Abstracts - Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald

Die Überlieferungsgeschichte antiker Bildwerke ist häufig dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass sie längst einem ursprünglichen Verwendungs- bzw. Aufstellungskontext entrissen sind. Die klassischen Archäologen, die sich mit dieser Bilderwelt beschäftigt haben, sind daher stets in besonderm Maße der Gefahr ausgesetzt, zu Interpretationen zu gelangen, die zwar hochgelehrt und durch textliche Quellen der Antike begründbar sind, mit der alltäglichen Wahrnehmung und Rezeption dieser Bilder in konkretem Handlungszusammenhang aber wenig zu tun haben. Deren Beobachtung bleibt dagegen häufiger einerseits der an Bildpraktiken interessierten Bildwissenschaft, andererseits der kontext- und befundorientierten Grabungsarchäologie vorbehalten, der sich ja auch die klassische Archäologie zusätzlich zu den übrigen hermeneutischen Methoden verschrieben hat.

Im Vortrag soll die Frage nach der Vieldeutigkeit und der sich in der Rezeption stets wandelnden Bedeutung von Bildern nachgegangen werden. Konkret wird dies am Beispiel der 'Lorbeerbäume des Augustus' aufgezeigt. 1973 hatte zunächst Andreas Alföldi, später Paul Zanker, dafür plädiert, im Motiv der beiden Lorbeerbäume auf Altären, Münzen und Tonlampen eine Referenz auf die Sakralisierung des Wohnhauses des Prinzeps und damit einen propagandistischen Hintergrund – die 'Macht der Bilder' – zu erkennen. Ein Blick auf die Fund- und Verwendungskontexte zumindest der fraglichen Tonlampen zeichnet aber ein ganz anderes Bild, wie ausgeführt werden soll.

Allgemein treten mit der Berücksichtigung der Materialität, Dauerhaftigkeit und Biographie archäologischer Bildobjekte – oder, um mit Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht zu sprechen, deren Präsenz – derartige 'lebensweltliche' Wahrnehmungen zunehmend in den Blick, und gegenwärtig ist ein grundlegender Wandel in der Beurteilung antiker Bilder zu beobachten – und auch mit Nachdruck einzufordern. Anschließend an das konkrete Fallbeispiel sollen daher solche wandelbaren Bedeutungen konzeptualisiert und methodisch reflektiert werden.

Introduction

Marginalized groups in Roman society and their experiences have deservedly received increasing attention in recent years (e.g. Courrier and Magalhães de Oliveira eds 2022). The voices of those who were enslaved, of women and children as well as other subaltern groups, remain difficult to entangle from the ancient evidence that is so heavily skewed towards the well-to-do. Ancient Roman lifeworlds, inevitably, have also been constructed largely from texts and objects that reflect the top layers of Roman society – regardless of what is meant precisely by the term ‘lifeworld’. It has inspired one of the questions central to the conference: How can we explore and represent the lifeworlds of marginalised groups in antiquity?

Inherent in a culturally and historically substantial concept of lifeworld, is that social coordination will lead to a consensus in norms and values: to put it differently, social coordination creates a lifeworld that is experienced collectively. With Vierhaus, individuals can be understood to exist in and move through multiple of these collective lifeworlds, such as the family, working conditions and, significantly, legal status. It might also be explained in terms of Habermas’ environments of systems that govern individual lives. From that collective experience each participant derives their own identity, their individual experience, and their interpretation of the world and of their place in it (in both the social and material sense of the word). When collective norms and values take the form of hierarchies, they are likely to result in inequalities between groups of people. And when that happens, the lifeworld is ‘colonized’: in other words, it will be imposed on some, by others (cf Habermas 1986/7). The term ‘colonization’ of the lifeworld as applied by Habermas is not, in my view, entirely coincidental. It is the principle behind the institution of slavery, which has social, cultural as well as economic components and which is reaffirmed through practice and ideology. The concept of lifeworld(s) thus feeds into our understanding of the institution of Roman slavery and how people functioned in it collectively. The question remains how we can move from systemic lifeworlds to grasp individual lifeworlds (in the sense of experiences and subjective perceptions) of enslaved people. This paper proposes that the method of critical fabulation provides the necessary tools to start with.

