No abstract

Using data from Economics and History courses, taught across multiple semesters, we show that a triweekly meeting frequency improves student performance relative to a biweekly meeting frequency. We provide evidence that this effect operates through two channels. First, there is an indirect effect that operates through attendance. While greater attendance improves course score, this effect is less in a triweekly course. Second, there is a direct positive effect to more frequent course meetings on student performance. These two effects combine to increase student performance by 3 to 9 percentage points when meeting triweekly instead of biweekly. While students perform better overall on a triweekly meeting schedule, there are more absences and less consistent attendance.

The generals of Justinian required significant assistance and support to succeed in their assignments. Beyond political support from the emperor and manpower from their bucellarii , these generals relied upon carefully managed social networks. This essay makes use of the terminology of social network analysis to show the links between generals like Belisarius and Narses and their less famous subordinate officers such as Valerian, Martin, and John. Belisarius and Narses relied upon individuals such as these, with whom they served for many years in different theaters of war. The formation of social networks to rally support was so important for a general that he held war conferences to attempt to win over his own subordinate officers to his point of view. The support of a strong social network was especially critical when the official hierarchy of the army was ambiguous or contested, as was frequent in the 530s and 540s. This essay examines the context for the formation of these social networks, proposes preliminary rosters of Belisarius and Narses’s networks, and considers why social networks were so important to these generals.

No abstract

The Ostrogoths were unwilling to let Belisarius hold Rome uncontested, and so under the leadership of their king, Vittigis, they subjected the city to a long siege. For a year, 537–538, Belisarius and the Roman army endured a siege in Rome. Belisarius asked for and received reinforcements from Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565). Antonina, the wife of Belisarius, led a resupply convoy to Rome. The Romans broke the siege and then pursued the Ostrogoths from central into northern Italy. Belisarius and the Roman army captured Ravenna, former capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, in 540. To do so, Belisarius pretended that he would accept an imperial crown and rule over Italy himself. But this was only deceit, and by the end of the summer of 540 he was back in Constantinople, with the Ostrogothic King Vittigis his prisoner.