Journal articles on the topic 'Roman military historiography; Plutarch'

The Romans knew that they had once been ruled by kings, and they believed, perhaps rightly, that the fall of the monarchy had taken place at what we would call the end of the sixth century B.C. The texts that tell us this – Livy, Dionysius, Plutarch, etc. – all depend on a historical tradition that can be traced back as far as the second half of the third century B.C., when the Roman literary genres of historical drama, historical epic, and prose historiography began. Before that, we do not know how the Romans conceived or recorded the memory of their own past.

Abstract The authenticity of the fragments of Roman historiography contained in the Origo Gentis Romanae, a fourth century account of the beginnings of Rome, have been frequently called into question, notably by Peter, who excluded them from his collection of the Roman historical fragments, and by Jacoby in a famous article. Photius, Pseudo-Plutarch, and Fulgentius, among others, have been brought into the argument. This paper re-examines the nature of the citations in the Origo Gentis Romanae and, by looking at samples of the other works, offers a re-evaluation of their historical and historiographical worth.

In 72-69 B.C., L. Lucullus successively captured the most important urban centres of the kingdom of Pontus, and Tigranocerta in Armenia. His army also operated in the kingdom of Commagene und in Upper Mesopotamia. Lucullus’ military campaign was continued by Pompey. We come across incidental information about the scale of robbery and destruction committed by the Roman army (the statue of Autolycus by Sthennis in Sinope, the temple of Ma in Comana, the secret archives of Mithradates VI, the Roman library of Lucullus, the treasures of Darius the Achaemenid). Some objects of the plundered art appeared in public at the triumphal shows of wealth in Rome, which was perfunctorily documented by Pliny the Elder, Appianus of Alexandria and Plutarch (63 and 61 B.C.). Artworks were also acquired by functionaries of the occupying administration from urban communities and private persons through extortion and blackmail. The Roman lawyers and intellectuals worked out a set of skilful legal formulas to justify and legalise the plunder of cultural goods (ius belli, monumentum imperatoris, ornamentum urbis). Cicero, Livy and Plutarch never condemn the robbery of artworks and libraries if they were committed in the name of the Roman state. The fragmentary evidence testifies to the once flourishing literary circles of the kingdoms of Pontus and Commagene (Methrodorus of Scepsis, Athenion, the anonymous authors of inscriptions from Commagene, the epitaphs of the Bosporan kingdom).

AbstractIn 86 BC Sulla sacked Athens. The siege left deep marks in the cityscape and in the literary sources. This article traces a diachronic development in the ancient reception of the sack of Athens in Greek literature, from the first century BC through the second century AD. In earlier authors the siege is presented primarily in a military context, while in later authors the emphasis shifts onto Sulla’s destruction of cultural capital. His treatment of Athens comes to be understood as irrational and excessive. I argue that this latter depiction is an anchoring device that roots the new perception of the city during the Empire in the Republican past. In the first two centuries AD Athens increasingly came to be seen as the symbol of Greek culture. Plutarch and Pausanias react to this growing Athenocentrism by retrojecting an image of Athens as cultural symbol onto the first century BC.

In a recent issue of this Journal, M. Alexander Speidel published a new document concerning Roman military pay, a receipt from Vindonissa dating to A.D. 38. This document, he claims, provides the missing link, which allows him to present a table of pay rates for legionaries and auxiliaries from Caesar to Diocletian and prove finally the proposition resurrected by M. P. Speidel that soldiers of the auxiliary cohorts were paid five sixths of the annual pay of legionaries. From a re-examination of the texts and documents traditionally used as evidence for the pay rates of the Roman military, I conclude that, although we can establish the rates of legionary infantry pay from the date of the increase under Caesar until A.D. 197, we have little evidence for legionary pay rates in the third century and, since most of the documents provide us with figures which are unknown proportions of the annual pay of the soldiers concerned, the evidence for auxiliary pay is not sufficient to allow the calculation of exact pay rates for any period. There are, therefore, no grounds for believing either the five-sixths theory as elaborated by M. Alexander Speidel or, indeed, any of the many other theories that have been proposed. Nevertheless, the documentation can be interpreted to establish likely minimum figures for auxiliary pay rates in the first century A.D. This interpretation of the documents suggests that there was, in fact, no difference between the rates of pay of auxiliary and legionary infantry and the cavalry of the legions and alae, a controversial conclusion that has previously been avoided for reasons central to much of Roman imperial military historiography.

