Anthony Richard Birley (1937–2020)
Author of Lives of the Later Caesars: The First Part of the Augustan History, with Newly Compiled Lives of Nerva & Trajan
About the Author
Anthony Birley was Professor of Ancient History at Manchester 1974-90 and at Dusseldorf 1990-2002.
Works by Anthony Richard Birley
Lives of the Later Caesars: The First Part of the Augustan History, with Newly Compiled Lives of Nerva & Trajan (1976) — Translator, some editions — 684 copies, 4 reviews
L'Apologetique Chretienne Greco-Latine a l'Epoque Prenicenienne (Entretiens Sur L'Antiquite Classique de La Fondation Hardt) (French Edition) (2005) 2 copies
Obituary: Ronald Syme 1 copy
Associated Works
Crises and the Roman Empire : Proceedings of the Seventh Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (2007) — Contributor — 11 copies
The Impact of the Roman Army (200 B.C. A.D. 476): Economic, Social, Political, Religious and Cultural Aspects (Impact of Empire) (2007) — Contributor — 10 copies
Greek and Roman Historiography in Late Antiquity: Fourth to Sixth Century, A.D (2003) — Contributor — 10 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1937-10-08
- Date of death
- 2020-12-19
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Clifton College
Magdalen College, Oxford - Occupations
- historian
- Organizations
- University of Manchester
University of Düsseldorf - Relationships
- Birley, Eric (father)
- Short biography
- After reading Literae Humaniores at Oxford he was Craven Fellow of that university 1960-1962; then Research Fellow at Birmingham; Lecturer, later Reader at Leeds; Visiting Lecturer, Duke University, N. Carolina; Professor of Ancient History at Manchester and at Düsseldorf, retiring in 2002. He was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1969; Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute in 1981, full Member from 1992; Member of the Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften 1994-2002, now Corresponding Member; Member of the School of Historical Studies, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton 1994; Trustee of the Vindolanda Trust since 1970, Chair of Trustees since 1996.
- Nationality
- UK
- Associated Place (for map)
- UK
Members
Reviews
Lives of the Later Caesars: The First Part of the Augustan History, with Newly Compiled Lives of Nerva & Trajan by Anthony Birley
The Historia Augusta is a strange confection of biography, history, and fiction. Purportedly written by six different authors during the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, it is now generally agreed to be the work of one prankster toward the end of the fourth century. Despite its notoriously unreliable nature, it is one of the major sources for Roman history from Hadrian through Numerian (117-284). The HA is often salacious , cites bogus authorities and introduces fictitious characters. show more Some of the lives are a hopeless muddle. Still it can be entertaining (much like supermarket checkout tabloids) and occasionally provides real information not available elsewhere. For example, it is the only literary source for the building of Hadrian's Wall. And not all of the murders and orgies are fictitious.
Birley offers the first, more historically reliable part, from Hadrian through Heliogabalus (more commonly Elagabalus). His translation is quite readable, the intro provides an overview of problems and controversies arising from the HA, and the notes help sort out history from fiction. show less
Birley offers the first, more historically reliable part, from Hadrian through Heliogabalus (more commonly Elagabalus). His translation is quite readable, the intro provides an overview of problems and controversies arising from the HA, and the notes help sort out history from fiction. show less
Vindolanda was a Roman fort in northern England - Hadrian's wall was built just to the north of it. Unusual conditions caused an amazing amount of organic material to be preserved from the 100 C.E. time period, including hundreds of fragmentary documents - ink on thin strips of wood.
This book includes photographic reproductions of dozens of these documents. I am fascinated by paleography but have no expertise at all. It was exceedingly challenging to look at this ancient writing and compare show more it to the transcription provided, to try to make out which little mark is a "c" and which an "e", for example.
The book starts with a quick modern history of the site - when people first recognized it as a Roman ruin and when excavations revealed the soggy treasures - they were all under water, in anaerobic conditions, like a bog. This discovery is only from around 1970.
The book then reviews the local terrain and how the fort is situated relative to the other Roman forts in northern England and in Scotland. It discusses the various movements of Roman troops in Britain in the first couple of Centuries C.E.
