LIKE GOLDEN APHRODITE: GRIEVING WOMEN IN THE HOMERIC EPICS AND APHRODITE'S LAMENT FOR ADONIS

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Zachary Margulies
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Initial Moment ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
Specialized Form ◽  
The Moment

One of the more powerful recurring motifs in the Iliad is that of the grief-stricken woman lamenting the death of a hero. As with much else in the Homeric epics, these scenes have a formulaic character; when Briseis laments Patroclus, and Hecuba, Andromache and Helen lament Hector, each is depicted delivering a specialized form of speech, specific to the context of a woman's lament. The narrative depiction of grieving women, as well, is formalized, with specific gestures and recurring images that typify these scenes. One element of this depiction that has largely escaped serious consideration is the comparison of a woman in her initial moment of recognition of the corpse to Aphrodite. In this article, I will argue that the allusion is not merely to her beauty but to the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis, specifically the moment of the goddess’ discovery of the death of her mortal lover. As the earliest surviving explicit reference to Adonis in Greek literature appears c.600 b.c.e., this would require a raising of the terminus ante quem for the transmission of the Adonis myth from the Near East to the mid eighth century.

Reconstructing the Temple

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew R. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Recent History ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Temple

This book examines temple renovation as a distinct topos within royal literature of the ancient Near East. Unlike newly founded temples, which were celebrated for their novelty, temple renovations were oriented toward the past. Kings took the opportunity to rehearse the history of the temple, selectively evoking certain past traditions and omitting others. In this way, temple renovations are a kind of historiography. The particularities of each case notwithstanding, this book demonstrates a pattern in the rhetoric of temple renovation texts; namely, kings used temple renovation to correct, or at least distance themselves from, some turmoil of recent history and to associate their reigns with an earlier and more illustrious past. The main evidence for this royal rhetoric comes from royal literature of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. This evidence in turn becomes the basis for reading the story of Jeroboam I’s placement of calves at Dan and Bethel (1 Kgs 12:25–33) as an eighth-century BCE account of temple renovation with a similar rhetoric. Concluding with further examples in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, this book shows that the rhetoric of temple renovation was not just a distinct topos, but also a long-standing one in the ancient Near East.

The Doctrinal Development of “Maraḍ Al-Mawt” in the Formative Period of Islamic Law

1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-358
Author(s):  
Hiroyuki Yanagihashi
Keyword(s):  
Classical Theory ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Fear Of Death ◽  
The Third ◽  
Sick Person ◽  
Doctrinal Development ◽  
The Moment

AbstractMuslim jurists were at first reluctant to place restrictions on gratuitous dispositions by a dying person. During the first quarter of the second century/second quarter of the eighth century, however, they created a concept of “a sickness causing a fear of death” (al-maraḍ al-mukhawwif) to safeguard the interests of heirs and creditors. They did so by introducing the principle that a gratuitous disposition made by a sick person for the purpose of modifying the inheritance rules should be subject to the bequest restrictions. At the same time, Muslim jurists permitted the wife divorced by her dying husband to inherit from him by according her, retrospectively, inheritance rights at the moment when her husband contracted a sickness which led irrevocably to his death. By the end of the third quarter of the second century/end of the eighth century, the jurists had combined these two definitions of sickness to form the classical theory of death-sickness (Maraḍ Al-Mawt).

The Michael Ventris Memorial Fund

1957 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-18
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
The State ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Memorial Fund ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Linear B

MichaelVentris died at the age of 34 last September in a motor accident. His discovery that the Linear B texts of Knossos, Pylos, Mycenae, and other sites were Greek ranks as one of the most brilliant achievements of scholarship, and has been internationally acclaimed a feat of the same order as that of Champollion in deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The brilliance of this discovery is matched by its importance; it will take years to work out the consequences of the new knowledge, which proves that Mycenaean civilization was Greek-speaking, gives us texts contemporary and comparable with texts from the adjoining civilizations of Egypt and the Near East, and shows us the state of the Greek language half a millennium before our earliest Greek literature.