Critical fabulation

My paper will build on pioneering work reconstructing enslaved experiences through critical fabulation. This is a form of evidence-based historical narrative that was introduced by Saidiya Hartman in 2008. Hartman initiated this type of reconstructive storytelling to shed light on the lives of Afro-American women from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries (see also Hartman 2019). It has been broadly taken up in global slavery studies and was introduced to antiquity studies by Deborah Kamen and Sarah Levin-Richardson (cf pioneering work along similar lines by Laes 2021). Shifting the spotlights onto more silent actors who can be identified in the source material (implicitly or explicitly) already allows the historian to ask a broader range of questions. Social and material context provides a starting point for teasing out a more subjective perspective. Of necessity, a more general understanding of the socially constructed lifeworld forms the backdrop to any narrative about the individuals whose lives are ‘critically fabulated’ from the historical evidence, to reconstruct their particular experiences and social interactions – their subjective lifeworlds. Both collective and individual lifeworlds are in fact closely interconnected to create the type of culturally and historically substantial concept of lifeworld that the conference seeks to apply.

A case in point

The challenges for reconstructing experiences and a subjective worldview are obvious, as emphasized by e.g. Itgenshorst 2010. My case study is meant to illustrate how critical fabulation both creates and gives voice to the experienced lifeworlds of enslaved people in Roman society. In this particular paper I attempt to apply critical fabulation and the concept of lifeworlds to maximize our knowledge of four individuals for whom we have no more than a single name. Their first-century epitaphs (CIL 6. 7591, 7596, 7597) originate from the small-scale columbarium tomb ‘of the Carvilii’ in the city of Rome. The collective origin of the epitaphs provides a good indication of burial context, social relations and structures, and therefore of individual life conditions. As I have demonstrated elsewhere, columbarium tombs housed people who were interrelated in various ways (Groen-Vallinga 2024, 2022): the Carvilii tomb conforms to a broader network branching out from a small-scale freedman family in which these four enslaved people found their final resting place. Reconstructing how they ended up there brings to light a lifeworld, as well as the advantages and pitfalls of the research method.

