Browsing by Author "Atkinson, John E"

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    Panegyrici Latinei, 6 and 7 : Translated with introductions and commentary
    (1979) Sang, John Campbell; Atkinson, John E
    The j)rin;ary aim of this thesis is to make available in English for the first time a translation of, and full commentary on, the panegyrics in question. A general introduction contains sections on the collection of panegyrics known as the XII Panegyrici Latini, the term panegyricus, the uses to which panegyrics might be put, and the scope of the present study. Attention is then turned to the two panegyrics themselves and, in each case; an introduction, dealing with the occasion and the date, the question of authorship, and the place of delivery, is followed by a translation and commentary, which concentrates on historical problems. In the introduction to Pan. VII, proposed delivery dates of 31 March 307 (Seston et al.) and 25 December 307 (Lafaurie and Bruun) are discussed and rejected, along with the proposal of a third dies nataZis for Constantine; Sutherland's date of late April is upheld, but it is emphasized (pace Sutherland) that the speech jointly celebrates Constantine's marriage to Fausta and his promotion as Augustus. In the introduction to Pan. VI, a precise date of delivery of August 310 is suggested, and it is considered unlikely that the orator was a jurist or had held a full-time post in the imperial administration; the eviuence of the speech itself indicates that he combined occasional ewployment by the palace as orator, with a career as master of rhetoric. An appendix contains an index of the imperial virtues and attributes found in Pans. VI and VII.
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    The politics of public records at Rome in the late republic and early empire
    (1991) Hastings, Ingrid; Atkinson, John E
    This study explores the relationship between political developments and the keeping of public records at Rome during a crucial time of transition in the inter-connected fields of constitutional law, politics, and administrative practices. The political value of control over records is illustrated in the Struggle of the Orders and remained a dominant issue. That knowledge is power was a reality implicitly recognised in the aristocratic constitution of the Republic, geared as it was to maintain popular political ignorance generally and so to perpetuate the dominance of a particular minority class. Throughout Republican history the question of exposure or repression of such knowledge was grounded in the socio-political tensions of a class-struggle. Translated into the changed setting of the early Principate, the same awareness of the value of control over access to state knowledge is exhibited by the emperor. Particularly relevant was the Augustan ban on the publication of senatorial proceedings, since the relationship between senate and emperor was an area where the increasingly autocratic nature of the emperor's position was most difficult to disguise.
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    The semantic development of some Roman ethical concepts in the second century B.C. : based on contemporary literary epigraphical and numismatical evidence
    (1968) Van Gysen, Nico; Atkinson, John E
    In almost any general study of Roman history, references can be found to the character of the Roman people. Roman character forms the explanation of their conquests, the justification of their empire. Roman character and its resultant code of behaviour influenced early Christian writers; Roman ethical concepts form the firm foundation of Western civilization. Augustine used the Roman spirit of sacrifice for the common good as an example for the inhabitants of the City of God. Dante claims that the Roman people were ordained by nature for empire by foregoing their own advantage to secure the public safety of mankind. Many modern authors echo these sentiments: R.H. Barrow says: 'His virtues are honesty and thrift, forethought and patience, work and endurance and courage, self-reliance, simplicity and humility in the face of what is greater than himself.' He even gives a 'catalogue of virtues' which Romans regarded as characteristically Roman throughout their history. Religio, pietas, officium, gravitas, discipline, industria, virtus, clementia, mores maiorum are the character traits of the Roman people. F.R. Cowell gives a much shorter list (pietas, virtus, gravitas) but he at least warns his readers that these are the virtues which Cicero regarded as typically Roman. Cowell regards them as symptoms of Cicero's enthusiasm for the good old days, and he adds: 'we have learnt in our own day that there are few more misleading imaginative exercises than that of generalizing about the supposed character of so large and complete an organism as a nation.' The purpose of this study is to investigate some of these concepts, their development and importance in early Roman sources. The approach will be ideogrammatic, but to make more general conclusions possible the group of concepts has to be fairly large and this of course means sacrificing depth for the sake of breadth.
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    The shepherd of Hermas : some aspects of its composition and transmission
    (1990) Kirkland, Alastair; Atkinson, John E; Ettlinger, G H
    The authorship and time of origin of the Shepherd have not been subjected to the same rigorous enquiry as the First Epistle of Clement and the Epistles of Ignatius. The reason for this is probably that the Shepherd has had little to contribute to contemporary polemics in the way that the other two Apostolic Fathers did. The method followed in this study is the reconstruction, where possible, of the contents of each codex of which we have fragments or quotations, and the comparison of the contents of these codices. Where the content of the original codex appears to have been only a part of the Shepherd, calculations based on the traditional three sections - Visions, Mandates and Similitudes - have been used. Where these have not sufficed, manuscript notations have been called into play. The results indicate that there are a number of lines of cleavage within the Shepherd where ancient codices began or ended their selection of material. These lines of cleavage, it is hypothesised, must have originated in the process of composition of the Shepherd. Yet at the same time there was in the ancient codices a perception of the various parts of the Shepherd as a unity. The oldest codex known to us contains the Shepherd in its entirety. Once the lines of cleavage have been established by means of the reconstructed codices and the manuscript notations, a study of internal inconsistences of the sort traditional in "Quellenkritik" or "Literary Criticism" is undertaken, and a chronological schema of the different strands which make up the Shepherd is offered. It is suggested that the core (Viss. I to IV, Mandd. I to XIIa, Simm. I singular parts only, II to VIII) came from one hand, probably towards the end of the first century. This core underwent four subsequent editorial reworkings which produced the text known to us today by the end of the second century.