CLST 277-001: The World of Late Antiquity Spring Semester 2026 Dr. Jacqueline Long Monday, Wednesday, Friday 9:20am-10:10am Dumbach 123

Source-Excercises in Historical Evidence

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 Source Exercises will be posted as the exercises come due - keep watching! Each assignment of this set includes a 250-300 word written report (1 typed page), due at the start of the period for which the Exercise is assigned. Legible typing or word-processing, correct spelling and grammar, and meticulous observance of all principles and practices of academic integrity are required. Use of AI is not permitted in any connection with this exercise.

file in progress

Source-Exercise in Numismatics

• Numismatics is the study of coins, an important material source for late antique history (and other periods!). For a brief, highly pertinent introduction to the coinage of our period, read the paragraphs from "The monetary system of the Roman Empire..." (about two-thirds down the file) through the end of the article (about three-quarters down the file) in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th edn.) article "coinage, Roman." Note the important denominations mentioned and the indications coins bore of their official value: this information will help with this exercise.
• Now, take as your target for this exercise the image posted in the announcement about this Source-Exercise at the Sakai site.
• 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? Compare with the images and brief overview at jlong1.sites.luc.edu/ltRomcoinage.htm.
  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? 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. Does any of this information help you to identify a date when this coin was produced? Explain briefly.
  6. 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 Source-Exercise is due at the beginning of class, Friday 30 January.

Research-Exercise in Imperial Public Building

• sign up in class Wednesday 11 February to participate in a collaborative group working together to investigate a specific example of late-Roman imperial building in capital cities and deliver a brief informative report about it to the class on Monday, 16 February. One Forum specific to each building will be set up in the Sakai site, to facilitate communication for the group. Obligation for each group: please prepare and deliver to the class a 5-6 minute presentation (no more), including PowerPoint of images, reporting the basic information on the group's monument. Obligation for each individual group-member: please prepare a 1-page report summarizing the basic information, documenting the primary and secondary sources used, and stating the individual's contribution to the group's research and presentation.
  1. Arch of Galerius, Thessalonica
  2. Baths of Diocletian, Rome
  3. Mausoleum of Diocletian, Split
  4. Aula Palatina, Trier
  5. Basilica of Peter, Rome
  6. Hippodrome, Constantinople
• Use reliable, scholarly sources (not Wikipedia, travel-agency promotions, or religiously-oriented websites: they often don't make their primary sources evident, and some incorporate interpretations and anachronisms in ways that confuse the authentic late-Roman facts). Academically-oriented encyclopedia articles (see Loyola University Libraries' Classical Studies page for links: Oxford Classical Dictionary, Brill's New Pauly, Oxford Bibliographies, etc.) are okay for a start, but only if you follow up their references in ancient primary sources and scholarly secondary sources.
• Get at least one good view of the monument, so that during your presentation the class can see what the monument looks like or looked like (more than one is fine: see what's available and what makes sense for your presentation, so that it will be informative but not confusing)
• When was the monument constructed? Identify both a date and the circumstances of later Roman history contextualizing the construction. Include any major changes to the monument that were made between the third and fifth centuries AD.
• Where was the monument constructed in relationship to the city where it was located? How would its specific location have affected access to the monument by the residents of the city?
• What function was the monument originally built to perform: what did people do with it?
• Beside its function, what elements and qualities of the monument would have impressed late-Roman citizens viewing the monument? What did it "say" to its "audience", and how did it "say" it?
• The presentations of the imperial public buildings are to be delivered by the whole group or by one or more representatives, as the group determines will be most clear and informative, in a 5-6 minute span of class Monday 16 February. Each member of each group, please submit a copy of your individual report into the Assignment in the Sakai site, no later than when class is officially scheduled to begin on Monday 16 February.

• Follow the link to look at Bowl #5, Museum Number 1946.1007.5, from the Mildenhall Treasure at the website of the British Museum (www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1946-1007-5). Its shape gets called a "flanged bowl" because that wide flat projecting rim is called a "flange." It is silver, overall dimensions 11 3/4 inches diameter, 3 1/2 inches high, weight 3 3/4 lb. It dates to the fourth century. It and 33 other items of late-Roman silver tableware were found together in 1942 at West Row, near Mildenhall, in Suffolk, England. (The find was reported to the authorities in 1946 and legally declared a treasure-trove, which is why the British Museum's catalogue-number starts 1946.)
• The sliding row of thumbnail images in the horizontal panel below the main viewing-panel give you additional views of Bowl #5. Consult as many of these images as you find helpful: just make sure the Museum Number in the information-panel to the left stays at 1946.1007.5, or you will have wandered to a different item.
• The information under "Inscriptions" in the information-panel to the left goes beyond the context we are looking at in Bowl #5 itself as our object of study: please disregard it. Please also disregard the reference amid the "Curator's Comments" to "the general category of Bacchic imagery": there is nothing necessarily specifically "Bacchic" on Bowl #5, and we'll get our most useful look at the images on the Bowl if we concentrate on what the images themselves depict.
• Background reading: the primary sources (two selections: brief poems by Claudian) and secondary scholarship (chapter in Cameron) assigned for W 3/18. (The Wikipedia article about the Mildenhall Treasure provides background about the find. As it says, the "Great Dish" and some of the smaller items feature pagan mythological figures - but other items in the find don't, and we should not try to force connections that may not belong there. For this Exercise, just focus on Bowl #5 itself.)
• For your report and using the British Museum's Description for a guide how the scenes on Bowl #5 are organized, please consider:
  1. What figures and images, in what scenes, does Bowl #5 depict? What is going on in the scenes?
  2. What quality of representation do the scenes on Bowl #5 display: how naturalistic or how stylized? how compressed or spread-out are the figures? are the figures depicted all in a single plane, or does anything suggest picture-depth? do the scenes suggest action and movement, or do they seem like static displays?
  3. What features of apparent interest recur in multiple scenes on Bowl #5? What differences appear between scenes?
  4. Assuming that the scenes and figures are all intended to appeal to some audience as objects to look at and enjoy, what do they invite you to infer about that audience, its knowledge of the world the scenes and figures depict, and of its interest in that world? Discuss your inferences and your reasoning concretely; you may connect other pertinent information this class has touched on, provided you identify it clearly and show your reasoning making the connection, as well as the conclusions you draw.
  5. Assuming that the visual qualities of Bowl #5 are all intended to help the Bowl appeal to some audience as an object to look at and enjoy, what does the Bowl invite you to infer about that audience and its tastes? Discuss your inferences and your reasoning concretely; you may connect other pertinent information this class has touched on, provided you identify it clearly and show your reasoning making the connection, as well as the conclusions you draw.
  6. The written reports of this Excursus are due into the Assignment in the Sakai site, no later than when class is officially scheduled to begin on Wednesday 18 March.

Revised 10 March 2026 by jlong1@luc.edu
http://www.luc.edu/depts/classics/