10-30-2013, 12:00 PM
To be honest I have no idea if "degree thesis" is the right expression but I understand what you mean with it(by the way I'm also aspiring Archaeologist).
No I'm not Italian...is name Pavel so common in Italy? :grin: .But I very much like Italy,especially tuscany region and the whole atmosphere here is somewhat closer to my heart then for example France or germany which seems to me somewhat colder.I am from Czech republic,which is small country in central europe known to many still rather under name Czechoslovakia but I like much more Bohemia-the original name for this region derived from name given by Romans because of celtic Boii tribe who lived here.
Mattia I can assure you that I'm very aware of conception of so called artistic convention and I'm using art only with great caution,always giving more credit to archaeological findings and confirmations where it is possible and available.But there are cases that very limited amount of archaeological findings is available and -one such example is precisely 6th century Eastern army.So what to do in such case?The best we have are analogies with neighboring countries,written sources and of course pictorial art.
I got friend here from Italy Carlo Cappati-Carlo is usually very upset from almost automatically rejecting of every pictorial evidence as only artistic convention.Although I'm not so radical and much more careful in this than Carlo I agree wholeheartedly with him that this magical like term "artistic convention"is hugely overestimated and used much more often then it should be.Virtually every time when some scholar finds something which he don't know archaeologically he in many cases almost automatically rejected it as to be just an artistic convention.Just this magical all-solving formula and the case is closed-no other attempt to find out the truth which is very convenient approach.
About some reliable literary modern source:
I would like to help you,but i'm afraid very little was done in this field yet.Your fellow countryman Dr. Raffaele D'Amato done some works on this subject and certainly will produce others in the future.But at the same timeit is needed to approach his work with great caution because he relies sometimes very strongly on art and many of his theories are highly controversial.On the other hand there is no doubt that he knows the subject very well and knows what hes writting about.From his early byzantine focused books in english I can state Concord Publications The Eastern Romans 330-1461 AD and Roman military cloathing 3 from osprey publishing-both are also well illustrated with focus on what the soldiers might have looked like.But of course both are conceived "only" as an examples of Popular scientific literature for broader audience who did not care about this subject really into deep.In recent time also very very gratifying magazine Ancient warfare Magazine posted from time to time subject related articles with byzantines as its main topic(also in brother magazine Medieval warfare Magazine).Really beautiful issue of ancient warfare magazine was already devoted once to Belisarius-Volume IV, Issue 3, Justinian's fireman: Belisarius and the Byzantine Empire also with great illustrations.John Haldon wrote many interesting books about Byzantine army and they are definitely worthy of reading.
Apart from these someone like we are is only limited on collecting crumbs wherewer he can as opportunity arouse,from time to time scientific treatise is possible to encounter in the deeps of internet.
And of course there are ancient sources,though only very limited number of them focuse its attention directly on military things like Strategikon.But they are Worth reading all of them-because although military is not intention of its authors many describes in greater or lesser detail wars of the empire and it is very often possible to find details about tactic,equipment,battles,military life and all military related matters.Thats also what I tend to do do when reading authors of this era- Dumping all mentions of the army and related things I encounter in it while reading it.There are authors like Procopius of Caesarea or Agathius(his continuator)whos books are directly concentrated on describing military actions of the empire.But nice occasional details can be found in many others like :
John of Epifania,
Evargius Scholasticus,
Joshua of Amida,
Menander protector,
comes Marcellinus,
J.Malalas,
Zacharias rhetor,
John from Ephesus,
Peter Patricius
Theofilakt Simokatta,
Theophanes,
Georgios of Pisidia,
Theodor syncellus,
Antiochos strategos,
Zonaras
Chronicon Paschale
armenians Sebeos and Movses
and Arabic-Persian sources like Al-Baladhuri and Al-Tabarí(both ethnic Persians)although last two should only be taken with extreme caution,but they give some nice(but heavily biased)info about battles of this age.
