Since my last post, I have completed the first draft of my dissertation. In this entry, I hope to raise some of the methodological issues that I encountered during this process. This will be done by focusing on an anomaly in my data that centered around the Roman Senate and the problems I faced while trying to explain it through Social Network Analysis (SNA).
I will firstly highlight the characteristics that separated the anomaly from the norms of the network. Firstly, it was a relatively dense and highly-connected area of the network. The findings of my first chapter suggested that Ostrogothic Italy on the whole tended to be a relatively divided society. However, the anomalous group of 39 nodes challenged this. The betweenness centrality for this cluster was 8.946078412, whereas for the entire network it was only 1.164930545 (Theoderic the Great was excluded from these calculations as he connects to everyone). A higher score on this metric indicates the extent to which a node mediates relations, so it became clear this group of 39 nodes had unusually high levels of interconnectivity. The second defining characteristic of the anomaly was that it had a higher percentage of nodes with the label 'Roman'. Non-Romans were only 10.24% of the cluster, in contrast to forming 51.9% of the entire network.
The first questions needing to be addressed were simple. Was this anomaly contradicting the points I developed earlier in the dissertation about ethnicity not being important in Ostrogothic social relations? Furthermore, could the anomaly instead be characterised as an 'ethnic' enclave for Romans? The answers were not necessarily simple. While being numerically inferior, 'Gothic' and 'Unknown' nodes still tended to score equally if not higher than 'Roman' nodes on most metrics. In other words, this anomaly was an intensification of the patterns established in my first chapter. There were more Romans, but this did not necessarily translate to them being more important or separate from Goths in terms of connections.
By examining other factors that may have influenced the creation of the anomaly, I hoped to more adequately address this group of nodes. I firstly assessed if holding a certain 'title' was important. Firstly, I noticed the anomaly had a high concentration of individuals who were Viri Illustres. By Late Antiquity, this was the only title that allowed admission to the Roman Senate. It is worth noting here that during this period an individual could very well hold senatorial status through a different title, but only this one could allow participation in the Senate as a political institution. However, aside from this, there were also some odd titles in the data, such as Arch-Physician and Pantomimist. In this way, it was clear that participation in the Senate was important, but at the same time more answers were needed. An analysis of individuals' zones of activity yielded similar results. Rome was particularly prominent as a location for individuals in this group, which again reinforced my conviction that the Senate was playing an important role. With this mind, I suggested the higher rates of interconnectivity in the anomaly could potentially be linked to the the independence the Senate still held as an institution, with it being less dependent on the patronage of Theoderic. Meanwhile, the changes in the ratio of Goths to Romans were a result of the Senate's relatively small size in comparison to the rest of the Ostrogothic bureaucracy. It was harder for everyone, not just Goths, to be a part of the Senate. Despite all of this, there were still too many nodes within the anomaly that could not be entirely explained by the Roman Senate and so I was required to consider additional factors.
A screenshot of part of the anomaly, with Romans in red and the other nodes representing nodes with non-Roman labels.
It was at this point, I began to consider a number of methodological issues. The first was whether my application of SNA to the letters of Cassiodorus was giving undue importance to this anomaly. This came to mind because the group contained a particularly prominent clique originating from only 2 of the 229 letters studied. A clique is a set of nodes where every possible connection is made. The connections in this clique occurred twice, which was highly unusual, as individuals in the network tended to connect only once and never again. However, there were only 9 nodes in this clique and 30 other ones with the aforementioned anomalous traits still remained. Further answers were needed.
