From Pre-Makkabaean Judaea to Hekatomnid Karia and Back Again

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Chrubasik
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
Local Elites ◽  
Architectural Styles ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
The City

This chapter analyses the adaptation of Greek cultural and political practices in two distinct environments: fourth-century Karia and second-century Judaea. Both regions see a marked political transformation in their respective time periods. The Hekatomnid rulers actively fostered the foundation of poleis, experimented with Greek architectural styles, and the new polis communities and rulers publicly displayed Greek-language inscriptions. Similarly, one of the high priests of Judaea attempted to transform the city of Jerusalem into a polis and founded Greek polis institutions there. By raising the question of why Greek cultural elements were valuable to the agents of fourth-century Karia and second-century Judaea, this chapter proposes that very local reasons attracted the local elites of these regions to Greek institutions, and argues against seeing these processes as being deeply connected to global trends of a supposed Greek oikoumene.

Hellenism and the Local Communities of the Eastern Mediterranean

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
Local Engagement ◽  
The Many

This volume focuses on questions of Greek and non-Greek cultural interaction in the eastern Mediterranean and the ancient Near East during a broadly defined Hellenistic period from 400 BCE–250 CE. While recent historiographical emphasis on the non-Greek cultures of the eastern Mediterranean is a critical methodological advancement, this volume re-examines the presence of Greek cultural elements in these areas. The regions discussed—Asia Minor, Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia—were quite different from one another; so, too, were the cross-cultural interactions we can observe in each case. Nevertheless, overarching questions that unite these local phenomena are addressed by leading scholars in their individual contributions. These questions are at the heart of this volume: Why did the non-Greek communities of the Eastern Mediterranean engage so closely with Greek cultural forms and political and cultural practices? How did this engagement translate into the daily lives of the non-Greek cultures of Asia Minor, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Egypt? Local engagement differed from region to region, but some elements, such as local forms of the polis and writing in the Greek language, were attractive for many of the non-Greek communities from fourth-century Anatolia to second-century Babylon. The Greek empires and the Greek communities of the Eastern Mediterranean, too, were transformed by these local interpretations. The presence of adapted, changed, and locally interpreted Greek elements deeply entrenched in each community’s culture are for us the many forms of Hellenisms, but it is ultimately these categories, too, that this volume wishes to examine.

Rome: Empire, City, and Church

2021 ◽  
pp. 20-38
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Local Elites ◽  
Food Riots ◽  
New Form ◽  
The City ◽  
Imperial Reforms ◽  
Cooperative Venture

Chapter 2 describes the Roman Empire in the fourth and early fifth centuries and important emperors of the period. Among imperial reforms was the introduction of a new form of coinage, the gold solidus. The chapter introduces the emperor Honorius’ important general of the western imperial troops, Stilicho, and his wife, Serena, who will figure in Melania and Pinian’s attempts at divestment. It describes the life of cities in that era, especially the city of Rome, and the role of Christianization in changing its urban landscape. Rome’s inhabitants were dependent on food brought from elsewhere and distributed to them by a system called the annona; disruption of the supply could lead to food riots, one of which plays a role in the couple’s attempts to divest. The building of churches and martyr shrines in and around Rome, importantly spurred by the emperor Constantine and his family in the early fourth century, later often became a cooperative venture between bishops (especially Damasus) and local elites. The cult of Saint Lawrence plays a significant role in the life of Melania: at his shrine or church, Pinian was persuaded to adopt a life of ascetic renunciation with her.

Old and New Faiths, AD 1–450

The Great Sea ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Abulafia
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Mother Goddess ◽  
Unleavened Bread ◽  
Jewish Prayer ◽  
Continuous Use ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple

