6. Rome: The Barbarians

North of the Rhine and Danube Rivers there lived people known to the Romans as Germans, and often called the barbarians. One of the meanings of the word barbarian refers to people who are uncivilized in the sense that they are primarily pastoral and semi-nomadic; they lack a written language; and they possess little in the way of government except in time of war, which may be frequent, since warfare and hunting are usually the chief preoccupation of the males. What agriculture barbarians have generally is carried on by women and slaves. This description fits their northern neighbors at the time the Romans first came in contact with them and for centuries thereafter. [excerpt

Sigurðar saga fóts (The Saga of Sigurðr Foot): A Translation

This is the first English translation of the short Icelandic romance Sigurðar saga fóts, with an introduction presenting the evidence for its dating and immediate literary context. Like most Icelandic romances, Sigurðar saga is a bridal-quest story; the support of a foster-brother is key to the hero winning the bride; and the foster-brothers start out as opponents before recognising their mutual excellence and swearing foster-brotherhood. Uniquely, however, the men who become foster-brothers begin by competing for the same bride (Signý): the eponymous Sigurðr fótr wins Signý only because Ásmundr gives her to him in exchange for foster-brotherhood. Ásmundr’s decision can be read as demonstrating with unusual starkness the superior importance in much Icelandic romance of homosocial relationships over heterosexual ones, giving the saga a certain paradigmatic status. Translating the saga in an open-access forum and reconstructing its literary context will, we hope, encourage further analyses

Sirmian Martyrs in Exile: Pannonian Parallels and a Re-evaluation of the St. Demetrius Problem

The question of the origins of the cult of the fourth century martyr, Demetrius of Thessalonica has been the focal point of hagiographical research since the first publication of his passions by the Bollandists in 1780. Since then there were the most divergent hypotheses put forward to explain the obscure beginnings of his Thessalonican basilica and his alleged connection to Sirmium and its martyred deacon, Demetrius. Different ideas and assumptions were proposed based on various arthistorical, archaeological and literary observations, or sometimes relying only on national ideologies or even pure fantasy. However, there were no attempts made to put the whole problem into the wider context of the Illyrian hagiographic tradition and to make a detailed comparison between St Demetrius' cult and the afterlife of other Pannonian and Illyrian martyrs. In the present paper, then, after a critical analysis of the problem and its proposed solutions, a number of comparative case-studies will be carried out aiming to map the basic tendences of the afterlife of the martyrs of Late Antique Illyricum which presumably will help us to have a better view of the whole problem of the migration of the Illyrian martyrs and to provide a fresh solution for the origin and development of St Demetrius' cult

Stilicho, Radagaisus, and the so-called 'Battle of Faesulae' (406 CE)

In 405 CE, an enormous barbarian confederation led by a certain Radagaisus invaded Italy. The western Roman generalissimo Stilicho managed to overcome them near Florence in 406. Historians have treated this war casually, considering it as resolved successfully and soon overshadowed by greater confl icts. However, scholarly consensus on Radagaisus's defeat is largely dependent on Orosius's testimony that describes it as the outcome of a Fabian strategy conducted with minimal bloodshed near Faesulae. This report is at odds with other sources which indicate that Stilicho struggled to contain Radagaisus and ultimately infl icted a great slaughter on his forces near Florence. Orosius's testimony cannot be accepted and internal crossexamination reveals major inconsistencies. A careful analysis of the various stages of Radagaisus's invasion has major new implications for our understanding of the careers of key protagonists such as Alaric, Uldin, and Sarus, as well as of the breach of the Rhine frontier in 406.In 405 CE, an enormous barbarian confederation led by a certain Radagaisus invaded Italy. The western Roman generalissimo Stilicho managed to overcome them near Florence in 406. Historians have treated this war casually, considering it as resolved successfully and soon overshadowed by greater confl icts. However, scholarly consensus on Radagaisus's defeat is largely dependent on Orosius's testimony that describes it as the outcome of a Fabian strategy conducted with minimal bloodshed near Faesulae. This report is at odds with other sources which indicate that Stilicho struggled to contain Radagaisus and ultimately infl icted a great slaughter on his forces near Florence. Orosius's testimony cannot be accepted and internal crossexamination reveals major inconsistencies. A careful analysis of the various stages of Radagaisus's invasion has major new implications for our understanding of the careers of key protagonists such as Alaric, Uldin, and Sarus, as well as of the breach of the Rhine frontier in 406.A

Longitudinal aerodynamic characteristics of a large scale model with a swept wing and augmented jet flap in ground effect

The investigation of the in-ground-effect, longitudinal aerodynamic characteristics of a large scale swept augmentor wing model is presented, using 40 x 80 ft wind tunnel. The investigation was conducted at three ground heights; h/c equals 2.01, 1.61, and 1.34. The induced effect of underwing nacelles, was studied with two powered nacelle configurations. One configuration used four JT-15D turbofans while the other used two J-85 turbojet engines. Two conical nozzles on each J-85 were used to deflect the thrust at angles from 0 to 120 deg. Tests were also performed without nacelles to allow comparison with previous data from ground effect

Infinite barbarians

This paper discusses an infinite regress that looms behind a certain kind of historical explanation. The movement of one barbarian group is often explained by the movement of others, but those movements in turn call for an explanation. While their explanation can again be the movement of yet another group of barbarians, if this sort of explanation does not stop somewhere we are left with an infinite regress of barbarians. While that regress would be vicious, it cannot be accommodated by several general views about what viciousness in infinite regresses amounts to. This example is additional evidence that we should prefer a pluralist approach to infinite regresses

Rarita-Schwinger-Weyl semimetal in Jeff=3/2 electron systems

We propose a relativistic Jeff=3/2 semimetal with 4d1 or 5d1 electrons on a cubic lattice when the strong spin-orbital coupling takes over the Hunds' coupling. A relativistic spinor with spin 3/2 is historically called Rarita-Schwinger spinor. In the massless case, the right- and left-handed chiral degrees of freedom of the Rarita-Schwinger spinors are independent. In the lattice model that we propose, the right- and left- handed gapless points in Brillouin zone are separated. We call this linearly dispersed semimetal Rarita-Schwinger-Weyl semimetal, similar to Weyl semimetal for spin 1/2 systems. There is a network of gapless Fermi arcs in the surface Brillouin zone if n1+n2+n3 is even for the normal vector (n1,n2,n3) of the surface while the surface is insulator if n1+n2+n3 is odd.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Attribution of the nameless coins of the archer type

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