Books by Jonas Borsch
Die 18 Bücher umfassende Chronik des Johannes Malalas stellt das älteste erhaltene Beispiel einer... more Die 18 Bücher umfassende Chronik des Johannes Malalas stellt das älteste erhaltene Beispiel einer byzantinischen Weltchronik dar und bietet damit singuläre Einblicke in die Frühphase einer literarischen Gattung, die für das byzantinische Mittelalter zentrale Bedeutung besessen hat. Die moderne Forschung sieht das Werk als eine wichtige zeithistorische Quelle für die Geschichte des 5. und 6. Jahrhunderts n. Chr., das auch Einblicke in kultur- und mentalitätsgeschichtliche Aspekte erlaubt.
Im dritten Band der Malalas-Studien wird die in der Chronik zutage tretende Konzeption von memoria thematisiert: Welches Bild der älteren wie jüngeren Vergangenheit transportiert sie? Welchen Kriterien folgt der historische und literarische Auswahlprozess, der diesem Bild zugrunde liegt? Im Zentrum steht dabei eine Kontextualisierung im Rahmen der zeitgenössischen Erinnerungspraxis – der Memorialkultur – in Literatur, Prosa und materiellen Hinterlassenschaften
Dissertation by Jonas Borsch
Papers by Jonas Borsch
Studies in Late Antiquity, 2023
Ancient Antioch (modern Antakya) is well known as a city prone to disasters. However, the calamit... more Ancient Antioch (modern Antakya) is well known as a city prone to disasters. However, the calamitous events that hit the city between 525 and 540 CE have attracted particular attention. Within a time span of fifteen years, Antioch suffered major destructions by two massive earthquakes, several conflagrations, and a Persian sack. These events are reported in highly dramatic accounts by John Malalas and Procopius. Based on such reports, scholars since the nineteenth century have often interpreted these disasters as the starting point for a general decline of the city beginning in the sixth century. More recent reassessments, in contrast, have highlighted continuities on a variety of levels,
Living with Seismic Phenomena in the Mediterranean and Beyond, 2022
English Abstract: There is hardly any pre-modern city for which earthquakes have been recorded as... more English Abstract: There is hardly any pre-modern city for which earthquakes have been recorded as densely as for late antique Constantinople. This circumstance can hardly be attributed to geological changes alone. The article sheds light on the political and religious conditions under which the specific tradition concerning seismic events in Constaninople took its beginning towards the end of the fourth century. It is shown that the great interest in earthquakes expressed in sermons, liturgical books and chronicles is due to the fact that such events condensed in a special way the idea of Constantinople as a city that received special attention from God as the seat of his representative on earth. By this means, earthquakes also helped to foster the image of a saving emperor closely linked to the capital.
H-Soz-Kult, 08.02.2022, <www.hsozkult.de/literaturereview/id/forschungsberichte-5091>, 2022
Bodies have a history: The way in which bodies are perceived, conceptualized, and embedded into s... more Bodies have a history: The way in which bodies are perceived, conceptualized, and embedded into social practices are all subject to historical change. Bodies in antiquity are, to a certain extent, a special case. On the one hand, one must take into account the long tradition of reception, ranging from the idea that the Greeks “discovered” the western concept of “the body” and the notion of “ideal nudity”, to the supposedly “anti-carnal” ascetics of late antique Christianity – the critical engagement with these paradigms has proved to be a crucial source of inspiration for recent research. On the other hand, the debates following Michel Foucault’s work on ancient sexuality have been dominating the field of body history in antiquity for a long time, demonstrating simultaneously the “otherness” and the relevance of antiquity for modern thinking. In recent years, however, new tracks of research emerged: disability studies of antiquity, studies on pain experience or the vast field of political bodies that still holds great potential. Due to the recent posthumous publication of Foucault’s fourth volume of the History of Sexuality, the wide range of studies on Christian bodies and the deconstruction of the supposedly “anti-carnal” stance of late antique ascetism promise to gain a new impulse.
Historia, 2021
The question whether relief brought by the emperor after natural disasters was a regular or an oc... more The question whether relief brought by the emperor after natural disasters was a regular or an occasional phenomenon has provoked ongoing debate throughout recent years. This article focuses on the perspective of affected communities, exploring the options that these communities had when being hit by disaster. The question is addressed using the resilience approach, a useful tool particularly for studying the local and social dimension of disaster, as recent scholarship has shown. Two severe earthquakes in Asia Minor, the so called "Twelve City Earthquake" of 14 C.E. and the earthquake of 178 C.E. at Smyrna, serve as case studies. The article aims at tracing the process of resilience in Asia Minor but, at the meantime, also at exhibiting its limits-particularly on a social level. It is argued that, while resilience was comparably high with a view to possibilities of maintaining and redeveloping urban structures, its benefits were largely limited to the elite. Resilience, by this means, describes not only a process of physical restoration and restructuring, but also one of the adaptation and, thereby, maintenance, of the existing social order.
