Phoenicia in the Roman Empire

2019 ◽  
pp. 110-124
Author(s):  
Julien Aliquot
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
New Order ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Traditions

This chapter traces the history of Phoenicia from the advent of Rome in Syria at the beginning of the first century bce to the foundation of the Christian empire of Byzantium in the fourth century ce. It focuses on the establishment of Roman rule and its impact on society, culture, and religion. Special attention is paid to the establishment of Roman rule and its impact on society, culture, and religion. The focus is on provincial institutions and cities, which provided a basis for the new order. However, side trails are also taken to assess the flowering of Hellenism and the revival of local traditions in the light of the Romanization of Phoenicia and its hinterland.

How Christianity Parted from Judaism

Early Judaism ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 97-120
Author(s):  
Adele Reinhartz
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Christian Community

Although Jesus and his earliest followers had seen themselves as Jews, by the fourth century the Christian community perceived itself as separate. Scholars have offered various views of how that took place. Some think of Christianity as having evolved out of Judaism, while others see them as different components within the same tradition that eventually went separate ways. There is also disagreement as to when the separation took place – whether around the end of the first century as a result of Christians’ understanding of Jesus and their outreach to gentiles or as a consequence of the fourth century Christianization of the Roman empire.

The Triumph of the Mule

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Symbolic Value ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter starts as the Roman Empire fragmented, encompasses the emergence of Christianity and Islam, and explores the donkey’s place in the history of the Middle Ages, as well as what Fernand Braudel termed ‘the triumph of the mule’ in the ensuing early modern period from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Being closer in time to the present, historical documents are generally richer and more plentiful than for earlier periods, but archaeological excavations and surveys—especially of post-medieval sites and landscapes—are still undeveloped in many regions. Inevitably, therefore, what I present draws as much on textual sources as it does on them. I look first at the symbolic value of donkeys and mules in Christianity and Islam. Next, I consider their disappearance from some parts of Europe in the aftermath of Rome’s collapse and their re-expansion and persistence elsewhere. One aspect of this concerns their continuing contribution to agricultural production, another their consumption as food, a very un-Roman practice. A second theme showing continuities from previous centuries is their significance in facilitating trade and communication over both short and long distances. Tackling this requires inserting donkeys and mules into debates about how far pack animals replaced wheeled forms of transport as Late Antiquity gave way to the Middle Ages. Wide-ranging in time and space, this discussion also provides opportunities for exploring their role in human history in areas beyond those on which I have concentrated thus far. West Africa is one, the Silk Road networks linking China to Central Asia a second, and China’s southward connections into Southeast Asia a third. According to the New Testament Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday seated on a donkey (Plate 20). The seventh-century apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew also envisages donkeys carrying His mother to Bethlehem, being present at the Nativity, and conveying the Holy Family into temporary exile in Egypt. Donkeys thus framed both ends of Jesus’ life and, given their importance in moving people and goods in first-century Palestine, must have been a familiar sight. But the implications of their place in Christianity’s narrative were originally quite different from those that are generally understood today.

Zooming In Rome, the Middle Euphrates, and Dura

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon James
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Its Region ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Persian Empire ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
The Military

Dura-Europos was a product and ultimately a victim of the interaction of Mediterranean- and Iranian-centred imperial powers in the Middle East which began with Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Achaemenid Persian empire in the later fourth century BC. Its nucleus was established as part of the military infrastructure and communications network of the Seleucid successor-state. It was expanding into a Greekstyle polis during the second century BC, as Seleucid control was being eroded from the east by expanding Arsacid Parthian power, and threatened from the west by the emergent imperial Roman republic. From the early first century BC, the Roman and Parthian empires formally established the Upper Euphrates as the boundary between their spheres of influence, and the last remnants of the Seleucid regime in Syria were soon eliminated. Crassus’ attempt to conquer Parthia ended in disaster at Carrhae in 53 BC, halting Roman ambitions to imitate Alexander for generations. The nominal boundary on the Upper Euphrates remained, although the political situation in the Middle East remained fluid. Rome long controlled the Levant largely indirectly, through client rulers of small states, only slowly establishing directly ruled provinces with Roman governors, a process mostly following establishment of the imperial regime around the turn of the millennia. However, some client states like Nabataea still existed in AD 100 (for overviews see Millar 1993; Ball 2000; Butcher 2003; Sartre 2005). The Middle Euphrates, in what is now eastern Syria, lay outside Roman control, although it is unclear to what extent Dura and its region—part of Mesopotamia, and Parapotamia on the west bank of the river—were effectively under Arsacid control before the later first century AD. For some decades, Armenia may have been the dominant regional power (Edwell 2013, 192–5; Kaizer 2017, 70). As the Roman empire increasingly crystallized into clearly defined, directly ruled provinces, the contrast with the very different Arsacid system became starker. The ‘Parthian empire’, the core of which comprised Iran and Mesopotamia with a western royal capital at Ctesiphon on the Tigris, was a much looser entity (Hauser 2012).

