Projects for Later Roman Empire

Familiarity with and intelligent use of both primary and secondary sources - and knowing the difference between them - is crucial to a good research paper.

Topics should be narrowly defined, addressing one particular phenomenon during a limited chronological period, one particular problem, or the influence/contribution (not narrative biography) of one person.

Evidence

Rules concerning ancient sources:

You must find all of the sources pertaining to your topic, except any (e.g., inscriptions) which do not exist in English translation.

If you have difficulty finding translations of the sources, or even finding out what they are, ask for help.

Rules concerning modern scholarship:

Modern works must include both articles in learned journals and, when possible, books (most topics will be discussed in some part(s) of books). Most online resources, with the exception of online versions of books (including ancient sources) and journals in print, may not be used, although occasionally they may lead you to bibliography in print.

Modern bibliography must include the most recently published items on the topic. You should read and add to the bibliography at least one book review of any book which you are using. Two reviews are better.

Modern bibliography must also include classic standard works on the topic, e.g., A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284-602 and A. H. M. Jones, J. R. Martindale, and J. Morris, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire volumes 1 and 2.

Ancient Sources

The easiest way is to go from the most available or easiest modern works to the more detailed and specialized.

The Cambridge Ancient History has, at the back of each volume, an extensive list of primary sources and bibliography for each chapter. The first edition of CAH is available in the reference room of the library (D57 .C252) and at the Classics Department.

My favorite place to look is in the multi-volume German encyclopedia of classical antiquity known familiarly as Pauly-Wissowa or RE (for Paulys Real-encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft); you don't need a word of German to be able to use this if all you want to find are ancient sources. The exhaustive articles in this work are peppered with references to ancient sources. Pauly-Wissowa is shelved at 481 Main Street room 207. PLRE also lists all, or nearly all, of the ancient sources relating to individual people.

You can also use an English language reference work based upon the massive German edition, and updated. It is available both in room 207, 481 Main, and in the reference room at the library (call number DE5 .N4813 2002); this is called Brill's New Pauly: encyclopaedia of the ancient world.

If you can find good scholarly books and journal articles about your topic, the ancient sources should be not only listed but discussed (sometimes ad nauseam).

Modern Scholarship

Look in the bibliographies provided in links from the online syllabus. There is no guarantee that these are exhaustive, but using them will provide a good start. It is also useful to look in the notes or bibliographies to recent journal articles for more leads.
Cruising the stacks: If your topic is regarded by the Library of Congress as historical, you will find books on Roman history under the LC heading DG. Roman law, on the other hand, is JC, religion is BL or BR, classical literature is PA. You can find books about Ammianus under both DG and PA, depending upon the whim of the cataloguer (or whether the book is concerned more with history or with literary devices).

How do you tell if a book is good? There are no guarantees, but some or all of the following will give you an idea:
1. The book is from a refereed publisher (e.g. a university press)
2. The bibliography contains entries in a variety of modern languages (thus indicating that the author has done the homework)
3. There are a lot of footnotes or endnotes
4. The author takes the trouble to describe what editions of the ancient writers s/he is using
5. Reviews of the book are not uniformly hostile. You should read at least two reviews, if they are available, of any scholarly book (this is good advice for any field). You can find reviews in a number of ways; for recent books you can try the Bryn Mawr Classical Review on-line, and for both recent and older works look in the bibliographical resource known as L'Année philologique.

How to cite modern bibliography: