scholarly journals POETRY ON THE ADVANCE: THE EMERGENCE AND FORMATION OF A POETIC CULTURE IN ROMAN BRITAIN

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-202
Author(s):  
Peter Kruschwitz
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Roman Poetry ◽  
The Common ◽  
Poetic Culture

The way in which the Roman army, as a major factor contributing to relative mobility of individuals within the Roman Empire, may be thought of as a driver behind the diffusion and general dynamic of Roman poetry and song, has not sufficiently been explored. Similarly, regionalized approaches to poetry and song as a cultural practice, subject to local, ethnic, social, and cultural variation and change, have not yet been pursued in a research context in which Roman poetry has largely remained a domain of study in upper-class entertainment and intertextuality. Not only is the common approach at odds with a methodology that has long, and successfully, been adopted otherwise in historical and linguistic research: it also excludes the vast majority of surviving poems from the Roman world, the Carmina Latina Epigraphica, from consideration – a body of texts that provides us with information about a cultural practice that, subject to substantial regional variation, literary poets stylized and drove to its artistic extremes.

Keeping Military Discipline

2013 ◽  
pp. 311-329
Author(s):  
Stefan G. Chrissanthos
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Major Step ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Modern System ◽  
History Of ◽  
Military Discipline

This chapter offers a brief history of military discipline in ancient armies, and also investigates how and to what degree societies inflicted discipline on their soldiers, and how, in various ways, soldiers imposed discipline on themselves. Then, it addresses the evolution of military discipline from Greece until eventually something similar to a modern system developed in the early Roman Empire. The death of Alexander had precipitated almost fifty years of continuous warfare that ultimately resulted in the development of the Hellenistic monarchies. The Roman army represented something completely new in ancient Mediterranean warfare. It is observed that the Principate represented a major step in the evolution of ancient military discipline.

The Contours of the Non-Lutheran Reformation in Germany, 1522–1546

2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 167-174
Author(s):  
James M. Stayer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Common

Abstract Among the common ways of portraying Reformation divides are the following categories: Magisterial vs Radical Reformations; or a “church type” vs a “sect type” of reform. This essay offers an alternative view. It underscores the differences between Lutherans and Anglicans on one side; and the Reformed, Anabaptists, and Schwenckfelders on the other. The Lutherans, like the Anglicans under Henry VIII, worshipped in altar-centered churches which were Roman Catholic in appearance. They presented themselves as reformers of Catholic errors of the late Middle Ages. By contrast, when the Reformed, Anabaptists, and Schwenckfelders met for worship, it was in unadorned Bible-centered meeting houses. The Anabaptists were targeted for martyrdom by the decree of the Holy Roman Empire of 1529 against Wiedertäufer (“rebaptists”). Contrary to the later memory that they practiced a theology of martyrdom, the preference of apprehended Anabaptists was to recant.

America’s Signal Crisis in Salman Rushdie’s Fury

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Treasa De Loughry
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
American Hegemony ◽  
Class Status

This article examines how Salman Rushdie’s Fury (2001) registers a signal crisis of American hegemony through its hyperreal production of an aesthetics of excess, constituted by fragmented subjectivities, a frenetic narrative form, references to the decaying years of the Roman Empire, and irruptions of violence against women. The text’s libidinal investment of personal anguish with public discontent, or a psychopathological fury, is read through Fredric Jameson’s account of third-world allegory as a symptom of the novel’s registration of America’s hegemonic decline. The scalping of several upper-class young women in New York City by their financier boyfriends is thus further examined as an aspect of the text’s aesthetics of excess and use of allegory, which frames the violent interrelation between public discontent and private hubris. The murdered women are read as symbols of American hegemony and class under threat by turbulent financial markets, and hoarding their scalps is represented as a crude and violent attempt by their boyfriends to halt the dwindling value of America’s cultural capital and financial markets. The destabilization of class structures due to turbulent financial markets breeds a semantic confusion between real and symbolic signifiers of class status, a process facilitated by the narrator’s comparison of these women to prototypically American symbols, such as “Oscar-Barbie” statuettes and dolls. Fury’s mapping of Solanka’s cultural products, dolls and masks, from New York to the peripheral nation of Lilliput-Blefescu further actualizes the flow of American cultural and economic power to peripheral regions. This, alongside the text’s problematic characterization of gender and race, is read as evidence of Rushdie as a writer in terminal decline.

scholarly journals Stoic Ethics as a Guide to the Political Life in Marcus Aurelius

Escritos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (61) ◽  
pp. 51-61
Author(s):  
Bruno Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Marcus Aurelius ◽  
Simple Part ◽  
The Common ◽  
The City ◽  
Political Actions

Marcus Aurelius reigned from 161 A.D. to 180 A.D., and he ranks among the most successful emperors of the antonine dynasty. The success of his administration may be attributed to his philosopher personality and, more than that, to his stoic character. Meditations presents thoughts of a stoicism devotee, which reflects in moments of intimacy on the challenges that he faced throughout his life as an emperor. It is in the practice of the ethical precepts of stoicism that he finds his refuge. The text consists of a series of spiritual exercises which reaffirm the indifference to pleasures, contempt for fame, detachment from riches and abnegation for political power. This paper is a study of Meditations, and its main purpose is to elucidate how the stoic way of life is incorporated in the figure of the philosopher emperor; this, as a military function, as he was a commander of the Roman army in the war against the Nordics, where political virtue was tested. Amid the chaos of an insane struggle for the survival of Rome, he found in stoicism a precious source of inspiration. Marcus Aurelius was not dazzled by the cult of the emperor's personality; he acted for the natural right to freedom and guided his political actions for the common good. His stoic perseverance reveals itself in a harmonious conduct with the city, the rational and cosmic organism from which the emperor is a simple part.

scholarly journals The Middle Ages are not enough: the fourth paradox and the marginalization of the Roman Empire

2017 ◽  
pp. 335
Author(s):  
Francesc Morales
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Nationalist Movements ◽  
Complex Problems ◽  
The Common ◽  
Siglo Xix ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Middle Ages

Abstract: The palates of the nationalist authors of the 19th century found the common past exemplified by the Roman Empire to be too homogeneous a taste. Although this premise may be valid for all European nationalist movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the discussion here is limited to Spain’s problematic national construction during the 19th century and the group formed by Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Spain and ‘Benelux’ were chosen because they represent complex problems in the construction of a key dynamic of European nationalism: a political contemporary diversity linked to pre-Roman and post-Roman pasts. Despite these political and historical connections, the paths taken by these nationalisms are significantly different.Key words: Rome, Netherlands, Spain, nationalism, EuropeResumen: Un pasado común ejemplificado por el Imperio Romano pasa por ser demasiado homogéneo para el gusto de los autores nacionalistas en el siglo XIX. Esta premisa puede ser válida para todos los movimientos nacionalistas europeos, pero voy a limitarme a la problemática de la construcción nacional en España durante el siglo XIX y al grupo formado por Bélgica, los Países Bajos y Luxemburgo. Ambas regiones representan similares complejidades en la construcción de un nacionalismo europeo: una diversidad política contemporánea enlazada con un pasado prerromano y post-romano. A pesar de tener conexiones políticas e históricas, el camino de estos dos nacionalismos es significativamente diferente.Palabras clave: Roma, Países Bajos, España, nacionalismo, Europa  

Падежный синкретизм в истории славянских парадигм

SlavVaria ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
ГАБОР Л. БАЛАЖ
Keyword(s):  
Historical Aspects ◽  
Slavic Languages ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Review Ofthe

Case syncretism in the history of Slavic paradigms. The article is devotedto the problem of case syncretism. Specific definitions of this concept and theclassification of its types from different periods of linguistic research are given.Further on, the issues of case syncretism are discussed, with special attentionpaid to its manifestation and regularities in the Slavic languages. The mostcommon cases of syncretism in modern literary languages are presented andcompared to the situation of the Common Slavic period. The problems ofcertain historical aspects of the formal concurrency of case endings and theirpossible causes are touched upon. The article concludes with a brief review ofthe theoretical explanations of syncretism and stresses the applicability ofnatural morphology to solve the questions posed.

