The Vigor of Confederacies

2021 ◽  
pp. 78-92
Author(s):  
Robin Waterfield
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Federal States ◽  
Central Greece ◽  
The Third ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Familiar Form

The chief way in which the Greeks united in the third century in order to be able to offer resistance to Macedon was by forming large federal states. The two greatest of these were based in Achaea and in Aetolia, but both quickly spread well beyond these ethnic borders. “Aetolia” came to mean almost all of central Greece, and “Achaea” much of the Peloponnese. I discuss the differences between confederacies and the most familiar form of ancient Greek polity, the polis, and show how confederacies gained their strengths, before focusing on the structures set up by the Aetolians and Achaeans. By the time Antigonus came to the Macedonian throne, the Achaeans were on the rise, but the Aetolians were already a powerful threat. They had spearheaded the Greek repulsion of the Celts from central Greece, thus preserving Delphi, the most important of the Greeks’ common religious centers, and they used this as a springboard for further expansion. Antigonus treated them warily throughout his reign.

The Neutrality of Delos

1930 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-29
Author(s):  
Walther Kolbe
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
Historical Importance ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Distinguished Scholar ◽  
Set Up ◽  
A Site ◽  
Large Work

The problem of the neutrality of Delos has been the subject of a searching investigation by W. W. Tarn published recently in this Journal. The argument turns mainly on a purely epigraphical question, namely, the interpretation of the formula for the setting-up of a stele in the decrees of the Island League. Its historical importance is great, because, if Tarn is right, we should be justified in utilising the Delian Royal festivals for the reconstruction of the political history of the third century, which has rightly been styled the darkest period of Hellenism. As in the fourth Excursus of his large work Antigonus Gonatas, the distinguished scholar maintains the thesis that Delos became a member of the Island League, and that the varying history of this League is reflected in the establishment of festivals in turn by the Ptolemies, by the Seleucids, and by the Antigonids. The evidence for his theory he finds in the argument that the Islanders, if they wished to set up an inscribed stele in Delos, were not obliged to address a petition to the Commune of Delos, requesting the grant of a site in the sanctuary; the Islanders therefore controlled the site and ground of Delos, which implies that Delos belonged to the League. Although I raised objections to Tarn's thesis, as did Roussel at an earlier date, I would gladly be the first to agree with him, had he succeeded in bringing forward convincing proof of this theory. As this has not been the case, in view of the wide significance of the problem I think it advisable to break silence and to expose my objections to the criticism of experts.

PRE-COLONIAL LATIN COLONIES AND THE TRANSITION TO THE MID-REPUBLICAN PERIOD IN THE FALISCAN AREA AND SOUTH ETRURIA: ORIENTALIZING, ARCHAIC AND LATE ARCHAIC SETTLEMENT AND FUNERARY EVIDENCE FROM THE NEPI SURVEY

2016 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
pp. 1-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulla Rajala
Keyword(s):  
Rural Settlement ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Local Effects ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
The Third ◽  
Set Up ◽  
City State ◽  
The Town

This paper discusses the survey evidence from the Orientalizing and Archaic settlement and funerary sites at Nepi (ancient Nepet), one of the first Latin colonies outside Latium adiectum. The comparison of its pre-Roman, pre-colonial developments to the Roman patterns from the Nepi Survey Project and the trends from other Latin colonies in southern Etruria allows the examination of the local effects of Roman colonialism. The evidence shows that Nepi seemed to develop as an independent city state in the Orientalizing period, peaked in the Archaic period and weakened before the capture of Veii in 396bc, making it easier to defeat. Rural settlement all but disappeared afterwards with similar hiatus apparent at the sister colony at Sutri as well. In the third centurybcthe first few villas near the town appeared as a sign of the establishment of a Roman settlement pattern. The extensive ‘rural colonization’ at Nepi, similarly to Sutri and Cosa, started only in the second centurybcwhen all southern Etruria had entered a colonial phase and could develop alongside Rome. Thus, Latin colonization disrupted earlier patterns and the colonies appear to have been originally outposts set up to secure new territory.

Double Vision: Epiphanies of the Dioscuri in Classical Antiquity

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verity J. Platt
Keyword(s):  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Double Vision ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Roman Forum ◽  
Set Up ◽  
De Natura Deorum

