Research Projects
- (B-1-1) Waterways: border, access, infrastructures
This project had its focus on the diverse ways water was conceptualized and dealt with in antiquity. It especially aimed at finding new approaches to an understanding of the relation between men, states, and the sea in Classical Greece and Rome.
- (B-1-2) Legislation and Adjudication of "Water Law"
Subject of the project´s research were treatises and sentences that have survived from the time of Al-Andalus in water law. It is important to find classifications for the water, as this determines the legal regulations. That is what we can take from the sources. The usage and acquisition of water also depends on the classification. The work of the courts in the districts of Al-Andalus has been the focus of the project.
- (B-1-3) Infrastructure of the late antiquity as early medieval governance resource: Continuity and transformation
The infrastructures of late antiquity were of fundamental importance to the politico-military, ecclesiastical and economic organization of the so-called “Germanic” kingdoms that succeeded the Roman Empire.
- (B-1-4) Infrastructures from judicial, gromatic and political perspectives
The research project continued the work of the former research group (B-I-1) Surveying and Limitation that examined ways in which spaces are defined and constituted through acquisition and demarcation. Five research fields of this former group were investigated.
- (B-1-5) Edition Miliaria provinciarum Hispanarum
This project continued the editorial work on Roman milestones initiated by research group (B-I-1) Surveying and Limitation.
- (B-1-6) Die bildliche Darstellung von Raum in der Tabula Peutingeriana: Aneignung durch Kartographie?
The Tabula Peutingeriana (TP), Peutinger Map, is one of the most impressive surviving medieval manuscripts. Its significance has been highlighted by being placed on the UNESCO memory of the World Register. The Map – a parchment roll of 36 cm high and 7 meters long – depicts nearly the whole of the known ‘Ancient World’ from Iberia to India.
Dissertations
- (B-1-1-1) Rule of the Sea: The Evolution and Transformation of an Ancient Concept from Thucydides to the later Roman Republic
This dissertation project focused on the development and transfer of conceptions of naval supremacy in Antiquity, with particular emphasis on historiographic treatments of this subject by Thucydides and Polybius.
- (B-1-1-2) To the Ends of the Earth. The Book of Acts as Universal History in the context of Roman and Jewish Historiography during the Roman Imperial Era.
The topic of the research project is the conception of history outlined by Luke in The Acts of the Apostles. His conception is rooted on the one hand in the history of Israel, yet on the other hand it stands entirely within the context of Imperial era Hellenistic-Roman and Jewish historical writing.
- (B-1-1-3) Stable Systems? Risk and Uncertainty in the Ancient Economy
The project focuses on how the villa-system in the late Roman Republic responded to, or failed to respond to, uncertainty created by political and military events in the late Roman Republic. It considers the role of risk-taking in this process, more specifically whether calculated risk-taking was a driving force behind the expansion of the villa-system in this period.
- (B-1-1-4) Maritime Revolution? Sextus Pompeius and the genesis of the Principate
This project investigates the role the sea played in the representation and legitimation of Sextus Pompeius and explores the importance of such representation- and legitimation-patterns in the wake of the war between Sextus Pompeius and Octavian. Thus, the research project also explores the adoption of such patterns by the first princeps Augustus. The aim of this project is to shed light on the genesis of the notion of imperial maritime domination.
- (B-1-3-1) Law and Border Policy in the Late Roman Cyrenaica
The organizational arrangement of the borders on the periphery of the Roman empire played a central role in Roman defensive strategy. One of the most important organizational innovations of the Late Roman Period was the establishment of frontiers, which were usually entrusted to a military functionary bearing the title of dux limitis. The goal of this doctoral project was to investigate the organizational structures of a Late Roman ducatus in the region of Cyrenaica (present-day eastern Libya), structures which were largely shaped by military requirements.
- (B-1-3-2) Via Britannica: Continuity and change and the Roman infrastructure in Britain from the end of the 4th to the 9th century
This dissertation examines the role and fate of the Roman infrastructure in sub-Roman and Early Anglo-Saxon England. Buildings, roads, entire towns left by the Roman power are not only mute remnants of the Empire but can also play an important role as governance resources for emerging polities of Early Medieval Britain.
- (B-1-4-1) Legal systems of land use in the Roman colonies and in the province
The project has analyzed legal forms of private land use in the colonies and in the province of the Roman Empire, pointing out their underlying relationship with fundamental legal and governmental decisions.