‘The Race that is Set Before Us’: The Athletic Ideal in the Aesthetics and Culture of Early Roman Britain

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Henig
Keyword(s):  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
First Century ◽  
Research Report ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
British Art ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Starting Point

I first met Barry Cunliffe when I came to dig at Fishbourne, and I still remember my amazement at seeing what were clearly stylobate blocks of Mediterranean type being unearthed. In that first season I excavated for only three days, but the memory lingered with me and I later returned to supervise on the east and north wings of this extraordinary site. Subsequently, on my arrival in Oxford to embark on a doctoral dissertation upon Roman intaglios and cameos excavated from British sites, I wrote to Barry to ask whether he knew of any gemstones I might not yet have located. In a characteristically terse, but very courteous and helpful, reply he told me there were over thirty at Bath and that if I were to write them up in two or three months he would be delighted to publish my work in a Research Report he was preparing for the Society of Antiquaries (Henig 1969). Thus, I owe to Barry my first lucky break in the Weld of archaeological publication. Subsequently, and not too long afterwards, I was invited by him to publish the gems from Fishbourne (Henig 1971). It seems appropriate to return to those intaglios from Bath and Fishbourne, in order to survey a little of this glyptic evidence, in association with gems and other material from elsewhere, in order to explore a very small but fascinating aspect of a theme which has so often aroused Barry’s attention and mine, that of Romanization or, as we have been urged to call it by Greg Woolf, ‘Becoming Roman’ (Woolf 1998) especially in the first century BC and first century AD. My starting point will be an intaglio from Bath cut with a Greek theme, that of a discobolos who is about to throw his discus (figure 24.1). In front of him is his prize, a palm in a vase. This image has previously been used by me to illustrate an essay about Greek themes in Romano-British art (Henig 2000: 133, fig. 5) for the spa at Bath was clearly a sophisticated cultural centre with connections across the Graeco-Roman world ; and it has long seemed very probable that the patron who sponsored this stupendous work was none other than the Atrebatan client ruler Tiberius Claudius Togidubnus, whose titulature as Great King in Britain must surely have been borrowed from the Hellenistic East (Bogaers 1979; Henig 2000: 126).

Long-lived Samian?

Britannia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 259-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Closed Groups

ABSTRACTIn order to study the possibility that some samian (terra sigillata) vessels remained available and/or in circulation for quite some time, a review has been made of closed groups (especially grave-assemblages), as a useful starting point. This paper argues that it is reasonable to expect some complete first-century samian vessels to have survived into the second century; also that some second-century vessels had survived into the fourth century at least throughout Roman Britain.

The first century of English protestantism and the growth of national identity

1982 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 309-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
First Century ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
John Foxe ◽  
Religious Attitudes ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Religious Zeal

Their sense of national identity is not something that men have been in the habit of directly recording. Its strength or weakness, in relation to commitment to international causes or to localist sentiment, can often only be inferred by examining political and religious attitudes and personal behaviour. So far as the early modern period is concerned, the subject is hazardous because groups and individuals must have varied enormously in the extent to which national identity meant something to them or influenced their lives. The temptation to generalise must be resisted. It is all too easy to suppose that national identity became well established in England in the Tudor century, when a national culture, based on widespread literacy among gentry, yeomen and townsmen, flowered as it had never done before, when the bible was first generally available in English, when John Foxe produced his celebrated Acts and Monuments, better known as the Book of Martyrs. Recent work reassessing the significance of Foxe’s account of the English reformation and other Elizabethan polemical writings provdes a convenient starting point for this brief investigation of some of the connections between religious zeal and national consciousness between 1558 and 1642.

scholarly journals Evergreen Plants in Roman Britain and Beyond: Movement, Meaning and Materiality

Britannia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 135-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa A. Lodwick
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Norway Spruce ◽  
Spatial Patterns ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Food Plants ◽  
Stone Pine ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Roman World

ABSTRACTIn tandem with the large-scale translocation of food plants in the Roman world, ornamental evergreen plants and plant items were also introduced to new areas for ritual and ornamental purposes. The extent to which these new plants, primarily box and stone-pine, were grown in Britain has yet to be established. This paper presents a synthesis of archaeobotanical records of box, stone-pine and norway spruce in Roman Britain, highlighting chronological and spatial patterns. Archaeobotanical evidence is used alongside material culture to evaluate the movement of these plants and plant items into Roman Britain, their meaning and materiality in the context of human-plant relations in ornamental gardens and ritual activities. Archaeobotanical evidence for ornamental evergreen plants elsewhere in the Roman world is presented.

