Christianity and Rome

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. A. Drake
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Government Control ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
The Right ◽  
Religious Body

While Constantine’s conversion to Christianity changed the deity, it did not change the ideology of the Roman empire. Before Constantine’s relationship with Christianity, there was no religious body in the empire capable of providing a sanction for imperial rule similar to what a vote in the Roman Senate had been able to do. Roman religion was conducted by the same civic authorities who performed “secular duties”; the emperor as pontifex maximus could not credibly ratify himself. But over the centuries, Christians had developed an empire-wide organization completely independent of government control. As the new legitimators of imperial power, bishops demanded and got the right to pass judgment on emperors. The division was neatly framed with give and take on both sides; but from this perspective, the Christian turn to coercion is better analyzed as an outgrowth of power relationships than as the product of an inherent intolerance.

scholarly journals БОРЬБА ВИЗАНТИИ ЗА ПРАВО ВЛАДЕНИЯ ИТАЛИЕЙ: ИСТОРИКО-ЮРИДИЧЕСКАЯ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКА ВОЙНЫ 541-552 гг.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 65-104
Author(s):  
Виктор Мельник
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Personal Property ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
The Right ◽  
Military Campaign

Смена военно-политической принадлежности, часто практиковавшаяся в войне 541-552 гг., не выходила за рамки общепринятого политического процесса (учитывая провинциальный статус Италии в Византии, речь шла о процессе внутриполитическом). Знатью и солдатами руководила, прежде всего, жажда сохранить жизнь и занимаемое экономическое положение. Они не приносили присягу заново и не считались новобранцами. Они просто меняли политическую ориентацию, но не юридическую принадлежность. Эта тонкая грань, анализируемая в данной статье, хорошо видна в контексте второй итальянской военной кампании 541-552 гг., которую мы характеризуем как «борьбу Восточной Римской империи за право владения провинцией Италия». В любом случае, война 541-552 гг., по своему правовому положению, была гражданской войной внутри Римской империи, которая развивалась по типичной формуле «преступления и наказания». Сначала был факт неповиновения императорской власти, а затем последовало наказание и применение силы. Нарушение закона повлекло за собой санкцию государственного аппарата. Статья опровергает суверенный статус Остготской Италии в рассматриваемый период. Ключевые слова: Восточная Римская империя (Византия), личная собственность императора, византийская Италия, Юстиниан Великий, король Тотила, полководец Нарсес, правовой статус гражданской войны. THE STRUGGLE OF BYZANTIUM FOR THE RIGHT TO OWN ITALY: HISTORICAL AND LEGAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WAR IN 541-552 AD The change of military-political affiliation often practiced in the war of 541-552 AD, did not go beyond the generally accepted political process (given the provincial status of Italy in Byzantium, it was a domestic political process). The noblemen and soldiers were led, first of all, by a thirst to preserve life and economic position. They did not take the oath again and were not considered recruits. They simply changed their political orientation, but not their legal affiliation. This fine line, analyzed in this article, is visible in the context of the second Italian military campaign of 541-552 AD, which we characterize as the “struggle of the Eastern Roman Empire for the right to own the province of Italy”. In any case, the war of 541-552 AD, according to its legal status, was a civil war within the Roman Empire, which developed according to the typical formula of “crime and punishment”. At first, there was a fact of disobedience to imperial power, and then the punishment and the use of force followed. Violation of the law entailed the sanction of the state apparatus. The article refutes the sovereign status of Ostrogoth Italy in the period under review. Keywords: Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), Personal Property of the Emperor, Byzantine Italy, Justinian the Great, King Totila (Badulla), Commander Narses.

Gods Save the King

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Maria Hartmann
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
The Political ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
Fear Of God ◽  
Moral Superiority

In Alexander Ross’s Mel Heliconium (1642) and Pansebeia (1653), the ancient gods and the stories surrounding them are the product of the greatly successful civil theology of the Roman Empire. Ross’s first mythography was written to intervene, on the royalist and Laudian side, in the political and religious conflicts of the Civil Wars. In such times, the virtuous Romans and their use of religion could provide a positive example for governing England. Ross’s portrayal of Roman religion dissociates it from the disreputable beginnings of paganism and emphasizes its monotheism, rationality, moral superiority, and charity. In their undisputed political wisdom, ideal princes of the Roman Empire championed religion because they knew that this would stabilize their reign and keep people in order through the fear of God. Ross’s mythographical work attempts to re-create the ancient function of the fables, by using them to restore the people’s fear of God and king.

Slavery and Sexual Availability

2019 ◽  
pp. 626-644
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Glancy
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Morality ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Right

Any investigation of slavery in the Roman Empire must contend with the sexual exploitation of slaves endemic to the system. Given the diversity of ancient Christian attitudes toward sexuality, there is no reason to expect that a slaveholding ethos touched all Christian communities in a uniform fashion. At issue, however, is not whether the wider context of a slaveholding empire affected the formation of Christian attitudes toward sexuality. At issue is how. The purpose of this essay is to question whether early Christian silence on the issue should be construed as wholesale rejection of a system in which social status scripted social morality, or as complicity with that system. In the end, it is difficult to imagine how the churches could have challenged the right of a male slaveholder to exploit his domestic slaves sexually without challenging his right to claim ownership of other human beings.

Roman Imperial Culture

2019 ◽  
pp. 256-276
Author(s):  
Davina C. Lopez
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Visual Representation ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Imperial Culture ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Imperial Ideology

This chapter discusses several aspects of Roman imperial culture that offer resonances with the study of the New Testament. Herein several gendered and sexualized tropes of Roman imperial ideology, which serve to discursively naturalize power relationships and differences in hierarchy, are considered. These include the impenetrable manliness of the Roman emperor, the link between military conquest and sexual violence and feminization of conquered barbarian “others,” and the characterization of the Roman Empire as an endlessly fertile family. Special attention is given to the rhetorical and representational dimensions of Roman imperial culture, and particular emphasis is afforded to visual representation. Finally, the article considers several areas wherein the intersection of gender, sexuality, Roman imperial culture, and the study of the New Testament might further be explored.