Mandate and the Management of Business in the Roman Empire

2020 ◽  
pp. 307-338
Author(s):  
Dennis P. Kehoe
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Financial Risk ◽  
Credit Market ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Major Form ◽  
Property Owners ◽  
Financial Transactions

This chapter examines the role that the contract of mandate (mandatum) and the related institution of “unauthorized administration” (negotia gesta) played in Roman economic life. Mandate represented a major form of agency in Roman society, but it presents problems of incentives because it was uncompensated: the agent might carry out significant tasks for the principal, or mandator; these tasks might involve considerable expense and even financial risk on the part of the agent, but the agent was not to profit from his service. On the basis of juridical evidence from the Digest and the Code of Justinian, I examine how mandate transformed a relationship that had its roots in upper-class Roman notions of friendship and reciprocity into a contractual form that remained useful as it provided property owners advantages with high-valued financial transactions, such as the purchase of property. In addition, it provided a useful way for Roman businesspeople to overcome problems of information in the credit market.

scholarly journals Mock politeness and culture: Perceptions and practice in UK and Italian data

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
National Cultures ◽  
British English ◽  
Cultural Assumptions ◽  
Comparable Corpora ◽  
Second Stage ◽  
Online Discussion Forums ◽  
Search Terms

Abstract This paper investigates the extent to which perceptions of cultural variation correspond to actual practice with reference to (national) cultures in Britain and Italy. More specifically, the aspect of im/politeness that is addressed is mock politeness, a subset of implicational impoliteness that is triggered by an im/politeness mismatch. In the first phase of the study, two sets of comparable corpora are employed to investigate perceptions of mock politeness (using search terms such as sarcastic and patronizing) in relation to cultural identities. The first pair of corpora is composed of national newspapers in England and Italy, collected in 2014, and the second set are web corpora. What emerges from this stage is a strong tendency for both the English and Italian corpora to associate (potential) mock polite behaviors such as being ironic with a British cultural identity. In the second stage of the study, I use a corpus of conversational data from British English and Italian online discussion forums, in which mock polite behaviors have been identified and annotated, in order to investigate whether there is any evidence for the cultural assumptions found in the first phase. As will be shown, the analysis reveals both variation in cultural practice and a significant gap between perceptions and practice. In describing and identifying this gap between perceptions and practice, I show both how (anglocentric) academic description has underestimated cultural variation, and, in contrast, how cultural variation is overestimated in lay description.

scholarly journals Roman Religion in the Classroom: Spotlight on the Mysteries of Mithras

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (38) ◽  
pp. 4-12
Author(s):  
Ersin Hussein
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Pedagogical Issues ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Ancient Religion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Rich Material ◽  
Theoretical Developments

There appears to be no ‘tail end’ in sight for academic enquiry into the worship of Mithras in the Roman Empire. Interest in this ancient religion, and its popularity and longevity as a topic of study, has no doubt been secured by its status as an elective cult and by its rich, and at times controversial, surviving evidence, which is predominantly archaeological in nature and packed with astrological symbolism. No written documentation representing a theological canon, which might outline its origins, traditions and customs, has ever been discovered. Furthermore, the few surviving literary accounts present snapshots of the cult and are written by ‘outsiders’. Though strongly associated with Zoroastrianism, an ancient religion widely worshipped across Asia Minor and Persia, the exact origins of Mithras, his identity as a god, and the development of his worship remain unclear. With the reopening of the London Mithraeum last year the spotlight has once again been cast on the spread and impact of the cult in Roman Britain. This article accompanies pieces in this volume ofJCTand the next which focus on this sacred and once exclusive space. Organised in two sections, part one will begin with a brief introduction to the history of scholarship, focusing mostly on some methodological and theoretical developments in recent studies. Following this, attention will be paid to the nature of the evidence for the mysteries of Mithras and popular interpretations drawn from it. Part two will discuss methods for bringing this rich material to life in the classroom and reflect on pedagogical issues relating to teaching Mithraism as part of the Latin GCSE syllabus. The tried and tested exercises presented in this part of the article and are applicable to a variety of classroom settings, sizes and age groups.

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