Anthony Kaldellis: evaluation

Transcript context

…One of the ways we can try to analyze this is, for example, looking at a very specific role in society across time. So we can look at soldiers, how they solve violence, for example. That’s one way. So you’re making me realize that we can just take 1,000 different professions and positions in society and really specifically look at what the experience of the world was like. And so one of them is the view on violence across time. And, and then the other is the view on the role of the government- … across time. That’s an excellent way of putting it. So take soldiers, for example. They swear an oath. Right? Now, we don’t have the oath for every given period. We have some approximations of it, some hints of what it contained, but we know that Roman soldiers swore an oath, like, throughout all of the centuries of the empire. Sometimes they might add, like, a Christian formula to it. Sometime before that, not. But they swore basically to protect the republic or depending on what term they used or the empire or the emperor. And this is something that they would have recognized very quickly. Like, if, if they met each other over time and said, “Hey, what was your oath like?” And they recited it, this would have made much sense to them, right? Or take, for example, a woman who runs a business, right? From any century of the empire. It, it would have been, especially the later you go, the, the more so, that this woman is enabled to do this by virtue of Roman law. Of certain, you know, Roman law of property and inheritance and, and marriage, but also regulations regarding who can do what and what kinds of properties women can handle and under what circumstances. This is something that Roman women had in common that many other cultures did not. So I’ll give you an example. So for example, in the 10th, 11th century, there are Jewish women who live in the Eastern Roman Empire- … who realize that they have more rights in Roman courts than in rabbinical ones, and they take their disputes to the Roman courts. Now, the thing is that for the Romans, these are property matters- … not religious matters. But for the rabbis, these are religious matters. But the Roman courts trump the Jewish courts- … in the empire, right? And so you end up with a situation where Jewish women have more rights- … than Jewish women do elsewhere, because there Roman law is not operative. And there you go. Right? Like, these things matter, right? And that’s a function of imperial law. And this, this would be an interesting actually interplay between the law and religious institutions- … Throughout the East- … Roman Empire. So you argue that even though the personality of the various emperors varied, as we’ll talk about, and as they’re often venerated, celebrated, criticized, talked about, the late Roman Empire was projecting a persona to its citizens that was consistent throughout its history. Can you describe what you mean by this and describe the different detailed characteristics of this persona?…

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