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maijastina Kahlos
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity reconsiders the religious history of the late Roman Empire, focusing on the shifting position of dissenting religious groups. The groups under consideration are non-Christians (‘pagans’) and deviant Christians (‘heretics’). The period from the mid-fourth century until the mid-fifth century CE witnessed a significant transformation of late Roman society and a gradual shift from the world of polytheistic religions into the Christian Empire. This book demonstrates that the narrative is much more nuanced than the simple Christian triumph over the classical world. It looks at everyday life, economic aspects, day-to-day practices, and conflicts of interest in the relations of religious groups. The book addresses two aspects: rhetoric and realities, and consequently delves into the interplay between the manifest ideologies and daily life found in late antique sources. We perceive constant flux between moderation and coercion that marked the relations of religious groups, both majorities and minorities, as well as the imperial government and religious communities. Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity is a detailed analysis of selected themes and a close reading of selected texts, tracing key elements and developments in the treatment of dissident religious groups. The book focuses on specific themes, such as the limits of imperial legislation and ecclesiastical control, the end of sacrifices, and the label of magic. It also examines the ways in which dissident religious groups were construed as religious outsiders in late Roman society.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE ‘ARIAN CONTROVERSY’ IN THE FOURTH CENTURY

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-263
Author(s):  
David M. Gwynn
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
The Church ◽  
Archaeological Approach ◽  
Arian Controversy

The so-called ‘Arian Controversy’ that divided the Christian Church in the 4th c. has been the subject of considerable scholarly debate in recent decades. The literary sources from which the majority of our knowledge of the controversy derives are highly polemical and distorted, written almost exclusively from the perspective of those whose positions would come to be accepted as ‘orthodox’, and this in turn has directly influenced scholarly interpretations of the material evidence from this crucial period in the history of the Church. In this paper I wish to reconsider that material evidence and ask how an archaeological approach independent of the biases of our literary sources might broaden our understanding of the controversy and its impact upon the 4th c. Roman empire.

R.E.C.A.M. Notes and Studies No. 5 A Roman Family in Phrygia

1979 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 13-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
First Century ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Accounts

The history of Roman and Italian businessmen in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, and especially in Asia, during the first century B.C. is a familiar one. There is ample evidence of many kinds for their emigration and activities after the formation of the province of Asia, interrupted by the hegemony of Mithridates, but resumed on a larger scale after he had been driven back from Asia into Pontus. This evidence can be placed into two broad categories. First, there are allusions in the contemporary literature, inscriptions and historical accounts of the period which provide direct information about individuals and families active in the province. Then there is the evidence of inscriptions of the Imperial period, especially the second and third centuries AD., which reveal both established settlements of resident Romans in the cities and an extraordinary number of families with Roman and Italian names, which could clearly trace their origins back to the Republican period of emigration and settlement. Opportunities to study particular families or groups of emigrants at both periods are unfortunately rare, since usually one or the other category of evidence is lacking. Although the record is far from complete, and it is necessary to rely more on conjecture than one would wish, the object of this study is to investigate one such emigrant family, the Sestullii, whose presence in Asia is attested both in Republican literary sources and in Imperial inscriptions. It is clearly impossible to write a continuous history of the gens, or even to reconstruct its stemma in outline, especially since there is a notably large gap in our knowledge between ca 50 B.C. and A.D. 150, a two hundred year span from which only a single relevant inscription survives, but the family name is so rare that it can reasonably be assumed that all its bearers are related to one another in some way. It must be stressed that this assumption underlies the whole reconstruction offered here.

