Rome in the Middle East

Antiquity ◽  
1934 ◽  
Vol 8 (32) ◽  
pp. 373-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Aerial Photography ◽  
The West ◽  
Terra Incognita ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
History Of

‘That which hath wings shall tell the matter’, says the Preacher. Readers of Antiquity do not need to be reminded of the fresh connotation which aerial photography has given to the text, but never before has its truth been so convincingly driven home as it is by the latest achievement of archaeological aviation. It may be said at once that this account of the Eastern frontier is one of the most important and illuminating contributions ever made to the unwritten history of the Roman Empire. Incidentally, as M. Cumont points out in his lucid and appreciative introduction, its usefulness as a guide for future explorers can hardly be over-estimated. Hundreds of miles of a terra incognita have been thoroughly reconnoitred, so that exponents of the older and less spectacular methods now know exactly where it will profit them to ply the spade and pick. And it is certain that their reward will be rich. Though the sandstorms of the desert may bury, they are in other respects far less destructive than cultivation. In course of time the wonders of Dura-Europos will be repeated or, it may be, eclipsed at other sites. Scholars will then be able to reconstruct with confidence the whole organization of the army of the East, a subject that has hitherto been well-nigh hopelessly obscure. A flood of new light will be thrown on the relations of Rome, first to the Parthians, and then to the Sassanians. At long last we shall learn something of the losing battle which Roman civilization had to fight when it was transplanted to a Semitic countryside, studded here and there with Hellenic towns, —something, that is, of the gradual process by which the legions of the West were slowly but surely transformed into a host of Orientals.

Zooming In Rome, the Middle Euphrates, and Dura

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon James
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Its Region ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Persian Empire ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
The Military

Dura-Europos was a product and ultimately a victim of the interaction of Mediterranean- and Iranian-centred imperial powers in the Middle East which began with Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Achaemenid Persian empire in the later fourth century BC. Its nucleus was established as part of the military infrastructure and communications network of the Seleucid successor-state. It was expanding into a Greekstyle polis during the second century BC, as Seleucid control was being eroded from the east by expanding Arsacid Parthian power, and threatened from the west by the emergent imperial Roman republic. From the early first century BC, the Roman and Parthian empires formally established the Upper Euphrates as the boundary between their spheres of influence, and the last remnants of the Seleucid regime in Syria were soon eliminated. Crassus’ attempt to conquer Parthia ended in disaster at Carrhae in 53 BC, halting Roman ambitions to imitate Alexander for generations. The nominal boundary on the Upper Euphrates remained, although the political situation in the Middle East remained fluid. Rome long controlled the Levant largely indirectly, through client rulers of small states, only slowly establishing directly ruled provinces with Roman governors, a process mostly following establishment of the imperial regime around the turn of the millennia. However, some client states like Nabataea still existed in AD 100 (for overviews see Millar 1993; Ball 2000; Butcher 2003; Sartre 2005). The Middle Euphrates, in what is now eastern Syria, lay outside Roman control, although it is unclear to what extent Dura and its region—part of Mesopotamia, and Parapotamia on the west bank of the river—were effectively under Arsacid control before the later first century AD. For some decades, Armenia may have been the dominant regional power (Edwell 2013, 192–5; Kaizer 2017, 70). As the Roman empire increasingly crystallized into clearly defined, directly ruled provinces, the contrast with the very different Arsacid system became starker. The ‘Parthian empire’, the core of which comprised Iran and Mesopotamia with a western royal capital at Ctesiphon on the Tigris, was a much looser entity (Hauser 2012).

Between Others and Brothers

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 585-588
Author(s):  
Michelle U. Campos
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Education System ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The West ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Identity Based

Some fifteen years ago, the Israel Museum exhibition “To the East: Orientalism in the Arts in Israel” featured a photograph by the Israeli artist Meir Gal entitled “Nine Out of Four Hundred: The West and the Rest.” At the center of the photograph was Gal, holding the nine pages that dealt with the history of Jews in the Middle East in a textbook of Jewish history used in Israel's education system. As Gal viscerally argued, “these books helped establish a consciousness that the history of the Jewish people took place in Eastern Europe and that Mizrahim have no history worthy of remembering.” More damningly, he wrote that “the advent of Zionism and the establishment of the Israeli State drove a wedge between Mizrahim and their origins, and replaced their Jewish-Arab identity with a new Israeli identity based on European ideals as well as hatred of the Arab world.”

