A new statue-base for Constantius II and the fourth-century imperial cult at Oinoanda

2015 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 181-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.P. Milner
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Imperial Cult ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Constantius Ii

AbstractA long-unpublished statue base for the emperor Constantius II was rediscovered at Oinoanda in 2010. It contains information that Oinoanda was a neokoros city, that is, having a special status in the imperial cult. The article attempts to trace the significance of neokoria and of images in the imperial cult in the fourth century AD, an era of rapid religious change when the Christianity of the emperors and many ordinary people co-existed with deep and widespread pagan traditions that flowed throughout Roman society.

The Roman Martyrs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lapidge
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Church

The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the ‘peace of the Church’ (c. 312). Some of these Roman martyrs are universally known — SS. Agnes, Sebastian or Laurence, for example — but others are scarcely known outside the ecclesiastical landscape of Rome itself. Each of the translated passiones, which vary in length from a few paragraphs to over ninety, is accompanied by an individual introduction and commentary; the translations are preceded by an Introduction which describes the principal features of this little-known genre of Christian literature. The Roman passiones martyrum have never previously been collected together, and have never been translated into a modern language. They were mostly composed during the period 425 x 675, by anonymous authors who who were presumably clerics of the Roman churches or cemeteries which housed the martyrs’ remains. It is clear that they were composed in response to the huge explosion of pilgrim traffic to martyrial shrines from the late fourth century onwards, at a time when authentic records (protocols) of their trials and executions had long since vanished, and the authors of the passiones were obliged to imagine the circumstances in which martyrs were tried and executed. The passiones are works of pure fiction; and because they abound in ludicrous errors of chronology, they have been largely ignored by historians of the early Church. But although they cannot be used as evidence for the original martyrdoms, they nevertheless allow a fascinating glimpse of the concerns which animated Christians during the period in question: for example, the preservation of virginity, or the ever-present threat posed by pagan practices. And because certain aspects of Roman life will have changed little between (say) the second century and the fifth, the passiones throw valuable light on many aspects of Roman society, not least the nature of a trial before an urban prefect, and the horrendous tortures which were a central feature of such trials. Above all, perhaps, the passiones are an indispensable resource for understanding the topography of late antique Rome and its environs, since they characteristically contain detailed reference to the places where the martyrs were tried, executed, and buried. The book contains five Appendices containing translations of texts relevant to the study of Roman martyrs: the Depositio martyrum of A.D. 354 (Appendix I); the epigrammata of Pope Damasus d. 384) which pertain to Roman martyrs treated in the passiones (II); entries pertaining to Roman martyrs in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (III); entries in seventh-century pilgrim itineraries pertaining to shrines of Roman martyrs in suburban cemeteries (IV); and entries commemorating these martyrs in early Roman liturgical books (V).

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.

Revaluing Roman Cyprus

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ersin Hussein
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Local Responses ◽  
Roman Provinces ◽  
Constantius Ii ◽  
Roman Province ◽  
New Evidence

This study addresses the traditional characterization of Roman Cyprus’s history as a Roman province as uneventful, insignificant, and ‘weary’. It brings fresh insight to the study of its culture and society by taking an integrated approach and bringing together well-known, less familiar, and new evidence to reassess cultural change, local responses to Roman rule, and the articulation of local identity in the Cypriot context. While it focuses primarily on material from the annexation of the island in 58 BC until the mid fourth century AD, or more specifically the refoundation of Salamis by Constantius II between AD 332 and 342, where relevant space will be given to discussion of evidence from across all periods of the island’s ancient history to facilitate a meaningful investigation of the key themes of this work. Ultimately, this study aims to reinsert Roman Cyprus into academic narratives about culture and society of the Roman provinces. Furthermore, it has been put together with the undergraduate student in mind to encourage and promote the study of Roman Cyprus—and, of course, ancient Cyprus—by collating key studies, evidence, and material, and thus making them accessible to new audiences

CLAUDIAN'S LAST PANEGYRIC AND IMPERIAL VISITS TO ROME

2016 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 336-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gavin Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Problem Section ◽  
Constantius Ii ◽  
Previous Visit

