Caracalla and the divine: emperor worship and representation in the visual language of Roman Asia Minor

2020 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 153-179
Author(s):  
Dario Calomino
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Visual Language ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Visual Patterns ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Emperor Worship ◽  
Roman East

AbstractThis paper discusses the visual language adopted in the cities of Asia Minor to represent the emperor Caracalla in the years 214–216, which he spent travelling between the Anatolian region, Egypt and the Near East. The focus of this study is the imagery designed to express his relation with the divine through the overlapping representations of the emperor as a devotee and peer of the gods, and as a divine being. The first part of the study compares Rome to Asia Minor to show divergences as well as possible links between provincial and metropolitan media, discussing local and imperial responses to the emperor governing from the Roman East. The second part focuses on the imagery introduced in Asia Minor to represent the worship of the living Roman emperor and his cult-image in particular, providing insights into the creation of extraordinary visual patterns that remained unique to the reign of Caracalla.

Is Jesus my Superhero?

2008 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-76
Author(s):  
Andy Stirrup
Keyword(s):  
Youth Ministry ◽  
Near East ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Christian Apologetics ◽  
The Relationship

This paper considers an implicit trend in youth ministry to present Jesus as the archetypal superhero and asks if this is a valid and a helpful approach. The paper examines the relationship between the biblical category of hero and the contemporary notion of superhero and a broader appreciation of the use of myth for communicating Christian apologetics as seen in Lewis and Tolkien. The starting point for the paper is that an arguable starting point for the creation of Superman is in the epic character of Hercules and the biblical hero Samson. Through an examination of biblical and other Near East material the paper calls for a deeper and more nuanced appreciation of the relevance of modern western myth in the task of communicating theological narratives and concepts.

scholarly journals Roman Tribune Cola di Rienzo (1347), Res Gestae Divi Augusti and Lex de Imperio Vespasiani

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-104
Author(s):  
Milan Lovenjak
Keyword(s):  
Asia Minor ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ancient Documents ◽  
The Law ◽  
Dramatic Adaptations ◽  
Considerable Detail

The anonymous and fragmentarily preserved Romance-dialect Chronicle describing the history of Rome in 1325–1360, the extensive correspondence between Cola di Rienzo (1313–1354) and rulers, nobles, Church dignitaries, and intellectuals (especially Petrarch) in Italy and abroad, as well as various documentary sources allow us to trace Rienzo’s career in considerable detail. A papal notary, a scholar in Classical literature, an exceptional orator and a copyist and translator of Ancient Roman inscriptions, Rienzo, aided by a group of followers, overthrew the baron rule in Rome in May 1347, assumed the title of ‘Roman Tribune’ and seized power with the aim of reuniting Italy under a common emperor, a concept modelled on the first Roman emperor, Augustus. After undertaking a number of more or less successful measures, public manifestations and diplomatic activities, he was forced to retreat by a clash with the barons’ army even before the end of the year. After years of exile, he returned triumphant in the middle of 1354 to seize power, but the first few weeks of tyranny and arbitrary measures led to his tragic demise at the hands of an infuriated mob. Later he grew into the subject of myth, portrayed in numerous literary, musical, and dramatic adaptations. The present paper examines two ancient documents crucial to the formation of the principate (the renewal of which was Cola’s objective), i.e. Augustus’ account of his own deeds (Res gestae divi Augusti), which is mentioned by Suetonius and known from three epigraphically attested copies from Asia Minor, and a bronze plaque bearing a law on the conferment of powers on Emperor Vespasian, the so-called Lex de imperio Vespasiani. The plaque was used as propaganda by Cola during his preparations for the coup. The inconsistencies between the parts of the law preserved on the plaque (it must have been preceded by at least one other plaque) and the account of Cola’s interpretation as given in the anonymous Chronicle raise a number of questions, which resist definitive answers.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 126-128
Author(s):  
Ersin Hussein
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Near East ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Roman Provinces ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cultural Networks ◽  
Written Sources

