Commerce in the Dark Ages: A Critique of the Evidence

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 123-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Grierson
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Dark Ages ◽  
Land Mass ◽  
The Mediterranean

When Pirenne contributed an article entitled ‘Mahomet et Charlemagne’ to the first issue of the Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire in 1922, he can have little realized how the ideas he there put forward were to be developed. His paper was designed as a protest against the traditional and deep-rooted conviction of western scholars that Latin Christendom was the direct and almost the sole heir of classical antiquity. Its argument was the now familiar one that Greco-Roman society survived with little change the shock of the Germanic invasions, and that it was only the appearance of Islam upon the scene that pushed the centre of Latin Christendom away from the Mediterranean and made possible the emergence of a new cultural unit based upon the land mass of western Europe. Medieval Christendom was not a continuation of the Roman world but something new, and Muhammed was a necessary precursor of Charlemagne

scholarly journals City of Dog

2020 ◽  
pp. 009614422091013
Author(s):  
Sam Ottewill-Soulsby
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Urban Settings ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Urban Settlements ◽  
The City

To be fully human in the Greco-Roman world was to be a member of a city. This is unsurprising as cities were the building blocks of Greek and Roman culture and society. The urban landscape of post-Roman Western Europe looked dramatically different, with smaller, less economically diverse cities which played a smaller role in administration. Despite this, Greco-Roman ideas of humans as city-beings remained influential. This article explores this by investigating early medieval descriptions of cynocephali, which sought to determine whether the dog-headed men were human or not. Accounts of the cynocephali that presented them as human showed them living in urban settlements, whereas in reports of non-human cynocephali there are no cities. In exploring interactions between cynocephali and urban settings through ethnographic portrayals and hagiography, this article traces the lingering importance of the city for concepts of humanity.

Imagery in Jewish and Christian Ritual Settings

2021 ◽  
pp. 533-562
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Grey ◽  
Mark D. Ellison
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Christian Art ◽  
Social Landscape

During the Roman period, Jewish and Christian communities throughout the Mediterranean had a complex relationship with the visual culture of the larger Greco-Roman world. Both groups, in their attempts to be set apart as distinct ethnic or religious entities while at the same time remaining integrated within their surrounding social landscape, expressed themselves in different times and places along a spectrum of selective adoption, adaptation, and rejection of the artistic forms used by their neighbors. For instance, owing to a shared hostility toward pagan idolatry, both communities in the early part of this period largely avoided figural iconography (they instead drew in limited ways upon the non-figural artistic repertoire of local Hellenistic and Roman society), but by later centuries distinctly Jewish and Christian art began to emerge and incorporate a fuller range of Greco-Roman motifs for use in a variety of communal settings.

scholarly journals The ancient economy, Modernity and the East and West relationship: the contributions of Karl Marx and Max Weber

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 484-505
Author(s):  
Alexandre Galvão Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Karl Marx ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Ancient Economy ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Old Economy

The work of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Max Weber (1864-1920) on the economy and society of the ancient world inaugurate a new perspective in relation to the economists of the 18th and 19th centuries and in debates about the old economy locked in Germany in the late 19th century. Different from neoclassical economists and the modernists and primitivism, these authors will defend the thesis of a radical break between the old world and the modern. A discontinuity marked, for Marx, the birth of the capitalist system, and for Weber, of modern capitalism. In addition to this similarity, these thinkers have reinforced the Eurocentric view by stating that the cultural and political roots of modern west lie in Classical Antiquity, reinforcing a tradition of thought of deep rifts between the ancient societies of the East and the societies of the Greco-Roman world, much contested in current historiography.

scholarly journals Tiny and Fragmented Votive Offerings from Classical Antiquity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Body Part ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Made In ◽  
Votive Offerings

