Inventing Wilderness

2021 ◽  
pp. 14-58
Author(s):  
Wu Hung
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Religious Imagination ◽  
Central Topic ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
The Ancient Chinese

Newly available archaeological evidence has once again redefined the “origin” of landscape representations in China, while also providing much richer information about their material media and pictorial context. This chapter focuses on a group of images on bronze artifacts from the fifth to fourth century BCE, which juxtapose scenes of wilderness with scenes of human civilization typified by ritual performances. These pictorial compositions evince many parallels with the Gateways through Mountains and Seas, a mythical/geographical text transmitted from ancient times. Together they propel us to contemplate why the ancient Chinese turned their mind and eye to uninhabited nature and depicted it at this particular moment. Significantly, this was also the time in Chinese history when geographical exploration was actively taking place and had become a central topic in the poetic and religious imagination.

The Population of the Piraeus in the Roman Period: A Re-Assessment of the Evidence of Funerary Inscriptions

2009 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
DIMITRIS GRIGOROPOULOS
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
Funerary Inscriptions ◽  
Augustan Age ◽  
The Town

In 87–86 BCE, the Roman army under L. Cornelius Sulla invaded Attica and, after a long siege, sacked Athens and the Piraeus. In both ancient and modern eyes, Sulla's sack has been seen as a key event, which marked not only the end of Athenian independence but also the beginning of an irreversible decline for its port, the Piraeus, in antiquity. Ancient literary testimonies in the decades following the Sullan sack portray the Piraeus as an urban wasteland, crammed with ruins but devoid of life. Strabo, writing in the Augustan age, notes that the town of his time endured, but had shrunk between the two harbours (the Kantharos and Zea); Pausanias, writing later in the second century CE, mentions a number of monuments but pays more attention to the old, ‘Classical’, town than to the contemporary ‘Roman’ Piraeus. Rescue excavations in the last few decades have provided corroboration for Strabo's remark. Building remains dating to the Classical period (mainly the fourth century BCE) extend over a larger area than those of Roman date, which tend to concentrate on the isthmus between the Kantharos and Zea harbours. Nevertheless, more recent finds and a reconsideration of the available archaeological evidence has shown that settlement clustering around the main harbour did not result from the destruction of the port by Sulla but had started in Hellenistic times and was intensified in the Roman period.

Hesiod and Comedy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Cultural Authority ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Cultural Currency ◽  
Fourth Century Bce

Comic dramas, attested as early as the later sixth century bce in Sicily and from ca. 486 bce in Attica, reflect familiarity with Hesiodic poetry from the time our actual documentation begins in the 470s for Sicily and 430s for Attica and into the mid-fourth century bce. Comic poets engaged with Hesiodic poetry at the level of specific allusion or echo and (more frequently) with Hesiodic stories, thought, themes, ideas, and style, now common cultural currency. They also engaged with the poet and his poetic persona, whether bracketed with Homer as a great cultural authority, distinguished as the anti-Homer in subjects or style, or showcased as an emblematic persona of poet and (didactic) sage. Aristophanes, for one, adopted elements of the Hesiodic persona in fashioning his own.

Plato’s Hesiods

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Folch
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
The Status

This chapter surveys Hesiodic reception in fourth-century bce prose, with emphasis on Plato and especially the Laws. Passages of the Laws are read in context and used to illuminate the status of Hesiodic poetry in the fourth century. Topics discussed include rhapsodic performance, Hesiod’s relationship to Homer, study of Hesiodic poetry in schools, the fourth-century manuscript tradition, citation of Hesiod’s poems in conversation and Athenian courtrooms, and the politics of Hesiodic quotation. Whether understood as part of the rhapsode’s canon, a gnomic poet, a proto-sophist or proto-philosopher, or an allegorist, Hesiod remained a dynamic site for the production of the philosophical, literary, and political debates that animated fourth-century prose.

scholarly journals From Commentary to paribhāṣās: Kātyāyana and Patañjali vis-à-vis Vyāḍi

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 515-566
Author(s):  
Maria Piera Candotti ◽  
Tiziana Pontillo
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Fourth Century Bce

