CLST 277-WI: The World of Late Antiquity Fall Semester 2006 Dr. Jacqueline Long

Excursus: Historical Evidence beyond Texts

Goals

• To examine, as far as physical presentation or technological representation makes possible, materials for historical inquiry
• To practice conventions of describing historical evidence
• To consider what types of information non-textual evidence can yield for historical inquiry, what additional information conditions that inquiry, and how
• To assess particular items of historical evidence

Instructions Specific instructions for individual Excursus will be posted as the exercises come due - keep watching! Every Excursus includes a 250-300 word written report (1 typed page), due at the start of the period for which the Excursus is assigned. Legible typing or word-processing, correct spelling and grammar, and meticulous observance of all principles and practices of academic integrity are required.

file in progress

Excursus 1: Numismatics

• Numismatics is the study of coins, an important material source for late antique history (and other periods!).
• Take as your target for this exercise the following image borrowed for academic use from UBS:
• Look at it carefully, and as your report give your best answers to the following questions:
  1. Of what material does it appear to be made? How well does its appearance coincide with what the outline "Official Values of Imperial Money, 293-307 A.D." in Dr. Harl's Currency page leads you to expect?
  2. What is the emperor on the obverse ("heads" side) wearing? Which element or elements of his costume tell you something about the value of the coin? Again consult Dr. Harl's Currency page, and refer back to question #1 above. What other details of the emperor's appearance seem distinctive and notable, based on what you know about late-imperial Roman culture: explain briefly.
  3. To the best of your ability to decipher it, what does the writing that wraps about the edges of the coin say, obverse ("heads") and reverse ("tails")? What does this "legend" tell you about the image it encloses? [Have you ever studied Latin? Does that knowledge help with this decipherment? N.b.: I'm not expecting that you have, just imagining that IF you have, it MIGHT help, and wondering whether it does.]
  4. To the best of your ability to decipher it, what is the image inside the legend on the reverse? Describe what you see, in any event. If you can identify who or what a late antique Roman probably thought this image depicted, who or what is it?
  5. To the best of your ability to decipher it, what characters are written under the image on the reverse, in the "exergue"?
  6. Does any of this information help you to identify a date when this coin was produced? Explain briefly.
  7. Based on what you have read on the coin in this exercise, how can you best identify it as a piece of material evidence for the late antique world? Explain briefly, including also any additional significant elements you recognize in the coin, that I haven't asked about.
• The written report of this Excursus is due at the beginning of class, Friday 15 September.

Excursus 2: Epigraphy

• Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions - which extends into the study of texts preserved by carving in stone or similarly.
• Take as your target for this exercise the following image borrowed for academic use from Lacus Curtius:
  1. Look at it carefully, and as the first item of your report transcribe the text, line by line. Do you see any indications of where one word stops and another begins? If so, put a space between the characters; if not, just run them on one after the next. Don't worry if at this point it looks something like a mess: so far, the exercise is purely an experiment in seeing.
  2. Next, take a break and refresh your eyes and brain. Really. It helps.
  3. Now, look again at your transcription, thinking about the names and terms we have encountered in this course. Do any words start to distinguish themselves, even where there aren't clear signs of word-division in the inscription? Keep in mind the text is in Latin, so you may have some spare word-endings littering up the space between where the root of a word (which sometimes corresponds to a form that could descend into English) finishes and where another word begins. Do any terms seem to be abbreviated? Again, look and just see what you see while thinking about our material. Then check your transcription back against the photograph and see whether anything more suggests itself. Repeat as necessary. When you feel you have as clear a sense as you can get of what the inscribed text is showing you, re-transcribe your transcription from item 1, adding in any new word-divisions you can make, and indicating apparent abbreviations by inserting (abbr) after the character-sets in the text that seem to be standing for something more than actually appears.
  4. Now and only now, after you've prepared items 1 and 3 by your own efforts, follow the link to Bill Thayer's transcription and compare your transcriptions to his. Did you see everything he has seen? How do the abbreviations expand into Latin? What does the whole thing mean, according to his translation?
  5. Finally, look at Thayer's commentary on the inscription, with a few grains of salt ready to hand. Which of the people involved in the text have we encountered in our study-material? Where? Who are they? What other terms and concepts we have studied does the text concern? Given that context, what can you identify the text as doing: as a primary source for late antique history, what does it tell you?
  6. Just to confirm that it really is what I'm asking for, your report should include four items: your raw transcription, just what you see as exactly as you can represent it (item 1), your edited transcription, how you interpret what you see (item 3), brief notes on how your edited transcription compares to a more formal epigrapher's-style transcription (item 4), and your historical commentary on the inscribed text (item 5).
• The written report of this Excursus is due at the beginning of class, Wednesday 25 October.

Revised 19 October 2006 by jlong1@orion.it.luc.edu
http://www.luc.edu/depts/classics/