Golden Statues in Greek and Latin Literature

1975 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. G. Whitehorne
Keyword(s):  
Ancient World ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
The Dead

Golden statues, either made of gold or gilded—the distinction is not always made clear —were exceptionally popular among many of the peoples of the ancient world and it is not difficult to see why. Easily worked, perennially bright and practically indestructible, gold surely had something of the divine about it. In Egypt for instance gold's qualities made it the flesh of the sungod; just like the sun itself, the hotter the fire, the purer and brighter the metal glowed. In Greece, too, gold had divine associations and by virtue of its indestructibility acquired a symbolical value far beyond its actual worth; practically anything that is worth having and keeping is ‘golden’ as far as Pindar is concerned. Even for such a hard-headed race as the Romans gold seems to have had an aura of magic about it, at least in early times. The clause in the Twelve Tables mentioned by Cicero, prohibiting the burial of any gold with the dead, except for their false teeth, surely springs as much from an instinct for the metal's mysterious properties as from any parsimonious desire to control funerary expenditure.

A Pleasing Odour for Yahweh

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
Anne Katrine De Hemmer Gudme
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The West ◽  
Sense Of Smell ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Crucial Part

This article investigates the importance of smell in the sacrificial cults of the ancient Mediterranean, using the Yahweh temple on Mount Gerizim and the Hebrew Bible as a case-study. The material shows that smell was an important factor in delineating sacred space in the ancient world and that the sense of smell was a crucial part of the conceptualization of the meeting between the human and the divine.  In the Hebrew Bible, the temple cult is pervaded by smell. There is the sacred oil laced with spices and aromatics with which the sanctuary and the priests are anointed. There is the fragrant and luxurious incense, which is burnt every day in front of Yahweh and finally there are the sacrifices and offerings that are burnt on the altar as ‘gifts of fire’ and as ‘pleasing odors’ to Yahweh. The gifts that are given to Yahweh are explicitly described as pleasing to the deity’s sense of smell. On Mount Gerizim, which is close to present-day Nablus on the west bank, there once stood a temple dedicated to the god Yahweh, whom we also know from the Hebrew Bible. The temple was in use from the Persian to the Hellenistic period (ca. 450 – 110 BCE) and during this time thousands of animals (mostly goats, sheep, pigeons and cows) were slaughtered and burnt on the altar as gifts to Yahweh. The worshippers who came to the sanctuary – and we know some of them by name because they left inscriptions commemorating their visit to the temple – would have experienced an overwhelming combination of smells: the smell of spicy herbs baked by the sun that is carried by the wind, the smell of humans standing close together and the smell of animals, of dung and blood, and behind it all as a backdrop of scent the constant smell of the sacrificial smoke that rises to the sky.

scholarly journals Предательство человечности. Красный террор большевиков в Крыму во время гражданской войны 1918–1920 гг. в повести Ивана Шмелева „Солнце мертвых”

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 383-396
Author(s):  
Svetlana Kravchenko
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Extreme Situation ◽  
Human Survival ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Rich

[Betrayal of humanity. The red terror of the Bolsheviks in Crimea during the civil war in 1918–1920 in the light of Ivan Szmielev’s novel “The Sun of the Dead”] The article analyzes the novel by the Russian writer Ivan Szmielev “The Sun of the Dead” (1923). It was written on the basis of historical events. I analyze the composition of the work, which is based on two symbols – the sun and death. The sun symbolizes the rich and beautiful Crimea, and deathis a symbol of the new power – the power of the Bolsheviks who destroyed this wonderful land of Crimea. The author of the article emphasizes the autobiographical nature of the story “The Sun of the Dead”. Its narration is based on a firstperson story by Ivan Szmielev. This is a feature of lyrical prose. Describing the tragic events of total red terror, hunger and the struggle for survival, Ivan Szmielevs howsthat death affects everyone – people, animals, birds, trees, plants. The author of the article also emphasizes the philosophical and humanistic aspect of the work, which shows the history of humanity and human survival in an extreme situation, when very few are lucky enough to resist and not become victims of brutal murders of the Bolsheviks or starvation. In the process of the story, the image of the desert appears – a metaphor with which the writer emphasizes the scale of the destructive activity of the Bolsheviks.

