BOOK: Lukas LEMCKE, Bridging Center and Periphery : Administrative Communication from Constantine to Justinian (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020). ISBN 978-3-16-158945-4, 69.00 EUR

(Source: Mohr Siebeck)

Brill is publishing a new book on administrative communication channels in the late Roman Empire.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Lukas Lemcke challenges the conventional understanding of the Late Roman administration as a three-tiered system by demonstrating that its hierarchy of communication was distinctly two-tiered. In so doing, he offers a new perspective on the functional and organizational structure of this administrative system and advances our understanding of the vicariate by introducing a new functional dimension and by reassessing its development during the fifth and early sixth centuries. Based on a comprehensive collection of legal, epigraphic and other literary documents to which the concept of »formal communication« is applied, the author explores the forms and development of administrative communication channels that facilitated the official exchange of information from Constantine to Justinian and thus reveals how emperors actively sought to regulate the centripetal and centrifugal flow of official information.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lukas Lemcke Born 1990; 2012 BA (Classical Studies) and 2013 MA (Ancient Mediterranean Cultures), University of Waterloo, Canada; 2014–19 PhD studies in Ancient History, University of Cologne.

The table of contents can be found here

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DIGITAL SEMINAR: Marton Ribary (Surrey) and Barbara McGillivray (Alan Turing Institute & Cambridge): “The thing is mine”: Extracting the terminology of the Roman law of “ownership” from Justinian’s Digest (LIVESTREAM: 19 JUNE 2020: 16:30u GMT)

Through the website of the Instiute of Classical Studies of the School of Advanced Study in London, we learned about the Digital Classicist London Seminar 2020. 

Source: https://ics.sas.ac.uk/events/event/22545

Friday, Jun 19, 2020, 16:30 UK time

Institute of Classical Studies, University of London Online seminar, streamed live and archived at: https://youtu.be/cG8sRps1s6Q

Our paper investigates the evolution of the concept of “ownership” in Roman law using computational semantic methods. The work is based on a relational database of Justinian’s Digest (533 CE) arranging more than twenty thousand text units excerpted from hundreds of otherwise lost legal works in a Python environment and shared on GitHub (mribary/pyDigest). We present a thematic tree-map of Roman law based on hierarchical clustering of sections. We use computational methods for terminology extraction and distributional semantic word representations to show how the semantic landscape associated with “ownership” changed over time.

Source: https://ics.sas.ac.uk/events/event/22545

BOOK: Paolo ANGELINI, La legge dell'imperatore Giustiniano (Roma: Aracne, 2019). ISBN: 9788825525045, pp. 144, 10,00 €

(Source: Aracne Editrice)

ABOUT THE BOOK

La “Legge dell’imperatore Giustiniano” fa parte della codificazione promulgata dall’imperatore Stefano Dušan nel 1349. Composta da una trentina di capitoli, questa legge disciplina vari aspetti del diritto, con particolare riguardo ai rapporti agrari. Metà delle disposizioni sono una traduzione adattata del Nomos georgikos bizantino e di altri testi giuridici estratti dalle compilazioni giuridiche greco–romane. Il volume contiene il testo slavo–serbo tradotto in lingua italiana, comparato con il testo della versione bizantina e con il testo slavo–russo del Nomos georgikos, un commentario e un glossario giuridico.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paolo Angelini è uno storico del diritto e bizantinista. Ha condotto le sue ricerche in Italia, Germania, Belgio e Stati Uniti. Si occupa di diritto greco–romano e della recezione del diritto e del pensiero politico bizantino presso le popolazioni slave. Ha pubblicato articoli e libri in italiano, inglese, francese e tedesco. Attualmente è professore assistente e research fellow presso la Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The index of the book can be downloaded here

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BOOK: Peter SARRIS, eds. and David J.D. MILLER, transl., The Novels of Justinian : A Complete Annotated English Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). ISBN 9781107000926, £ 180.00

(Source: Cambridge University Press)

Cambridge University Press is publishing the first English translation based on the original Greek of Justinian’s Novels later this month.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The novels comprise a series of laws issued in the sixth century by the famous Emperor Justinian (r.527-65), along with a number of measures issued by his immediate successors on the throne of Constantinople. They reveal the evolution of Roman law at the end of antiquity and how imperial law was transmitted to both the Byzantine East and Latin West in the Early Middle Ages. Crucially, the texts cast fascinating light on how litigants of all social backgrounds sought to appropriate the law and turn it to their advantage, as well as on topics ranging from the changing status of women to the persecution of homosexuals, and from the spread of heresy to the economic impact of the first known outbreak of bubonic plague. This work represents the first English translation of the novels based on the original Greek, and comes with an extensive historical and legal commentary.

ABOUT THE EDITOR/TRANSLATOR

Editor: Peter Sarris, University of Cambridge

Peter Sarris is Reader in Late Roman, Medieval and Byzantine History in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. His publications include Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2006), Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam (2011), and Byzantium: A Very Short Introduction (2015).

Translator: David J. D. Miller

David J. D. Miller was educated in classics and theology and taught Latin and Greek at Bristol Grammar School (where he was Head of Classics for twenty-one years) and at the University of Bristol. His previously published translations include the first-ever English versions of Eusebius' Gospel Problems and Solutions (2011) and (with Richard Goodrich) of Jerome's Commentary on Ecclesiastes (2012).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Translator's preface David Miller
2. Introduction Peter Sarris
3. Maps
4. Papyrus protocol (as discussed in J.Nov. 44)
5. Novels 1-168
6. Edicts 1-13
7. Appendices 1-9
8. Bibliography.

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