Abstract The present paper is targeted on three landmarks in the long story of the paribhāṣās’ development. Two of these landmarks descended from the earliest testimony of Vyākaraṇa meta-rules, i. e. those included in Pāṇini’s grammar (fifth–fourth century BCE), and one which has been handed down as the first independent collection of paribhāṣās and attributed to Vyāḍi. In particular a shift is highlighted between Kātyāyaṇa’s (third century BCE) integrative approach (vacana) and Patañjali’s (second century BCE) recourse to implicit paribhāṣās in the Aṣṭādhyāyī as a powerful hermeneutical tool. A shift that helps in interpreting the need for a validation and collection of implicit pāṇinian paribhāṣās as carried out by authors such as Vyāḍi.

Colleagues of Apostles, Presbyters, and Bishops

2021 ◽  
pp. 26-58
Author(s):  
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Pastoral Epistles ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The Church

This chapter points out and examines evidence for the role of female ‘colleagues’ or ‘partners’ (syzygoi) in the early churches. It focuses initially on the meaning(s) of syzygos, literally ‘yokefellow’, and the patristic debate about it. The chapter takes into consideration iconographic and archaeological evidence, and literary material, from Paul to patristic writings, including the Acts of Philip and its portrait of the apostolic couple of Philip and Mariamme. The chapter also points to the suggestion of a pairing in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and includes assessment of Clement, Origen, Theodoret, and Gregory Nazianzen. Nazianzen testifies to the existence of a woman presbyter, colleague of a male presbyter and bishop, and highly respected in Cappadocia in the late fourth century, Theosebia, who was most likely the sister of Gregory Nyssen. It also notes that the women syzygoi need to be seen in the context of other women office holders in the Church, and provides a detailed overview of the key evidence, ending with Origen, who could even use passages of the Pastoral Epistles as a means of acknowledging them.

Hepatitis Viruses: Oysters, Blood Transfusions, and Cancer

2020 ◽  
pp. 187-200
Author(s):  
Michael B. A. Oldstone
Keyword(s):  
Virus Infection ◽  
Hepatitis Virus ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
World Health ◽  
Effective Vaccine ◽  
Hepatitis Viruses ◽  
Hbv Vaccine ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
The Ancient Chinese

This chapter studies the history of hepatitis virus infection. Hepatitis and/or jaundice were recorded in the fourth century BC by Hippocrates and over 1,000 years ago in the ancient Chinese literature. By the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the association of a virus infection with jaundice and liver disease was made. The major hepatitis viruses are hepatitis A (HAV), hepatitis B (HBV), and non-A, non-B or hepatitis C (HCV). HAV is transmitted almost always by fecal–oral routes but occasionally by transfusion or inoculation of blood obtained during the transient stage of viremia that occurs during the HAV incubation period. While there is currently no effective vaccine for HCV, an effective vaccine exists for HBV. A problem with the HBV vaccine is individuals refusing to be vaccinated. Nevertheless, recent progress made on the understanding and treatment of these viruses has led to the World Health Organization planning that by 2030 hepatitis infections will be reduced by 90% and deaths by 65%.

The Archeology of Divine Guidance in Corinth

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-45
Author(s):  
John A. Jillions
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
Healing Cult ◽  
Household Shrines ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Divine Guidance

This chapter looks at some of the archeological discoveries in Corinth that reflect popular attitudes toward the gods, religious experience, and divine guidance. The most prominent was the healing cult centered in the Temple of Asklepios, where interpretation of dreams was a key feature. Other sites and household shrines would have brought to mind Fortuna, family ancestors, the oracle of Delphi, and mythical stories of divine intervention with a Corinthian slant (Venus, Medea, Glauce, Bellerophon, Sisyphus, Dionysus). But for an alternative point of view, there was the tomb of Diogenes the Cynic (fourth century BCE), who settled in Corinth “to be where fools were thickest.” He was highly critical of superstitious piety and advised instead to follow the inscription at Delphi, “Know Thyself.” He concluded that oracles are deceptive not because the gods are deceitful but because human beings are incapable of properly understanding the gods.

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