Idea, Idea of the Idea and Certainty in the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione and the Ethics

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Alexandre Matheron
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Initial Moment ◽  
Apparent Contradiction ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Psychological Point ◽  
Epistemological Position ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Logical Sense

Despite an apparent contradiction between Spinoza’s claims in the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione and the Ethics concerning the nature of knowledge and certainty, Matheron here argues for the consistency of Spinoza’s epistemological position. To have a true idea is at the same time to be certain of the truth of the idea even if, from a psychological point of view, certainty appears to be a secondary acquisition that arises after the initial moment of knowing. Those who doubt the certainty necessarily associated with true ideas do not ultimately acquire any new knowledge upon eliminating their doubts for, as Matheron shows, Spinoza’s use of the term prius or first, in both texts, has a chronological and logical sense. Knowledge of knowledge is therefore present at the moment of knowing whether one knows it or not. Moreover, science can proceed without being grounded in epistemology, even if the latter can eventually come to serve and clarify the former.

The katochoi of Zeus at Baitokaike (Hoson Sulaiman, Syria)

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-233
Author(s):  
Tarek Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Religious Context ◽  
Religious Meaning

AbstractWhile a well-known term from Greek literature, katochoi possessed a particular religious meaning within the Near East during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Since the first publication of documents relating to this term, it has been a topic of scholarly debate as to the nature of the katochoi themselves. This paper will elaborate upon the role of the katochoi at Baitokaike (modern Hoson Sulaiman in Syria) in order to define better their institution and analyze their involvement in the site’s long-term history within the economic, social, and religious context of the settlement and its sanctuary.

scholarly journals The Image of Homeland in the Works by Alphonse Mucha “Madonna of the Lilies”, the Poster for “The Lottery of the Union of Southwest Moravia” and the Poster for “The Slav Epic Exhibition”

2020 ◽  
pp. 1007-1019
Author(s):  
Yuliya S. Zamaraeva ◽  
Kseniya V. Reznikova ◽  
Natalya N. Seredkina
Keyword(s):  
Initial Moment ◽  
Russian Scientist ◽  
Native Land ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Meaningful Analysis ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
The Moment

Understanding the specifics of creativity, the features of the artistic method of not a single artist can be achieved without a meaningful analysis of their works. The purpose of this study is to analyse three works by the Czech artist A. Mucha “Madonna of the Lilies”, the Poster for “The Lottery of the Union of Southwest Moravia” and the Poster for “The Slav Epic Exhibition”, to reveal the programmatic content of each of these works, as well as their general artistic idea. The works by A. Mucha were analysed using the method proposed and justified in the field of theory and history of culture by the Russian scientist V.I. Zhukovsky. This technique determined the logic of analysis of the selected works. Such methods as observation, formalisation, analysis, synthesis, analogy, extrapolation and interpretation were applied. The result of a methodical analysis of the three selected works by A. Mucha testifies to the programmatic creativity of the artist, to a single semantic regularity in his works. The key theme uniting all three works being analysed is the theme of divine patronage of the homeland (native land, people). However, the authors draw attention to a number of aspects of visualisation of this topic in each of the works. If the work “Madonna of the Lilies” expresses the idea of patronage in its very initial moment, the moment of faith in patronage coming from above, then in the poster of the lottery divine patronage becomes doubtful. Nevertheless, the analysis of the poster for “the Lottery of the Union of Southwest Moravia” revealed a number of artistic signs indicating the possibility of a revival of faith in patronage. Based on the interpretation of these signs, such conditions for the revival of faith as the lack of fear “to look and see, to fight” were formulated. Confirmation of the idea of revival is expressed in the third analysed work of the artist, i.e. the poster for “The Slav Epic Exhibition”. Methodical analysis allowed us to characterise this work as a statement of fulfilled expectations, prosperity and dawn at the same time. The terms “death, withering, fossil”, which are defined as temporary phenomena, act as a programmatic condition expressed through the artistic signs of the work

From Acolyte toṢaḥābī?: Christian Monks as Symbols of Early Confessional Fluidity in the Conversion Story of Salmān al-Fārisī

2019 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Bradley Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
A Chain ◽  
Early Islamic

