Alan Cameron
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3602484 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Alan Cameron |
| NOMBRES | Alan |
| APELLIDO | Cameron |
| FIRMA | CAMERON A |
| AFILIACIONES | Columbia University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7794-3101 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 143 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 589 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 145 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1963 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2024 |
| ÍNDICE H | 12 |
Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius
The chaotic events of A.D. 395–400 marked a momentous turning point for the Roman Empire and its relationship to the barbarian peoples under and beyond its command. In this masterly study, Alan Cameron and Jacqueline Long propose a complete rewriting of received wisdom concerning the social and political history of these years. Our knowledge of the period comes to us in part through Synesius of Cyrene, who recorded his view of events in his De re…
Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius
Late-Antique Studies in Memory of Alan Cameron
The classicist and historian Alan Cameron (1938-2017) was, among other achievements, one of the scholars who most contributed to the refoundation of late-antique studies. In this tribute W. V. Harris and Anne Hunnell Chen have brought together fourteen contributions that cover a broad range of historical, literary, and art-historical topics, running from the first century AD to the ninth. Some contributions concern Cameron’s own favourite themes …
Callimachus and His Critics
Callimachus has usually been seen as the archetypal ivory-tower poet, the epitome if not the inventor of the concept of art for art's sake, author of erudite works written to be read in book form by fellow poets and scholars. Abundant evidence, much of it assembled here for the first time, suggests a very different story: a world of civic festivals rather than books and libraries, a world in which poetry and poets played a central and public role…
Wandering Poets and Other Essays on Late Greek Literature and Philosophy
This book presents a revised version of some of the most important and innovative articles published by Alan Cameron in the field of late antique Greek poetry and philosophy. New material has been added to the account of the “Wandering Poets” from early Byzantine Egypt, and earlier judgment on their paganism is nuanced. The story of Cyrus of Panopolis and the empress Eudocia takes into account important recent work on the poetry of Eudocia. Sever…
Claudian
The chapter reprints an early article arguing that Claudian was the propagandist for the general Stilicho. Claudian was an Egyptian Greek, who left his native province to win fame and fortune with the aid of his sharp wits and ready pen. He appears to have used his skills to propagate patent falsehoods about Stilicho’s claim to rule as a regent after Theodosius’s death. Claudian pointedly used Greek mythology to elaborate his praise of Stilicho a…
Poetry and Literary Culture in Late Antiquity
After a phase of apparent decline, Greek and Latin poetry made a remarkable comeback in late antiquity. This chapter describes with many examples the spread in this period of verse to literary fields previously confined to prose, such as panegyric. But where one might have expected poetry to track the changes in the spoken language of Greek and Latin, instead it remained overwhelmingly classical, using traditional quantitative meters. In a Greco-…
Palladas
The chapter first discusses the date of the newly published Palladas papyrus, then accepts, with qualifications, that the papyrus may when complete have been an epigram anthology of the poet Palladas of Alexandria. It examines semantic evidence from poems preserved in the Palatine Anthology to find links with the antipagan riots in Alexandria and Constantinople. References to the melting down of statues have been used to propose that Palladas liv…
Wandering Poets
This chapter shows that in late antiquity most Greek poets came from Upper Egypt rather than the traditional centers. They were mostly professional poets who traveled widely in search of patrons. In a period which saw the triumph of Christianity and the decline and eventual proscription of worship of the old gods, many of these poets were pagans. Though little remains of their work, which is anyway unlikely to have been of a high order, their exi…
Claudian Revisited
The chapter begins reflectively, with a consideration of why Claudian represented an ideal subject for early study, bearing as it did on matters of history as well as of literature. The author’s subsequent research on Claudian’s contemporaries and on other court poets refined and revised the early image of Claudian as propagandist. Modern assumptions about what propaganda is and how it works do not easily apply to the early period. The elite atta…
Wandering Poets and Other Essays on Late Greek Literature and Philosophy
The status of Serena and the Stilicho diptych
One of the best known (and best preserved) of late-antique ivories is what is generally known as the Stilicho diptych, kept in the tesoro of the cathedral at Monza. It represents a military man with a spear and shield on one panel, and, on the other, a high-ranking woman holding a flower above the head of a small boy, not more than 10 years old; he stands between them wearing a chlamys and holding the codicils of office in his left hand (fig. 1).…
