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.

From the History of the Worship of Apollo at Actium

1959 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 215-221
Author(s):  
F. Sokolowski
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scanty Information

Until the last few years we had scanty information on the cult of Apollo at Actium, which, after the victory of Augustus won there in 31 B.C., became very popular in the Greek and Roman world. The games of Actium, reorganized and elevated to panhellenistic rank, flourished for a long time in the Roman empire. The lucky discovery of an inscription at Olympia, from the end of the third century B.C., has now brought us new light on the earlier history of this cult.

Eclecticism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Mcclellan
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Entire Period ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Considerable Influence ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
The Third ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire History

Eclecticism in philosophy is the construction of a system of thought by combining elements of the established systems of a previous age. The term ‘eclecticism’ is derived from the Greek verb eklegein / eklegesthai: to pick out, choose, or select. Diogenes Laertius (c.ad 300–50) attributes an ‘eclectic school’ to Potamo of Alexandria (c. early 3rd century ad) ‘who made a selection from the tenets of all the existing sects’. Many philosophers of the Greco-Roman period are known as ‘eclectics’, and one can find the entire period of philosophy from the second century bc to the third century ad referred to as an age of ‘eclecticism’. In such cases the term is often used pejoratively to designate a discordant collection of unoriginal ideas. More recently, however, the French philosopher Victor Cousin (1792–1867) expressed an optimistic view of eclecticism while using the term in reference to his own philosophy. Cousin viewed the entire history of thought as dominated by the two competing philosophies of empiricism (or sensualism) and idealism (or rationalism). The true philosophy would eliminate conflicting elements and combine the remaining truths within a single, unified system. Cousin’s eclecticism, with its strong historical orientation, was the predominant school of thought in France throughout most of the nineteenth century and was also of considerable influence in Brazil.

Explaining Evil in Late Antiquity

Evil ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 129-154
Author(s):  
Dominic J. O’Meara
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Moral Evil ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Christian Theologian ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

The problem of evil was often debated in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity. Two very influential contributors to this debate were the Christian theologian Augustine and the pagan Platonist Proclus, whose theory of evil reached the Middle Ages through a paraphrase in the Pseudo-Dionysius. Augustine and Proclus were both influenced by, and distanced themselves from, the original theory of evil developed by the pagan Platonist philosopher Plotinus in the third century AD. Plotinus identified the indeterminate background (“matter”) against which the physical world appears as the reason for the existence of physical and moral evil. Here a summary of Plotinus’s theory of evil is given, together with a discussion of the various difficulties and objections that arise, in particular in Proclus’s criticism of it.

scholarly journals “Hva har romerne noen gang gjort for oss i Nord- Norge?” Om mulige forbindelser mellom Romerriket og det nordligste Norge

Nordlit ◽  
2014 ◽  
pp. 191
Author(s):  
Per-Bjarne Ravnå
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Northern Norway ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
The North ◽  
Geographical Distances ◽  
History Of ◽  
North Norway

<em>“What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us Here in North Norway?”: On Possible Connections Between the Roman Empire and Northernmost Norway. </em>This article argues that scholars studying the early history of northern Norway should pay more attention to Roman history. Even if the geographical distances were long, there are clear signs of connections between inhabitants of northern Norway and the Roman world during the Roman era. In order to understand these connections scholars also need to study Roman history in its own right. To make this point the article investigates the possible Roman connections of a well-known warrior grave from Steigen (Nordland County, North Norway), dated to the middle of the third century CE. The investigation yields no stunning new discoveries, but aims to contribute to a broader and more well-founded understanding of the buried man and the experiences he might have had, as well as a cautious and informed view of broader connections between the North and the Roman world.

History of Recording Demotic Epigraphy

2020 ◽  
pp. 491-507
Author(s):  
Jan Moje
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Period ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Rosetta Stone ◽  
Roman Egypt ◽  
History Of ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter gives an overview of the history of recording and publishing epigraphic sources in Demotic language and script from the Late Period to Greco-Roman Egypt (seventh century bce to third century ce), for example, on stelae, offering tables, coffins, or votive gifts. The history of editing such texts and objects spans over two hundred years. Here, the important steps and pioneering publications on Demotic epigraphy are examined. They start from the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt found the Rosetta stone, until the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals The Battles of Andros and Cos

1909 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. W. Tarn
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
Subsequent Paper ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Working Out ◽  
Important Evidence

No apology should be needed for treating afresh these much-discussed battles, if only because the last two years have produced new and important evidence from Delos; though in fact the literary allusions, scanty as they are, have hardly even yet been sufficiently elucidated. I hope in this paper to fix the dates of Andros and Cos by the Delian archon-list, and to consider what that means in terms of B.C. In a subsequent paper, to be published in the next number of this Journal, I hope, by working out the history of the ship which Antigonus Gonatas dedicated to Apollo, to confirm the date assigned to Cos in this paper. If these two dates could really be fixed, they would be invaluable for our understanding of Aegean history in the middle of the third century.

scholarly journals I višap armeni. Appunti per una storia della ricezione

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandra Gilibert
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
South Caucasus ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Complex Sequence ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unknown Point

Vishaps are large-scale prehistoric stelae decorated with animal reliefs, erected at secluded mountain locations of the South Caucasus. This paper focuses on the vishaps of modern Armenia and traces their history of re-use and manipulations, from the end of the third millennium BCE to the Middle Ages. Since their creation at an unknown point in time before 2100 BCE, vishaps functioned as symbolic anchors for the creation and transmission of religious and political messages: they were torn down, buried, re-worked, re-erected, transformed and used as a surface for graffiti. This complex sequence of re-contextualisations underscores the primacy of mountains as political arenas for the negotiation of religious and ritual meaning.

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