Papers by Matthew Nicholls
Journal of Roman Studies, 2016
hundred years of the Chinese encyclopaedia’ (ch. 24) offers a quick survey of a large number of c... more hundred years of the Chinese encyclopaedia’ (ch. 24) offers a quick survey of a large number of compendia large and small, highbrow and lowbrow, showing the adaptability of the form. The volume has no conclusion, nor is it easy to summarize such a rich collection of papers. The works considered here are variously encyclopaedic, from a single-authored one-volume synopsis of all knowledge to vast compilations by many hands, including one that lled 850,000 pages in ve thousand volumes, but each discussion contributes something to the understanding of the concept of encyclopaedism and its motivations. The adjective ‘stimulating’ at the head of this review communicates my sense that the volume expands the range of questions that can be asked of works that t into the general category of ‘encyclopaedic’.
A 2,500 word article on the subject of euergetism in the ancient Greek and Roman world in a major... more A 2,500 word article on the subject of euergetism in the ancient Greek and Roman world in a major international encyclopaedia of political theory
This chapter considers the afterlife of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, in which three Roman ... more This chapter considers the afterlife of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, in which three Roman legions were destroyed. It considers both literary representations of the Battle in ancient and modern sources, and its monumentalisation at Rome and in Germany. For the former, a digital reconstruction is used to illustrate the possible shape, location, and architectural treatment of a lost monumental archway and to consider questions of sightlines and architectural/topographical context
Scholastic Culture in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras, 2019
The second-century medical author Galen, at the beginning of his treatise 'On My Own Books', give... more The second-century medical author Galen, at the beginning of his treatise 'On My Own Books', gives a lively picture of book-based literary dispute in central Rome. The setting is not one of the great libraries or lecture halls nearbythough Galen certainly also used and talked about thesebut among the commercial booksellers of a nearby street: ἐν γάρ τοι τῷ Σανδαλρίῳ, καθ᾽ ὃ δὴ πλεῖστα τῶν ἐν Ῥώμη βιβλιοπωλείων ἐστὶν, ἐθεασάμεθά τινας ἀμφιβητοῦντας εἴτ᾽ἐμὸν εἴη τὸ πιπρασκόμενον αὐτὸ βιβλἰον εἴτ᾽ἄλλου τινός· ἐπεγέγραπτο δὴ γὰρ, Γαληνὸς ἰατρός· ὠνουμένου δέ τινος ὡς ἐμὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ ξένου τῆς ἐπιγραφῆς κινηθείς τις ἀνὴρ τῶν φιλολόγων ἐβουλήθη γνῶναι τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν αὐτοῦ· καὶ δύο τοὺς πρώτους στίχους ἀναγνοὺς εὐθέως ἀπέρῥιψε τὀ γράμμα, τοῦτο μόνον ἐπιφθεγξάμενος ὡς οὐχ ἔστι λέξις αὕτη Γαληνοῦ καὶ ψευδῶς ἐπιγέγραπται τουτὶ τὸ βιβλόν. I was recently in the Vicus Sandaliarius, the area of Rome with the largest concentration of booksellers, where I witnessed a dispute as to whether a certain book for sale was by me or someone else. The book bore the title Galen the Doctor. Someone had bought the book under the impression that it was one of mine; someone elsea man of lettersstruck by the odd form of the title, desired to know the book's subject. On reading the first two lines he immediately tore up the inscription, saying simply: 'This is not Galen's languagethe title is false.' (Galen, On My Own Books 1)¹ This chapter was given as a paper at the conference 'Ancient Scholarship: Scholastic Culture in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras', held at University of Glasgow in April 2017. I am very grateful to the organisers, Sean Adams and Zanne Domoney-Little, for their invitation to speak, and help and patience with this contribution, and to the other delegates (including authors in the present volume) for their useful and generous suggestions.
TYCHE - Contributions to Ancient History, Papyrology and Epigraphy, 2012
Bei der Redaktion einlangende wissenschaftliche Werke werden angezeigt.
Journal of Roman Studies, 2011
This article examines the implications of Galen's newly-rediscovered Peri Alupias (On Consola... more This article examines the implications of Galen's newly-rediscovered Peri Alupias (On Consolation from Grief) for our understanding of the function and contents of public libraries in late second-century a.d. Rome. As a leading intellectual figure at Rome, Galen's detailed testimony substantially increases what we know of imperial public libraries in the city. In particular, the article considers Galen's description of his use of the Palatine libraries and a nearby storage warehouse, his testimony on the contents, organization, and cataloguing of the books he found there, and his use of provincial public libraries for the dissemination of his own works.
Journal of Classics Teaching, 2016
For the last few years, I have been working on an extensive digital model of ancient Rome as it a... more For the last few years, I have been working on an extensive digital model of ancient Rome as it appeared in the early 4thCentury AD. This sort of visualisation lends itself to many applications in diverse fields: I am currently using it for research work into illumination and sightlines in the ancient city, have licensed it for broadcast in TV documentaries and publication in magazines, and am working with a computer games studio to turn it into an online game where players will be able to walk round the streets and buildings of the entire city (when not engaged in trading with or assassinating one another). Later this year I will be making a free online course, or MOOC, about the architecture of ancient Rome, which will largely be illustrated by this model.
Teaching Classics With Technology, 2019
In which the author writes about the value of digital reconstruction for the study of archaeology... more In which the author writes about the value of digital reconstruction for the study of archaeology and ancient history, and his own work in teaching 3D modelling (using the software SketchUp) with students at Reading.
This chapter considers the implications of accepting the 'Antium' crux in Galen's rec... more This chapter considers the implications of accepting the 'Antium' crux in Galen's recently discovered Peri Alphas ( = De Indolentia). It examines what we know about the Roman imperial villa library at Antium, and what this new testimony can add.