I also deal with this period in my own artistic attempts: http://amelianvs.deviantart.com/
Finally I add illustrations by Igor Dzis made for Ancient warfare magazine.If you already dont know them they are all examples of best artwork ever created for sixth century Roman army at the current moment:
No I'm not Italian...is name Pavel so common in Italy? :grin: .But I very much like Italy,especially tuscany region and the whole atmosphere here is somewhat closer to my heart then for example France or germany which seems to me somewhat colder.I am from Czech republic,which is small country in central europe known to many still rather under name Czechoslovakia but I like much more Bohemia-the original name for this region derived from name given by Romans because of celtic Boii tribe who lived here.
Mattia I can assure you that I'm very aware of conception of so called artistic convention and I'm using art only with great caution,always giving more credit to archaeological findings and confirmations where it is possible and available.But there are cases that very limited amount of archaeological findings is available and -one such example is precisely 6th century Eastern army.So what to do in such case?The best we have are analogies with neighboring countries,written sources and of course pictorial art.
I got friend here from Italy Carlo Cappati-Carlo is usually very upset from almost automatically rejecting of every pictorial evidence as only artistic convention.Although I'm not so radical and much more careful in this than Carlo I agree wholeheartedly with him that this magical like term "artistic convention"is hugely overestimated and used much more often then it should be.Virtually every time when some scholar finds something which he don't know archaeologically he in many cases almost automatically rejected it as to be just an artistic convention.Just this magical all-solving formula and the case is closed-no other attempt to find out the truth which is very convenient approach.
About some reliable literary modern source:
I would like to help you,but i'm afraid very little was done in this field yet.Your fellow countryman Dr. Raffaele D'Amato done some works on this subject and certainly will produce others in the future.But at the same timeit is needed to approach his work with great caution because he relies sometimes very strongly on art and many of his theories are highly controversial.On the other hand there is no doubt that he knows the subject very well and knows what hes writting about.From his early byzantine focused books in english I can state Concord Publications The Eastern Romans 330-1461 AD and Roman military cloathing 3 from osprey publishing-both are also well illustrated with focus on what the soldiers might have looked like.But of course both are conceived "only" as an examples of Popular scientific literature for broader audience who did not care about this subject really into deep.In recent time also very very gratifying magazine Ancient warfare Magazine posted from time to time subject related articles with byzantines as its main topic(also in brother magazine Medieval warfare Magazine).Really beautiful issue of ancient warfare magazine was already devoted once to Belisarius-Volume IV, Issue 3, Justinian's fireman: Belisarius and the Byzantine Empire also with great illustrations.John Haldon wrote many interesting books about Byzantine army and they are definitely worthy of reading.
Apart from these someone like we are is only limited on collecting crumbs wherewer he can as opportunity arouse,from time to time scientific treatise is possible to encounter in the deeps of internet.
And of course there are ancient sources,though only very limited number of them focuse its attention directly on military things like Strategikon.But they are Worth reading all of them-because although military is not intention of its authors many describes in greater or lesser detail wars of the empire and it is very often possible to find details about tactic,equipment,battles,military life and all military related matters.Thats also what I tend to do do when reading authors of this era- Dumping all mentions of the army and related things I encounter in it while reading it.There are authors like Procopius of Caesarea or Agathius(his continuator)whos books are directly concentrated on describing military actions of the empire.But nice occasional details can be found in many others like :
John of Epifania,
Evargius Scholasticus,
Joshua of Amida,
Menander protector,
comes Marcellinus,
J.Malalas,
Zacharias rhetor,
John from Ephesus,
Peter Patricius
Theofilakt Simokatta,
Theophanes,
Georgios of Pisidia,
Theodor syncellus,
Antiochos strategos,
Zonaras
Chronicon Paschale
armenians Sebeos and Movses
and Arabic-Persian sources like Al-Baladhuri and Al-Tabarí(both ethnic Persians)although last two should only be taken with extreme caution,but they give some nice(but heavily biased)info about battles of this age.
I also deal with this period in my own artistic attempts: http://amelianvs.deviantart.com/
Finally I add illustrations by Igor Dzis made for Ancient warfare magazine.If you already dont know them they are all examples of best artwork ever created for sixth century Roman army at the current moment:
