Roman Republic, Year One

1998 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. P. Wiseman
Keyword(s):  
Roman Republic ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Historical Drama ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Know How ◽  
The Third ◽  
Historical Tradition

The Romans knew that they had once been ruled by kings, and they believed, perhaps rightly, that the fall of the monarchy had taken place at what we would call the end of the sixth century B.C. The texts that tell us this – Livy, Dionysius, Plutarch, etc. – all depend on a historical tradition that can be traced back as far as the second half of the third century B.C., when the Roman literary genres of historical drama, historical epic, and prose historiography began. Before that, we do not know how the Romans conceived or recorded the memory of their own past.

Secular Architecture: Military

2021 ◽  
pp. 362-372
Author(s):  
Stavros I. Arvanitopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Study ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Morphological Features ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Selection Of

The Byzantine state inherited a large number of defensive structures, on its borders and in the hinterland where ancient cities were refortified in response to barbarian raids, primarily during the third century. The fundamental characteristics of fortification architecture developed during the sixth century. Nevertheless, criteria for the selection of the location, dimensions, and certain construction and morphological features of the forts, towers, and city/barrier walls, were continually adapted to changes in society and state until the end of the empire. Systematic study of the defensive architectural remains including excavation, creation of synthetic works, and reliable maps will allow researchers to date, compare, and understand the evolution of fortification architecture as well as aspects of daily life in the empire.

The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 1

2020 ◽  
pp. 269-294
Author(s):  
Andrew Chittick
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
The Third ◽  
Northern India ◽  
Political Legitimation

Chapter 10, “The Buddhist Repertoire, Part 1: The Era of Pluralist Patronage,” is the first half of the third study of various repertoires of political legitimation. This chapter focuses on the development of Buddhist institutions and historiography in the fifth century, a period of pluralist patronage under the banner of Sinitic universalism. The Buddhist repertoire in maritime diplomatic relations with South Seas regimes proved an important staging ground for the ruler’s performance as a cakravartin, or Buddhist universal ruler, as well as a conduit for Buddhist expertise. By the end of the fifth century, Jiankang elites had developed Buddhist legends and practices that asserted that the Jiankang regime’s legitimacy derived, not from the Han Empire, but from its direct inheritance of legitimacy from the cakravartin Asoka, who had ruled in northern India in the third century BCE. This set the stage for the striking developments of the sixth century.

Elite-Instrumentalism: Persistence and Paradox

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craige B. Champion
Keyword(s):  
Roman Republic ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
The Third ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Time Map ◽  
Interpretation Model

This chapter discusses the origins of elite-instrumentalist interpretations of Roman religion by Greek and Roman writers, and how it persists in recent scholarship. It uses a particular “time map,” spanning the period from approximately the second quarter of the third century—leading to Rome's first titanic conflict with Carthage—to the aftermath of the Gracchan revolution. The chapter first provides an overview of the so-called “polis religion,” the focus of the modern study of Roman religion, describing it as a form of elite-instrumentalism. It then considers the elite-instrumentalist interpretation/model, its history, and its paradoxical longevity in order to understand how the Roman ruling elite used religion in the Middle Republic. It also examines some of the main features of elite religion in the Middle Roman Republic. Finally, it introduces definitions, parameters, and theoretical/methodological underpinnings for the chapters that follow.

Treaties true and false: The error of Philinus of Agrigentum

1985 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. D. Hoyos
Keyword(s):  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
The Third ◽  
Good Cause

Rome and Carthage had established peaceful diplomatic relations before 300 b.c. — as early as the close of the sixth century according to Polybius, whose dating there no longer seems good cause to doubt. A second treaty was struck probably in 348. Both dealt essentially with traders' and travellers' obligations and entitlements, so any military or political terms sprang from that context. In both, the Carthaginians agreed to hand over any independent town they captured in Latium. In the first treaty they were not to establish a fort in Latium either; in the second, the Romans were not to found a city in Carthaginian Africa, Spain or Sardinia.But independent military considerations are the stuff of a third treaty concluded during Rome's war with Pyrrhus. Rome and Carthage now pledged each other military aid in certain circumstances, as we shall see. And ‘geopolitical’ concerns of a very broad kind imbued a treaty which was reported by the third-century historian Philinus of Agrigentum. By this, he stated, ‘the Romans must keep out of the whole of Sicily, the Carthaginians out of Italy’ (ἔδει Ῥωμαίους μ⋯ν ⋯πέχεσθαι Σικελίας ⋯πάσης, Καρχηδονίους δ' Ἰταλίας). This is Polybius' citation of Philinus' allegation; Polybius himself then roundly rejects the very existence of such a pact and declares himself at a loss to understand how his predecessor could record it, but modern scholarship is no longer all that ready to accept his view. A strong majority of historians prefer to follow the Agrigentine, and many see 306 b.c. as the likely year for the agreement because Livy records a ‘renewal’ then of a foedus with Carthage (without giving details).

Epigraphic Evidence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelos Chaniotis
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Voluntary Associations ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Epigraphic Evidence

Greek and Latin inscriptions—epitaphs, dedications, manumission records, lists of members of voluntary associations, laws, treaties, decrees, cult regulations, stamps on bricks and pottery, graffiti, and honorary inscriptions for masters and patrons—provide evidence concerning the terminology of unfree labour, attitudes towards slavery, and the origins, life, feelings, occupations, price, and legal conditions of slaves especially in urban areas from roughly the sixth century BC (Greece) and the third century BC (Italy) to Late Antiquity. Certain conventions—for example, regarding indicators of an individual’s status—mean that the use of epigraphic material for studying the complexities of slavery requires careful consideration of contexts: time, space, local traditions, addressees, language, and epigraphic habits.

Living and Working on the Capitoline Hill

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Moralee
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Third ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
The Social ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The Hill

Chapter 2 surveys the evidence for the maintenance of the Capitoline Hill’s temples, statues, festivals, and administrative uses into the sixth century. While imperial rites celebrated at the Capitol faded in significance by the end of the third century, the hill was at the heart of the social and administrative worlds of late antique Rome. The chapter thus turns to the ways in which the hill was embedded in multiple late Roman neighborhoods and used for administrative purposes. Even as Rome’s urban environment was undergoing serious transformations in the use of public spaces, archaeology, epigraphy, and literary sources demonstrate that the Capitoline Hill was surrounded by neighborhoods displaying a high degree of sociability and commerce throughout this period.

The Ionic Capital of the Gymnasium of Kynosarges

1897 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 89-105
Author(s):  
Pieter Rodeck
Keyword(s):  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Burial Ground ◽  
The Third ◽  
British School

The excavations of the British School at Athens, in the winters of 1896 and 1897, had the result of determining that the site, on which they were carried on, had been a burial ground previous to the sixth century B.C. and again after the third century, and that, in the meantime, it must have been covered by the Greek building, of which we laid bare the foundations. The plan of this building resembles that of a large gymnasium; the period of its existence coincides with that during which we know the gymnasium of Kynosarges to have existed, and the position of the site is such as the various mentions of Kynosarges by classic authors leads us to expect.

Nicopolis ad Istrum: Backward and Balkan?

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. WHITTOW
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of

The story of Nicopolis ad Istrum and its citizens exemplifies much that is common to the urban history of the whole Roman Empire. This chapter reviews the history of Nicopolis and its transition into the small fortified site of the fifth to seventh centuries and compares it with the evidence from the Near East and Asia Minor. It argues that Nicopolis may not have experienced a cataclysm as has been suggested, and that, as in the fifth and sixth century west, where landowning elites showed a striking ability to adapt and survive, there was an important element of continuity on the lower Danube, which in turn may account for the distinctive ‘Roman’ element in the early medieval Bulgar state. It also suggests that the term ‘transition to Late Antiquity’ should be applied to what happened at Nicopolis in the third century: what happened there in the fifth was the transition to the middle ages. This chapter also describes late antique urbanism in the Balkans by focusing on the Justiniana Prima site.

Carmina Latina Epigraphica

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred G. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
The Third ◽  
Latin Verse ◽  
History Of ◽  
Funerary Texts ◽  
Textual Content

Latin verse inscriptions, the so-called carmina epigraphica, are among the treasures of our epigraphic heritage. They are especially demanding because of their metrical form, length, and sophisticated textual content. Depending on the writer’s intentions, they are related to epideictic literary genres such as encomium and biography, scoptic epigram, lament and consolation, hymn and prayer, as well as ecphrasis. The chapter provides a brief history of the study of verse inscriptions and by means of examples ranging from the third century BCE to late Antiquity presents a typology of this genre of Latin inscriptions, c. 80% of which are funerary texts.

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