This chapter addresses tiny and fragmented votive offerings from the ancient Greco-Roman world. The first half of the chapter surveys different kinds of votive fragmentation, ranging from objects that were physically ruptured before dedication, to conceptually ‘partial’ offerings like tithes and first fruits. I argue that the deliberate or accidental breakage of votives often paradoxically increased the value and meaning of the offering in the eyes of the community and recipient deity. I also introduce the possibility that all votives might be seen as fragments, insofar as they constitute part of a worshiper’s property or converted wealth (an idea inherent in the ancient concepts of dekatē and aparchē). The second half of the chapter then focuses on one particular type of fragmented votive—the model body part. Tiny body parts made in clay and metal began to be dedicated in the Middle Minoan and then the Archaic Greek periods, and continued to appear alongside the life-sized (or near life-sized) anatomical votives that were a feature of later Hellenistic and Roman ritual. I explore some of the possible resonances of these votives’ tiny sizes, emphasizing how far these miniature objects facilitate (or even demand) intimate touch and handling. Finally, I explore the possibility that the miniature votives in Hellenistic and Roman times may have harkened back to the diminutive offerings of earlier periods, thus functioning as symbols of cultural memory, and tiny generators of nostalgia.

The History of Ancient Science: A Personal View

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Physical World ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Personal View ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Ancient Science ◽  
Land Mass ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
History Of

My subject is the history of science in antiquity, where the convention I adopt for “antiquity” is that it covers everything from the earliest recorded Mesopotamian investigations in the third millennium BCE down to the end of the third century CE, by which time two particularly significant upheavals had taken place at either end of the Euro-Asia land mass. I refer to the Christianization of the Greco-Roman World and the rise of Buddhism in China. That study poses a number of distinctive problems, both substantive and methodological, which I shall go on immediately to identify. At the same time it is particularly worthwhile, in my view, for the light it can throw on very early efforts at understanding the physical world. Let me give a brief preliminary explanation of my main thesis.

Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean, 1800-1850

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantina Zanou
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Space ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Italian Peninsula ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Multicultural Context ◽  
The Common ◽  
Ugo Foscolo ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Republic

Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean, 1800–1850: Stammering the Nation investigates the long process of transition from a world of empires to a world of nation-states by narrating the biographies of a group of people who were born within empires but came of age surrounded by the emerging vocabulary of nationalism, much of which they themselves created. It is the story of a generation of intellectuals and political thinkers from the Ionian Islands who experienced the collapse of the Republic of Venice and the dissolution of the common cultural and political space of the Adriatic, and who contributed to the creation of Italian and Greek nationalisms. By uncovering this forgotten intellectual universe, Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean retrieves a world characterized by multiple cultural, intellectual, and political affiliations that have since been buried by the conventional narrative of the formation of nation-states. The book rethinks the origins of Italian and Greek nationalisms and states, highlighting the intellectual connection between the Italian peninsula, Greece, and Russia, and re-establishing the lost link between the changing geopolitical contexts of western Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans in the Age of Revolutions. It re-inscribes important intellectuals and political figures, considered ‘national fathers’ of Italy and Greece (such as Ugo Foscolo, Dionysios Solomos, Ioannis Kapodistrias, and Niccolò Tommaseo), into their regional and multicultural context, and shows how nations emerged from an intermingling, rather than a clash, of ideas concerning empire and liberalism, Enlightenment and religion, revolution and conservatism, and East and West.

Paul’s Defense: Masculinity and Authority in 2 Corinthians 10–13

2021 ◽  
pp. 0142064X2110248
Author(s):  
Kyung Min Kim
Keyword(s):  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Cultural Assumptions ◽  
2 Corinthians ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Paternal Control ◽  
And Control

In 2 Cor. 10–13, Paul tries to prove his authority as a reliable leader by using two different masculinity standards. Paul manifests his power and control over the Corinthian church members by using an image of paterfamilias (11.2-3; 12.14). Paternal control of others was an essential element of hegemonic masculinity in the Greco-Roman world. Moreover, Paul proves his manliness by revealing his endurance and submission to divine authority (11.21b–12.10) according to the Hellenistic Jewish masculinity. I argue that Paul is embedded in these different cultural assumptions regarding masculinity and that he refers to these assumptions to persuade Gentile and Jewish groups in the Corinthian church.

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