Claudian of Alexandria's last datable poem, the Panegyric on the Sixth Consulship of Honorius, was delivered in Rome in 404, presumably on 1 January. This performance occurred in the course of the first visit to Rome by an emperor for nearly a decade and a half. Imperial visits to Rome were notoriously rare in the fourth century and, in a well-known passage of that poem, the goddess Roma herself muses on their rarity: she had only seen an Augustus three times in the last hundred years (VI Cos. 392–3). This is not quite true, but the only legitimate emperors known to have paid formal visits to Rome in that period were Constantine in 312–13, 315 and 326, Constantius II in 357, and Theodosius I, accompanied by his four-year-old son Honorius, in 389. In this article I shall begin by making an observation about the court's intentions in moving to Rome in late 403 (Section I), and then deal with two problems bound up with the interpretation of this poem and with the circumstances of imperial visits. The first problem (Section II) concerns the visit of Honorius during which the poem was first performed. In Claudian's narrative the description of Honorius' triumphal entry leads into a description of his assumption of the consulate, and scholars have sometimes asserted that he made a triumphal entry as consul on 1 January 404. This is clearly wrong: Honorius arrived in Rome weeks or months before. But even when this point is recognized, it is often asserted that the poem blends triumphal and consular imagery, and elements of the triumphal entry are confused with the assumption of the consulship (most recently by Michael Dewar in his generally outstanding commentary on the poem). My argument therefore moves from the chronology of Honorius' visit to elucidating the structure and imagery of Claudian's poem, as well as casting light on the patterns of the late antique imperial aduentus more broadly. The second problem (Section III) concerns the description of Honorius' previous visit to Rome with his father in the summer of 389. Here it has sometimes been inferred (including again by Dewar) on the basis of Claudian, and of late chronicles, that Honorius was created Caesar by his father on 13 June, the day of the aduentus. I shall show on the basis of a critical examination of the chronicle tradition, as well as a survey of contemporary numismatic, epigraphic and literary evidence, that this belief is unfounded, and that the relevant passages of Claudian require a different interpretation. However, this evidence also makes clear that signals were being sent in 389 about Honorius' imperial future.

The Consulship of 367bcand the Evolution of Roman Military Authority

Antichthon ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 124-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Military Command ◽  
Roman Military ◽  
Early Republican ◽  
Static Nature

AbstractA tension exists within the literary sources for early Rome, between the supposedly static nature of military authority, embodied by the grant ofimperiumwhich was allegedly shared both by archaicregesand republican magistrates, and the evidence for change within Rome’s military hierarchy, with the early republican army being commanded by a succession of different magistrates including the archaicpraetores, the so-called ‘consular tribunes,’ and the finally the consuls and praetors of the mid-fourth centuryBC. The differences between the magistracies and the motivations driving the evolution of the system have caused confusion for both ancient and modern writers alike, with the usual debate being focused on the number of officials involved under each system and Rome’s expanding military and bureaucratic needs. The present study will argue that, far more than just varying in number, when viewed against the wider backdrop of Roman society during the period, the sources hint that the archaicpraetoresand consular tribunes might have exercised slightly different types of military authority – possibly distinguished by the designationsimperiumandpotestas– which were unified under the office of the consulship of 367BC.1The changes in Rome’s military hierarchy during the fifth and fourth centuriesBCmay therefore not only indicate an expansion of Rome’s military command, as is usually argued, but also an evolution of military authority within Rome associated with the movement of power from thecomitia curiatato thecomitia centuriata.

Cornelius Nepos, ‘Atticus’ and the Roman Revolution

1988 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fergus Millar
Keyword(s):  
Review Article ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Political Biography ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Major Study ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Precise Moment ◽  
The Way

The biography of Atticus by Cornelius Nepos, covering the last eight decades of the Republic and written at the precise moment of the establishment of monarchy by Octavian, ought always to have been treated both as one of the best introductions to the period, and as an exposition, from a unique angle, of some of the values expressed in Roman society. But now, more than ever, there may be a place for a brief essay which attempts to bring out both some values exhibited in this particular text and the way in which these were taken up, distorted, and deployed in the propaganda of the Augustan regime. For, first, the larger background of late-Republican scholarship, antiquarianism, historiography, and biography has been fully explored by Elizabeth Rawson; second, Joseph Geiger has argued for the originality of Nepos as a writer of political biography; third, we have a major study of the ethical models which it is the purpose of the biography to hold up for emulation. Finally, John North, in an important review-article on recent works on Roman religion, has identified three significant characteristics of late-Republican religiosity: a scholarly or antiquarian perception of religious change, often seen as decline; the identification of religion as the subject of a particular form of discourse; and a shift in focus within the sphere of religion, from the community as a whole to great men within it. All three come together, as we will see below, in the passage of Nepos' biography in which he records how, some time in the 30s B.C., Atticus suggested to Octavian that the now roofless temple of Juppiter Feretrius on the Capitol should be repaired.