Having exhausted what the data was telling me about the anomaly, I decided to see if I was missing something by using quantitative rather than qualitative techniques. In particular, I wanted to examine the contexts in which individual connections were taking place. By doing this, I noticed that individuals were primarily meeting as a response to 'events' or for practical reasons, such as an administrative order (e.g collecting taxes, etc). This allowed me to develop a model for understanding the anomaly which relied on both SNA and readings of my source. Factors, such as 'titles' or 'zones of activity' were indeed important in the creation of the anomaly. However, social relations are not necessarily predictable. For example, we cannot presume the pantomimist Helladius would have not had everyday access to the powerful Urban Prefect of Rome. Yet, they connected anyway due to disturbances at the circus. It was on this basis, I suggested that while certain factors can influence the likelihood of a connection (in this case, they both shared Rome), they do not in themselves create it- there needs to be a reason for a relation. In this way, the quantitative data was useful for identifying that being part of a Roman Senate was an important factor for the anomaly, whereas looking at the sources allowed a more fuller explanation for any peculiarities. The Roman Senate was not rigid, it encountered people outside of its own ranks due to daily practical activities, and to expect a 'pure' undifferentiated set of nodes within the anomaly would have missed the point. It would have portrayed social relations as hierarchical, predictable and overly simplistic.
Following this necessary interaction of quantitative and qualitative techniques, I thought it was necessary to raise some of the methodological implications. For example, are statistics better at explaining some problems better than others? Should the historian use SNA and traditional document-reading alongside each other? Based on my findings, I suggested it would be wrong to take the view we need to choose one or the other. In fact, both methodologies can be mutually beneficial to each other. SNA can be helpful for complicating structures that may have been taken for granted in the historiography (in this instance, the role of ethnicity), while also allowing us to assess the importance of other factors in social relations. Whereas, qualitative techniques allow a more microscopic look at instances which defy our expectations. I took many of the ideas developed when analysing this anomaly into my final chapter, which looked at the variety of smaller clusters that made up the rest of the network. Hopefully, this post offers insight into my thought processes on the methodological issues I encountered while writing my dissertation.
Having exhausted what the data was telling me about the anomaly, I decided to see if I was missing something by using quantitative rather than qualitative techniques. In particular, I wanted to examine the contexts in which individual connections were taking place. By doing this, I noticed that individuals were primarily meeting as a response to 'events' or for practical reasons, such as an administrative order (e.g collecting taxes, etc). This allowed me to develop a model for understanding the anomaly which relied on both SNA and readings of my source. Factors, such as 'titles' or 'zones of activity' were indeed important in the creation of the anomaly. However, social relations are not necessarily predictable. For example, we cannot presume the pantomimist Helladius would have not had everyday access to the powerful Urban Prefect of Rome. Yet, they connected anyway due to disturbances at the circus. It was on this basis, I suggested that while certain factors can influence the likelihood of a connection (in this case, they both shared Rome), they do not in themselves create it- there needs to be a reason for a relation. In this way, the quantitative data was useful for identifying that being part of a Roman Senate was an important factor for the anomaly, whereas looking at the sources allowed a more fuller explanation for any peculiarities. The Roman Senate was not rigid, it encountered people outside of its own ranks due to daily practical activities, and to expect a 'pure' undifferentiated set of nodes within the anomaly would have missed the point. It would have portrayed social relations as hierarchical, predictable and overly simplistic.
Following this necessary interaction of quantitative and qualitative techniques, I thought it was necessary to raise some of the methodological implications. For example, are statistics better at explaining some problems better than others? Should the historian use SNA and traditional document-reading alongside each other? Based on my findings, I suggested it would be wrong to take the view we need to choose one or the other. In fact, both methodologies can be mutually beneficial to each other. SNA can be helpful for complicating structures that may have been taken for granted in the historiography (in this instance, the role of ethnicity), while also allowing us to assess the importance of other factors in social relations. Whereas, qualitative techniques allow a more microscopic look at instances which defy our expectations. I took many of the ideas developed when analysing this anomaly into my final chapter, which looked at the variety of smaller clusters that made up the rest of the network. Hopefully, this post offers insight into my thought processes on the methodological issues I encountered while writing my dissertation.
Secondary Sources:
Heather, Peter. "Senators and Senates." In The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 13: The Late Empire, AD 337–425, edited by Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey, 184-210. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Radtki, Christine. "The Senate at Rome in Ostrogothic Italy." In A Companion to Ostrogothic Italy, edited by Jonathan J. Arnold, Shane Bjornlie and Kristina Sessa, 121-46. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Scott, John. Social Network Analysis: A Handbook. 2017 ed. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, 1991.