Poetic Knowledge

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 199-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajeev S. Patke
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
The West ◽  
Rational Argument ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Cultural Conditioning ◽  
History Of ◽  
Poetic Function

Whether poetry gives knowledge or not is a question that has been debated from a variety of perspectives, depending on how a society or a culture defines knowledge, and on the function it ascribes to poetry in relation to that definition. The civilizations of Asia and the Middle East have generally taken the line that poetry deals primarily with affects, emotions and feelings. The West has had a more complicated history of responses. One way of making sense of this history is to map rival claims as split over the idea of scientific knowledge, where it affects notions of the poetic function. The mapping, through all its manifold branches, gives clear indications that claims to knowledge – both those made on behalf of poetry, and those denied to poetry – depend more on assumptions, predispositions and cultural conditioning than on rational argument or critical debate. The resulting variety also suggests that the cultural relativism that affects such debates is unlikely to arrive at resolutions except of the contingent kind.

Die Geschichte der mann-männlichen Begierde in Iran von der Vormoderne bis heute

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arash Guitoo
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Historical Survey ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
The West ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
Western Discourse ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Discourses

Is homophobia in Iranian society a product imported from the West? In today's scholarly contributions to the history of sexuality in the Middle East, this question is often answered with a 'yes', pointing to the replacement of local discourses by the Western discourse on sexuality during the imperialist-colonialist phase. The present study is a critical examination of this assumption. Through a historical survey on same-sex desire in Iran, it is argued that the encounter with the West has not resulted in a major epistemological shift in the understanding of sexuality in Iran and that the local knowledge order has remained the dominant discourse regulating same-sex desire and is hence responsible for the anti-homosexual resentments in Iran.

scholarly journals The Venetians and the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople to the close of the Twelfth Century

1920 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horatio F. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Free State ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Eastern Empire

The foundation and development of the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople, and the history of the early trading relations between Venice and the Roman Empire are intimately connected with and illustrate the movement by which the Republic gradually passed from actual, through merely nominal, vassalage to actual and formal independence. That movement constitutes an essential part of early Venetian history, the growth of the Republic as a free State between the Empire of the East and the Empire of the West, both weak at sea and in need of a fleet which Venice alone was able to supply, and shows us the Republic skilfully steering her course between Saracens, Normans, Greeks and Germans towards her goal, naval supremacy in the Adriatic and the Levant.It is not the object of this paper to dwell on the larger movement, but rather to examine the relations between Venice and the Eastern Empire with special reference to the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople. Those relations were governed by the Chrysobulls, or Golden Bulls, whereby the Emperors made gradually extending concessions to the seamen and merchants of their vassal State.

Olympiodorus of Thebes and the History of the West (A.D. 407–425)

1970 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Central Place ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Historiography

The varied talents of Olympiodorus of Thebes, which made him a significant personality of his own age, deserve also to have made him, more than he seems to have become, a figure of interest to students of his age. By origin and education, he represents the surviving vigour of the late ‘Hellenistic’ culture of the Roman empire; in his political services to the court of Constantinople, he can be recognized as the first of a distinctive profession—of Byzantine diplomats; as a man who travelled to Syene and the distant Blemmyes he subscribes to a tradition of educated tourism reaching back to Herodotus; while in the inseparable company, which he kept for more than twenty years, of a pet parrot that could ‘dance, sing, call its owner's name, and do many other tricks’, Olympiodorus even cuts, to modern eyes, an eccentrically buccaneering figure. And above all, as a historian he claims a central place in a continuous tradition of Greek writing on Roman affairs—a tradition notoriously lacking in western historiography.

The Arab Spring: A View from Israel

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haim Bresheeth
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The West ◽  
Protest Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Arab Spring

The Arab Spring is one of the most complex and surprising political developments of the new century, especially after a decade of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab western propaganda. While is too early to properly evaluate the process and its various national apparitions, it is important to see it in a historical context. This article places the Arab Spring firmly within the history of pan Arabism, and the threat it posed to the west and Israel in its earlier, Nasserist phase. The work of Amin, Marfleet and others, is used to frame the current developments, and present the limited view offered from an Israeli perspective, where any democratisation of the Arab world is seen as a threat. This is so despite the obvious influence the Arab Spring had on protest in Israel in Summer 1011, a protest which has now seemingly spent itself; it is fascinating to note that the only protest movement in the Middle East not involving violent clashes with the regime it criticised, is also the one which has not achieved any of its aims.