scholarly journals PLATO'S PILOT IN THE POLITICAL STRATEGY OF JULIAN AND LIBANIUS

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 607-616
Author(s):  
David Neal Greenwood
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Constantius Ii

The rhetorical career of Libanius of Antioch (a.d.314–c.393) spanned the reigns of a number of fourth-century emperors. Like many orators, he used the trope of the emperor as a pilot, steering the ship of state. He did this for his imperial exemplar Julian and in fact for his predecessor Constantius II as well. Julian sought to craft an identity for himself as a theocratic king. He and his supporters cast him as an earthly parallel to the Christ-like versions of Heracles and Asclepius he constructed, which was arguably a co-opting of Christian and particularly Constantinian themes. In a public oration, Julian even placed himself in the role of Christ in the Temptation in the Wilderness. This kind of overtly Christian metaphor was not Libanius’ preferred idiom, however, and he wrote of Julian as another kind of chosen and divine saviour-figure, one with its roots in the golden age of Greek philosophy. The figure of the κυβερνήτης, the ‘pilot’ or ‘helmsman’, is a philosophical concept with roots in the thought of the pre-Socratics but most familiar from Plato. The uses of this metaphor by Julian and Libanius highlight the rhetorical strategy and self-presentation the emperor employed during his reign.

De Beneficiis and Roman Society

2003 ◽  
Vol 93 ◽  
pp. 92-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam Griffin
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Long Line ◽  
The Subject ◽  
General Work

The exchange of beneficia — gifts and services — was an important feature of Greek and Roman society at all periods. Its prominence was reflected in the number of philosophical works that analysed the phenomenon. From the fourth century B.C. onwards, εὐεργεσία and χάρις became subjects of moral discourse. Xenophon, particularly in his Socratic works and the Cyropaideia, and Aristotle, in his rhetorical and ethical writings, already anticipate much of what the Hellenistic schools were to elaborate. One of Aristotle's followers gave the first clear formulation we have of the idea that ‘the giving and interchange of favours holds together the lives of men’. Aristotle's successor Theophrastus wrote the first treatise we know of to deal wholly and specifically with the subject of χάρις. His On Gratitude (περὶ χάριτος: D.L. 5.48) had a long line of successors, including Epicurus' On Gifts and Gratitude (περὶ δώρων καὶ χάριτος: D.L. 10.28) and Chrysippus' Stoic treatments of the subject, both as part of a general work On Duties (περὶ κατορθωμάτων) and in a separate work On Favours (περὶ χαρίτων) (SVF 3.674; 2.1081 ).

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 168-178
Author(s):  
Mattias P. Gassman
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
City Of God ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Civic Space ◽  
Theological Vision

Fourth-century writers dealt with traditional religion and its shifting place in Roman society with the help of myth, philosophy, and observation of cultic practice. These were not mere ‘antiquarian’ endeavours but resources that fleshed out a picture of traditional religion whose frame was set by each author’s social situation and theological convictions. The diversity of the resultant texts precludes a grand narrative of pagan evolution, or even of the formation of a new conception of ‘paganism’ or of ‘religion’. Nevertheless, the long arc of polemical discourse from Diocletian to Valentinian II testifies to the importance of the changing legal and political context that framed each author’s approach to pagan cult. It also makes clear the abiding differences that separated Christians from pagans, despite shared civic space and social ties. Much the same remained true, after decades of anti-pagan legislation, in Augustine’s early-fifth-century North Africa, where devout Christians struggled (sometimes violently) with influential pagans. Faced by the fall of Rome, Augustine produced City of God, whose only ancient Latin rival for breadth and theological vision is Lactantius’ Divine Institutes. Traditional religion was a still-potent reality in a Roman Empire that was no longer definitely pagan but not yet definitively Christian.

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