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The Historiography of Crisis: Jordanes, Cassiodorus and Justinian in mid-sixth-century Constantinople*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2017

Lieve van Hoof  and
Peter van Nuffelen
Lieve van Hoof*
Affiliation:
Ghent University
Peter van Nuffelen*
Affiliation:
Ghent University
*
lieve.vanhoof@ugent.be
peter.vannuffelen@ugent.be
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Abstract

This article presents a new interpretation of the historiographical production of Jordanes by situating it in the political and social environment of Constantinople of the years 550–552. It argues that these years were a period of crisis in Justinian's reign and that this is reflected in the pessimistic view of Roman power and the critique of Justinian's military and religious policy we can see in Jordanes’ Romana. If this prevents us from understanding Jordanes as a mouthpiece of the court, he cannot be reduced to a mere reproducer of Cassiodorus either: while there is more evidence for a close interaction between Jordanes and Cassiodorus (in particular the use of the Historia Tripartita in the Romana) than usually adduced, this is balanced by Jordanes’ explicit attempts to keep his distance from the senator. If the latter can be explained by Jordanes’ much lower social and literary status and his Moesian rather than Italian origin, which made him only a marginal member of Cassiodorus’ circle in Constantinople, the agreement between both men is the result of a confluence of views caused by the turn of the Italian war in 540–550. Jordanes, then, appears as a unique voice in what must have been a polyphony of opinions in mid-sixth-century Constantinople.

Keywords

JordanesCassiodorusJustinianConstantinopleLate AntiquityGothshistoriographysocial networksThree Chapters controversyliterary patronage
Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 107 , November 2017 , pp. 275 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 

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Footnotes

*

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 313153. We thank the journal's referees for their very helpful criticism, and Matthew O'Farrell for checking the English expression of the paper.

References

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