Explaining the Epigraphic Habit in the Roman Empire: The Evidence of Epitaphs

1990 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 74-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Over Time

It is now notorious that the production of inscriptions in the Roman Empire was not constant over time, but rose over the first and second centuries A.D. and fell in the third. Ramsay MacMullen pointed this out more than five years ago, with conclusions more cautionary than explanatory: ‘history is not being written in the right way’, he said, for historians have deduced Rome's decline from evidence that–since it appears only epigraphically–has merely disappeared for its own reasons, or have sought general explanations of decline in theories political, economic, or even demographic in nature, none of which can, in turn, explain the disappearance of epigraphy itself. Why this epigraphic habit rose and fell MacMullen left open to question, although he did postulate control by a ‘sense of audience’. The purpose of this paper is to propose that this ‘sense of audience’ was not generalized or generic, but depended on a belief in the value of romanization, of which (as noted but not explained by MacMullen's article) the epigraphic habit is also a rough indicator. Epitaphs constitute the bulk of all provincial inscriptions and in form and number are (generally speaking) the consequence of a provincial imitation of characteristically Roman practices, an imitation that depended on the belief that Roman legal status and style were important, and that may indeed have ultimately depended, at least in North Africa, on the acquisition or prior possession of that status. Such status-based motivations for erecting an epitaph help to explain not only the chronological distribution of epitaphs but also the differences in the type and distribution of epitaphs in the western and eastern halves of the empire. They will be used here moreover to suggest an explanation for the epigraphic habit as a whole.

Greek Strategies of Adaptation to the Roman World: The Case of the Contests

Mnemosyne ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophia Aneziri
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Imperial Cult ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Past ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Imperial Power

This article examines strategies that made it possible for Greek contests and the professionals who were engaged in them to retain their identity in the Roman Empire while they adapted to the circumstances of the new era. In their efforts to preserve and to enhance existing prestige and privilege, the organizers and others who were involved in the contests attempted both to exploit the past and to establish links to the new Roman power. The consequent linking of the Imperial cult with festivals, artists, athletes, and their associations provided tools that assisted the promotion of Imperial power and ideology.

scholarly journals Analysis of Mass Medias Effect on Formation Youths Mindset in the Media Landscape

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 763-773
Author(s):  
Svetlana Koryagina ◽  
Irina Kravchenko
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Government Control ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Youth Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

The article describes the impact of the Mass Media on the formation of the worldview of the young. This impact may be positive or negative. On the one hand, the media educate young people and enhance their participation in public life. On the other hand, they may mislead or promote false values, and manipulate the young generation’s consciousness. What helps people not to get involved into the tried-and-true crowd manipulation scheme in the media landscape is critical thinking, whose lack results in inability to choose the right guidelines in the flow of false information provided by various Media. The authors emphasize the role of the state, which, regarding the needs of the society, should enculturate the young generation, as well as exercise tight control over communication in the global web and publications in the Internet Media and social networks. One of the directions of the state’s policy is expanding the geography of information and communication technologies, and the other is ensuring information security of the young in general and adolescents in particular. To provide this, the state develops organizational and legal mechanisms aimed at protecting children from harmful information in the web, and requirements for the content, its expert evidence and government control. The article demonstrates the results of a study carried out by the authors to assess the current youth Media and their influence on criminality. The key criterion for selecting participants of the focus group was young age, since the young are the most active and the least protected players in the media landscape. The sampling was made by random choice in order to ensure equal opportunities for participation in the study.

scholarly journals Koji je administrativni status rimskog naselja na Ilidži? / What was the administrative status of the Roman settlement in Ilidža?

2018 ◽  
pp. 149-178
Author(s):  
Amra Šačić Beća
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Administrative Development ◽  
Administrative Unit ◽  
Urban Complex ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Res Publica

Medicinal sulfuric springs at present-day Ilidža helped to create Roman thermae that gave the Roman municipium the name Aquae. Systematic archaeological examinations conducted by Carl Patch and Esad Pašalić suggest that this Roman  settlement in Ilidža had existed without interruptions from the 1st  to the 4th  century. Based on the comparison of literary sources and the results of archaeologic research and epigraphic inscriptions, this paper will determine the genesis of administrative development of this Roman administrative unit whose administration included the upper course of the Bosna river and the Sarajevo area. This is an attempt at answering the following question: «Can we speak of Aquae in the context of Roman  citizens at all?” Another important question is what methodology should we use to  treat the expression res publica Aquae S(...?) that was carved on the base of Diocletian’s statue discovered in Ilidža. BiH scholarship has so far based its understanding  of this term on Mócsy’s definition of the noun phrase res publica in the context  of “pseudo-municipal” status. The results of analysis of inscriptions found on epigraphic monuments that will be presented in this paper suggest that one should  step away from understanding the phrase res publica as an administrative category. Finally, we should point out that the objective of this paper is to present the territorial and administrative development of Aquae, as it is an exact example of the  Roman municipalization model in the provincial interior. This interior was usually geographically very distant from the most important economic and urban centers  of the Roman Empire that has also left an impact on its cultural and historical development. Systematic archaeological research on the right bank of the Željeznica river  in 2016 and 2017 has revealed several stratigraphic layers which include, among others, the ancient period. These new findings have been discovered more to the  east compared to the previous findings, indicating that the urban complex of Aquae  had been expanding toward the Sarajevo area.

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