Sources cited

In his impactful work De civitate Dei, the church father Augustine reacted to the capture of Rome in 410 by the Goths. He argued that the status and history of the Roman commonwealth was in no way different from any other empire, i.e., that it would gain strength and lose it again according to God’s divine plan. Carefully analyzing Cicero’s impactful political theory as presented, for instance, in De re publica, he furthermore pointed out that the pagan Roman state was never truly just and as a consequence also no true commonwealth at all, as true iustitia could only be found in the community of the elected faithful, the civitas Dei (civ. 2,21; 19,24). He even went so far as to equate states without true justice with mere bands of robbers (civ. 22,4). Consequently, Augustine did not concede absolute importance to the Roman state and its fate, while simultaneously demanding that its Christian inhabitants should still submit to the will of the emperor and his representatives.
Augustine’s decisions as a politically active bishop stood somewhat in contrast to this lack of interest in the importance of the Roman state. Repeatedly, he sought the support of Roman emperors in confrontations with several movements within Christianity that were condemned as heretical. The vio-lent Donatists played a particular role in this regard, as they directly attacked Catholics in North Africa again and again. Members of Augustine’s own parish and the Catholic Church in general had to be protected, also by military means if necessary. Additionally, it was important to preserve the true Chris-tian faith, as the church father repeatedly pointed out in letters to friends, colleagues, associates and Roman magistrates. His success in fighting the Donatists resulted in the emperors issuing laws that specifically tackled and prohibited the heretical movement in North Africa as well as a personal triumph during the synod of Carthage in 411, where Donatism was officially branded as a heretical movement.
Augustine's actions, both in relation to the composition of his theoretical writings as well as regarding his political decisions as a bishop of Hippo, can be critically reflected upon if aspects of his lifeworld are taken into account. In doing so, alleged prima facie contradictions between his theological thought and his political strategies as a bishop when interacting with the Romen Empire can be recog-nized and resolved. In both cases, the suffering of the faithful was taken seriously and interpreted as part of God’s test to evaluate his creation. At the same time, however, Augustine also looked for ways to alleviate the severe trial and to improve and give meaning to the lives of Christians according to his personal life experience.
The capture of Rome 410 confronted the church father not only with many refugees from Italy who sought his protection, but also with urgent questions about the meaning of contemporary events. Many were looking for answers to make sense of the taking of the empire’s capital which was initially thought to be eternal and impregnable. Augustine’s primary goal was to make people realize that Rome’s fall would not entail the end of world history, which instead would towards the realization of the civitas Dei. This was intended to silence pagan critics and reassure the Christian faithful under his protection.
The conflict with the Donatists, on the other hand, was characterized by direct violence and threatened the life of Catholic parishioners – even the church father himself had to survive an attempt on his life. Augustine’s words are correspondingly urgent and insistent when he describes the brutal deeds of the heretics, for instance, when he depicted the suffering of Maximian, the Catholic bishop of Bagaïum: “Pursued by his enemies, he had taken refuge under the altar of this basilica. This altar was broken over his body. Wood, ropes, iron, everything was used to bruise him, and his blood flowed in great abundance. He had received a large wound in the groin, with streams of black blood gushing from it and he would have died immediately, if their cruelty had not been rendered useless by the Lord’s immense mercy. Indeed, as they dragged him along half-dead and stripped him of his clothes, the wound was secretly closed by the dust of the road. Soon our people caught him in their arms, but his execution-ers rushed back to try a last effort. They struck him with satanic rage, and during the night threw him from the top of a tower. He fell on a heap of dust and garbage, with only the last breath of life left. A poor traveler in a hurry to get off the main road spotted him. At the sight of him, he called his wife, whose modesty had kept her on the road and who was carrying a torch in her hand: Either out of com-passion, or in the hope of a reward, they took him to their home, with the intention of returning him to the Catholics, dead or alive.” (Cresc. 3,47).
The planned presentation aims at examining Augustine’s polemics against the Donatists in con-text of religious and political debates in North Africa in view of his own lifeworld. In doing so, aspects of his varied and, at least at first glance, possibly contradictory actions and arguments also with regard to interactions with the Roman state will be explored and – where possible – reconciled in view of differing contexts, perceptions, needs and personal goals of the church father.

More than almost any other medium, letters are regarded as a means of communicating both theoretically presented and lived life worlds. In late antiquity, which with its numerous political, religious, and cultural centres was also characterised by the 'equalisation' of the lived world, letterwriting was particularly popular, and letters became the central medium of communication for the exchange of quite new philosophical, theological, and everyday ideas.
The letters of the Nolan bishop Paulinus, who was in active contact and exchange with famous contemporaries such as Jerome and Augustine, can serve as a particular example of the discourse on life in late antiquity. The tension between pagan education and biblical thought as well as everyday problems in monastic life as a late antique lifeworld can be impressively analysed. And so Paulinus' letters become a mirror of the general Christianisation process as well as the ascetic-monastic lifeworld(s) of late antiquity.

In this presentation, I will discuss what is no doubt the most understudied novel in terms of socio-cultural history of Antiquity: the Life of Aesop (version G, 1st-2nd century CE). Building on the foundational work by Vlassopoulos I will ask about the desirability and possibility of studying the lifeworld(s) of enslaved individuals, based on a literary work which is heavily loaded by views and mockery from the part of slaveholders. Applying concepts such as agency and anxiety, I will demonstrate that it is indeed worth the effort, as long as one is prepared to fully take into account both the literary conventions of the genre and the socio-cultural context of the epoch.

