An individual on the battlfield in late-antique sources – selected examplesSince the very beginning of human civilization, warfare has always been associated with the history of mankind. As a consequence of wars, some empires were created and others disappeared. The decisions of great generals, the grand strategies of the armies and the spectacular battles have been of interest to historians ever since the beginning of historiography. The longer the time-interval from the described situations the more wars tended to be regarded exclusively as phenomena in macro-scale, where the individual human being seemed to be completely insignificant and deprived of any meaning in comparison with the mass of soldiers. In the course of the last few decades one can observe a change in that tendency. Scholars are more and more often interested in individuals and this trend is visible even in such a distant epoch as antiquity. Some detailed analyses have revealed that although so many years have passed, individuals on the battlefield aren’t completely anonymous, and our sources let us formulate some opinions about the behavior of individuals during battle. Focusing on the individual soldier may allow us to take a closer look at an ancient battle, see the reality through his eyes and ultimately perceive things we have never been aware of.
In this article I am describing how Roman panegyric’s writers of Late Antiquity (XII Panegyrici Latini, Claudius Claudianus, Sidonius Apollinaris, Flavius Merobaudes, Priscian, Ennodius, Corippus and others) presented an image of the perfect general with reference to their object of praise. On the ground of detailed analysis of those features I am going to indicate the most expected ones according to the social reception. Moreover, I will point out those means which were used by the authors to create the image of the ideal general. Next, I will pay attention to how the authors change their way in presenting the perfect general and how this development was connected with the general evolution of the genre. Lastly, I will answer a quite perverse question: if the perfect general could lead his soldiers to a victory in a real battle. In the background there will be a continuous question, if the panegyric – despite its limitation – can or can’t be treated as a valuable historical source.
Review of the book Imperial Panegyric from Diocletian to Honorius, ed. by Adrastos Omissi and Alan J Ross, Liverpool University Press, Translated Texts for Historians, Contexts 3, Liverpool 2020, pp. 296 + XI.
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Recenzja publikacji Imperial Panegyric from Diocletian to Honorius, ed. by Adrastos Omissi and Alan J Ross, Liverpool University Press, Translated Texts for Historians, Contexts 3, Liverpool 2020, ss. 296 + XI.