As in any port city of the Roman world, the population of Ostia was very mixed. An extraordinary discovery was made on the outskirts of Ostia in 1961, while a road was being constructed linking Rome to its new door to the world, Fiumicino airport: the synagogue of Ostia, the oldest synagogue structure to have survived in Europe. The earliest part dates from the first century AD, but the building was repaired or partly rebuilt in the fourth century. It was in continuous use for Jewish prayer for at least 300 years. An inscription from the second century commemorates the building of the Ark for the scrolls of the Law, at the expense of a certain Mindis Faustos; the inscription is mainly in Greek, with a few Latin words, for the Jews of Rome, with their connections to the East, continued to use Greek as their daily language. The building and its annexes have an area of 856 square metres, and everything suggests that this was the major synagogue of a prosperous community of hundreds of Jews. More than a synagogue, by the fourth century the complex contained an oven, possibly for the baking of unleavened bread for Passover, and a ritual bath. There were side rooms that were probably used for teaching and for meetings of the Jewish council and of the rabbinical court. A carved architrave portrayed the great candlestick that had stood in the Temple, the ram’s horn blown at New Year, and the symbols of the Feast of Tabernacles, the citron and decorated palm branch. Nor was Judaism the only eastern cult with many followers in Ostia. A small brick-built temple elsewhere in the city has been identified as a shrine of Sarapis. Within the precinct there was a courtyard paved with a black-and-white mosaic of Nile scenes. Plenty of inscriptions refer to the cult of Isis; there were several shrines to Mithras, much favoured in the Roman army; during their wild ecstasies, male devotees of the mother-goddess Cybele, who was also worshipped at Ostia, were said to castrate themselves.

The Date of the Muratorian Fragment

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-172
Author(s):  
John F. Lingelbach
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Church History ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Historical Theology ◽  
First Time ◽  
Objective Methodology

Three hundred years after its discovery, scholars find themselves unable to determine the more likely of the two hypotheses regarding the date of the Muratorian Fragment, which consists of a catalog of New Testament texts. Is the Fragment a late second- to early third-century composition or a fourth-century composition? This present work seeks to break the impasse. The study found that, by making an inference to the best explanation, a second-century date for the Fragment is preferred. This methodology consists of weighing the two hypotheses against five criteria: plausibility, explanatory scope, explanatory power, credibility, and simplicity. What makes this current work unique in its contribution to church history and historical theology is that it marks the first time the rigorous application of an objective methodology, known as “inference to the best explanation” (or IBE), has been formally applied to the problem of the Fragment’s date.

The Roman Martyrs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lapidge
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Church

The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the ‘peace of the Church’ (c. 312). Some of these Roman martyrs are universally known — SS. Agnes, Sebastian or Laurence, for example — but others are scarcely known outside the ecclesiastical landscape of Rome itself. Each of the translated passiones, which vary in length from a few paragraphs to over ninety, is accompanied by an individual introduction and commentary; the translations are preceded by an Introduction which describes the principal features of this little-known genre of Christian literature. The Roman passiones martyrum have never previously been collected together, and have never been translated into a modern language. They were mostly composed during the period 425 x 675, by anonymous authors who who were presumably clerics of the Roman churches or cemeteries which housed the martyrs’ remains. It is clear that they were composed in response to the huge explosion of pilgrim traffic to martyrial shrines from the late fourth century onwards, at a time when authentic records (protocols) of their trials and executions had long since vanished, and the authors of the passiones were obliged to imagine the circumstances in which martyrs were tried and executed. The passiones are works of pure fiction; and because they abound in ludicrous errors of chronology, they have been largely ignored by historians of the early Church. But although they cannot be used as evidence for the original martyrdoms, they nevertheless allow a fascinating glimpse of the concerns which animated Christians during the period in question: for example, the preservation of virginity, or the ever-present threat posed by pagan practices. And because certain aspects of Roman life will have changed little between (say) the second century and the fifth, the passiones throw valuable light on many aspects of Roman society, not least the nature of a trial before an urban prefect, and the horrendous tortures which were a central feature of such trials. Above all, perhaps, the passiones are an indispensable resource for understanding the topography of late antique Rome and its environs, since they characteristically contain detailed reference to the places where the martyrs were tried, executed, and buried. The book contains five Appendices containing translations of texts relevant to the study of Roman martyrs: the Depositio martyrum of A.D. 354 (Appendix I); the epigrammata of Pope Damasus d. 384) which pertain to Roman martyrs treated in the passiones (II); entries pertaining to Roman martyrs in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (III); entries in seventh-century pilgrim itineraries pertaining to shrines of Roman martyrs in suburban cemeteries (IV); and entries commemorating these martyrs in early Roman liturgical books (V).

How Greek Is the Greek Romance?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Whitmarsh
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century

In the light of the findings of this book, the ‘Hellenocentric’ romances of Chariton and Xenophon look less like a point of origin for the Greek romance and more an exception against the larger backdrop of an ongoing interest in cultural blending and intermarriage. This chapter looks briefly at Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Clitophon (second century CE) and Heliodorus’s Charicleia and Theagenes (fourth century CE), reading them in terms of continuation of the intercultural themes found in earlier, Hellenistic ‘novels’.