City Personifications and Consular Diptychs
This paper takes as its point of departure two much discussed fifth-century artifacts, an uninscribed and undated consular diptych in Halberstadt (Fig. 9), and the inscribed and (on the face of it) exactly dated consular missorium of Ardabur Aspar in Florence (Fig. 15), both hitherto presumed issued by western consuls and manufactured in western workshops. After calling into question the established criteria for distinguishing western from easter…
Gardens of Nymphs
The social, moral and marital status of the ladies of the Roman love elegists has been long and solemnly debated — if to little avail. 1 By contrast, no attention at all has been paid to the women of a genre that is known to have exerted considerable influence on the elegists, hellenistic love epigram 2
The Origin, Context and Function of Consular Diptychs
Members of the late Roman élite commemorated the holding of certain offices by the distribution of ivory diptychs. This paper attempts to show how diptychs came to play this rôle; that they were not originally distributed by consuls but by any official who provided games; that they had nothing to do with the ecclesiastical diptychs that are first heard of at about the same time; that the custom spread from east to west, not from west to east; and…
Basilius and his diptych again
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Anician Myths
This paper discusses the widely held view that politics in fifth- and sixth-century Italy were largely driven by rivalry between the two great families of the Anicii and the Decii, supposedly following distinctive policies (pro- or anti-eastern, philo- or anti-barbarian, etc.). It is probable that individual members of these (and other) families had feuds and disagreements from time to time, but there is absolutely no evidence for continuing riva…
Classical Revivals and “Pagan” Art
This chapter examines evidence for a pagan reaction in the art as well as the literature of the late 4th century. It looks at the contorniates (bronze medallions produced in the city of Rome from the mid-4th to the late 5th century), high-quality silver plate, ivory work, and manuscript illumination. It argues that there was no general classical revival in late 4th-century Rome—certainly nothing that can be associated with pagan rather than Chris…
The Livian Revival
The most famous of all Latin subscriptions are those that, in various forms and combinations, close each of the first nine books of Livy in a number of manuscripts. This chapter considers two incomplete Symmachan attempts to produce a corrected Livy. No one has ever attempted to distinguish the copy made for Valerianus from the copy attested by the subscriptions. Yet at the same time no one has drawn the full consequences of identifying them. The…
Conclusion
This chapter summarizes the discussions in the book and presents some concluding thoughts. The question of when paganism really, finally, ended depends on a series of further questions, of definition, interpretation, and context. Above all, it depends on constantly changing perceptions of paganism. We should not confuse the end of paganism with the victory of Christianity, nor should we assume that it was active pagan opposition that kept certain…
The Frigidus
This chapter examines accounts of the Frigidus campaign. In his continuation of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, written in 402/3, Rufinus of Aquileia gives a vivid account of the confrontation between Theodosius and Eugenius by the river Frigidus. Rufinus's account proved influential, among contemporaries and successors, as well as among modern historians. Most modern critics have also taken Christian representations of the Frigidus more or le…
Correctors and Critics II
This chapter argues that the hundreds of corrected literary papyri from Hellenistic and early imperial times without signed subscriptions suggest that it was not untill the 4th century that they first appeared. Subscriptions in Latin manuscripts earlier than this were surely likewise normally unsigned. With the exception of Statilius Maximus's edition of Cicero, the only Latin subscriptions that can be dated earlier than the 4th century document …
The Annales of Nicomachus Flavianus I
This chapter discusses the lost Annales of Nicomachus Flavianus, which many scholars believe to be the most important and influential pagan history of the late 4th-century West. According to some, an imperial history from Augustus to the death of Gratian (383); according to others the whole of Roman history, from the foundation of Rome right down to the fall of the usurper Maximus in 388. It is argued that virtually nothing is known about Flavian…
The Poem Against the Pagans
This chapter examines the anti-pagan poem, Carmen contra paganos (CCP). Since the subject of the poem was both prefect and consul, as Flavian was in 394, the poem was assigned to this year and interpreted as an attack on Flavian written shortly after his death. The tirade against pagan cults it contains was read as a reflection of the pagan revival he supposedly directed. However, the structure, tenor, and themes of the poem as a whole simply do …
The “Pagan” Literary Revival