The lifeworlds of women of all kinds in antiquity are notoriously difficult to reconstruct, including the female perspective and everyday practise of childbrith. Most source genres refrain from discussing the details of the birth process and births are never realistically depicted in the visual arts. Childbirth seems to have been a private and secluded affair between women. Nevertheless, medical authors offer glimpses into their patients‘ birthing rooms and cite the expertise of female practitioners in their works. In obstetrics, at least since the 4th century BCE, a strict divide between male and female spheres of activity cannot be maintained. In this respect, Greek and Roman antiquity differs from what we know from medieval and early modern medical history, when male physicians or surgeons were not welcome in normal birth situations.

Despite the fact that ancient physicians have left accounts of births for us to analyse, it is challenging to gain insight into female points of view. This paper discusses the (Greek) sources on ancient childbirth, with a particular focus on the female perspective, and what they can offer the medical historian. It also considers the question of whether there is a clear divide between the female world of the private birthing chamber attended by midwives and the male physician's medical practice which was very much in the public eye. In particular, it looks at shared technical (here: obstetrical) terminology as an indicator of a clearly demarcated female lifeworld in antiquity.

The concept of Lifeworlds, developed as an avenue towards both daily life and the scope of social interaction, allows us to look beyond the traditional foci of enquiry when it comes to ancient sources. While it is usually their church politics that bring church politicians to the eyes of historians, and their rhetorical finesse that brings rhetoricians into the spotlight, there is really no need to refrain from digging deeper. To showcase elite lifeworlds in the sixth century, I will scrutinise two sets of sources – one a couple of rather benign anecdotes from Agathias of Myrina, and the other pertaining to an important family in Gaza. With Agathias it will soon become clear that neither classicising historiography nor the Constantinopolitan upper classes were shut off from daily life, daily occurrences and varied communication and have thus to be reconsidered as part of a dynamic society. The family of Maria, and their embeddedness in Gazan social and political life, will be helpful in understanding that prestige, counsel, and religious authority could come from a range of places. The spheres of society that one might separate in order to better understand them, should not be conceptualised as separate entities.

Since research on Aulus Gellius has moved away from valuing the author solely as a treasure trove of quotations from supposedly lost writers, his other, ‘historical’ function has also been emphasised: to provide an insight into the world of the second century AD. In 1989 Peter Parson summarises the author of the Noctes Atticae (NA) as follows: “Gellius has served as landscape and as quarry. As a landscape, he shows the contours of his time.” In his statement Parson mixes two perspectives: First, the analytic view on the research community who used Gellius as “landscape” and “quarry”; second, the view of the research community that has tried to extract from Gellius’ writings the specific ‘lifeworld’ to which the author belonged. In my paper I will try to take both perspectives into account.

Incidentally, with his “landscape” Parson delivers a synonym for ‘lifeworld’. In a cursory review of the previous research, other synonyms and related concepts for lifeworld will be evaluated (cf. Heusch 2011: “Erinnerungskultur”; Pausch 2004 “Bildungskultur”). Although his (ongoing) time as a quarry for quotations from older works will not be the focus, some discussions arising from this chapter of Gellius research must be included, namely how grounded in reality his stories are. Although determining what is ‘real’ and what are figments of the author’s imagination may be impossible, we can ask what objects from his surroundings he describes, and wheter he puts emphasis on certain types of behaviour by exaggerating characteristics.

A favourite persona of Gellius is the fool (“Tölpel”, Beer 2020, and Pausch 2004). Although this persona can take on different attributes (stoic, grammaticus, adulescens etc.) its main trait is a false sense of erudition, often boastfully presented in dialogue. These characters are consequently taken down by either their interlocutors or by Gellius himself. Because of their exaggerated behaviour we can identify them as stereotypes or at least as severely altered versions of any possible ‘real-life’ selves. And what about other personnel in the NA? In the many cases where Gellius has his prominent contemporaries appear (e. g. Herodes Atticus in NA 1, 2), converses with them in private anecdotes, and even records their public speeches (again Herodes Atticus in NA 19, 12) the answer is much less obvious. Did Gellius capture some personality traits of these people, or should we rather ask if he even really met them? Furthermore, if Gellius is the only source for an anecdote involving a named individual, do we categorise the knowledge as belonging to the author or to the persona of the underlying lifeworld?