Libraries as centres of culture in the Roman world - illustrated essay in the catalogue of the ex... more Libraries as centres of culture in the Roman world - illustrated essay in the catalogue of the exhibition at the Colosseum, Rome, March - October 2014.
This paper is concerned with the ways in which libraries – in this case public libraries in Rome ... more This paper is concerned with the ways in which libraries – in this case public libraries in Rome and the Roman world – acted as points of connectivity and communication.
A chapter of 6,000 words on books, literary culture, and public and private libraries in the anci... more A chapter of 6,000 words on books, literary culture, and public and private libraries in the ancient city of Rome
3D digital modelling offers a powerful way of visualising vanished buildings and places. A large ... more 3D digital modelling offers a powerful way of visualising vanished buildings and places. A large digital model of ancient Rome created by a researcher, Dr Matthew Nicholls, proved popular with students and was used as the basis for a successful final year module.
Galen's Treatise Περὶ Ἀλυπίας (<i>De indolentia</i>) in Context
Posterity's impression of the emperor Commodus has been almost universally negative. From Herodia... more Posterity's impression of the emperor Commodus has been almost universally negative. From Herodian and Dio to the lurid accounts in the 4th C Historia Augusta, to Machiavelli and the modern age, he is decried as a monstrous tyrant, enslaved to his own ungovernable passions and an enemy to all virtue.1 The chief literary sources for Commodus' reign are not without their limitations. Dio, Herodian, and the Historia Augusta present accounts that are partially transmitted and/or highly dramatised, and veer towards cliché; each later account seems to build to some extent directly on its predecessor(s), limiting their collective usefulness as independent testimony. Cassius Dio was, like Galen, a Greek contemporary of Commodus, well placed as a senator to observe his reign at close quarters. However, the part of his history which covers the reign of Commodus survives only in the 11th century summary of Iohannes Xiphilinus. What remains conveys an unremittingly critical, if somewhat scattered, impression of Commodus; Dio's loathing for the emperor is self-evident and is often attributed to his concern for the erosion of the senate's prestige and dignity (including his own experience of Commodus' dangerous and humiliating reign), and the personal fates of many of his senatorial peers. This may well be so, though it is worth remembering also that Dio's work, like Tacitus' a century earlier, was written under a new regime with an interest in portraying the rule of its predecessor, from whose violent downfall it had profited, as a period of disharmonious tyranny. There is also an element of historiographical convention in the work of a Dio or an Herodian; the age of Tacitus and Pliny had established senatorial utility and liberty as one important standard by which an historian might judge a reign, and write about it (Suetonius added other criteria including building works which, as we will see, also play a part in accounts of Commodus). Herodian, a slightly later contemporary, characterises Commodus as a tyrant whose youthful elevation to power as the first emperor born 'in the purple' to a reigning father set an unhappy pattern for the child-emperors Herodian saw in the third century. The reliability of Herodian's account is also questionable;
A Companion to the City of Rome
Library & Information History
A chapter based on a paper given at major conference, arguing that the civic and architectural co... more A chapter based on a paper given at major conference, arguing that the civic and architectural contexts of many public libraries in the Roman world contributed strongly to their status as conspicuous 'public' buildings, and should inform the way we think of library functions in the Roman world
This thesis aims to investigate the development and functions of public libraries in Rome and the... more This thesis aims to investigate the development and functions of public libraries in Rome and the Roman world. After a preface with maps of libraries in Rome, Section I discusses the precursors for public library provision in the private book collections of Republican Rome, and their transfer into the public domain with the first public libraries of Asinius Pollio and Augustus. Section II contains three 'case studies' of public libraries' different roles. The Augustan library programme is used in Ch.II.l to examine the role of imperial public libraries in literary life and the connections between Rome's libraries and those of Alexandria. Chapter II.2 concentrates on the libraries of Trajan's Forum to explore the intersection of imperial public libraries and monumental public architecture. This chapter responds to an important recent article by arguing for the continued identification of the Forum's libraries with twin brick buildings at its northern end, and suggests a series of correspondences between these libraries and its other monumental components. The conclusions of this chapter are important when considering the public libraries of the wider empire, several of which seem to have been inspired by the Trajanic libraries. Chapter II.3 considers imperial public libraries and leisure by looking at the evidence for libraries within bath-house complexes, concluding that their presence there is consistent with the archaeological and epigraphic evidence and fits in well with what we know of the intellectual and cultural life of these structures. Section III examines various aspects of the practical function of Roman public libraries: their contents (books and archives), division into Latin and Greek sections, provisions for shelving and cataloguing, staff, usership, architectural form, decoration, and housing of works of art. The picture that emerges is of carefully designed and functional buildings intended to sustain public, monumental, and practical functions. Section IV uses a variety of texts to examine the way in which libraries were viewed and used. Ch. IV. 1 discusses the evidence for use of libraries by scholars and authors such as Gellius, Galen, Josephus, and Apuleius. Ch. IV.2 examines parallels between library collections and compendious encyclopaedic elements within Roman literature and considers how library collections came to be canon-forming institutions and vehicles for the expression of imperial approval or disapproval towards authors. The channels through which this imperial influence flowed are investigated in Ch. IV.3, which looks at the directors and staff of the public libraries of Rome. The final section (V) of the thesis concerns public libraries outside the city of Rome. Provincial libraries provide a useful case study in 'Romanisation': they reveal a range of influences and are shown to embody local, personal, and metropolitan imperial identities. There follows a brief conclusion, and a bibliography. There are also five appendices of numismatic and epigraphic material discussed in the text. This material has not been adequately or completely gathered elsewhere and is intended to assist the reader; where appropriate it includes illustrations, transcriptions, and translations.
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Papers by Matthew Nicholls