Old Names, New Peoples: Listing Ethnonyms in Late Antiquity: Listing Ethnonyms in Late Antiquity

This volume examines the meanings and functions of designations of peoples ("ethnonyms") in Late Antiquity. By focusing on both textual and iconographic sources, it highlights the interplay between ethnic discourses, political messages, education, and spatial thinking. Contents 8 Preface 12 Figures 15 Abbreviations 16 General Introduction 18 1 Ethnonyms and Ethnicity: Some Methodological Reflections 18 2 Ethnonyms: Identifying the Sources 24 3 Listing Ethnonyms alongside Other Cognitive Processes and Literary Strategies 33 Part 1 40 Listing and Declaiming Ethnonyms 40 Introduction 42 1 Listing in Late Antiquity 42 2 Aesthetics of Listing: the Example of Decimus Magnus Ausonius 48 The Laterculus Veronensis 54 1 The Forgotten Attachment: the Ethnic Catalogues 54 2 The Gentes of the Far North and West 59 2.1 The Britons: Romani ma non troppo 63 2.2 The Panegyrici Latini and the Britanni 65 3 The Gentes of the Rhine 72 3.1 Disappearing and Reappearing Ethnonyms 74 3.2 Recent Ethnonyms 77 4 The Gentes of the Danube 82 5 The Non-European Gentes 94 6 Conclusions: Lexical Adaptations and Ethnic Transformations in Late Antique Gaul 104 Part 2 116 Listing and Memorizing Ethnonyms 116 Introduction 118 1 Lists for Learning 118 2 Listing Ethnonyms in Schoolbooks: Vibius Sequester and Lucius Ampelius 120 The Cosmographia of Julius Honorius 133 1 From a Student, for Future Students 133 2 Gentes of the Eastern Quarter 137 3 Gentes of the Western Quarter 145 4 Gentes of the Northern Quarter 156 5 Gentes of the Southern Quarter 163 6 Conclusions: the Educational Value and Political Overtones of Lists of Place Names and Ethnonyms 168 Part 3 184 Listing and Locating Ethnonyms 184 Introduction 186 1 Conceptualizing and Listing Space 186 2 And Yet It Moves: beyond Lists in Late Antique Geography 193 The Expositio totius mundi et gentium 199 1 A Curious Author and a Peculiar Guidebook of the Roman World 199 2 A (Partially) Utopian and (Very Much) Ethnic East 202 3 A (Mostly) Civic terra Romanorum and the gentes barbarorum at Its Borders 208 4 Ethnic and Spatial Identities in the Expositio 216 The Tabula Peutingeriana and Its Ethnonyms 220 1 Introduction 220 2 The Ethnonyms on the Tabula Peutingeriana: General Aspects 225 3 Beyond the Rhine: Really a Medieval Addition? 230 4 Ethnic Double Names 236 5 A (Relatively) Unimaginative Ethnic Landscape 239 6 Persae: Explicit and Implicit Traces of a Special Ethnonym 245 7 Conclusions: Ethnonyms and a Geography of Otherness 250 General Conclusions 258 Bibliography 266 Index of Ethnonyms and Choronyms 338 Index of Ancient and Modern Authors and Texts 342 Index of Places and Personal Names 344 No people is nameless, and lists of words are as old as writing systems. And yet, both subjects can appear unpromising to historians. This volume shows the contrary by examining the various meanings and functions of ethnonyms in Late Antiquity: added to catalogues of provinces, they reflect the political messages and the regulating power of the imperial bureaucracy; included in schoolbooks, they mirror educational practices and reveal the geographical and ethnic landscapes taught at school; placed on a map, they help make sense of the world in times of transition.