Bargaining with Jesus: Irony in Mark 5:1-20

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-251
Author(s):  
Andrew Burrow
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
New Host ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Selection Of

This study analyzes Mark 5:1-20 from the perspective of verbal and situational irony. 
I argue that three elements of irony in Mark 5:1-20 align with distinctive features of exorcisms in the ancient world: (1) the demons act as an exorcist against Jesus, who in turn will exorcise them; (2) the demons ask Jesus to consider their well-being when they have shown no concern for their host; (3) the demons believe that their selection of the swine as a new host will allow them to remain in the country of the Gerasenes, but it results in the destruction of the pigs. Additionally, using other ancient accounts of exorcism as comparative examples (those found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, Lucian, Philostratus, the Papyri Graecae Magicae, and the Testament of Solomon), I show that Mark 5:1-20 differs in many ways and that those differences both elucidate and intensify its elements of irony.


Diodorus Siculus, iii. 12–14; v. 36–8.

1955 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 153-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. Davies
Keyword(s):  
Ancient World ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Diodorus Siculus ◽  
Acute Form ◽  
Uncritical Acceptance

For the historian of the ancient world there is nothing more necessary and nothing more difficult than the task of discriminating between fact and fiction, between accuracy and exaggeration, in his sources. The Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus presents this problem in an acute form, and while certain passages, such as Iambulus's discovery of the Islands of the Sun, are quite evidently dominated by an uncritical acceptance of romantic tales, other sections of this extensive miscellany are less easily categorised. It is the purpose of this note to examine two short passages only, viz. iii. 12. 1–14. 5 and v. 36. 1–38. 4, which contain Diodorus's description of the mines in Egypt and Spain, in order to determine how far they may be accepted as a reliable record.

A Peculiarly Christian Account of Sin

1993 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Willimon
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
The Sun ◽  
General State ◽  
Dead Tree ◽  
The Waste Land ◽  
Waste Land ◽  
Son Of Man ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The World ◽  
The Dead

“The Church's notion of sin, like that of Israel before it, is peculiar. It is derived, not from speculation about the universal or general state of humanity, but rather from a peculiar, quite specific account of what God is up to in the world. What God is up to is named as covenant, Torah, or, for Christians, Jesus. If we attempt to begin in Genesis, with Adam and Eve and their alleged ‘fall,’ we will be mistaken, as Niebuhr was, in thinking of sin as some innate, indelible glitch in human nature.”April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, …Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, …What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter. …T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, I, 1922

MEDEA: TRANSFORMATIONS OF A GREEK FIGURE IN LATIN LITERATURE

2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gesine Manuwald
Keyword(s):  
Ancient World ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Literary Genres

Latin writers in the ancient world are well known to have been familiar with earlier Greek writings, as well as with the first commentaries on those, and to have taken over literary genres as well as topics and motifs from Greece for their own works. But, as has been recognized in modern scholarship, this engagement with Greek material does not mean that Roman writers typically produced Latin copies of pieces by their Greek predecessors. In the terms of contemporary literary terminology, the connection between Latin and Greek literature is rather to be described as an intertextual relationship, which became increasingly complex, since later Latin authors were also influenced by their Roman predecessors.

scholarly journals Imaginary Vessels in the Late Bronze Age of Gotland and South Scandinavia: Ship Settings, Rock Carvings and Decorated Metalwork

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-103
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley ◽  
Peter Skoglund ◽  
Joakim Wehlin
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Bronze Age

The paper compares the Bronze Age ship settings of Gotland with the vessels portrayed in rock carvings on the Scandinavian mainland. It also makes comparisons with the drawings of vessels on decorated metalwork of the same period. It considers their interpretation in relation to two approaches taken to the depictions of ships in other media. One concerns the use of boats to transport the sun, while the other emphasises the close relationship between seagoing vessels and the dead. A third possibility concerns the distinctive organisation of prehistoric communities on Gotland. It seems possible that the largest of the ship settings were equivalent to the Bronze Age cult houses found on the mainland and that they may even have represented the island itself.

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