There is no question that the 4th century saw a revival of Latin literature. After the nadir of the 3rd century there was only one way to go. But in much of the modern literature it has been widely characterized as a pagan revival and associated with the aristocracy of late 4th-century Rome, reacting to the threat of Christianity. However, this chapter argues that this is perhaps the single most serious obstacle to a true understanding of this im…
Callimachus and His Critics
Callimachus has usually been seen as the archetypal ivory-tower poet, the epitome if not the inventor of the concept of art for art's sake, author of erudite works written to be read in book form by fellow poets and scholars. Abundant evidence, much of it assembled here for the first time, suggests a very different story: a world of civic festivals rather than books and libraries, a world in which poetry and poets played a central and public role…
The Greek Anthology
The Greek Anthology is one of the great books of European literature, `a garden containing the flowers and weeds of 1500 years of Greek epigram'. This study adds a wealth of new information about its growth over an even longer period, from the earliest papyrus anthologies down to the rediscovery in 1606 of the Palatine Anthology (AP), our principal source for the entire history of the Greek epigram, from Simonides to the Byzantine age. It was a B…
Greek mythography in the Roman world
By the Roman age the traditional stories of Greek myth had long since ceased to reflect popular culture. Mythology had become instead a central element in elite culture. If one did not know the stories, one would not understand most of the allusions in the poets and orators, classics and contemporaries alike; nor would one be able to identify the scenes represented on the mosaic floors and wall paintings, or on the silverware at well-appointed ho…
Claudian
The Last Pagans of Rome
Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (402/3 CE) gives a vivid account of the confrontation between the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius and the Western usurper Eugenius. To many, the defeat of Eugenius and his pagan followers along the Frigidus River in 394 was the last gasp of a vigorous pagan revolt in the late 4th century, one spearheaded by the Roman aristocracy. This elaborate campaign to derail Christianity, as the story goes, consisted of iden…
Claudian. Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius
The Date and Identity of Macrobius
It has long been recognized that Macrobius' Saturnalia and Commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis are no less important as social documents of their times than for the precious antiquarian and neoplatonic lore they preserve. But which times ? And who was Macrobius ? In view of our relatively abundant prosopographical material from the late fourth and early fifth centuries, there should be a fair chance of identifying a man whose full name and r…
Consuls of the Later Roman Empire
Исследование посвящено консулату в поздней Римской империи (с 284 по 541 гг.). Имеются обобщающая теоретическая часть, погодовой список консулов с краткой характеристикой консулата и обширные примечания к списку
Tacitus and the date of Curiatius Maternus' death
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Martianus and His First Editor
The Last Days of the Academy at Athens
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The First Edition of Ovid's Amores
As is well known, the Amores of Ovid appeared in two different editions, of which only the second survives. Hence, scholars being what they are, it is hardly surprising that almost as much has been written about the first as the second. If I have ventured to add yet another contribution to the already over-long bibliography of the subject
The Fate of Pliny's Letters in the Late Empire
Whatever fond hopes their author may have entertained when he published them, the Letters of the younger Pliny did not meet with an appreciative public. The first, indeed almost the only, writer before modern times to have read them with care and to have signalled his admiration by imitation is Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of Auvergne in the late fifth century
Young Achilles in the Roman World
This paper considers the representation of Achilles in Roman poetry and art and, in particular, Roman interest in his childhood, culminating in the ‘exposure’ on Scyros. It is argued that common features in literature and art support the existence of illustrated mythographic handbooks. The relationship of Statius' Achilleid to the cycle of scenes representing Achilles' early years known from wall-paintings, mosaics, sarcophagi and the Kaiseraugst…
Consular diptychs in their social context
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Christianity and Tradition in the Historiography of the Late Empire
That Ammianus Marcellinus was a pagan is agreed on all sides. He was no Eunapius to vilify and slander the Christians, and no Macrobius to pretend that they did not exist; nevertheless, while not (at any rate overtly) hostile to the new religion, he still adhered to the old. It is, however, customary to quote as an illustration of his attitude to Christianity the numerous passages where he refers to things Christian in a curiously roundabout fash…
The Date of the Scholia Vetustiora on Juvenal
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The Origin, Context and Function of Consular Diptychs
Members of the late Roman élite commemorated the holding of certain offices by the distribution of ivory diptychs. This paper attempts to show how diptychs came to play this rôle; that they were not originally distributed by consuls but by any official who provided games; that they had nothing to do with the ecclesiastical diptychs that are first heard of at about the same time; that the custom spread from east to west, not from west to east; and…
City Personifications and Consular Diptychs
This paper takes as its point of departure two much discussed fifth-century artifacts, an uninscribed and undated consular diptych in Halberstadt (Fig. 9), and the inscribed and (on the face of it) exactly dated consular missorium of Ardabur Aspar in Florence (Fig. 15), both hitherto presumed issued by western consuls and manufactured in western workshops. After calling into question the established criteria for distinguishing western from easter…
Observations on the distribution and ownership of late Roman silver plate
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Anician Myths
This paper discusses the widely held view that politics in fifth- and sixth-century Italy were largely driven by rivalry between the two great families of the Anicii and the Decii, supposedly following distinctive policies (pro- or anti-eastern, philo- or anti-barbarian, etc.). It is probable that individual members of these (and other) families had feuds and disagreements from time to time, but there is absolutely no evidence for continuing riva…
Strato and Rufinus
The last book we shall have from the hand of Denys Page is an edition of that ‘talented but inscrutable writer’ the epigrammatist Rufinus. 1 It is a model of its kind, distinguished by all the virtues we have come to associate with Page's work - erudition, intelligence and judgement. But on the long-debated question of Rufinus’ date he may be as much as three centuries out
The Epitome De Caesaribus and the Chronicle of Marcellinus
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Gratian's repudiation of the Pontifical Robe
The reign of Gratian marked a turning-point in the conflict between Christianity and Paganism in the Roman Empire. One of the more spectacular manifestations of this change of emphasis which culminated in the anti-pagan legislation of Theodosius was Gratian's ostentatious repudiation of the title of pontifex maximus , held by every Emperor from Augustus down to Gratian's own father, Valentinian. The Christian Emperors had tolerated it hitherto as…
The Date of Porphyry's Kata Xpiσtianωn
The only evidence we have concerning the date of Porphyry's is that it was written during his stay in Sicily, which lasted from 268 until his return to Rome after Plotinus’ death in 270. How soon after is unknown. Castricius’ lapse from the vegetarianism of the Plotinian school and Porphyry's attempt to recall him to the fold with De Abstinentia should presumably be placed after Plotinus’ death, and Porphyry was still in Sicily at the time. Cassi…
An Alleged Fragment of Eunapius
A. F. Norman has recently suggested that a hitherto overlooked passage in Suidas is a fragment from the history of Eunapius of Sardis. He is clearly correct in referring the passage to an incident at the siege of Maiozamalcha during the Persian campaign of the emperor Julian, but I am not so sure that he is right in ascribing it to Eunapius, or in the conclusions he draws from this ascription. I give in parallel columns the accounts of Ammianus M…
Palladas and the Fate of Gessius
The Roman Friends of Ammianus
The ninth book of the correspondence of Q. Aurelius Symmachus contains a number of letters lacking the names of their addressees. Otto Seeck once suggested that one of these letters might have been written to the historian Ammianus Marcellinus. This suggestion has been accepted and built upon by most subsequent writers on Ammianus, and it has come to be generally agreed that he had connections among the senatorial aristocracy of Rome; connections…
Christianity and Tradition in the Historiography of the Late Empire
That Ammianus Marcellinus was a pagan is agreed on all sides. He was no Eunapius to vilify and slander the Christians, and no Macrobius to pretend that they did not exist; nevertheless, while not (at any rate overtly) hostile to the new religion, he still adhered to the old. It is, however, customary to quote as an illustration of his attitude to Christianity the numerous passages where he refers to things Christian in a curiously roundabout fash…
Roman School Fees
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Palladas and Christian Polemic
Eduard Norden's well known claim that pagans only read the New Testament when they wanted to refute it has never been seriously challenged. During the first four centuries of the Christian era the only pagans who can be shown to have had a thorough acquaintance with Christian writings and knowledge of Christian teachings are Celsus, Porphyry, and the Apostate Julian —all of whom wrote detailed refutations of Christianity. Yet it has often been al…
Tener Vngvis
Opinion has long been divided as to the exact interpretation of the phrase de tenero ungui , the Latin version of a Greek proverbial expression The competing explanations are: A. ‘from the depth of her being’, penitus . B. ‘from her earliest childhood’, ab infantia ; that is, presumably, from the time when the nails were still soft like those of a very young baby (though cf. E. W. Fay, A.J.Ph. xxix [1908], 205)
Note on Palladas
(Anth. Pal. 10.92) So the Palatinus , our only source for this poem. No satisfactory explanation of has ever been propounded, and the words are surely corrupt. By deftly changing two letters and replacing by Jacobs restored a sense of sorts
