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The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars A.D. 226-363: A Documentary History
The crisis of the third century saw Rome not only embroiled in contests of succeeding short-lived Emperors, but assailed by an increasing variety of hostile peoples from outside its frontiers. Owing to the complex racial interplay of this period, the sources for its history have to be compiled from a wide variety of sources. The least adequate are those in Latin, the imperial lives of the Historia Augusta . These have to be supplemented by the Greek chronicles of Zosimus and John Malalas of Antioch, as well as the Armenian history of Moses of Chorene, the Arabic History of the Arabs of Al-Tabari , as well as inscriptions in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syrian and other languages. This volume collects these diverse sources for the first time in English translation, and will be a uniquely valuable resource for scholars working on a period of Roman history that is attracting increasing attention.
- GenresHistory
460 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 12, 2019
Definitely a strange book considering how it isn't written chronologically, but in order of sources. Nonetheless, after maybe the first chapter you get used to it and it becomes quite a comfy read. There isn't much contextualization given, but Dodgeon discusses this in the intro. The most fascinating aspect of this is how much all of the sources differ - especially in the expedition of Gordion III, Severus Alexander's death, Valerian's capture, and so on. This book requires quite a bit of knowledge on the topic beforehand though, so amateurs shouldn't bother with it.
4/5
4/5
February 18, 2019
Not like any text book I have read before, it utilises exclusively ancient sources and texts; compiling them somewhat chronologically in order to present several differing viewpoints of the same event. More often than not fascinating and absorbing. I do not quite understand the mediocre ratings associated with this. I really enjoyed it.
May 19, 2019
Really interesting time in Roman and Persian history!
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March 4, 2016This is a good sourcebook, and I do not really a whole lot to say about it, as it does its job well. It covers the period from the rise of the Sassanians to the failure of Julian's campaigns. It has sources both familiar and obscure, but thankfully the obscure ones are made readily available in English translation, as some of the Arabic and Armenian sources (while very problematic) can be very difficult to acquire. The begins with a small discussion of the sources, listing each author and telling a little about them, such as when they wrote, what language they wrote in and where they were, all of which is indispensable for source analysis. It is also necessary for understanding some of the more obscure sources, for while there is a lot of information on someone like Ammianus Marcellinus, there is very little on Moses Khorenats'i.
Nonetheless, the book has a few flaws. The major one is its lack of visual sources. It calls itself a "documentary history", but with a few plates of the Naqs-i Rustam and Firuzbad would go a long way to providing some more sources from the Sassanian side, as very few exist in this period. This is not asking a whole lot. These rock reliefs provide a lot of information on how the Sassanian kings viewed themselves, and putting a few places is not much of a stretch. The maps also weren't all that great. They were fairly dark and important regions often vanished into the margins, as they were spread over a couple of pages. The one with Roman roads in Syria and Mesopotamia was the only one that was any good, as a cursory search did not turn up any more accessible maps of the Roman roads in that region. The fact that the maps are significantly better in the second volume suggests that this was a clear problem in the first volume, and the authors fixed it. My final criticism is that the book is not complete. You need a copy of Ammianus Marcellinus for the later chapters, because he is just summed up, and the text itself is not provided. The little snippets that they give are virtually useless on their own, but you can't understand the campaigns of Constantius II or Julian without Ammianus, so those sections of the books are incomplete at best. This was presumably done for copyright reasons, but there is no reason that the authors couldn't have made a new translation of the relevant sections, as Ammianus wrote in Latin. It would have expanded this volume significantly, but without Ammianus it is incomplete.
These quibbles are minor in comparison to how accessible many of the obscure Armenian, Arabic and later Byzantine histories have been made in regard to the Eastern frontier. This is a first-rate sourcebook, although it is not perfect. Highly recommended.
Nonetheless, the book has a few flaws. The major one is its lack of visual sources. It calls itself a "documentary history", but with a few plates of the Naqs-i Rustam and Firuzbad would go a long way to providing some more sources from the Sassanian side, as very few exist in this period. This is not asking a whole lot. These rock reliefs provide a lot of information on how the Sassanian kings viewed themselves, and putting a few places is not much of a stretch. The maps also weren't all that great. They were fairly dark and important regions often vanished into the margins, as they were spread over a couple of pages. The one with Roman roads in Syria and Mesopotamia was the only one that was any good, as a cursory search did not turn up any more accessible maps of the Roman roads in that region. The fact that the maps are significantly better in the second volume suggests that this was a clear problem in the first volume, and the authors fixed it. My final criticism is that the book is not complete. You need a copy of Ammianus Marcellinus for the later chapters, because he is just summed up, and the text itself is not provided. The little snippets that they give are virtually useless on their own, but you can't understand the campaigns of Constantius II or Julian without Ammianus, so those sections of the books are incomplete at best. This was presumably done for copyright reasons, but there is no reason that the authors couldn't have made a new translation of the relevant sections, as Ammianus wrote in Latin. It would have expanded this volume significantly, but without Ammianus it is incomplete.
These quibbles are minor in comparison to how accessible many of the obscure Armenian, Arabic and later Byzantine histories have been made in regard to the Eastern frontier. This is a first-rate sourcebook, although it is not perfect. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews