Religion and Classical Europe, Twelfth Century bce–600 ce

2021 ◽  
pp. 18-37
Author(s):  
Christoph Auffarth
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
City States ◽  
Urban Character ◽  
The City

In a history of religion and Europe classical Antiquity is both an example of difference, that is, the polytheistic systems of Greek and Roman religions, and the beginnings of the monotheistic religions, which became the mainstream in medieval and modern Europe. Drawing on the rituals, symbols, and patterns of polytheism as the legacy of the palace cultures in the Ancient Near East and Greece (until 1200 bc), the city-states (poleis) adapted these to non-autocratic societies (polis-religion). In the empires of Hellenism and the Roman Empire itself, religions were not part of a power structure (e.g. a ruler-cult). Rather their urban character allowed a plural neighbourhood, in which the monotheistic religions were well integrated. In late Antiquity a long transformation formed the Middle Ages, when with the rise of Islam the Mediterranean became divided into three parts: the Islamic south, Greek Orthodoxy in the east, and Latin-speaking ‘Europe’ in the north-west.

Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Machado
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Elite ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

This book analyses the physical, social, and cultural history of Rome in late antiquity. Between AD 270 and 535, the former capital of the Roman empire experienced a series of dramatic transformations in its size, appearance, political standing, and identity, as emperors moved to other cities and the Christian church slowly became its dominating institution. Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome provides a new picture of these developments, focusing on the extraordinary role played by members of the traditional elite, the senatorial aristocracy, in the redefinition of the city, its institutions, and spaces. During this period, Roman senators and their families became increasingly involved in the management of the city and its population, in building works, and in the performance of secular and religious ceremonies and rituals. As this study shows, for approximately three hundred years the houses of the Roman elite competed with imperial palaces and churches in shaping the political map and the social life of the city. Making use of modern theories of urban space, the book considers a vast array of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic documents to show how the former centre of the Mediterranean world was progressively redefined and controlled by its own elite.

scholarly journals Life and activity of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-367
Author(s):  
Maryam Seyidbeyli
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Scientific Center ◽  
North West ◽  
Entire Complex ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Middle Ages

At the beginning of the VII century in the political life of the Near and Middle East, fundamental changes have taken place. The Arabs conquered a colossal territory, which included the lands of Iran, North Africa, North-West India, the Asian provinces of Byzantium, most of the former Roman Empire. In the conquered cities of the caliphate, observatories, madaris, libraries were built. At the end of VII century, the first scientific center, an academy, the House of Wisdom, was founded in Baghdad, in which scholars who spoke different languages were assembled. Here the translation and commentary activity were very developed, the main works of ancient thought, such as the writings of Aristotle, Ptolemy were published in the 9th century in the Arabic-speaking world. For two centuries from 750 to 950 years, the works of ancient authors on philosophy, mathematics, medicine, alchemy, and astronomy were translated into Arabic, which indicates the high scientific potential of that time in the East. At the same time, in the XII century, Ibn Rushd composed 38 commentaries on the works of Aristotle, the “Republic” of Plato, the treatise “On the Mind” of Alexander of Aphrodisias, which subsequently had an important influence on the work of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Thus, this period in the history of Eastern scientific thought is marked by high intellectual potential. To this day, historians of medieval Arabic literature face a sufficient number of difficulties, since the vast majority of manuscripts remain inaccessible to them. The works of many renowned Arab authors of the middle Ages are more than 1000 years old, so it seems obvious that the manuscripts of the vast majority of authors have not survived to this day. The researchers of the history of Azerbaijan and neighboring countries in the middle Ages, with all the variety of available sources on which they rely, still attract little factual material related to the Arabic-language works of the historical and scientific genre. Undoubtedly, a comprehensive study of the entire complex of information of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi on the history of science in Azerbaijan is of great importance.

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.

A Tale of Three Cities

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-107
Author(s):  
Veronica West-Harling
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Italian History ◽  
The North ◽  
City History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

After a brief recall of Italian history from late antiquity to 750, this chapter provides a city-by-city history from the end of the Exarchate to 1000. The history of Rome follows the Lombard crises and the end of Byzantine rule, Frankish/Carolingian domination, the events of the Kingdom of Italy, aristocratic rule, and the attempted Ottonian control over the city. Ravenna’s three narrative strands are the aftermath of the autocephaly conflict, the anti-papal policies of most archbishops throughout the Byzantine then Carolingian period, and lastly the renewed prestige of the city under the Ottonian emperors. For Venice, the narrative follows the origins (imagined and probable) of the city, its succession of ducal families, and its attempt always to create a balance between its official Byzantine dependence and its grounding in the north Adriatic space

Roman History: Imperial, 31 BCE–284 CE

Classics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Potter
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Modern World ◽  
History Of Thought ◽  
Marcus Aurelius ◽  
Multiethnic States ◽  
Rational Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Great Relevance

The history of the Roman Empire is the history of one of the largest and most enduring multiethnic states in the history of the world, making it an area of study that continues to have great relevance to the modern world. Principal areas of investigation for those drawn to the study of the Roman Empire include the development of institutions needed to govern such a state, the behavior of those institutions, the dialogue of cultures within the empire (especially issues of assimilation, resistance, and evolution between dominant and subaltern groups), and the relationship between Rome and its neighbors. It is also a period that saw significant developments in art, literature, and the history of thought, shaping the heritage of classical Antiquity that has survived through the Middle Ages to help shape the Western tradition of rational thought. It is also a very colorful period, whose leading figures, ranging from Marcus Aurelius and Jesus of Nazareth to Nero and Commodus, continue to excite great interest for their own sake.

The Comparative Study of “Scholasticism” in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Rabbis and East Syrians

AJS Review ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam H. Becker
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Great Distance ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Transmission Of Knowledge ◽  
History Of

Now is an appropriate time to reconsider the historiographical benefit that a comparative study of the East Syrian (“Nestorian”) schools and the Babylonian rabbinic academies may offer. This is attributable both to the recent, rapid increase in scholarship on Jewish–Christian relations in the Roman Empire and late antiquity more broadly, and to the return by some scholars of rabbinic Judaism to the issues of a scholarly exchange of the late 1970s and early 1980s about the nature of rabbinic academic institutionalization. Furthermore, over the past twenty years, scholars of classics, Greek and Roman history, and late antiquity have significantly added to the bibliography on the transmission of knowledge—in lay person's terms, education—in the Greco-Roman and early Christian worlds. Schools continue to be an intense topic of conversation, and my own recent work on the School of Nisibis and the East Syrian schools in general suggests that the transformations and innovations of late antiquity also occurred in the Sasanian Empire, at a great distance from the centers of classical learning, such as Athens, Alexandria, and Antioch. The recently reexamined East Syrian sources may help push the conversation about rabbinic academic institutionalization forward. However, the significance of this issue is not simply attributable to its bearing on the social and institutional history of rabbinic institutions. Such inquiry may also reflect on how we understand the Babylonian Talmud and on the difficult redaction history of its constituent parts. Furthermore, I hope that the discussion offered herein will contribute to the ongoing analysis of the late antique creation and formalization of cultures of learning, which were transmitted, in turn, into the Eastern (i.e., Islamic and “Oriental” Christian and Jewish) and Western Middle Ages within their corresponding communities.

France, Prussia, or Germany? The Napoleonic Wars and Shifting Allegiances in the Rhineland

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-640
Author(s):  
Michael Rowe
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
First Republic ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
City States

The following article focuses on the Rhineland, and more specifically, the region on the left (or west) bank of the Rhine bounded in the north and west by the Low Countries and France. This German-speaking region was occupied by the armies of revolutionary France after 1792. De jure annexation followed the Treaty of Lunéville (1801), and French rule lasted until 1814. Most of the Rhineland was awarded in 1815 to Prussia and remained a constituent part until after the Second World War. The Rhineland experienced Napoleonic rule first hand. Its four departments—the Roër, Rhin-et-Moselle, Sarre, and Mont-Tonnerre—were treated like the others in metropolitan France, and it is this status that makes the region distinct in German-speaking Europe. This had consequences both in the Napoleonic period and in the century that followed the departure of the last French soldier. This alone would constitute sufficient reason for studying the region. More broadly, however, the Rhenish experience in the French period sheds light on the much broader phenomena of state formation and nation building. Before 1792, the Rhenish political order appeared in many respects a throwback to the late Middle Ages. Extreme territorial fragmentation, city states, church states, and mini states distinguished its landscape. These survived the early-modern period thanks in part to Great Power rivalry and the protective mantle provided by the Holy Roman Empire. Then, suddenly, came rule by France which, in the form of the First Republic and Napoleon's First Empire, represented the most demanding state the world had seen up to that point. This state imposed itself on a region unused to big government. It might be thought that bitter confrontation would have resulted. Yet, and here is a paradox this article wishes to address, many aspects of French rule gained acceptance in the region, and defense of the Napoleonic legacy formed a component of the “Rhenish” identity that came into being in the nineteenth century.

The conquest of Antioch by the Persians and the beginning of the geopolitical catastrophe of Byzantium in the East

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-633
Author(s):  
Yu.V. Buzanakov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Military History ◽  
Persian Wars ◽  
Coordination Center ◽  
History Of ◽  
Regional Centers ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

The article discusses the military history of Antioch, one of the regional centers of the Byzantine state from the 4th to 7th centuries. The author analyse the role of the city in the Byzantine-Persian wars. The characteristic of the history of the conquest of the Byzantine East is given. Being the capital of the province of Syria, Antioch was a major economic, political and religious center. In addition, Antioch has a rich military history. From the 4th century until the beginning of the Arab conquests, the Syrian Province was one of the centers of the Byzantine-Persian wars. As a rule, the city, in this war, played the role of a supply and coordination center for troops, but history knows examples when Antioch went on to experience direct enemy attacks. With the beginning of the era of Arab conquest, neither Byzantium nor Persia, exhausted by the war with each other, were unable to withstand the new threat. As a result of this, the Persian power ceased to exist, and Byzantium lost its vast territories in the East, including Antioch. It is worth noting that Antoch did not suffer a single major siege, neither in the period of Late Antiquity nor in the Middle Ages.

“Eskimo” Immigrants and Colonial Soldiers: Icelandic Immigrants and the North-West Resistance, 1885

2021 ◽  
Vol 102 (s1) ◽  
pp. s309-s338
Author(s):  
Laurie K. Bertram
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Western Canada ◽  
The West ◽  
New Developments ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Working

How did marginalized and racialized ethnic immigrants transform themselves into active, armed colonial agents in nineteenth-century Western Canada? Approximately twenty Icelanders enlisted to fight Louis Riel’s forces during the North-West Resistance in 1885, just ten years following the arrival of Icelandic immigrants in present-day Manitoba. Forty more reportedly enlisted in an Icelandic-Canadian battalion to enforce the government’s victory in the fall. This public, armed stance of a group of Icelanders against Indigenous forces in 1885 is somewhat unexpected, since most Icelanders were relatively recent arrivals in the West and, in Winnipeg, members of the largely unskilled urban working class. Moreover, they were widely rumoured among Winnipeggers to be from a “blubber-eating race” and of “Eskimo” extraction; community accounts testify to the discrimination numerous early Icelanders faced in the city. These factors initially make Icelanders unexpected colonialists, particularly since nineteenth-century ethnic immigration and colonial suppression so often appear as separate processes in Canadian historiography. Indeed, this scholarship is characterized by an enduring belief that Western Canadian colonialism was a distinctly Anglo sin. Ethnic immigrants often appear in scholarly and popular histories as sharing a history of marginalization with Indigenous people that prevented migrants from taking part in colonial displacement. Proceeding from the neglected history of Icelandic enlistment in 1885 and new developments in Icelandic historiography, this article argues that rather than negating ethnic participation in Indigenous suppression, ethnic marginality and the class tensions it created could actually fuel participation in colonial campaigns, which promised immigrants upward mobility, access to state support, and land.

The Archaic Acropolis: Some Problems

1960 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 127-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Plommer
Keyword(s):  
Archaic Period ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site ◽  
The City ◽  
Large Building

The literature on the Acropolis seems to me as untidy as the site itself. Every discovery that could, on the present evidence, be made about its history, every truth that could be pertinently stated has already appeared, I should imagine, in one or other of the books or articles devoted to it since the Greek excavations of the eighties. I am merely attempting the humble but, I think, necessary task of sifting out what seem to me the more interesting discoveries, the more significant conclusions. Before we form any more theories, we must try to discover what under present circumstances we can reasonably know.In this paper I shall have space only to consider the history of the main buildings, one or perhaps two large temples and perhaps a large propylon, up to the Persian destruction of the archaic Acropolis in 480 and 479. The minor buildings of poros, with triglyphs barely 1 foot or 15 inches wide, and walls or columns consequently less than 15 feet high, will interest me only incidentally. I have found no clear evidence for the sites of any of these, not even Wiegand's ‘Building B’, considered by J. A. Bundgaard (pp. 55 ff.) to be the precursor of the north-west wing in the Periclean Propylaea. Moreover I can isolate the problem of the large buildings more conveniently and with a clearer conscience, because it has already been isolated by C. J. Herington in his stimulating book,Athena Parthenos and Athena Polias(Manchester, 1955). His thesis is an interesting one, that from far back in the archaic period two important temples stood on the Acropolis. The more southerly, dedicated to Athena the Warrior Maiden (Parthenos), occupied a site somewhere within the limits of the present Parthenon. The more northerly and the more important in state ritual was dedicated to Athena as the City Goddess, and occupied the site between the present Parthenon and Erechtheum, generally known as the ‘Doerpfeld Foundation’. Every visitor to Athens will know this series of old broken walls just south of the Caryatid Porch. Wiegand's is still, I think, the most workmanlike plan of it (Wiegand, figs. 72 and 117—my Fig. 1). Herington's thesis, then, enables me to arrange my questions as follows. How many successive temples occupied the Doerpfeld Foundation, what did they look like and how were they related to one another? And again, was there any important temple on the site of the present Parthenon before the decade 490–480, generally considered the date when a marble Parthenon was first attempted ? Because of its possible scale, I shall also have to consider the date and form of the archaic Propylon. If it were a large building, it could be the source of various large fragments hitherto assigned to temples; and Heberdey, the latest American books, and now Bundgaard all make it rather large, between 15 and 20 metres square. (For the actual dimensions they give, see below, pp. 146 ff.)

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