The Fate of Pliny's Letters in the Late Empire
Whatever fond hopes their author may have entertained when he published them, the Letters of the younger Pliny did not meet with an appreciative public. The first, indeed almost the only, writer before modern times to have read them with care and to have signalled his admiration by imitation is Sidonius Apollinaris, bishop of Auvergne in the late fifth century
St. Jerome and Claudian
Jerome was certainly familiar with Pliny,2 and seems to have read at least some of Ammianus as well 3; it is more likely, therefore, that he was influenced by Pliny or Ammianus than Juvenal (whom, like his teacher Donatus, he seems hardly to have read at all 4) when writing the sentence in question. In fact, I would suggest that it was none of these passages that Jerome had in mind, but Claudian's In Eutropium, ii 335f
Anth. Plan 72
The Date and Identity of Macrobius
It has long been recognized that Macrobius' Saturnalia and Commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis are no less important as social documents of their times than for the precious antiquarian and neoplatonic lore they preserve. But which times ? And who was Macrobius ? In view of our relatively abundant prosopographical material from the late fourth and early fifth centuries, there should be a fair chance of identifying a man whose full name and r…
The Treatise De Verbo Ascribed to Macrobius
THE TREATISE DE VERBO ASCRIBED TO MACROBIUS Get access Alan Cameron Alan Cameron Bedford College, London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Volume 14, Issue 1, December 1967, Pages 91–92, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.1967.tb00052.x Published: 12 March 2010
Two Notes on the Greek Anthology
Journal Article TWO NOTES ON THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY Get access Alan Cameron Alan Cameron Bedford College, London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Volume 14, Issue 1, December 1967, Pages 58–61, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.1967.tb00047.x Published: 12 March 2010
Rutilius Namatianus, St. Augustine, and the Date of the De Reditu
One of St. Augustine's purposes in writing the De Civitate Dei was to counter the view which became current in pagan circles after Alaric's sack of Rome that Christianity was responsible for the disaster. To this end he quoted, introduced with the refrain ‘Ubi ergo erant illi dii ?’, many examples of similar disasters which the old gods had apparently been unable to ward of f in the pre-Christian period (III, 17 f.). In 1905 A. Dufourc pointed ou…
Pliny's Letters In The Later Empire
In C.Q . N.S. xv (1965), 293 f., in a discussion of the popularity of theyounger Pliny's Letters in the late fourth century, I adduced three passages of St. Jerome which reveal acquaintance with the Letters . The list may be extended
The Date of Porphyry's Kata Xpiσtianωn
The only evidence we have concerning the date of Porphyry's is that it was written during his stay in Sicily, which lasted from 268 until his return to Rome after Plotinus’ death in 270. How soon after is unknown. Castricius’ lapse from the vegetarianism of the Plotinian school and Porphyry's attempt to recall him to the fold with De Abstinentia should presumably be placed after Plotinus’ death, and Porphyry was still in Sicily at the time. Cassi…
Macrobius, Avienus, and Avianus
Despite Lachmann's attempt to place them in the second century, it is now generally agreed that the Fables of Avianus cannot have been written before the late fourth or early fifth century. The linguistic and metrical evidence is decisive. For these matters I merely refer to the material collected in the prefaces to the editions of Ellis and Hervieux. Though these works appeared in 1887 and 1894 respectively, when the study of Late Latin was in i…
Tacitus and the date of Curiatius Maternus' death
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Gratian's repudiation of the Pontifical Robe
The reign of Gratian marked a turning-point in the conflict between Christianity and Paganism in the Roman Empire. One of the more spectacular manifestations of this change of emphasis which culminated in the anti-pagan legislation of Theodosius was Gratian's ostentatious repudiation of the title of pontifex maximus , held by every Emperor from Augustus down to Gratian's own father, Valentinian. The Christian Emperors had tolerated it hitherto as…
Zosimus, Historia Nova. The Decline of Rome
Notes on Claudian's Invectives
The text of Claudian has received little serious attention since the great edition of Theodor Birt in 1892 ( MGH Auct. Ant . x). The Teubner edition of the following year is by a pupil of Birt, J. Koch, and, though it is a handy text with a useful preface, it cannot really be used independently of Birt. After that, apart from two not very substantial contributions by J. P. Postgate ( C.Q . iv [1910], 257–62)
The First Edition of Ovid's Amores
As is well known, the Amores of Ovid appeared in two different editions, of which only the second survives. Hence, scholars being what they are, it is hardly surprising that almost as much has been written about the first as the second. If I have ventured to add yet another contribution to the already over-long bibliography of the subject
The Last Days of the Academy at Athens
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Claudian
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