The main body of the book is a review of the contents of the letters. There is a lot of talk about buying and selling of basic supplies. There is talk too of people traveling to visit each other. These documents are not literature, not intended for any audience beyond the recipient. They are just letters and probably account records.
Birley stays quite close to the documents themselves, He does guess at meanings and tries to fill in the blank spaces. But he is careful to distinguish what the documents say from his guesses. There is no grand narrative here, beyond the raw historical sequence of troops arriving and leaving, the soldiers and their officers and the regional government. Birley sorts the documents topically and then just surveys their contents, focusing on the more complete ones.
That such a collection of documents survives from that time is rather amazing. Birley does a nice job of sharing that treasure with his readers. It's probably the best unvarnished look available of day to day life on the frontier of the Roman Empire. show less
This book includes photographic reproductions of dozens of these documents. I am fascinated by paleography but have no expertise at all. It was exceedingly challenging to look at this ancient writing and compare show more it to the transcription provided, to try to make out which little mark is a "c" and which an "e", for example.
The book starts with a quick modern history of the site - when people first recognized it as a Roman ruin and when excavations revealed the soggy treasures - they were all under water, in anaerobic conditions, like a bog. This discovery is only from around 1970.
The book then reviews the local terrain and how the fort is situated relative to the other Roman forts in northern England and in Scotland. It discusses the various movements of Roman troops in Britain in the first couple of Centuries C.E.
The main body of the book is a review of the contents of the letters. There is a lot of talk about buying and selling of basic supplies. There is talk too of people traveling to visit each other. These documents are not literature, not intended for any audience beyond the recipient. They are just letters and probably account records.
Birley stays quite close to the documents themselves, He does guess at meanings and tries to fill in the blank spaces. But he is careful to distinguish what the documents say from his guesses. There is no grand narrative here, beyond the raw historical sequence of troops arriving and leaving, the soldiers and their officers and the regional government. Birley sorts the documents topically and then just surveys their contents, focusing on the more complete ones.
That such a collection of documents survives from that time is rather amazing. Birley does a nice job of sharing that treasure with his readers. It's probably the best unvarnished look available of day to day life on the frontier of the Roman Empire. show less
The life of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor and the last of the five good Roman emperors.
We start off with a historical survey of the Roman empire up to the birth of Marcus Aurelius, and then a chapter on his family and early life. Chapters 3-5 tell us about his time as an acknowledged future emperor and then chapters 6-9 discuss his reign, while chapter 10 tells us about his Meditations, and chapter 11 discusses his posthumous reputation. There are appendices on the sources, his show more family, the was, and the church during his reign.
The second chapter was very difficult to follow, even flicking backwards and forwards to look at the family trees in the appendix. Basically everyone was related to everyone else, but exactly how they were related kept changing because of marriages and adoptions. To make matters worse, they kept changing their names as well. All very confusing.
Apart from that, it was an interesting look at Marcus Aurelius's life, even if a lot of it had to be 'could have' , 'must have', 'probably did' and so on because of the scanty nature of the sources. show less
We start off with a historical survey of the Roman empire up to the birth of Marcus Aurelius, and then a chapter on his family and early life. Chapters 3-5 tell us about his time as an acknowledged future emperor and then chapters 6-9 discuss his reign, while chapter 10 tells us about his Meditations, and chapter 11 discusses his posthumous reputation. There are appendices on the sources, his show more family, the was, and the church during his reign.
The second chapter was very difficult to follow, even flicking backwards and forwards to look at the family trees in the appendix. Basically everyone was related to everyone else, but exactly how they were related kept changing because of marriages and adoptions. To make matters worse, they kept changing their names as well. All very confusing.
Apart from that, it was an interesting look at Marcus Aurelius's life, even if a lot of it had to be 'could have' , 'must have', 'probably did' and so on because of the scanty nature of the sources. show less
Lives of the Later Caesars: The First Part of the Augustan History, with Newly Compiled Lives of Nerva & Trajan by Anthony Birley
This source is as close to a tabloid as we have from the ancient world. It is anonymous, when it was written is much disputed, and some of the stories within are rather dubious. But, it is just about all that there is covering this period. Very useful, as long as you appreciate the problems with it as an historical source.
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