The Conclusion revisits the questions that lie at the heart of studies of the Roman provinces and that have driven this study. What is the best way to tell the story of a landscape, and its peoples, that have been the subject of successive conquests throughout history and when the few written sources have been composed by outsiders? What approach should be taken to draw out information from a landscape’s material culture to bring the voices and experiences of those who inhabited its space to the fore? Is it ever possible to ensure that certain evidence types and perspectives are not privileged over others to draw balanced conclusions? The main findings of this work are that the Cypriots were not passive participants in the Roman Empire. They were in fact active and dynamic in negotiating their individual and collective identities. The legacies of deep-rooted connections between mainland Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Near East were maintained into the Roman period and acknowledged by both locals and outsiders. More importantly, the identity of the island was fluid and situational, its people able to distinguish themselves but also demonstrate that the island was part of multiple cultural networks. Cyprus was not a mere imitator of the influences that passed through it, but distinct. The existence of plural and flexible identities is reflective of its status as an island poised between multiple landscapes

Antiquarianism in the Near East

2020 ◽  
pp. 132-162
Author(s):  
Thomas Roebuck
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Near East ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
International Scholarship ◽  
Western European

This chapter provides an account of Thomas Smith’s pioneering account of the archaeology of the ancient Near Eastern church, his Survey of the Seven Churches of Asia, first published in Latin in 1672. The book remained a huge influence on travellers to Asia Minor well into the nineteenth century, as clergymen and amateur archaeologists retraced Smith’s steps, with his book as guide. Drawing upon the vast archive of Smith’s letters and manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, the chapter places the book firmly in its original context, unpicking the complex interweaving of patronage, religion, and international scholarship which shaped the work. In the end, Smith’s book looks backwards and forwards: back to the traditions of seventeenth-century English confessionalized scholarship and orientalism, and forwards to later eighteenth- and nineteenth-century archaeological traditions. As such, this study sheds light on a pivotal moment in Western European approaches to the ancient Near East.

The Early Dynastic Near East

2020 ◽  
pp. 531-611
Author(s):  
Vitali Bartash
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Long Range ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Near East ◽  
Royal Family ◽  
Early Dynastic ◽  
The Creation ◽  
City States ◽  
The Way

The Middle East in the Early Dynastic period (ca. 2900–2300 BC) was characterized by the competition of local city states for hegemony. Combined with long-range military and diplomatic relationships, this led to the creation of the first, if short-lived, larger polities in Mesopotamia and Syria, which paved the way for the emergence of the Akkad state. Cuneiform archives of temples and palaces document a gradual concentration of land, power, and wealth in the hands of an elite that included the royal family and the members of the palace and temple administration, resulting in increasing social stratification and deepening inequality in the context of surplus economy, unprecedented urbanization, and endemic war.

Two ‘Virtues’ of Tiberius: A Numismatic Contribution to the History of his Reign

1939 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. H. V. Sutherland
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation

Mr. M. P. Charlesworth's Raleigh Lecture, ‘The Virtues of a Roman Emperor: Propaganda and the Creation of Belief,’ serves admirably to illuminate a new aspect of the history of the Roman Empire, in which the debt of pure history to numismatics (and notably to the work of Mr. Mattingly in the British Museum Catalogues) will be plain. From the numismatic point of view there is, indeed, one curious omission in Mr. Charlesworth's argument; and attempts to make good the omission have opened up a series of speculations which are here discussed.

How to Start a Cosmogony: On the Poetics of Beginnings in Greece and the Near East

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-48
Author(s):  
Carolina López-Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Written Word ◽  
Enuma Elish ◽  
The Universe

AbstractIn this essay I explore the beginning lines of the most relevant cosmogonies from the eastern Mediterranean, focusing on theEnuma Elish, Genesis 1 and Hesiod’sTheogony. These opening lines reveal some of the challenges faced by the authors of these texts when committing to the written word their version of the beginning of the universe. Hesiod’sTheogonywill be treated in more length as it presents an expanded introduction to the creation account. This close reading is followed by a few reflections on the question of authorship of these and other Greek and Near Eastern cosmogonies.

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