Acclamations in the Later Roman Empire: New Evidence from Aphrodisias

1984 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 181-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Roueché
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Late Roman

This article has been engendered by yet another important discovery made during the current excavations at Aphrodisias in Caria, of a unique series of acclamatory texts in honour of a local benefactor, Albinus. The texts were inscribed, probably in the first half of the sixth century, on the twenty columns of the west portico of the Agora, nineteen of which survive. They provide relatively little information either about Albinus or about the history of Aphrodisias; but they are of outstanding interest as the fullest series of inscribed acclamations which has yet been identified anywhere. The purpose of this article is to consider the status and function of acclamations in late Roman society, and their relationship to earlier practice, in order to assess the full significance of the texts presented here.

scholarly journals Inskripsi Keagamaan pada Masjid Azizi Tanjungpura, Langkat, Sumatera Utara

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-100
Author(s):  
Kasim Abdurrahman
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The West ◽  
Research Article ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Historical Objects ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich

Indonesia is a nation of a diverse civilization. The legacy of Indonesian civilization is significantly influenced by the way of life and religious teachings spread over large and wider regions ranging from Sumatra in the west and Papua in the east. History of Islam in Indonesia culturally has already inherited a number of various historical relics. One of them is the house of worship. This research article discusses one of the historic houses of worship,viz. the Azizi Mosque in Tanjung Pura, Langkat, North Sumatera. With the use of an archaelogical method, by means of techniques of observation, the research focuses on describing, analysing and understanding meaning of architectural, historical objects and religious inscriptions of the mosque as an archaelogical inheritance. The research highlights some important findings. First, the Azizi mosque shows significantly a cultural acculturative mixture of various origin from the Middle East, India, China and Malay. But, in a case of decoration of this mosque, it was affected by the Middle Eastern nuances, especially Arab with Arabic calligraphic inscriptions containing religious messages. Second, philo¬sophically the mosque Azizi represents and symbolizes the Malay’s way of life, characterized by any system of norms and values applied in the Malay community at large, namely the norms of high respects to the power of leaders (umara), clerics (ulama), intellectuals (zumara), the rich (agniya), and the power of the prayers of the poor (fuqara).Keywords: Azizi Mosque, architecture, inscription, Langkat, calligraphyIndonesia adalah satu bangsa yang mempunyai peradaban yang beraneka ragam. Peninggalannya dipengaruhi oleh tradisi kebudayaan maupun keagamaan masyarakat yang tersebar di berbagai wilayah. Sejarah Islam di Indonesia juga termasuk yang memiliki berbagai peninggalan bersejarah. Salah satunya adalah rumah ibadah. Tulisan ini membahas salah satu rumah ibadah bersejarah, yaitu Masjid Azizi di Tanjungpura, Langkat, Sumateran Utara. Tulisan ini menggunakan metode arkeologi, mulai observasi, deskripsi, dan pemaknaannya. Aspek-aspek yang dibahas meliputi arsitektur, benda-benda bersejarah dan inskripsi keagamaan di dalamnya. Arsitektur Mesjid Azizi memperlihatkan perpaduan Timur Tengah, India, Cina, dan Melayu. Secara filosofis mengandung falsafah Melayu, yaitu kekuatan pemimpin (umara), ulama, cerdik pandai (zumara), orang kaya (agniya), dan kekuatan doa orang miskin (fuqara). Hiasan masjid ini bernuansa Timur Tengah, khususnya Arab dengan inskripsi kaligrafi Arab yang mengandung pesan-pesan agamis.Kata kunci: Masjid Azizi, arsitektur, inskripsi, Langkat, kaligrafi

Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Material Conditions of Anglo-Saxon Life

1979 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Joel T. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Do So

The author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People was the greatest historian writing in the West between the later Roman Empire and the twelfth century, when we come to William of Malmesbury, Otto of Freising, and William of Tyre. Bede's qualities as a historian are well known and widely appreciated, and they need no further exposition here. Instead, we propose to be perverse and to attempt to read Bede's text as though he had been a sociologist or an economic anthropologist: What can we learn from him about the “material conditions” of life in post-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon England, especially about life in the sixth and seventh centuries. This is surely a strange purpose for which to use the Ecclesiastical History. We do so both to show that Bede is so rich and so multifaceted that he is immensely valuable for many purposes besides those of greatest obvious interest to him, and because the sources for social and economic life in those years are so poor that everything available is legitimate grist for the mills of our analysis.Actually there are two reasons why Bede might have furnished us with the kind of information we are seeking. One is that among classical and early medieval historians there was a considerable tradition of describing the barbarian world, of paying particular attention to the institutions, mores, and customs of the Germanic people or whoever might be the subject of the tale.

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