relations in Late Antiquity, Volume II

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The Last Year of Saint Germanus of Auxerre

Analecta Bollandiana, May 1, 1981

Although the Vila Germani Autissiodorensis, written by Constantius of Lyons c. 480, gives much va... more Although the Vila Germani Autissiodorensis, written by Constantius of Lyons c. 480, gives much valuable information on the history of the first half of the fifth century, it contains no absolute dates, and the only means of dating the events in it is by relating them to dated events known from other sources 1 • This short study will be concerned with establishing a date for Germanus' activities during the last year of his life : his intercession on behalf of the Armoricans and his subsequent trip to Ravenna, where he died on July 31 2 • The events leading up to Germanus' death can be summarized briefly. Chapters 12 through 19 of the vita concern the single event of Germanus' episcopate that can be dated with exactitude, his first voyage to Britain, which the Chronicon of Prosper Tiro indicates took place in 429 3 • Chapters 19 through 24 describe the mission undertaken by Germanus to Arles, where he obtained from the praefectus praetorio Galliarum Auxiliaris an amelioration of the taxes assessed upon Auxerre. Constantius indicates that this journey occurred shortly after Germanus' return from Britain 4.

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20 Sidonius’ Earliest Reception and Distribution

Edinburgh University Press eBooks, Mar 31, 2020

1. Bishops, Barbarians, and the ‘‘Dark Ages’’: The Fate of Late Roman Educational Institutions in Late Antique Gaul

Fordham University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2020

Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations: From Prehistory to 640 CE

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A Statistical Look at the Spread of Covid-19: What it Means for the US

Reports on the continuing spread of the Covid-19 disease pervade the news media, but these report... more Reports on the continuing spread of the Covid-19 disease pervade the news media, but these reports are very impressionistic. Statistical material is rudimentary at best, consisting primarily of dramatic reports on rising numbers of cases and deaths. Even though daily statistics on numbers of cases of deaths, recovery rates, and mild vs serious cases are readily available, virtually no comprehensive statistical study has been done of these numbers to see what they can tell us about the nature of the spread of the disease in general, and the impact of the disease on the US in particular. This study is one of the first comprehensive statistical analyses of the daily spread of the disease. Although it uncovers several significant disparities between the statistics in the world and US, more significantly it demonstrates how the US has become integrated into a Global Virus Community, in which there now is a general synchronicity between the statistics in the world and the US. That means that if there is a trend worldwide, it also will be replicated in the US. This study predicts that the overall mortality rate will fall below 1.0%, and that by the end of December the total number of deaths worldwide will be between 1,350,000 and 1,500,000, and in the US will be between 317,000 and 450,000.

“Alors Commença La France”

By the late fifth century, there were two primary barbarian powers in Gaul, the Visigoths and the... more By the late fifth century, there were two primary barbarian powers in Gaul, the Visigoths and the Franks. Both were enlarging their territories in the wake of the final precipitous decline of Roman authority during the 470s. The expansion achieved by the Frankish king Clovis I inevitably brought him into conflict with the Visigothic king Alaric II. During the 490s, the Franks made several unsuccessful forays into Brittany and south of the Loire. Subsequently, both sides did their best to consolidate their resources. Attempts by the Ostrogothic king Theoderic to avoid direct conflict failed, and war began in earnest in 507, when Clovis made a massive attack on the Visigothic kingdom. The decisive Frankish victory at Vouillé determined the map of sixth-century western Europe: the Franks gained control of most of Gaul, and the Visigoths consolidated their holdings in Spain.

Sources in Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations: Documents, Maps, and Images

The Letter Collection of Ruricius of Limoges

University of California Press eBooks, Dec 6, 2016

The letters of Ruricius survive only in the Codex Sangallensis 190, written in the late eighth or... more The letters of Ruricius survive only in the Codex Sangallensis 190, written in the late eighth or early ninth century. They cover the period from ca.470 until ca. 507, the crucial transitional phase between imperial and barbarian Gaul, and are divided into two books, the first with eighteen letters and the second with sixty-five. The collection also contains 13 letters written to Ruricius. The collection therefore provides a rare opportunity to see sequences of letters in an exchange. These letters present a picture of life in late Roman Gaul that significantly complements that provided by Ruricius’ better-known confrères, such as Sidonius, Avitus, and Ennodius. The Ruricius collection has a very local flavor and, in an intimate and domestic way, describes everyday life in Visigothic Aquitania. The first book of letters was carefully organized as a unit in its own right. The second book is more difficult to assess. Even though there are no indications of divisions in the manuscript, there are suggestions of attempts to organize some of the letters into internally consistent "dossiers." The second book also seems rather to preserve, at the beginning, traces of plans to create two additional books, and, toward the end, elements of a rudimentary filing system.