Sicily

2019 ◽  
pp. 536-552
Author(s):  
Salvatore de Vincenzo
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Advanced Degree ◽  
Characteristic Type ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The City

Thucydides reports that the Phoenicians were present throughout Sicily and traded with the Sicels. A tangible Phoenician presence in Sicily, as expressed by pottery, is attested only at the end of the eighth century bce. The earliest hypothetical Phoenician settlements of Solunt and Panormus are still almost unknown. This earliest phase is associated in particular with the city of Motya, where pottery and a few other finds testify to it. The Punic phase of the island is much clearer, with almost all indications coming from Motya and Selinus, which were not built over in Roman times. The Pfeilertempel, as emerged from Motya, could be regarded as the prototype for the Phoenician temple in Sicily. In turn, it is possible to recognize a characteristic type of temple of Punic Sicily, as particularly shown at Selinus, These shrines, as well as other elements of the Punic settlements like the houses, the fortifications, or the necropoleis, in particular from the fourth century bce onwards, are evidence of an advanced degree of Hellenization, framed within a Mediterranean koine.

Parting Ways or Rival Siblings? A Review and Analysis of Metaphors for the Separation of Jews and Christians in Antiquity

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-204
Author(s):  
Timothy A. Gabrielson
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Parting Ways ◽  
Jewish Christians ◽  
Parting Of The Ways

Since the early 1990s, ‘the parting of the ways’ has become academic shorthand, especially in anglophone scholarship, for the separation of Jews and Christians in antiquity. Often it is associated with a onetime, global break that occurred by the end of the second century, particularly over one or more theological issues. This model has been challenged as being too tidy. Other images have been offered, most notably that of ‘rival siblings’, but the ‘parting’ model remains supreme. Consensus has shifted in other ways, however. The ‘parting’, or better, ‘partings’, is now understood to be a localized, protracted, and multifaceted process that likely began in the second century and continued into or past the fourth century. It is also suggested here that the current debate covers five distinguishable topics: (1) mutual religious recognition, (2) the continued existence of ‘Jewish Christians’, (3) religious interaction, (4) social concourse, and (5) outsider classification.

The Celtic Warrior Fibula

1996 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. M. Stead ◽  
N. D. Meeks
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Art Exhibition ◽  
Front Cover ◽  
The Third ◽  
La Tène ◽  
La Tene

In 1960 and 1961 Ole Klindt-Jensen published two short notes about a golden statuette of a Celtic warrior, soldered to a fine brooch. He was convinced that the warrior did not belong to the brooch, and thought that they had been combined fairly recently. J. M. de Navarro added a comment to the 1961 note, concluding: ‘My impression (from photographs only) is that the brooch might date from the fourth century BC and the figure not before the latter half of the third or the second century BC, i.e. that it was added later.’ Klindt-Jensen's notes were accompanied by plates, and at the same time another photograph was published on the front cover ofCelticum, volume I. A decade later the brooch was shown at the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, and at the Hayward Gallery, London, as item no. 35 in the Early Celtic Art exhibition held in 1970. The catalogue entry was based on Klindt-Jensen's note, but no photograph was published. In the mid 1970s R. M. Rowlett prepared a paper on the authenticity of the brooch, including metal analyses and a comparison of its proportions with those of some La Tène II brooches: Rowlett considered that the figure of the warrior was contemporary with the rest of the brooch, which he accepted as an authentic antiquity. His paper was eventually published about twenty years later.

scholarly journals Carnavalesk taalgebruik en de constructie van lokale identiteiten

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonie M.E.A. Cornips ◽  
Vincent de Rooij ◽  
Irene Stengs
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Integrated Analysis ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Southern Netherlands ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study ◽  
The City ◽  
Selection Of

This article aims to encourage the interdisciplinary study of ‘languaculture,’ an approach to language and culture in which ideology, linguistic and cultural forms, as well as praxis are studied in relation to one another. An integrated analysis of the selection of linguistic and cultural elements provides insight into how these choices arise from internalized norms and values, and how people position themselves toward received categories and hegemonic ideologies. An interdisciplinary approach will stimulate a rethinking of established concepts and methods of research. It will also lead to a mutual strengthening of linguistic, sociolinguistic, and anthropological research. This contribution focuses on Limburg and the linguistic political context of this Southern-Netherlands region where people are strongly aware of their linguistic distinctiveness. The argument of the paper is based on a case study of languaculture, viz. the carnivalesque song ‘Naar Talia’ (To Italy) by the Getske Boys from the city of Heerlen.

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