Gellius’ milieu was the intellectual elite of Rome and Athens, which makes him at least a contemporary of the so-called Second Sophistic. Even if he did not lebong to of the illustrious circle of Greek rhetoricians and philosophers as recorded by Philostratus, he was their student, their audience and, through his work, a witness to their deeds. In these roles, he contributes to the foundations of the social and intellectual movement of his lifetime, his work acting as a personal and a public record of his experiences.

If we accept Itgenshorst’s (2010) second understanding of Husserl’s ‘lifeworld’ as the ‘key to a subjective past’, Gellius’ account of the Sophists during his time presents us with an intriguing perspective. As a writer he puts distance between his experiences and the personae of his work, showing us his very own point of view. However, the interpretation of many episodes is complicated by the author’s modest commentary, which often leaves the reader without any guidance as to how perceive situations, and sometimes even without an end to his stories. We can even go so far as to suggest that Gellius deliberately confuses his readers, or rather that he makes use of highly specific knowledge, that only the ‘initiated’ can decipher. One of the ways he does this is by quoting and discussing other literary works excessively. Whether it was Homer, Virgil, or Plutarch, Gellius would have read (about) it and chose excerpts for his own writings. By carefully reading the authors quoted, we can gain further insight into his world of thought.

Selected Bibliography

Beer, B., Aulus Gellius und die Noctes Atticae: Die literarische Konstruktion einer Sammlung, Berlin/Boston 2020.
Galli, M., Die Lebenswelt eines Sophisten: Untersuchungen zu den Bauten und Stiftungen des Herodes Atticus, Mainz 2002.
Heusch, C., Die Macht der memoria: Die Noctes Atticae des Aulus Gellius im Licht der Erinnerungskultur des 2. Jahrhunderts n. Chr., Berlin/New York 2011.
Keulen, W. H., Gellius the Satirist: Roman Cultural Authority in Attic Nights, Leiden/Boston 2009.
Pausch, D., Biographie und Bildungskultur: Personendarstellungen bei Plinius dem Jüngeren, Gellius und Sueton, Berlin/New York 2004.

Urban spaces in the ancient Roman empire were heavily defined by the signatures of its wealthy inhabitants. It is usually the upper strata’s ideals and remains that we find embedded within the urban fabric, yet this was an environment inhabited by a vast majority of underprivileged individuals, whose realities diverged significantly from those of the upper strata, and who were likely to perceive these spaces differently as well. Unfortunately, the lived experiences of these groups remain mostly obscure, only reflected in fragmentary mentions through the eyes of ancient authors who likely did not have direct access to nor reflect on their personal endeavours and struggles. In ancient texts and images, the marginalised poor engaged in a variety of street-begging activities are repeatedly depicted within public and highly frequented spaces, such as marketplaces, porticoes, and bridges. These groups sought out these public spaces for qualities other than those for which they are typically described in scholarly literature. Providing shelter, shade or heat, food, or the possibility of finding casual employment, these spaces met their personal needs. This paper, which draws upon contemporary studies in order to examine the mechanisms of ancient Roman poverty, will present several case studies and reflect on what public spaces can offer poor individuals, how their experiences can be accessed and how methodology may be conceptualised beyond a close reading of classical texts.

Emperor Trajan, who reigned from 98 to 117 AD, is first and foremost a military leader. He was one of Domitian’s generals before ascending the throne; then, during his reign, he personally led military campaigns for approximately nine years out of his nineteen-year rule. His wars against the Dacians and the Parthians enabled the Roman Empire to reach its greatest territorial extent. Despite these successes and the glory Trajan enjoyed throughout Late Antiquity, we have lost almost all contemporary literary accounts of his reign. To gain a deeper comprehension of the political context surrounding his expeditions and to understand how the imperial discourse on conquest was received by the army, it is valuable to study Trajan’s soldiers’ lifeworld through literary and figurative sources.

The concept of Lebenswelt, understood both as the everyday world and as the horizon of individuals, which encompasses their experience and interpretation of the world, can indeed help us to see what Roman soldiers thought about war and the expansion of the empire, in such a crucial moment of its history. A difficulty to be taken into account is the challenge of finding sources in which individuals express their consciousness and their social embedding. While this is an important consideration for all periods, it holds particular significance for Antiquity.