AbstractThis article argues firstly that Cato the Elder’s account of a daring plan involving the tribune Caedicius in the First Punic War is modelled on a scene in Xenophon’s Anabasis. It then argues that Livy’s account of a heroic escape in the First Samnite War orchestrated by P. Decius Mus is modelled not just on the First Punic War episode described by Cato, as scholars have suggested, but on the same passage of Xenophon; it also proposes that Livy’s use of Xenophon may be mediated through Cato. The article then sets out other evidence for the use of Xenophon in Roman historiography and explores the implications of the proposed intertextuality for Roman self-positioning and for ideas of leadership and military hierarchy. The article as a whole suggests that the influence of Xenophon on Latin historiography is greater than has often been conceived.

After a focus on social and cultural history in the last issue, this issue's offerings return us to more traditional subjects – political institutions, and historiography. That spring review ended with religion, which is where we start here: an apposite reminder that religion pervades all aspects of the Roman world. It is precisely that principle which undergirds our first book, Dan-el Padilla Peralta's Divine Institutions. Padilla Peralta is interested, at root, in how the Roman state became such through the third and fourth centuries bce. That is a story usually told – in a tradition going back to the ancient historians themselves – via a swashbuckling tale of successive military campaigns. Padilla Peralta, however, sets that anachronistic narrativization aside, and instead builds a careful case that between the siege of Veii and the end of the Second Punic War ‘the Roman state remade and retooled itself into a republic defined and organized around a specific brand of institutionalized ritual practices and commitments’ (1). Specifically, he shows that the construction of temples and the public activities they facilitated were a key mechanism – one as important as warfare – by which the consensus necessary to state formation was generated: the Republic more or less stumbles into a bootstrapping formula that proves to be unusually felicitous: high visibility monumental enterprises are paired with new incentives for human mobility in ways that dramatically and enduringly reorganize the rhythms of civic and communal experience. (17–18) In particular, Padilla Peralta argues that output was greater than input; that the genius – whether accidental or deliberate – of this formula was that it facilitated a confidence game whereby the res publica appeared more capable – via the apparent support of the gods whom its visible piety secured – than was in fact the case.

Byzantium’s arms and armours were researched by many historians. For that reason, the military history of the medieval Roman Empire enjoyed a dominant position in medieval historiography, with the consequence that very often the military history of small nations (under Roman influences) was written from the perspective of the Eastern Romans historians. The aim of the paper is to change this perspective and give the subject of the medieval Armenian military the attention it deserves. The idea is to perform an analysis of the relief on the Door of the Msho Arakelots monastery, where four equestrians and one infantryman are depicted, and to compare it with other Armenian, Byzantine and Muslim sources. In this relief, a spherical mace head and a sword with sleeve cross-guard are represented, suggesting many parallels with East-Roman archaeological and figurative sources. No less important is the depiction of the military trumpet because it is the first image of this object in Armenian art, which can be compared with pictures from the Madrid Skylitzes (13th c.). In addition, the only defensive weapon which is presented in this relief is a round shield with a floral ornament. There are many depictions of round shields in Armenian miniatures and reliefs from 10th–11th c. Moreover, this relief is one of the few where stirrups and the chape of a scabbard are shown. These elements represent an important piece of information because these pictures can be compared with actual archaeological East-Roman artefacts to reconstruct their real look. The conclusions are that the majority of Armenian weapons bear similarities to Byzantine ones but no less important are the Muslim influences, which have been found in some cases. Located between two civilizations (Byzantium and the Muslim Potentates), Armenians adopted the best solutions of their military technologies, creating their own culture. Moreover, thanks to this comparative analysis, further support will be given to the idea that medieval figurative sources are more or less accurate material for studying medieval military history.