Abstract:The Dioscuri – Castor and Pollux – are among the most epiphanic of gods, frequently appearing in battle or to sailors struggling at sea. On Chios, a festival called the Theophania was founded in the third century BC to commemorate an epiphany of the twin gods. Indeed, their appearance at the Sicilian battle of the River Sagra c. 540 BC was so well known in Greek – and Roman – culture that it was invoked as a proverbial example of epiphanic manifestation in Cicero’s De natura deorum (2.1.13); as such, it was the model for several Graeco-Roman battle epiphanies featuring the Dioscuri and their horses, from Postumius’ victory at Lake Regillus in 496 BC to Constantine’s at the Milvian Bridge in AD 312. The numerous battle epiphanies of antiquity have been gathered and assessed by previous scholars (Pfister 1924 and Pritchett 1979). This article posits a new approach to the material, arguing that, because of their fame and ubiquity, epiphanies of the Dioscuri provided a model through which to explore both the validity and visual authority of divine manifestation. The conjuring of divine presence through the physical semeia of the gods is also an important element of the portrayal of the Dioscuri in image form. Representations of these epiphanic gods cover a spectrum of iconicity, ranging from highly anthropomorphized ‘re-enactments’ of their epiphanies (such as the sculptures set up in the Roman forum to commemorate the Lake Regillus victory) to metonymic denotations of their presence in the form of their polos hats, and sub-iconic depictions of twin stars. This combination of corporeal and cosmic semeia provides a sophisticated commentary upon the cognitive dilemmas raised by epiphany: what kind of bodies do the gods have, how do they reveal these forms to mortals, and how are we to recognize and identify them? As deities defined by dualism – mortals and immortals, gods and heroes, men and stars – the Dioscuri provide a particularly potent model for exploring such issues, for both ancient thinkers and modern scholars of epiphany.

The Physiologus and the Greek Papyri

Reinardus ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 168-184
Author(s):  
Marco Stroppa
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Production ◽  
Broad Sense ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The Third

In Greek literary papyri coming from Egypt we can find only a few evidences of works about animals, for example fragments of Aristotelian works or works linked to the scientific production. Only in recent years two papyri were published that contained a “bestiary” in a broad sense. The first papyrus is a fragment of the Physiologus, one of the most important ancient Greek treatises devoted to the animals: it is a fragment small in size, but of great importance since it testifies the spreading of this work. The second papyrus full of animal figures is the so-called Artemidorus Papyrus, which on one side bears the drawings of many animals. In some cases it is possible to trace them back to the animals described in the chapters of the Physiologus, and determine connections between such different products, an illustrated scroll belonging to the first century AD and a Christian essay of the third century AD.

The new musical fragment from Epidaurus

1985 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 168-171
Author(s):  
Jon Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
First Line ◽  
Musical Notation ◽  
The Third

On July 17, 1977 what appears to be the most recently found ancient Greek musical fragment was unearthed some twenty-five meters northeast of the palaestra at Epidaurus. Carved on red limestone in the third century ad, the inscription consists of eleven fragmentary hexameters from a hymn to Apollo and other divine offspring, only the first line of which seems to contain suprascript musical notation. M. Mitsos published the inscription three years later without musicological analysis, and S. Sepheriades then attempted a preliminary analysis at the 1982 Eighth International Greek and Latin Epigraphical Congress. The present paper explores in greater detail the purported music of this brief, enigmatic inscription in the hope of furthering (but certainly not completing) our understanding of this, a possible fourth ancient Greek musical fragment on stone.

Country Bishops in Byzantine Africa (Presidential Address)

1979 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Markus
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
The Third ◽  
Set Up ◽  
European Thought ◽  
The Town ◽  
The Church

Town and countryside are contrasting, even opposed ideas: one of those doublets which have dominated European thought since antiquity. Our vocabulary of ‘politics’ and ‘civilization’ bears ample testimony to the deep hold that the prejudices of the townsmen of antiquity have established over our language and our thinking. Sometimes, even in antiquity, those prejudices would be turned on their head: the town, the exclusive milieu of culture, refinement and rational human behaviour, could become, as for instance in the eyes of a Jewish rabbi of the third century the seat of iniquity, set up to extort and to oppress. Whatever the attitude one took to the town, the dichotomy of town and countryside became almost a category in the Kantian sense in terms of which modern Europeans have come to perceive the world around them. With Max Weber it became a fundamental category of sociological understanding, with Rostovtzeff of historical analysis, especially of the ancient world in its decline; and in the hands of William Frend—the Rostovtzeff of ecclesiastical history—it showed its power to illuminate, even to transform, the study of ancient heresy and schism. ‘The church in town and countryside’ might be thought to extend the franchise of a notion which has already had too wide and at times, as some would have it, perhaps even a baleful, influence. But both the value of the notion of town and country as an interpretative tool for the ecclesiastical historian, and its limitations, its liability to obscure and to distort, will, I hope, become clearer in the course of discussion.

scholarly journals A Divine Couple: Demeter Malophoros and Zeus Meilichios in Selinus

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-110
Author(s):  
Allaire B. Stallsmith
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Average Height ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Family ◽  
Terracotta Figurines ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Domestic Cult