Disease and Trauma in the Children from Roman Britain

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary E. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Iron Deficiency Anaemia ◽  
Metabolic Diseases ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Deficiency Anaemia ◽  
Roman World ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

This chapter explores our current knowledge of pathology and trauma in Romano-British non-adult samples focusing on the children from the late Roman cemetery of Poundbury Camp, Dorset. Evidence for metabolic diseases (rickets, scurvy, iron deficiency anaemia), fractures, thalassemia, congenital disorders and tuberculosis, are presented with emphasis on what their presence tells us about the impact of the Romans in Britain. Many of the large Roman sites from the UK were excavated long before diagnostic criteria for recognizing pathology in child remains were fully developed, and European studies tend only to focus on anaemia and its link to malaria. A lack of environmental evidence for the sites from which our skeletal remains are derived is also problematic, and this chapter hopes to set the agenda for future research into the health and life of children living in the Roman World.

The Origins of Kalᾱm

1980 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Cook
Keyword(s):  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Starting Point

That the dialectical technique of Muslim kalām is a borrowing from Christian theology is no secret. Its extra-Islamic origin has indeed been asserted by van Ess with great forthrightness in the context of his recent publication of an early kalām text. The text in question is an anti-Qadarite polemic ascribed to al-Hasan b. Muhammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya (d. c. 100 A.H.); it lacks a title, but may conveniently be designated Questions against the Qadarites. Van Ess accepts the ascription, and dates the tract to the 70s of the first century of the Hijra. Since the text contains no contemporary historical reference or colour, and. the ascription rests on the sole authority of the Zaydī imāam al-Hādī (d. 298), the case for so early a dating rests heavily on the theological style and content of the tract. Many of the arguments advanced by van Ess are questionable, and the result could not be said to constitute proof. But it would be churlish to reject the case for an early dating out of hand, and difficult to sustain one later than the first half of the second century. The text is thus an archaic one, and provides an appropriate starting-point for an inquiry into the origins of kalām.

On Poverty and Abundance

2018 ◽  
pp. 105-140
Author(s):  
Laura Salah Nasrallah
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
First Century ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Economic Engagement ◽  
Business Ties

Even in the mid first century CE, Roman Philippi was still marked by its colonization by Roman veterans from the civil wars at the time of Augustus. One example of this is the cult of the god Silvanus there, a cult rarely attested in the East. The Silvanus cult celebrated its members’ donations, including the small donation of fifteen denarii offered for a painting. The small donations of this cult allow us to investigate poverty and economics in the Roman world. The Letter to the Philippians is full of financial language, indicating complex business ties between Paul and those to whom he wrote. The inscription and the Letter to the Philippians reveal economic engagement at low levels, evidence of the ways in which the less than elite sought to contribute to each other and their God(s). This theological and economic imaginary resonates with critiques of neoliberalism today.

The Lex Irnitana and Procedure in the Civil Courts

1991 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 74-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Rodger
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
First Century ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Fresh Material ◽  
New Material ◽  
Civil Courts

The procedural rules of civil courts stimulate interest among few except the lawyers who practise in them. The procedures of the courts of the Roman world may therefore not seem an enticing topic. But procedure lies at the heart of any legal system and the Roman legal system is no exception. So when the discovery of the Lex Irnitana brought us fresh material about the jurisdiction and procedure of the local magistrates and courts at Irni, it added greatly to our understanding of one of the central institutions of the first-century Roman world. But the information is not always easy to interpret. The purpose of this article is first to try to solve an apparent mystery in Chapter 90 of the Lex and then to use the new material to fill out our picture of procedure in this period. In this way it is hoped to contribute to a fuller understanding of the Lex Irnitana as a whole.

STUDIO SU UN GRUPPO DI COMPASSI ROMANI PROVENIENTI DA POMPEI*

Nuncius ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 635-644
Author(s):  
GIOVANNI DI PASQUALE
Keyword(s):  
Earthquake Damage ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
First Century ◽  
Roman World ◽  
The City ◽  
Good Number

Abstract<title> SUMMARY </title>The Pompei excavations have given us a good number of bronze compasses from the Roman period. Today these are conserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. The paucity of findings of this instrument, apart from these found in the area around Vesuvius, should not mislead us; in the Roman world the compass was well known and diffused in various types according to the needs of different applications. They were used by mathematicians, architects, surveyors, ceramicists and sculptors. The particular archaeological context from which these derive, they illustrate a clear connection between precision instruments and the historical circumstances of Pompei in the first century A.D.: the eruption of 79 A.D. caught the city be surprise just as it was being rebuilt after the severe earthquake damage of 62 A.D.

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