Introduction to the 3rd volume of the "Malalas Studien" series publishing the papers of the 2017 ... more Introduction to the 3rd volume of the "Malalas Studien" series publishing the papers of the 2017 Tübingen conference about Malalas's chronicle and the memoria of the time.
Die Weltchronik des Johannes Malalas im Kontext spätantiker Memorialkultur, 2019
This paper evaluates the significance of the more than 100 physical descriptions of individuals i... more This paper evaluates the significance of the more than 100 physical descriptions of individuals incorporated into the narrative of Malalas’ Chronographia within the author’s historical concept. Malalas describes mythical heroes as well as biblical apostles and roman emperors following a constant, asyndetical scheme, while simultaneously making use of lavish vocabulary. Whereas modern scholarship has either supposed that the author simply copied these descriptions from his sources or that he deliberately invented them, this paper, by comparing the ‚portraits‘ to earlier as well as contemporary personal representations and thereby inserting them within a long-term perspective, shows how the Chronographia makes its own a memoria of individual persons and personal types shaped by a series of literary and (possibly) artistic influences. Malalas, in this context, exhibits a concept of history that highlights stability and continuity from ancient times up to the emperor Justinian.
This paper looks into the question of whether and to which degree Malalas, as he himself seems to... more This paper looks into the question of whether and to which degree Malalas, as he himself seems to assert in his preface, used oral information in his Chronographia. This question is addressed throughout two case studies. For his description of the so-called " Eternal Peace " in Book XVIII, which reveals considerably detailed insights into the negotiation process, Malalas must have had access to remarkably rich channels of information. A closer examination of relevant passages supports the assumption that it were personal contacts to diplomats involved in the negotiations that opened Malalas a privileged access to such information. The second part of the paper looks into the unusual story of Eulalios (XVIII 23) and argues that its contents as well as its structure suggest an oral origin. Observations on Malalas' working technique in both parts show that, despite the heterogeneous character of his work, the chronicler not only independently arranged and evaluated his information, but also integrated it into comprehensive narratives.
Conference Presentations by Jonas Borsch
In a memorable episode from his panegyric buildings, Procopius of Caesarea describes how a chest ... more In a memorable episode from his panegyric buildings, Procopius of Caesarea describes how a chest with martyr relics found in the foundations of Hagia Eirene is opened on the knees of the sick Emperor Justinian: The ruler himself experiences immediate healing, and as proof of the divine power a holy oil flows out of the vessel, moistening the emperor's purple robe and turning it into a remedy for all who will be hopelessly sick in the future (Procop. aed. I 7,7-11). The theme that Procopius uses here has its roots in hagiographic wonder episodes. At the same time, the passage is only one out of several contemporary testimonies that approach Justinian's bodily appearance and habitus to that of an ascetic taking part in wondrous deeds-i.e., a holy man. The body of the ruler in his purple ornate, embodying, in the early Byzantine empire, the monarchy itself, here seems to transcend the limits between the terrestrial and the heavenly sphere. The paper strives to investigate this phenomenon in the context of contemporary Christian discourse and to investigate in how far the orientation towards models of holiness, visible here in an exemplary manner, shaped the evolvement of the Byzantine monarchy.
Research has offered differing views on the question whether and in how far disasters had the pot... more Research has offered differing views on the question whether and in how far disasters had the potential to threaten the existence of late antique communities in a long-term perspective. While traditionally, skepticism about the influence of disasters on larger societal developments was predominant, with Kyle Harper's recent synthesis (2017), a standpoint has gained resonance that sees the end of the roman empire closely linked to factors such as climate change, disease and disaster. This paper strives to look into the problem of long-term disaster impact through the lens of a local case study. The famous city of Antioch on the Orontes in Syria was not only one of the centers of the empire between the 4 th and 6 th centuries C.E., but also situated close to a major earthquake belt. Between 526 and 528, it became the victim of a series of fatal seismic shocks which, according to the most lengthy accounts preserved in John Malalas, razed the city almost completely to the ground. Only a few years later (540), Antioch was famously pillaged by the Persian army under Khosrow I. Modern commentators have identified these disasters as central causes for Antioch's decline during the 6 th century (cf. Downey 1961, Kennedy 1985, Foss 1997, Kondoleon 2000). For a reconsideration of this question, a number of points seem to be relevant. First, the specific nature of the existing accounts on disasters needs to be taken into account. The reports on the earthquakes at Antioch are part of a long tradition of "disaster rhetoric". In my paper, I will therefore correlate them with the larger picture of this 'genre', showing overlapping patterns as well as peculiarities. This comparison will be the basis for an evaluation of these sources as witnesses to disaster impact. Second, the paper will look at coping strategies in early sixth century Byzantium and analyze whether the existing mechanisms were still sufficient in these cases respectively in how far they were actually applied. Third, apart from the disaster narratives themselves, it seems important to gather and review the available material on the development of Antioch in-between and after the different disastrous shocks, reaching from local chronicles to archaeological findings. The paper argues that even though the series of calamities most certainly had serious effects on the city and their inhabitants, it did not lead to an inevitable decline. A lot of factors were responsible for the development of a city after a disaster, including available resources as well as current political and strategical considerations and/or imperial willingness to act. Local disaster, in the case of Antioch, certainly fostered discontinuity, but was not its sole trigger. In the overall picture, the paper therefore can be understood as a plea for a differentiated view that neither denies the influence of disasters nor develops monocausal explanations on the basis of rhetorically shaped texts.
Die so genannte Weltchronik des Johannes Malalas, verfasst im 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr. in griechisc... more Die so genannte Weltchronik des Johannes Malalas, verfasst im 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr. in griechischer Sprache durch einen wohl aus dem syrischen Antiocheia stammenden Autor, bietet eine in der chronikalischen Tradition stehende Geschichte von der Schöpfung bis auf die eigene Zeit. Alt-und neutestamentarische Elemente werden hier mit klassischem Mythos und griechisch-römischer Geschichte zu einem gemeinsamen – zuweilen recht heterogen anmutenden – Narrativ verwoben. Ein verbindendes Element zwischen den verschiedenen Zeitebenen der Schrift bildet jedoch das starke Interesse an Katastrophen und ungewöhnlichen Naturerscheinungen verschiedenster Art – von Erdbeben und Überflutungen über Feuer und Seuchen bis hin zum Erscheinen von Kometen. Anders als in anderen Chroniken, die bei der Schilderung solcher Ereignisse üblicherweise einen nüchternen Ton anschlagen, ist die Darstellung hier an vielen Stellen deutlich emotionsgeladen. Ganz im Zentrum steht dabei der phóbos – die Angst. Immer wieder verweist Malalas auf die furchteinflößende Kraft des jeweiligen Geschehens, die bei den Betroffenen auch regelmäßig angsterfüllte Reaktionen hervorruft. Dabei, so möchte ich in meinem Vortrag zeigen, stellt Malalas den gesellschaftsordnenden Charakter dieser Emotion heraus. Der phóbos – ein Begriff, den der Autor zuweilen synonym für das jeweilige Naturereignis gebraucht – ist direkt gottgesandt und erhält dadurch eine positive Färbung: In Anlehnung an zeitgenössisch verbreitete Ideen wird ihm eine kathartische Wirkung für die Gesellschaft attestiert, die sich, durch göttliches Urteil erschüttert, einer Läuterung unterziehen kann. Solche Emotionen wurden, wie sowohl Malalas' Darstellungen als auch der vergleichende Blick etwa in zeitgenössische Homilien zeigen, im kollektiven Gedächtnis konserviert und regelmäßig reaktiviert. Die schrecklichen Ereignisse wurden so zum dauerhaften Zeichen für die mächtige und ordnende Präsenz Gottes. Diese Darstellung bietet dem Leser gleichzeitig auch ein Erklärungsmuster für bestimmte Verhaltensweisen des Kaisers, der – als Stellvertreter Gottes auf Erden – durch das Niederschlagen von Aufständen oder die Verfolgung von Häretikern ebenfalls regelmäßig Furcht verbreitet und der dadurch gleichermaßen einen innergesellschaftlichen Heilungsprozess befördert.
