Greek History

2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-198
Author(s):  
Kostas Vlassopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Greek History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman

Three cities dominated the late antique eastern Mediterranean: Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. Constantinople was the late Roman re-foundation of an archaic Greek apoikia, Byzantion; Alexandria and Antioch were cities created by Alexander and his Hellenistic successors. This review includes two important books that examine the long-term history of two of these cities: Byzantion and Antioch. Both books stress the need to situate these cities within the landscapes and territories from which they drew their economic, political, and spiritual sustenance; both also adopt a long-term perspective, covering roughly a millennium each, which makes it possible to trace wider continuities, trends, and changes.

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maijastina Kahlos
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity reconsiders the religious history of the late Roman Empire, focusing on the shifting position of dissenting religious groups. The groups under consideration are non-Christians (‘pagans’) and deviant Christians (‘heretics’). The period from the mid-fourth century until the mid-fifth century CE witnessed a significant transformation of late Roman society and a gradual shift from the world of polytheistic religions into the Christian Empire. This book demonstrates that the narrative is much more nuanced than the simple Christian triumph over the classical world. It looks at everyday life, economic aspects, day-to-day practices, and conflicts of interest in the relations of religious groups. The book addresses two aspects: rhetoric and realities, and consequently delves into the interplay between the manifest ideologies and daily life found in late antique sources. We perceive constant flux between moderation and coercion that marked the relations of religious groups, both majorities and minorities, as well as the imperial government and religious communities. Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity is a detailed analysis of selected themes and a close reading of selected texts, tracing key elements and developments in the treatment of dissident religious groups. The book focuses on specific themes, such as the limits of imperial legislation and ecclesiastical control, the end of sacrifices, and the label of magic. It also examines the ways in which dissident religious groups were construed as religious outsiders in late Roman society.

Interaction and boundary work: Western merchant colonies in the Levant and the Eastern Churches, 1650–1800

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-176
Author(s):  
Cornel Zwierlein
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Boundary Work ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
Close Distance

European merchants in their factories (‘nations’) in the Eastern Mediterranean under Ottoman rule were not really colonizers; in early modern times, they were somehow privileged guests. However, they deserve an important part in a long-term history of types of ‘close distance’ and forms of segregational coexistence. Different from recent studies that stress a strong overall interaction, understanding, sharing, and exchange between Europeans and Ottoman subjects, it is proposed to distinguish three levels: (1) The daily commercial interaction of Western Europeans with their Ottoman counterparts; (2) the stronger involvement in some politico-religious struggles (the 1724 schism in the patriarchate of Antioch serves as example): also here, one has still to distinguish between real interest in the religious cause and other activities as credit lending; (3) the care for and maintenance by the Europeans of their own Western national culture abroad: these cultural activities served more to (eventually unconsciously) perform ‘boundary work’ and to close up the ‘nation’. These early modern forms of close distance and segregation were only isomorphic but not homologous with later highly conscious colonial and modern imperial forms of contact between ‘West’ and ‘East’ as in the nineteenth-century European settlements in Istanbul.

Primary evidence for Late Roman D Ware production in southern Asia Minor: a challenge to ‘Cypriot Red Slip Ware’

2012 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 89-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Jackson ◽  
Michael Zelle ◽  
Lutgarde Vandeput ◽  
Veli Köse
Keyword(s):  
Field Survey ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Southern Asia ◽  
Production Area ◽  
Exchange Network ◽  
Late Roman

AbstractLate Roman D Ware (or ‘Cypriot Red Slip Ware’) is one of the most widespread fine wares of the late antique Mediterranean. Its hypothetical origin in Cyprus is challenged by the discovery since 2008 of kilns in Turkey whose products include the whole of this ware's standard repertoire. This paper provides the first detailed account of the discovery of a network of seven production centres located near Gebiz, 32km northeast of Antalya and close to the Kestros river (Aksu çayı) and its tributary the Küçükaksu river, from where these products together with agricultural goods would have been traded inland and downstream to Perge and beyond. Results of the field survey during which these kilns were discovered are presented, together with a discussion of their far-reaching implications. The results establish southern Anatolia, and specifically the margins of the Pamphylian plain, as the only certainly identified production area of this ware. By challenging the origin traditionally accepted for ‘Cypriot Red Slip Ware’, which is distributed throughout the eastern Mediterranean, the discovery of these kilns raises questions also about other less archaeologically distinct Anatolian goods which also are likely to have been involved in this exchange network at both local and international scales.

The Absence of Evidence as the Evidence of Absence

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-42
Author(s):  
Ross Shepard Kraemer
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Archaeological Remains ◽  
History Of ◽  
Absence Of Evidence ◽  
Evidence Of Absence ◽  
Late Roman

Evidence for Jews in the late antique Mediterranean diaspora declines precipitously from the fourth to the seventh centuries CE. No identifiable writings in Greek or Latin survive from late antique Jews, forcing reliance on late Roman laws, accounts in non-Jewish authors, and limited archaeological remains. This increasing absence of evidence ultimately seems to be actual evidence of increasing absence. The category “diaspora”—in opposition to the homeland of Israel—has practical and theoretical limitations and is implicated in debates about contemporary Jewish identifications. Still, a study devoted almost exclusively to Jews of the late ancient Mediterranean is warranted by virtue of prior neglect, a history of privileging rabbinic sources, and a related tendency to assimilate the history of all Jews in late antiquity into that of the rabbis. The study tries to avoid the derogatory terms “pagan” and “heretics,” preferring the admittedly more cumbersome “dissident Christians” and “practitioners of (other) traditional Mediterranean religions.”