The article is a preliminary attempt to attribute two lists of sources from Byzantine military treatises: the first one comes from the “Taktica” by the Byzantine emperor Leo VI the Wise (886-912), and the second — from “Taktika” by Nicephorus Ura-nus, the Byzantine strategist and dux of Antioch (1000s). A num-ber of these sources are clear enough — they are the military treatises of Arrian (“Techne Taktike”), Aelian (“The Tactical Theory”), Onosander (“Strategikos”), Polyaenus (“Strategems”), Syrianus Magister, Maurice (“The Strategikon”), Nikephoros II Phokas (“The Praecepta Militaria”), as well as the unpreserved work of the great Carthaginian commander Hannibal. Also, there is no particular doubt about Uranus's use of the writings of the moralist Plutarch of Chaeronea. Mena, mentioned in the list of Leo's “Taktica”, can be compared with a participant of the dia-logue “Menae patricii cum Thoma referendario: De scientia po-litica dialogus” (first half of the 6th century). A further compari-son of this “Dialogue” with Leo’s “Taktica” can bring some clar-ity to this issue, because Uranus made only minor changes to the text of its original source. Uranus himself made extensive use of historical sources, and brought them into the title. In general, Uranus used the historical works of Diodorus Siculus (“Histori-cal Library”), Dio Cassius Cocceianus (“Roman History”) and Polybius (“The Histories”), as well as the works (letters, diaries) of Alexander the Great or a novel about him. A separate article will be devoted to the attribution of the work of Artaxerxes. Three sources from the lists are still unclear: Pelops, Alcibiades, and Heraclides. Some light on their attribution can be cast after the publication of the “Taktika” by Nicephorus Uranus, which is yet to be done, although the first 14 chapters were published four centuries ago (in 1617).

In the middle of the III century, the Roman Empire marked the advent of a prolonged crisis. In order to confront the barbarian invasions and usurpers revolt, military transformations, the Roman Empire was in needed for military transformations and revision of the military machine that has formed in the previous periods. In the late 250s – early 260s, the Emperor Gallienus created a mobile army corps, which in the ancient sources received a name of the “Dalmatian horsemen”. The following questions arise on the structure and size of this mobile corps. Relying on numismatic, narrative, and epigraphic sources, this article examines the changes in organizational and staffing structure of the Roman army in the middle of the III century; assesses the size and composition, and tasks of the Gallienus’ mobile corps. The author analyzes the opinions that have accumulated in the Russian and foreign historiography throughout 200 years, and develops a relevant perspective on the problem of creating a field army during the third century crisis.  The conclusion is made that the Emperor Gallienus had formed a strong mobile army. It was not just a cavalry, but was based on the vexilationes of the border legions of infantry and horsemen. Gallienus did not seek to create a permanent mobile army, being guided by the prevailing military and political circumstances. He used the mobile corps for retaining the controlled territories, repelled the barbarian invasions and suppressed the usurpers. Gallienus’ mobile army has proven to be an effective instrument in hands of the central government. Aurelian reinforced the army with additional detachments, and later on successfully used it against Palmyrene and Gallic separatists, having restored the unity of the empire.

Herodotus presented the conflicts between Europe and Asia on both the mythological and historical level and made them one of the main structural and ideological components of his work. The idea of war against the Achaemenids interpreted as central to the Greek historical destiny returned time and again in the Greek letters, always blended with the symptomatic feeling of superiority and simplified standard view of the Orientals. (Euripides, Xenophon of Athens, Plato, Isocrates). The efforts to unite the Greeks and Macedonians with the Orientals which were undertaken by Alexander the Great, found little understanding among the Greeks (Plutarch). His myth as a conqueror of Asia became an ideological trap of the Hellenic as well as Roman historical thinking (Cassius Dio). Renewed and unsuccessful efforts to follow Aiexander's steps brought interesting literary testimonies shaped by collective experiences of the insuperable climate, the fear of the epidemics, and confrontation with cunning, cruel and elusive adversaries (Plutarch, Procopius of Caesarea). The Greek literary testimonies had their alter ego in the Eastern prophetic writings, which expressed hostility towards the Greeks and Romans and predicted a final victory for the East over the West (Oracula Sibyllina, The Oracle of the Potter, The Oracle of Hystaspes). In the Wars of Procopius of Caesarea a pessimistic, purely militarist view came to the surface. It said that the loyalty of the Orientals could be secured only through the use of military power. In that period we also observe a factor of religious inspiration in the war propaganda on both sides (Procopius of Caesarea, Georgios Pisides).

