Theodahad

eBook Download

BOOK EXCERPT:

Educated in Platonic philosophy rather than the military arts, the Ostrogothic king Theodahad was never meant to rule. His unexpected nomination as co-regent by his cousin Queen Amalasuintha plunged him into the intrigues of the Gothic court, and Theodahad soon conspired to assassinate the queen. But, once alone on the throne, his lack of political experience and military skill made him ineffective at best and dangerously incompetent at worst. Defeated by the Byzantine emperor Justinian, Theodahad was killed by his own subjects. In Theodahad, Massimiliano Vitiello rigorously investigates the ancient sources in order to reconstruct the events of Theodahad's life and the contours of sixth-century diplomacy and political intrigues. Painting a picture of an unlikely king whose reign helped spell the end of Ostrogothic Italy, Vitiello's book not only illuminates Theodahad's own life but also offers new insight into the sixth-century Mediterranean world.

Product Details :

Genre : History
Author : Massimiliano Vitiello
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Release : 2014-01-01
File : 352 Pages
ISBN-13 : 9781442647831


Amalasuintha

eBook Download

BOOK EXCERPT:

In this book, Massimiliano Vitiello situates the life and career of the Ostrogothic queen Amalasuintha (c. 494/5-535), daughter of Theoderic the Great, in the context of the transitional time, after the fall of Rome, during which new dynastic regimes were experimenting with various forms of political legitimation. A member of the Gothic elite raised in the Romanized palace of Ravenna, Amalasuintha married her father's chosen successor and was set to become a traditional Gothic queen—a helpmate and advisor to her husband, the Visigothic prince Eutharic—with no formal political role of her own. But her early widowhood and the subsequent death of her father threw her into a position unprecedented in the Gothic world: a regent mother who assumed control of the government. During her regency, Amalasuintha clashed with a conservative Gothic aristocracy who resisted her leadership, garnered support among her Roman and pro-Roman subjects, defended Italy from the ambitions of other kings, and negotiated the expansionistic designs of Justinian and Theodora. When her son died unexpectedly at a young age, she undertook her most dangerous political enterprise: forming an unmarried coregency with her cousin, Theodahad, whom she raised to the throne. His final betrayal would cost Amalasuintha her rule and her life. Vitiello argues that Amalasuintha's story reveals a key phase in the transformation of queenship in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, a time in which royal women slowly began exercising political power. Assessing the ancient sources for Amalasuintha's biography, Cassiodorus, Procopius, Gregory of Tours, and Jordanes, Vitiello demonstrates the ways in which her life and public image show the influence of late Roman and Byzantine imperial models on the formation of female political power in the post-Roman world.

Product Details :

Genre : History
Author : Massimiliano Vitiello
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Release : 2017-09-26
File : 308 Pages
ISBN-13 : 9780812294347


Politics And Tradition Between Rome Ravenna And Constantinople

eBook Download

BOOK EXCERPT:

A revealing study of the Variae of Cassiodorus and the insight that the epistolary collection can provide into sixth-century Italy.

Product Details :

Genre : History
Author : M. Shane Bjornlie
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Release : 2013
File : 385 Pages
ISBN-13 : 9781107028401


The Wars Of Justinian

eBook Download

BOOK EXCERPT:

A fully-outfitted edition of Prokopios' late Antique masterpiece of military history and ethnography--for the 21st-century reader. "At last . . . the translation that we have needed for so long: a fresh, lively, readable, and faithful rendering of Prokopios' Wars, which in a single volume will make this fundamental work of late ancient history-writing accessible to a whole new generation of students." --Jonathan Conant, Brown University

Product Details :

Genre : History
Author : Prokopios
Publisher : Hackett Publishing
Release : 2014-09-03
File : 677 Pages
ISBN-13 : 9781624661723


Theoderic The Great

eBook Download

BOOK EXCERPT:

The first full-scale history of Theoderic and the Goths in more than seventy-five years, tracing the transformation of a divided kingdom into a great power In the year 493, the leader of a vast confederation of Gothic warriors, their wives, and children personally cut down Odoacer, the man famous for deposing the last Roman emperor in 476. That leader became Theoderic the Great (454–526). This engaging history of his life and reign immerses readers in the world of the warrior-king who ushered in decades of peace and stability in Italy as king of Goths and Romans. Theoderic transformed his roving “warrior nation” from the periphery of the Roman world into a standing army that protected his taxpaying Roman subjects with the support of the Roman elite. With a ruling strategy of “integration through separation,” Theoderic not only stabilized Italy but also extended his kingdom to the western Balkans, southern France, and the Iberian Peninsula. Using sources as diverse as letters, poetry, coins, and mosaics, Hans-Ulrich Wiemer brings readers into the world of Theoderic’s court, from Gothic warriors and their families to the notables, artisans, and shopkeepers of Rome and Ravenna to the peasants and enslaved people who tilled the soil on grand rural estates. This book offers a fascinating history of the leader who brought peace to Italy after the disintegration of the Roman Empire.

Product Details :

Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Author : Hans-Ulrich Wiemer
Publisher : Yale University Press
Release : 2023-07-25
File : 660 Pages
ISBN-13 : 9780300271850


The Empress Theodora

eBook Download

BOOK EXCERPT:

Presents a biography of the burlesqe actress who became the trusted partner of Byzantine emperor Justinian in both marriage and government affairs.

Product Details :

Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Author : James Allan Evans
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Release : 2003-10-01
File : 173 Pages
ISBN-13 : 9780292702707


Humour History And Politics In Late Antiquity And The Early Middle Ages

eBook Download

BOOK EXCERPT:

Although the topic of humour has been dealt with for other eras, early medieval humour remains largely neglected. These essays go some way towards filling the gap, examining how early medieval writers deliberately employed humour to make their cases. The essays range from the late Roman empire through to the tenth century, and from Byzantium to Anglo-Saxon England. The subject matter is diverse, but a number of themes link them together, notably the use of irony, ridicule and satire as political tools. Two chapters serve as an extended introduction to the topic, while the following six chapters offer varied treatments of humour and politics, looking at different times and places, but at the Carolingian world in particular. Together, they raise important and original issues about how humour was employed to articulate concepts of political power, perceptions of kingship, social relations and the role of particular texts.

Product Details :

Genre : History
Author : Guy Halsall
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Release : 2002-06-13
File : 224 Pages
ISBN-13 : 9781139434249


The Writings Of Medieval Women

eBook Download

BOOK EXCERPT:

"Royal and saintly women are well-represented here, with the welcome addition of women from the Mediterranean arc...Garland has done a solid job of presenting this book." -- Arthuriana "The Anthology gives a fine sense of the great range of women's writing in the Middle Ages." -- Medium Aevum

Product Details :

Genre : Literary Criticism
Author : Marcelle Theibaux
Publisher : Routledge
Release : 2013-06-17
File : 552 Pages
ISBN-13 : 9781135507787


The Letters Of Cassiodorus

eBook Download

BOOK EXCERPT:

Product Details :

Genre : Goths
Author : Senator Cassiodorus
Publisher : London H. Frowde 1886.
Release : 1886
File : 592 Pages
ISBN-13 : UVA:X000195009


The Writings Of Medieval Women

eBook Download

BOOK EXCERPT:

Published in 1994: The period surveyed in this anthology extends from the eve of Christianity's triumph, in the third century, to the new age of expansion in the fifteenth century, an age marked by the advent of printing pressed, the European discovery of the Caribbean islands, which Columbus called the Indies, the relentless stripping of medieval altars by Church reformists, and perhaps a diminution of female autonomy.

Product Details :

Genre : History
Author : Marcelle Thiebaux
Publisher : Routledge
Release : 2019-05-23
File : 396 Pages
ISBN-13 : 9780429618987