Abstract This paper concerns a collection of rough-hewn flat stelae excavated from the precinct of Zeus Meilichios in Selinus, Sicily between 1915 and 1926, a majority with two heads or busts, one male and one female, carved at their tops. These crudely fashioned idols are unique in their iconography. They combine the flat inscribed Punic stela with the Greek figural tradition, with some indigenous features. Their meaning is totally obscure – especially since they lack any literary reference. No comparable monuments have been found in ancient Mediterranean cult. The twin stelae were often set up above a collection of burnt rodent and bird bones, ashes, lamps, broken and burnt pottery and terracotta figurines, as a memorial of a sacrifice. The stelae were the objects of a gentilicial cult, similar to that posited for the inscribed “Meilichios stones” with which they shared the Field of Stelae of Zeus Meilichios. The theory advanced here interprets these diminutive stelae (average height 30 cm) as the objects of domestic cult. It was customary in many parts of the ancient Mediterranean, from the Bronze Age down to the Roman period, to venerate household or family gods who protected the health and the wealth of the family. They were thought to embody the spirits of the ancestors and could at times be identified with the gods of the state religion. This divine couple whose effigies were dedicated in the Field of Stelae over a period of four centuries, into the third century, cannot be claimed as Greek or Punic deities. What these nameless protectors of the family were called we cannot say: Meilichios and Meilichia, Father and Mother, or Lord and Lady of the household? As the objects of such a personal domestic cult, their names might have differed with each family.

scholarly journals Administrativno–pravno uređenje rudarskog distrikta sjeverozapadne Bosne u III stoljeću / The administrative and legal regulation of the mining district of northwestern Bosnia in the 3rd century

2020 ◽  
pp. 175-221
Author(s):  
Dženefa Merdanić Šahinović
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Mining Area ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Evolutionary Development ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Mining District ◽  
North West ◽  
The Third ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Mother Earth

Research of the Ancient mining, throughout the Roman Empire, indicates that the evolutionary development of local, metallurgical, and mining plants is directly related to changes of the imperial administration. During the second century, the mines belonged to the state that leased them to a private mine lessee, conductor. As the same conductor appears in the northwestern areas of Bosnia and Mursa, Noricum, as a leaseholder of Pannonian iron mines, we can assume that this mining area was the administrative property of the province of Pannonia. There are fifteen epigraphic monuments from the third century, which provide a basis for understanding the administrative-legal arrangement of the mining district of north-west Bosnia. Almost all monuments have been erected in honor of Oriental deities, with the exception of two monuments referred to Sedatus, a Pannonian deity. The most represented deity is Terra Mater, whose dedications  make half of the total number of these epigraphic sources. Terra Mater, or Mother Earth, basically is not a mining deity, but in this context, its interpretation as such is not a mistake. The aforementioned monuments have been erected by an administrative-legal apparatus operating in this district, in the form of a fiduciary (procurator Augusti), a bailiff (vilicus), or an association of collegium and corpus. Although the administrative apparatus was much more layered and had a functional hierarchical system, these are the only titles and functions that occur in the Northwestern Mining District, within their variations. The strength of administrative power, in the said territory, was best manifested in the third century, but there is numismatic evidence for the mining process in the first century.

The Physiologus and the Greek Papyri

Reinardus ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 168-184
Author(s):  
Marco Stroppa
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Production ◽  
Broad Sense ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Third

In Greek literary papyri coming from Egypt we can find only a few evidences of works about animals, for example fragments of Aristotelian works or works linked to the scientific production. Only in recent years two papyri were published that contained a “bestiary” in a broad sense. The first papyrus is a fragment of the Physiologus, one of the most important ancient Greek treatises devoted to the animals: it is a fragment small in size, but of great importance since it testifies the spreading of this work. The second papyrus full of animal figures is the so-called Artemidorus Papyrus, which on one side bears the drawings of many animals. In some cases it is possible to trace them back to the animals described in the chapters of the Physiologus, and determine connections between such different products, an illustrated scroll belonging to the first century AD and a Christian essay of the third century AD.

The comparative optative: a Homeric reminiscence in the Greek Pentateuch?

1999 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Evans
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Large Sample ◽  
The Third

AbstractThe potential optative subordinated in a clause of comparison is extremely rare in extra-Biblical Greek, though found already in Homeric Epic. In the Septuagint it is relatively frequent. There are nine examples in the third century B.C. Greek Pentateuch and a further nine in later books. It will inevitably be suspected that some sort of Hebraistic influence on these translation Greek documents prompts the usage. Yet analysis of the comparative optative's relationship to text components in the underlying Hebrew reveals no specific motivation from that quarter. We are dealing with an independent Greek phenomenon. The argument of this paper, based on consideration of a large sample of Ancient Greek, is that Homeric reminiscence, far fetched as it must seem prima facie, offers the likeliest explanation of the Pentateuchal usage.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document