Over the centuries, Spanish historiography has attached great importance to the wars that Octavian launched at the start of the last third of the 1st c. B.C. against the population in the north of the Iberian peninsula. In this way he intended to bring an end to the long conquest of Iberia that had begun two centuries earlier in the hegemonic struggle with Carthage. Although the wars previously attracted the attention of European scholars, today they play little part in the historiography of the Early Roman Empire and even less in the biographies of Augustus, who suffered some of his worst military fortunes in this war, putting his very life in danger (Suet., Aug. 29.3 and 81.1; Hor., Carm. 3.14; Dio 53.25.5-7; Oros. 6.21.4). Even Departments of Ancient History in Spanish universities have failed to progress beyond well-worn exegesis of the written sources. This is because until just two decades ago all the information came from two historical sources: Florus and Orosius, on the one hand, and Dio Cassius, on the other (the relevant books of Livy being lost). Although they stress the importance of the conflict, these sources are excessively laconic; they have also been subjected to erudite speculations about place-names that have turned the military campaigns into a series of historiographic fictions.1

ABSTRACTThis article presents a new interpretation of the historiographical production of Jordanes by situating it in the political and social environment of Constantinople of the years 550–552. It argues that these years were a period of crisis in Justinian's reign and that this is reflected in the pessimistic view of Roman power and the critique of Justinian's military and religious policy we can see in Jordanes’ Romana. If this prevents us from understanding Jordanes as a mouthpiece of the court, he cannot be reduced to a mere reproducer of Cassiodorus either: while there is more evidence for a close interaction between Jordanes and Cassiodorus (in particular the use of the Historia Tripartita in the Romana) than usually adduced, this is balanced by Jordanes’ explicit attempts to keep his distance from the senator. If the latter can be explained by Jordanes’ much lower social and literary status and his Moesian rather than Italian origin, which made him only a marginal member of Cassiodorus’ circle in Constantinople, the agreement between both men is the result of a confluence of views caused by the turn of the Italian war in 540–550. Jordanes, then, appears as a unique voice in what must have been a polyphony of opinions in mid-sixth-century Constantinople.

Resumen: La figura de Augusto no tuvo gran atractivo para los historiadores españoles del siglo XIX. Más interesados en destacar la labor de los emperadores de origen hispano, las Historias de España no dedicaron demasiada atención a la labor de quien cerró las conquistas militares romanas en la Península Ibérica. Las contradicciones fueron constantes en una historiografía que abordó la etapa augústea casi siempre de manera colateral y que no profundizó de manera exhaustiva en el conocimiento de este periodo histórico. Sin embargo, como muestra este artículo, Augusto no pasó desapercibido en la historiografía española decimonónica.Palabras clave: Emperador Augusto, Historiografía española, Historia de Roma, siglo XIX.Abstract: The figure of Augustus did little to attract the attention of 19th century Spanish historians. They were more interested in highlighting the work of emperors of Hispanic descent, thus the Histories of Spain dedicated little space to the Roman military leader who conquered the Iberian Peninsula. There are constant contradictions in the historiography, which approached the Augustan period almost exclusively side on, never plunging into the knowledge with exhaustive depth. However, as this article shows, Augustus did not go completely unnoticed in the 19th century Spanish historiography.Key words: Emperor Augustus, Spanish historiography, history of Rome, 19th century.

Abstract The Christianisation of the Roman Empire in the 4th-5th centuries led to a blurring of the traditional ethnocultural dichotomy (Barbarians – Romans), and to the emergence of a new type of social division on the basis of religion: pagan – Christian. The present article is devoted to the analysis of the image of a “pious” (pagan) barbarian, formed in Late Antique pagan historiography. The conclusion is made that pagans saw their barbarian coreligionists as the defenders of their faith against the anti-pagan state policy. Comparing pagan barbarians to their fellow Christian tribesmen, they tried to prove that only pagans can be true allies of Rome. Finally, the military successes of the pagan warlords served as evidence of the active participation of the gods in the affairs of their followers and acted as an argument for the preservation of the traditional forms of worship.

This article gives an assessment one of the most notable episodes of the interwar period in the history of international relations – the development of Italian foreign policy in the context of the Italo-Ethiopian war. In the early 1935, Italy was ruled by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. One of the cornerstones of his foreign policy paradigm was the creation of the “New Roman Empire”. One of the initial targets of his expansion were Ethiopia and the Mediterranean. Italy replenishes its military and economic resources; however, it was deficient to achieve the set foreign policy goals. Therefore, the war in Ethiopia became one of the key vector of Rome’s official diplomacy. The warfare also unfolded in the ideological context – propaganda, politics within the League of Nations, and interlocutory instructions to the diplomats. The scientific novelty is defined by the absence of comprehensive research on the topic. The relevance of lies the fact that the Russian historiography did not give due attention dedicated to the secret plans of Italy during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. However, namely the plans of Cesare De Vecchi and Emilio De Bono that shed light on the crucial nuance of the Italian diplomacy of this period, and allow to properly stress topic and priorities with regards to foreign policy. This the article analyzes the ration between the objectives in Ethiopia and the Mediterranean basin –the cornerstone task within the framework of building a New Roman Empire.