E. PREVELAKIS AND K. KALLIATAKI MERTICOPOULOU, ED., Epirus, Ali Pasha and the Greek Revolution: Consular Reports of William Meyer from Preveza, 2 vols. Monuments of Greek History No. 12 (Athens: Academy of Athens, 1996). Pp. 636 for vol. 1, 389 for vol. 2.

2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-300
Author(s):  
Molly Greene
Keyword(s):  
Research Centre ◽  
The Public ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Greek History ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Record ◽  
One Year

This lengthy two-volume work is part of a long-term Greek project to make foreign archives concerning modern Greek history more accessible to researchers in Greece. Professor Eleutherios Prevelakis, who passed away one year before the publication of these volumes, became the director of the Research Centre for the Study of Modern Greek History of the Academy of Athens in 1963. This position allowed him to conceive and carry through his program of collecting in microfilm form British archival material of relevance to modern Greece. The two volumes under review grew out of the work that he and Professor Merticopoulou conducted over many years in the archives of the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office, which are stored in the Public Record Office.

scholarly journals Leaky salt: pipe trails record the history of cross-evaporite fluid escape in the northern Levant Basin, Eastern Mediterranean

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Oppo ◽  
Sian Evans ◽  
Christopher A-L Jackson ◽  
David Iacopini ◽  
SM Mainul Kabir ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fluid Flow ◽  
Tectonic Evolution ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Early Pleistocene ◽  
Salt Tectonics ◽  
Messinian Salinity Crisis ◽  
Seal Failure ◽  
History Of ◽  
Levant Basin

<p>Hydrocarbon escape systems can be regionally active on multi-million-year timescales. However, reconstructing the timing and evolution of repeated escape events can be challenging because their expression may overlap in time and space. In the northern Levant Basin, eastern Mediterranean, distinct fluid escape episodes from common leakage points formed discrete, cross-evaporite fluid escape pipes, which are preserved in the stratigraphic record due to the coeval Messinian salt tectonics.</p><p>The pipes consistently originate at the crest of prominent sub-salt anticlines, where thinning and hydrofracturing of overlying salt permitted focused fluid flow. Sequential pipes are arranged in several kilometers-long trails that were progressively deformed due to basinward gravity-gliding of salt and its overburden. The correlation of the oldest pipes within 12 trails suggests that margin-wide fluid escape started in the Late Pliocene/Early Pleistocene, coincident with a major phase of uplift of the Levant margin. We interpret that the consequent transfer of overpressure from the deeper basin areas triggered seal failure and cross-evaporite fluid flow. We infer that other triggers, mainly associated with the Messinian Salinity Crisis and compressive tectonics, played a secondary role in the northern Levant Basin. Further phases of fluid escape are unique to each anticline and, despite a common initial cause, long-term fluid escape proceeded independently according to structure-specific characteristics, such as the local dynamics of fluid migration and anticline geometry.</p><p>Whereas cross-evaporite fluid escape in the southern Levant Basin is mainly attributed to the Messinian Salinity Crisis and compaction disequilibrium, we argue that these mechanisms do not apply to the northern Levant Basin; here, fluid escape was mainly driven by the tectonic evolution of the margin. Within this context, our study shows that the causes of cross-evaporite fluid escape can vary over time, act in synergy, and have different impacts in different areas of large salt basins.</p>

scholarly journals Aquifer Response to Estuarine Stream Dynamics

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yehuda Shalem ◽  
Yoseph Yechieli ◽  
Barak Herut ◽  
Yishai Weinstein
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Mediterranean Coast ◽  
Low Permeability ◽  
High Permeability ◽  
Dynamic Changes ◽  
Groundwater Levels ◽  
Groundwater Dynamics ◽  
Large Fluctuations ◽  
History Of

While seawater intrusions are widely discussed, the salinization of coastal aquifers via narrow rivers is hardly documented. This study investigates groundwater dynamics in an aquifer next to an estuarine stream on the eastern Mediterranean coast. Groundwater levels and salinization patterns were examined as a response to dynamic changes in estuary water, both in low-and high-permeability aquifer units. In the high-permeability unit, the extent of salinization was relatively constant, reaching a distance of at least 80 m from the river, with no long-term changes in fresh-saline interface depth, indicating that the system is in a quasi-steady state. Groundwater salinity in the low-permeability unit showed frequent and large fluctuations (up to 36 and 22 at 5 and 20 m from the river, respectively). We suggest that the river may have a more immediate impact on a low-permeability than on a high-permeability aquifer. This is dependent on the history of seawater encroachments to the river, which are better preserved in the low-permeability unit, and on the hydrogeology of this unit, where sand lenses can serve as high-permeability conduits. However, this unit can efficiently prevent a large extent of salinization of the regional coastal aquifer by the estuary water.

Persecution and response in late paganism: the evidence of Damascius

1993 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polymnia Athanassiadi
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The One ◽  
Psychological Dimensions ◽  
Immediate Reactions ◽  
Complex Subject

The theme of this paper is intolerance: its manifestation in late antiquity towards the pagans of the Eastern Mediterranean, and the immediate reactions and long-term attitudes that it provoked in them. The reasons why, in spite of copious evidence, the persecution of the traditional cults and of their adepts in the Roman empire has never been viewed as such are obvious: on the one hand no pagan church emerged out of the turmoil to canonise its dead and expound a theology of martyrdom, and on the other, whatever their conscious religious beliefs, late antique scholars in their overwhelming majority were formed in societies whose ethical foundations and logic are irreversibly Christian. Admittedly a few facets of this complex subject, such as the closing of the Athenian Academy and the demolition of temples or their conversion into churches, have occasionally been touched upon; but pagan persecution in itself, in all its physical, artistic, social, political, intellectual and psychological dimensions, has not as yet formed the object of scholarly research.

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