Rich and Poor: the Great Divide in Ancient Rome and Victorian England

1990 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. J. Bastomsky
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Third World ◽  
First Century ◽  
Absolute Maximum ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
World Series ◽  
The Poor ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cost

In his book, The Roman Empire (Fontana History of the Ancient World Series), Colin Wells mentions incomes and the cost of living in first-century Italy. He concludes that a wage of 4 sesterces a day was an ‘absolute maximum’ and goes on to comment that ‘it is hard to tell whether the discrepancy between the really rich and the labouring poor was greater in some third-world countries today, or in Victorian England… To prove his point Wells gives £300,000 per annum for the Marquess of Bute as an example of an enormous income in the nineteenth century, though he does not tell us what the poor would have earned then.

scholarly journals The excavation of the Roman villa in Gadebridge Park, Hemel Hempstead, 1963-8

1974 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Neal
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Roman Villa ◽  
History Of

This is an account of excavations of the Roman villa in Gadebridge Park, Hemel Hempstead, which took place in 1963–8. It describes the history of a villa from its simple beginnings in the first century A.D. to its heyday in the fourth century when the owner could boast one of the largest villa bath houses and a bathing pool comparable in size to the Great Bath at Bath. In the mid-fourth century disaster struck. The coin evidence shows that the villa came to an abrupt end and that in or about A.D. 353 it may have been demolished as a result of reprisals against the owner for his support of the rebellion by Magnentius.

scholarly journals Mogontiacum: czynniki rozwoju

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leszek Mrozewicz
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Military Base ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Real City

The history of Mogontiacum spans the period from 17/16 BCE to the end of the fourth century CE. It was a strong military base (with two legions stationed there in the first century) and a major settlement centre, though without municipal rights. However, the demographic and economic development, as well as the superior administrative and political status enabled Mogontiacum to transform – in socio-economic and urbanistic terms – into a real city. This process was crowned in the latter half of the third century with the construction of the city walls.

scholarly journals Brooches from the Cemetery of Opushki and Their Role in Costume (According to the 2003–2020 Excavation Materials)

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-39
Author(s):  
Anastasia А. Stoianova
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cervical Vertebrae ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Cultures

This paper presents a review of the brooches from the cemetery of Opushki located in the central area of the Crimean foothills. The cemetery was used from the first century BC to the fourth century AD by peoples of various archaeological cultures. 72 of 318 graves excavated there contained brooches. The total number of complete and fragmented brooches discovered there is 190. The largest group comprises one-piece bow-shaped brooches with returned foot and the brooches with flattened catch-plate from the first to the first half of the third century AD. There is a series of brooches made in the Roman Empire, with the most numerous group of plate brooches. There are a few violin-bow-shaped brooches, highly-profiled brooches of the Northern Black Sea type, two-piece violin-bow-shaped brooches with returned foot, and brooches with curved arched bow (P-shaped): great many pieces of these types occurred at other sites from the Roman Period in the Crimean foothill area. In Opushki, brooches appeared in all types of burial constructions, and mostly in the Late Scythian vaults from the first century BC to the second century AD. They accompanied graves of women, men, and children. In the overwhelming majority of cases, one burial was accompanied with one and rarely two brooches; there is only one burial of a child with three clasps. Most often brooches occurred at the chest, in rare cases on the shoulder, near the cervical vertebrae, pelvic bones, or outside the skeleton. It is noteworthy that a great number of brooches was found in the burials of children of different ages, from 1- to 8-12-year-old. Apparently, brooches as a part of the child’s costume were used throughout the child’s life from the very infancy. Generally, the brooch types from the cemetery of Opushki, their distribution in the assemblages and location on the skeletons correspond to the general pattern typical of barbarian cemeteries in the Crimean foothill area dated to the Roman Period.

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