Resumo: Enquanto se buscava a natureza da polícia militar, como um sistema social fruto das respostas da espécie humana à emergência evolutiva, uma simples pergunta para caracterizar essa instituição surgiu: quantos anos tem a polícia militar? Pergunta essa que suscitou uma análise institucional histórica sob o crivo de uma abordagem socioecológica. Propõe-se, portanto, a apresentar uma breve filogenia institucional sustentada por uma pesquisa bibliográfica, da qual se destacam as contribuições de Bayley (2002), na análise internacional comparada desde o Império Romano e Cotta (2012), na reprodução do modelo no âmbito da colonização portuguesa. Outro dado conjunto de seleção de historiografia permite que se alcancem os primórdios da espécie Homo sapiens. Em meio ao mapeamento, uma questão de forte apelo em debate na sociedade brasileira veio à tona: a natureza intrínseca do militarismo em sentido amplo na estruturação dos corpos policiais e, sobretudo, no sistema luso-brasileiro de manutenção da ordem.Palavras-chave: Abordagem socioecológica. Polícia Militar. Ecologia Humana. Abstract: While searching for the nature of the military police, as a social system fruit of the responses of the human species to the evolutionary emergency, a simple question to characterize this institution emerged: how old is the military police? This question raised a historical institutional analysis under a socioecological approach. It is proposed, therefore, to present a brief institutional phylogeny supported by a bibliographical research, of which the contributions of Bayley (2002), the international comparative analysis since the Roman and Cotta (2012), stand out in the reproduction of the model in the scope of Portuguese colonization. Another set of selection of historiography allows to reach the beginnings of the species Homo sapiens. In the middle of the mapping a question of strong appeal in debate in Brazilian society came to light: the intrinsic nature of militarism in a broad sense in the structuring of police forces and, above all, in the Portuguese-Brazilian system of order maintenance.Key words: Socioecological Approach; Military Police; Human Ecology.

Аннотация Статья рассматривает ряд определяющих факторов, связанных с войнами Антиохии-Армении, т.е. с циклом военных столкновений между княжеством Антиохийским и королевством Армения. Этот цикл войн, протекавших с небольшими перерывами в период между 1185 и 1226 годами, обескровил христианские государства северного Леванта, и по праву может считаться одним из наиболее интенсивных и сложных конфликтов эпохи крестовых походов. Исходными факторами в продолжающихся конфликтах служило стремление франкских князей Антиохии восстановить свое господство над давно утраченными территориями Киликийской Равнины и прямо противоречившее этому стремление гораздо более сильной стороны – армянского «властителя гор», а позднее первого короля Армении – к утверждению своего господства над Антиохией. Цикл войн Антиохии-Армении самым парадоксальным образом разделил жителей Киликии и северной Сирии. Abstract The article examines a series of factors, connected to the Antioch-Armenia wars, in other words — the cycle of military conflicts between the Crusader Principality of Antioch and the Kingdom of Armenia. This cycle of wars, which raged — with brief interludes — between 1185 and 1226, bled-dry the Christian states of the northern Levant, and can be rightfully called one of the most intense and complex conflicts of the Crusades. There were two motives for the continuing wars: the ambition of the Princes of Antioch to reclaim their rule over the longlost Cilician Plain, and the opposing desire of the far stronger ruler — the Armenian “Lord of the Mountains” and later on — the King of Armenia — to assert his authority over Antioch. The cycle of the Antioch-Armenia wars divided the inhabitants of Cilicia and northern Syria in the most paradoxical ways. The “Crusader” ruler of the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli — Bohemond IV — completely ignored the demands and interdicts of the Roman pontiff, literally murdered (or rather — ‘condemned’ to slow and painful death) the Latin Patriarch, restored a Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Antioch (from which — for about 2 years — he and his nobles accepted the sacraments), along with the Muslim rulers of Syria and Anatolia he continuously raided the Christian lands and settlements of the Kingdom of Armenia… Nevertheless, this excommunicated ruler was supported not only by the Latin population (including a significant part of the nobility) of Syria, but also by the Knights Templar. Bohemond IV’s main rival — King Leo (Levon) I the Great — proved to be an equally complex statesmen, willing to renounce the religious and social ties traditional for the medieval world in order to secure the desired political alliances and to promulgate his own aims. To secure the recognition of his state and regnal title he forced the Armenian Church to accept the Union with Rome (even though the Armenians did have a plethora of the Union’s proponents, including the great theologian — the Armenian Archbishop of Tarsus St. Nerses of Lampron). In his war for Antioch he secured the support of the Knights Hospitaliers and a major part of the Frankish nobility of Antioch. Yet he proved equally acute to the ethno-religious balance in Antioch: if initially (in 1193) he tried to take Antioch used the forces of the fervent Armenian Miaphysite Hethum of Sasoun, later on the first Rex Armeniae entrusted the war for with the predominantly Greek Orthodox city and Principality to a Chalcedonian Armenian (Greek Orthodox) baron — Adam of Baghras.In his attempts to secure the sympathies of northern Syria’s population, King Leo I welcomed the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch in his kingdom and handed over to him a significant part of ecclesiastic properties, confiscated from the Latin Church. This step, naturally, ensured a papal excommunication for the newly-enthroned ‘Catholic’ king. But even after a formal excommunication from the Roman Church, Leo I continued to enjoy the support of two Catholic military orders — the Hospitaliers and the Teutonic Knights. Also, this monarch — whom later-day Armenian historiography viewed as a hero of Armenian nationalism — left his kingdom to a regent who was an adherent of the “Greek faith”, and a suitor for his young daughter — whom — in any scenario would be a Latin. Obviously, the article examines not only the motivation of the heads of state, but also of social, regional and ethno-religious communities that made this series of wars and a radical deconstruction of medieval norms and alliances possible. The author also examines the traditional chronology of this war cycle, especially the campaigns of the so-called War for the Antiochian Succession.

