Recherche par auteur > Humennyi Viktor

The paper will present an attempt to reconstruct the theme of Roman military logistics in the East and how the scholarship changed its views on the topic dealing with the data from the city of Dura-Europos analyzing the epigraphical data from the site combining it with papyrological and archaeological evidence. Scholars often adopt concepts and theories that are usually used as a good and flexible instrument to deal with some old known or newly discovered material. One of such kind of methodological issues is the concept of the frontier. The present study is an attempt to take a new look, at how the researcher deals/dealt with popular current/past popular theories and how they influenced some main conclusions that are still present in the research discourse. The Roman Near East is analyzed in the context of discussion which focuses on the problems of Roman limes studies and strategy during the Severan Age. Dura is not only one of the most preserved archaeological sites in the Middle East, furthermore, it represents the best surviving archaeological military material that the Romans left. Near Eastern material is often used to substantiate theories of Roman frontier and strategy in the East and Dura provides information that is often used to discuss the character of Roman logistics in the region – a key question in the dispute about so-called Great Roman strategy, but considering the debates over the interpretation of the material – how should one deal with it and can the material left by the army in the city in a frontier be used to understand the frontier? The only information about the office of the “dux” in the early third century comes from an assumption, that was made by M. Rostovtzeff, who believed that the material from the “Palace of the dux”, including the inscriptions can be used as a source to date the appearance of this office and its activities. The paper will examine the question of how the same archaeological and epigraphical material from a “palatial” building in the city was primarily used by M. Rostovtzeff and his colleagues to construct and later by T. Gnoli, P. Edwell, S. James, J. Baird, etc. to deconstruct the idea of the activity of a specific military office and structure of Roman forces in the region and why the re-interpretation of the known material leads to the critical look on the large-scale schemes that the scholars still use.