An exceptional source for studying the soldiers’ lifeworld under Trajan is the Trajan’s Column, erected in the Forum of Trajan to commemorate the victory against the Dacians and inaugurated in 113. The frieze represents the different stages of the war. It might surprise, but the battle scenes are rare. Instead, most of the frieze portrays scenes of troop movements, deforestation activities, construction of fortifications, addresses to the army, sacrifices... Essentially, it offers a glimpse into the soldiers’ daily life during military campaigns, a theme that unquestionably embedded the Lebenswelt and probably constitutes its most studied aspect.

Highlighting the central role of soldiers in military and civil engineering works, the column illustrates how significant this dimension was in the military context. Labor becomes a prerequisite for military success. Soldiers are instruments of conquest not only as fighters but also because, through activities such as deforestation and infrastructure creation, they take possession of hostile territory.

Regarding the battle scenes, in the representation of the Battle of Tapae, a formation of soldiers is shown with insignia recalling the names of the legions and the battles won. These signs testify to an experienced virtus, visible to all.

This value, claimed by the soldiers, is expressed in literary sources through exemplary anecdotes. The individual’s actions serve as exempla to present shared values such as courage and loyalty to Rome.

Another particularly evident aspect of the documentation is the close bond between Trajan and his soldiers. This emphasis is obviously due to the nature of the sources, especially in the case of celebratory ones, but it also reflects the type of relationship the army had with some charismatic leaders.

On the column, Trajan is almost always represented in front of his soldiers, as evidence of the consensus on which his power is based. Particularly in scenes of adlocutio (frequently reproduced on coins as well), the compact army is positioned facing the emperor, symbolising the close union that exists between the prince and his soldiers.

But beyond this harmony, there is more: the proximity of the emperor allows his soldiers to give their best in every aspect. According to a stereotypical representation, Trajan presents himself as primus inter pares. The soldiers, from subordinates, thus become emulators of the emperor and adopt his characteristics as their own.

This image of a cohesive and loyal army, however, remains an idealised image, an ideal that soldiers aspire to, rather than a representation of reality. In Cassius Dio’s Roman History, we see some cracks emerge with the figures of deserters.

Finally, the episodes of salutatio imperatoria allow us to find a trace, even if fragile, of how Roman soldiers made sense of their past and positioned themselves in relation to the future.

The salutatio imperatoria, represented in two out of the nine scenes of adlocutio on the Trajan’s Column, is the military acclamation necessary to request a triumph, the highest point in the career of a general and his men who actively participate in the ceremony. With the salutatio imperatoria, the close relationship between the commander and his soldiers reaches its peak. The soldiers did not act entirely spontaneously, but the salutatio was the result of a shared sentiment about war.

This is illustrated by a scene in Dio Cassius’ Roman History. At the beginning of the Parthian expedition, Parthamasiris, the Armenian king who seized the throne without Roman consent, approaches Trajan and lays his diadem at his feet, hoping to receive confirmation of his reign. Instead, Trajan declares Armenia a Roman province.

“At this - writes Cassius Dio - the soldiers shouted aloud and hailed Trajan imperator, as if because of some victory. (They termed it a crownless and bloodless victory, to see the king, a descendant of Arsaces, a son of Pacorus, and a nephew of Osroes, standing before Trajan without a diadem, like a captive).”

With this salutatio imperatoria, Trajan’s soldiers express several things: first of all, they establish an equivalence between a significant military victory and the emperor’s action. At the same time, they express their support for their commander’s expansion program and position themselves and their leader within a very specific tradition: the history of the Roman-Parthian wars.

The study of Trajan’s soldiers’ lifeworld reveals that their involvement in foreign policy is not only military but also “logistical”. Soldiers appear bound to their commander by a relationship of discipline and emulation, but in the sources, this bond is exaggerated for propaganda purposes.

During wars, through the insignia and the salutatio imperatoria, soldiers express their belonging to a group with its own history and values.