The article discusses the problem that was recently raised in Lithuanian historical literature and public discourse by G. Beresnevi?ius, A. Bumblauskas, S.C. Rowell: was the medieval Lithuanian state (Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL) an empire? Traditional historiography did not use concepts of ``empire" and ``imperialism" in the work on GDL. For Non-Marxist Russian historians, GDL was simply another Russian state, so there could not be Russian imperialism against Russians. For Marxist historians, imperialism was a phase in the ``capitalist formation," immediately preceding the socialist revolution and bound to the specific period of world history, so the research on precapitalist empires and imperialism was suspect of anachronism. For the opposite reason, deriving from the hermeneutic methodology, the talk about how the medieval Lithuanian empire and imperialism was an anachronism for Non-Marxist Polish and German historians too, because they considered as Empires only polities that claimed to be successors to Roman Empire. However, the Lithuanian political elite never raised such claims, although theory of the Lithuanian descent from Romans (Legend of Palemon) could be used for this goal. Using the recent work in comparative historical sociology of empires by S.N. Eisenstadt, I. Wallerstein, A. Motyl, B. Buzan, R. Little, A. Watson, M. Beissinger, Ch. Tilly, Th.J. Barfield and M. Doyle, the author argues that GDL was an empire because it was (1) the greatest state in Europe in the late 14-early 15th century, (2) militarily expansive in all directions if not held in check by superior military power, (3) displayed the territorial structure characteristic for empires, consisting of metropole and periphery, (4) had an informal empire and sphere of hegemony, (5) established imperial ``Pax Lituanica" on broad territories securing long-distance trade roads. Typologically, it was a patrimonial empire, typologically distinct from the ``barbarian kingdoms" created by ancient Germans and Vikings. After the internal crisis in 1432-1440 that is interpreted as ``Augustan threshold" (in M. Doyle's sense), the Lithuanian empire evolved into a federal state by the early 16th century. Drawing on the distinction between ``primary empires" and ``shadow empires" proposed by Th.J. Barfield, GDL is classified as subtype of ``shadow empires," called ``vulture empires." GDL started as a ``vulture empire," using for its expansion a geopolitical situation created by the decline of the Mongol empire and aspiring to unite under its power all lands of the former Kiev Russia. The most important outcome of the failure of the Lithuanian imperial project is the emergence of the three different Eastern Slave peoples (Belorussian, Ukrainian, Great Russian), while the probable outcome of its success would be the continuation of the undivided old Russian ethnicity.