J.H.F. Dijkstra, G.Fisher edd., INSIDE AND OUT

INSIDE AND OUT

Interactions between Rome and the Peoples

on the Arabian and Egyptian Frontiers in Late Antiquity

edited by

Jitse H.F. Dijkstra & Greg Fisher
PEETERS

LEUVEN / PARIS WALPOLE, MA

Summary:
In recent years, exciting new discoveries of inscriptions and archaeological remains on the Arabian Peninsula have led to a re-evaluation of the peoples on the Arabian frontier, which through their extensive contacts with Rome and Persia are now seen as dynamic participants in the Late Antique world. The present volume contributes to this recent trend by focusing on the contrast between the 'outside' sources on the peoples of the frontier - the Roman view - and the 'inside' sources, that is, the precious material produced by the Arabs themselves, and by approaching these sources within an anthropological framework of how peripheral peoples face larger powers. For the first time, the situation on the Arabian frontier is also compared with that on the southern Egyptian frontier, where similar sources have been found of peoples such as the Blemmyes and Noubades. Thus, the volume offers a richly-documented examination of the frontier interactions in these two vibrant and critically-important areas of the Late Antique East.

The book is of interest to anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, Egyptologists, Arabists, epigraphists and papyrologists and, in general, to all scholars working in the period of Late Antiquity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ... vii

List of Contributors ... xi

A Note on Abbreviations ... xvii

General Introduction ... 1

Jitse H.F. Dijkstra, Greg Fisher

The Peoples beyond the Arabian Frontier in Late Antiquity: Recent Epigraphic Discoveries and Latest Advances ... 33

Christian Julien Robin

A. An Anthropological Approach

The Meeting of the Twain: Tribe and State ... 83

Philip Carl Salzman

Desert and River: Consumption and Colonial Entanglements in Roman and Late Antique Nubia ... 91

Stuart Tyson Smith

B. The Precursors

Rome’s Relations with the Arab/Indigenous People in the First–Third Centuries ... 113

Ariel S. Lewin

‘Romans Go Home’? Rome and Other ‘Outsiders’ as Viewed from the Syro-Arabian Desert ... 145

Michael C.A. Macdonald

Papyrological Evidence on ‘Barbarians’ in the Egyptian Eastern Desert ... 165

Hélène Cuvigny

The ‘Barbarian’ Names on the Third-Century Ostraka from Xeron ... 199

Helmut Satzungen

C. The ‘Outside’ Sources

Arabs, Outsiders, and Stereotypes from Ammianus Marcellinus to Theophylact Simocatta ... 215

Conor Whately

Writing the Histories of Romans and Arabs in the Fifth-Century Roman East ... 235

Hugh Elton

Procopius and Roman Imperial Policy in the Arabian and Egyptian Frontier Zones ... 249

Geoffrey Greatrex

D. The ‘Inside’ Sources

Insider and Outsider Sources: Historiographical Reflections on Late Antique Arabia ... 267

Robert G. Hoyland

State and Tribe in Late Antique Arabia: A Comparative View ... 281

Greg Fisher

‘I, Silko, Came to Talmis and Taphis’: Interactions between the Peoples beyond the Egyptian Frontier and Rome in Late Antiquity 299

Jitse H.F. Dijkstra

Reconstructing the Social and Cultural History of the Aksumite Kingdom: Some Methodological Reflections ... 331

Pierluigi Piovanelli

E. The Religious Dimension

Christianity and the Arabs in the Sixth Century ... 355

Philip Wood

Ethiopian Apocalyptic and the End of Roman Rule: Th e Reception of Chalcedon in Aksum and the Kebra Nagaśt ... 371

George Bevan

F. The Aftermath

Consolidating the Conquest: Arab-Muslim Rule in Syria and the Jazīrah, 630–775 ce ... 391

R. Stephen Humphreys

Creating Christian Nubia: Processes and Events on the Egyptian Frontier ... 407

David N. Edwards

Index of Sources ... 433

General Index ...