Manichaeism in Mesopotamia and the Roman East. By Samuel N. C. Lieu. (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 118.) pp. xiv, 325. Leiden etc., E. J. Brill, 1994, US $85.75.

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-262
Author(s):  
Lain Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Simon James

Dura-Europos, a Parthian-ruled Greco-Syrian city, was captured by Rome c.AD165. It then accommodated a Roman garrison until its destruction by Sasanian siege c.AD256. Excavations of the site between the World Wars made sensational discoveries, and with renewed exploration from 1986 to 2011, Dura remains the best-explored city of the Roman East. A critical revelation was a sprawling Roman military base occupying a quarter of the city's interior. This included swathes of civilian housing converted to soldiers' accommodation and several existing sanctuaries, as well as baths, an amphitheatre, headquarters, and more temples added by the garrison. Base and garrison were clearly fundamental factors in the history of Roman Dura, but what impact did they have on the civil population? Original excavators gloomily portrayed Durenes evicted from their homes and holy places, and subjected to extortion and impoverishment by brutal soldiers, while recent commentators have envisaged military-civilian concordia, with shared prosperity and integration. Detailed examination of the evidence presents a new picture. Through the use of GPS, satellite, geophysical and archival evidence, this volume shows that the Roman military base and resident community were even bigger than previously understood, with both military and civil communities appearing much more internally complex than has been allowed until now. The result is a fascinating social dynamic which we can partly reconstruct, giving us a nuanced picture of life in a city near the eastern frontier of the Roman world.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Michael Eisenberg ◽  
Arleta Kowalewska

Abstract In the Roman world a wide variety of funerary architecture was erected along the access roads of cities to catch the eye of passersby. In Hippos (Sussita in Aramaic) of the Decapolis, the most notable funerary structures stood along the city's main approach within the Saddle Necropolis. The most distinctive elements of the necropolis's architectural remains were a series of 13 large funerary podia – the focus of the 2020 excavations. The Hippos podia are unique in the Roman world, in their dating, their architecture, and their multiplicity. The architectural design of this series of structures may be the first evidence of necropolis planning and erection of funerary monuments by the polis itself within the Roman world. The article describes the freshly exposed Hippos podia, proposes reasoning for the choice of this particular type of construction, and analyzes similar funerary structures throughout the Roman world, with emphasis on the Roman East, where sarcophagi were widespread.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-129
Author(s):  
Jacob L. Mackey
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-113
Author(s):  
Francesco Rotiroti

This article seeks to define a theoretical framework for the study of the relation between religion and the political community in the Roman world and to analyze a particular case in point. The first part reviews two prominent theories of religion developed in the last fifty years through the combined efforts of anthropologists and classicists, arguing for their complementary contribution to the understanding of religion's political dimension. It also provides an overview of the approaches of recent scholarship to the relation between religion and the Roman polity, contextualizing the efforts of this article toward a theoretical reframing of the political and institutional elements of ancient Christianity. The second part focuses on the religious legislation of the Theodosian Code, with particular emphasis on the laws against the heretics and their performance in the construction of the political community. With their characteristic language of exclusion, these laws signal the persisting overlap between the borders of the political community and the borders of religion, in a manner that one would expect from pre-Christian civic religions. Nevertheless, the political essence of religion did also adapt to the ecumenical dimension of the empire. Indeed, the religious norms of the Code appear to structure a community whose borders tend to be identical to the borders of the whole inhabited world, within which there is no longer room for alternative affiliations; the only possible identity outside this community is that of the insane, not belonging to any political entity and thus unable to possess any right.


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