AbstractThis paper will examine the narrative of Salmān al-Fārisī/”the Persian” and his conversion to Islam, as recounted in the eighth-centurySīraof Ibn Isḥāq, as a lens into the laudatory interpretation of Christian monasticism by early Muslims. This account of Salmān al-Fārisī (d. 656 CE), an originalCompanion(ṣaḥābī) of the Prophet Muḥammad, vividly describes his rejection of his Zoroastrian heritage, his initial embrace of Christianity, and his departure from his homeland of Isfahan in search of a deeper understanding of the Christian faith. This quest leads the young Persian on a great arc across the Near East into Iraq, Asia Minor, and Syria, during which he studies under various Christian monks and serves as their acolyte. Upon each master’s death, Salmān is directed toward another mystical authority, on a passage that parallels the “monastic sojourns” of late antique Christian literature. At the conclusion of the narrative a monk sends Salmān to seek out a “new Prophet who has arisen among the Arabs.” The monks, therefore, appear to be interpreted as “proto-Muslims,” as links in a chain leading to enlightenment, regardless of their confessional distinction. This narrative could then suggest that pietistic concerns, shared between these communities, superseded specific doctrinal boundaries in the highly fluid and malleable religious culture of the late antique and early Islamic Near East.

The Kingdom of the Deirans, 450–650

2018 ◽  
pp. 15-56
Author(s):  
Thomas Pickles
Keyword(s):  
Social Stratification ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Social Strategies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Moment

Chapter 1 considers the formation and organization of the kingdom of the Deirans during the period 450–650 as a context for conversion. It reconstructs the formation of the kingdom, and the social institutions and religious beliefs of its population, from a combination of fifth- to seventh-century mortuary archaeology and early eighth-century histories. It observes that the kingdom developed from processes of migration, social stratification, political centralization, ethnogenesis, and expansion, which were still under way at the moment of conversion. It emphasizes that social organization was based on local free kin groups whose social position was uncertain, whose social status was projected through pre-Christian religious beliefs, and through whom kings operated with limited authority and power. It suggests that the social strategies of these kin groups and this political context shaped the decision to convert and the social process of conversion.

I The Inscriptional Beginnings of Literary Epigram

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 22-47
Author(s):  
Niall Livingstone ◽  
Gideon Nisbet
Keyword(s):  
Eighth Century ◽  
Virtual Object ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Physical Medium ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Poor Relation

As was seen in the Introduction, the generic identity of epigram is governed by two senses of the Greek preposition epi: an epigram may be physically inscribed ‘on’ an object, or ‘on the subject of’ an object (or something else: a person, an event). This chapter is concerned with epigrams physically inscribed on a stone or other object. In spite of the fact that inscribed epigram comes first chronologically (beginning as early as the eighth century BCE), includes some of the most famous lines in Greek literature (such as those above), and numbers famous names such as Simonides among its exponents, it can sometimes be treated as the poor relation of literary epigram, which had its heyday in the Hellenistic period (see Chapter 2). There is a perception that epigram comes into its own once it has ‘escaped’, as it were, from its stone or other physical medium, and is thus at liberty to use its words to create a virtual object in the reader's mind (or not, as the poet chooses).

Dirty Love

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Whitmarsh
Keyword(s):  
Single Point ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Straight Line ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Alexander Romance ◽  
Greek Novel

Where does the Greek novel come from? This book argues that whereas much of Greek literature was committed to a form of cultural purism, presenting itself as part of a continuous tradition reaching back to definitively Greek founding fathers, the novel revelled in cultural hybridity. The earliest Greek novelistic literature combined Greek and non-Greek traditions (or at least affected to combine them: it is often hard to tell how ‘authentic’ the non-Greek material is). More than this, however, it also often self-consciously explored its own hybridity by focusing on stories of cultural hybridisation, or what we would now call ‘mixed race’ relations. This book is thus not a conventional account of the origins of the Greek novel: it is not an attempt to pinpoint the moment of invention, and to trace its subsequent development in a straight line. Rather, it makes a virtue of the murkiness, or ‘dirtiness’, of the origins of the novel: there is no single point of creation, no pure tradition, only transgression, transformation and mess. The novel thus emerges as an outlier within the Greek literary corpus: a form of literature written in Greek, but not always committing to Greek cultural identity. Dirty Love focuses particularly on the relationship between Persian, Egyptian, Jewish and Greek literature, and covers such texts as Ctesias’s Persica, Joseph and Aseneth, the Alexander Romance and the tale of Ninus and Semiramis.

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