2005 Visiting Scholars- Hebrew University

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Fergus G. B. Millar
Camden Professor
of Ancient History (Emeritus)
Oriental Institute
University of Oxford

 

Professor Fergus G. B. Millar is The George L. Mosse Program Visiting Lecturer for autumn 2005 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Millar has held positions at University College, London and Oxford University, where, from 1984 until his retirement in 2002, he was Camden Professor of Ancient History. Professor Millar has given extensive service to the profession as well, serving, for instance, as editor of the prestigious Journal of Roman Studies (1975-1979) and as President of the British Classical Association (1992-1993).

Professor Millar is a renowned authority in the field of ancient Roman and Greek history, and among his books are A Study of Cassius Dio (1964), The Emperor in the Roman World (31 BC - AD 337) (1977), The Roman Near East (31 BC - AD 337) (1993), The Crowd in the Late Republic (1998) and The Roman Republic in Political Thought (2002). Professor Millar has also published numerous articles, now collected in the three volumes of Rome, Greece and the East (2002, 2004 and 2006, eds. by H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers). His books and papers have changed our perception of the nature of the Roman Republic, the role and function of the Emperor, and shifted the centre of scholarly interest to the complexity of the multilingual and multicultural society of the Roman Near East and the Late Empire.

• Public Lecture

  "The Greek Roman Empire of Theodosius II"

  An exploration of how communications to and from the Emperor worked, and of the
  complex interplay between the two official languages, Latin and Greek, during the 42-year reign of Theodosius II (408-50), the first in which a Roman regime was solidly established in a Greek capital, Constantinople. The Theodosian Code, compiled in Constantinople between 429 and 437, and the Acta of the two Church Councils of Ephesus in 431 and 449, provide uniquely-detailed evidence for government and the interplay of languages.

  Room 503, Mairsdorf Faculty Club, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus
  6 PM, Sunday, November 27th, 2005.

• Seminar

  "Tyre and Berytus in the mid-fifth century: City Status and
  Ecclesiastical Rivalry"
  (Hosted by the Department of Classics)

  There are many examples of passionate and prolonged rivalries between neighbouring cities in the Graeco-Roman world. But none exceeded in intensity and duration that between the formerly Phoenician cities of Tyre and Berytus. Under the Roman Empire both became coloniae, and Berytus was renowned as a centre for the study of Roman Law. But in the Late Empire Tyre was the metropolis, or capital, of the province of Phoenice, and hence its bishop was the metropolitan, with authority over the bishops of the other cities. Near the end of his reign, however, Theodosius declared that Berytus should also be a metropolis. The resulting conflicts were the subject of an intense and detailed debate at the Council of Chalcedon of 451, which ranks as one of the most explicit attested arguments over the relations of Empire, city and church, and as one of many vivid 'local histories' contained in the Acta  of the
  Church Councils.

  Room 5411, Humanities Building, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus
  6 PM, Tuesday, November 29th, 2005.