Besides many other changes, Late Antiquity witnessed the upcoming of new forms of representing th... more Besides many other changes, Late Antiquity witnessed the upcoming of new forms of representing the past. The emergence of Christian chronicle writing from the beginning of the 4 th century AD onwards is one of the most prominent examples of this development. The so-called Chronographia of the Antiochene writer John Malalas is usually conceived as part of this genre. Written under Justinian (6 th century AD), it tells a 6000-year-long " world history " in 18 books from Adam to the author's own lifetime , melding Greek mythology with Old and New Testament narratives as well as Roman history. More than half of the work is dedicated to the Roman Empire, focusing mainly on the emperors themselves, whose personal deeds in the provinces (founding, building, restoring) form the backbone of the narrative. In my paper, I want to trace back the traditions as well as the contemporaneous notions that contributed to shape this narrative through an exemplary analysis of the reigns of Caligula and Vespasian. Both sections of the chronicle show how strongly the perception of the early empire is shaped by Antiochene local memory as well as by reflections on prevailing problems and fears of the 6 th century, e.g. recurring disasters, religious conflicts and social disturbances. Malalas's picture of the past highlights continuity and stability, both of which are guaranteed by the time-transcendent figure of the emperor: The ruler is shown time and again handling threats in an effective manner; he thereby models a local memorial landscape characterized by continuous destruction and recreation.
This paper gives a short insight on narrative functions of disasters in John Malalas' Chronograph... more This paper gives a short insight on narrative functions of disasters in John Malalas' Chronographia as well as on the disaster-conceptions underlying the respective accounts. While the most common forms of disasters in Malalas, earthquakes and fires, are usually represented as part of a stereotype narrative of urban destruction and reconstruction and serve to highlight the helpful intervention of imperial power, shortages and famines are inscribed in quite different contexts: In spite of the important role that disasters play within the whole work, disastrous famines surprisingly are barely mentioned at all. Shortages encounter in a slightly higher frequence, but are presented not as calamities, but primarily as (potential) triggers for social conflict: they generate competition for resources within the citizenry and sometimes even give occasion to open conflict between citizenry and authorities. In this case too, the imperial responses reported by Malalas are stereotypical. The emperor rises fear through harsh, often violent measures, a pattern of action framed in a decidedly positive way. Subsistence crises, even though their character as phenomenons with potentially disastrous outcome for the community is not denied, are viewed mainly from an imperial perspective, i.e. they appear as catalysts for upheavals that threaten at once the imperial power and the overall social order. Appropriate action in the perspective of the Chronographia consists in fighting human insubordination, while root causes for the food supply problems are excluded from the view.
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Books by Jonas Borsch
Im dritten Band der Malalas-Studien wird die in der Chronik zutage tretende Konzeption von memoria thematisiert: Welches Bild der älteren wie jüngeren Vergangenheit transportiert sie? Welchen Kriterien folgt der historische und literarische Auswahlprozess, der diesem Bild zugrunde liegt? Im Zentrum steht dabei eine Kontextualisierung im Rahmen der zeitgenössischen Erinnerungspraxis – der Memorialkultur – in Literatur, Prosa und materiellen Hinterlassenschaften
Dissertation by Jonas Borsch
Papers by Jonas Borsch
Commentary by Jonas Borsch
Conference Presentations by Jonas Borsch
Im dritten Band der Malalas-Studien wird die in der Chronik zutage tretende Konzeption von memoria thematisiert: Welches Bild der älteren wie jüngeren Vergangenheit transportiert sie? Welchen Kriterien folgt der historische und literarische Auswahlprozess, der diesem Bild zugrunde liegt? Im Zentrum steht dabei eine Kontextualisierung im Rahmen der zeitgenössischen Erinnerungspraxis – der Memorialkultur – in Literatur, Prosa und materiellen Hinterlassenschaften
communication in personal presence necessarily involve physicality, but the body
is also a particularly powerful medium for expressing identities, hierarchies and power
relations. Against this backdrop, the conference will examine representations and conceptualisations of political bodies as well as bodily practices in political contexts in
a perspective encompassing Greco-Roman Antiquity as a whole.
Im Rahmen der dritten Tagung der Forschungsstelle soll dem Verhältnis zwischen der Chronik und der zeitgenössischen memoria-Kultur nachgegangen werden. Gefragt wird nach der Wahrnehmung, Repräsentation und Konstruktion von Vergangenheit in der Spätantike sowie speziell während der Entstehungszeit der Chronik im 6. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Durch die Betrachtung der in dieser Zeit entstandenen schriftlichen und nicht-schriftlichen Repräsentationen von Vergangenheit – von Geschichtswerken über Heiligenviten und Homilien bis hin zu Denkmälern oder Festumzügen – soll ein breites Bild davon gewonnen werden, wie Vergangenheit von den Zeitgenossen wahrgenommen und konstruiert wurde, vor dessen Hintergrund die Chronik des Malalas neu verortet und kontextualisiert werden kann.