Sex and Power in Cassius Dio’s Roman History

Mnemosyne ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Chrysanthos S. Chrysanthou
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
The State ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Narrative Technique ◽  
Sexual Discourse ◽  
Moral Critique

Abstract This article contributes to our understanding of Dio’s technique of using sexual discourse as a useful tool of characterisation and ethical and historical interpretation. It also aims to advance our understanding of the role of sexual-moral critique in ancient historiography more generally. In the first part, it argues that comments on sexual matters in Dio’s history contribute to the construction of imperial portraits and the evaluation of an emperor. Sexual transgressions regularly coalesce with other bad characteristics of a ruler and his overall tyrannical behaviour. In the second part it is suggested that Dio’s representation of Elagabalus is considerably peculiar in terms of both its narrative technique and content, including themes and stories that unfold in significantly different and unexpected ways. Sexual misconduct is not simply associated with other vices, but is also used as a significant stand-alone category in the historian’s assessment of Elagabalus’ character and reign. This understanding of Dio’s technique, it is proposed, makes not only a historiographical point, but also a significant historical one about Elagabalus, his rule, and the state of the Roman Empire at the time.

Trade, Commerce, and the State in the Roman World

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
Market Regulation ◽  
External Trade ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Legal Structures ◽  
The City ◽  
Political Character ◽  
Different Sources

This interdisciplinary volume presents nineteen chapters by Roman historians and archaeologists, discussing trade in the Roman Empire in the period c.100 BC to AD 350, and in particular the role of the Roman state, in shaping the institutional framework for trade within and outside the Empire, in taxing that trade, and in intervening in the markets to ensure the supply of particular commodities, especially for the city of Rome and for the army. The chapters in this volume address facets of the subject on the basis of widely different sources of evidence—historical, papyrological, and archaeological—and are grouped in three sections: institutional factors (taxation, legal structures, market regulation, financial institutions); evidence for long-distance trade within the Empire, in wood, stone, glass, and pottery; and trade beyond the frontiers, with the East (as far as China), India, Arabia, and the Red Sea, and the Sahara. Rome’s external trade with realms to the east emerges as being of particular significance to the fisc. But in the eastern part of the Empire at least, the state appears, in collaboration with the elite holders of wealth, to have adapted the mechanisms of taxation, both direct and indirect, to support its need for revenue. On the other hand, the price of that collaboration, which was in effect a fiscal partnership, in slightly different forms in East and West, in the longer term fundamentally changed the political character of the Empire.

Gender, Memory, and Identity in the Roman World

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Imperial Rome ◽  
The Past ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Material Sources ◽  
Close Relationship

This volume approaches three key concepts in Roman history — gender, memory and identity — and demonstrates the significance of their interaction in all social levels and during all periods of Imperial Rome. When societies, as well as individuals, form their identities, remembrance and references to the past play a significant role. The aim of Gender, Memory, and Identity in the Roman World is to cast light on the constructing and the maintaining of both public and private identities in the Roman Empire through memory, and to highlight, in particular, the role of gender in that process. While approaching this subject, the contributors to this volume scrutinise both the literature and material sources, pointing out how widespread the close relationship between gender, memory and identity was. A major aim of Gender, Memory, and Identity in the Roman World as a whole is to point out the significance of the interaction between these three concepts in both the upper and lower levels of Roman society, and how it remained an important question through the period from Augustus right into Late Antiquity.

Globalisation vs the state? Macro- and micro-perspectives on Roman economies

Antiquity ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 92 (366) ◽  
pp. 1674-1676
Author(s):  
Martin Pitts
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Market Integration ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
The State ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Free Markets ◽  
Roman Italy ◽  
The Impact

There can be few topics in Roman archaeology and history that are contested with such vigour and widespread interest as the Roman economy. In part, this present situation arises as a legacy of older debates on the significance of ancient economic growth and long-distance trade, in which key twentieth-century figures such as M.I. Finley, M. Rostovtzeff and K. Hopkins continue to loom large and provide compelling insights. More recently, the debate has been re-cast around questions of state involvement vs free markets, and the extent of market integration, as this pair of edited collections demonstrates. On the one hand, Trade, commerce and the state in the Roman World (edited by Andrew Wilson and Alan Bowman, hereafter TCS) takes a big picture view on the role of the Roman state in long-distance trade, arising from a conference that took place in 2009 as part of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project, ‘The Economy of the Roman Empire: Integration, Growth and Decline’. In contrast, The economic integration of Roman Italy (edited by Tymon de Haas and Gijs Tol, hereafter EIRI) brings together a series of typically smaller-scale studies focused on understanding the impact of economic changes on rural communities in Roman Italy. It emerges from another conference, held in 2013, this time as part of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research project ‘Fora, Stations, and Sanctuaries: the Role of Minor Centres in the Economy of Roman Central Italy’.

scholarly journals Pons et cella penaria – Die Bedeutung Siziliens für die Entwicklung des Imperium Romanum ausgehend von Ciceros „Verrinen“

2021 ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Ferdinand Kleyhons
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Marcus Tullius Cicero ◽  
Roman Province ◽  
New System

Pons et cella penaria – The importance of Sicily for the formation of the Roman Empire on the basis of Ciceros “In Verrem”In the year 70 BCE, one of the most renowned trials in Roman history took place: The lawsuit of Gaius Verres, former propraetor of the Roman province Sicilia. Marcus Tullius Cicero, taking up the role of the claimant in this trial, wrote a series of speeches against Verres (“In Verrem”). Therein he stated, among other things, the importance of Sicily for the Roman Empire. As the first Roman province, it introduced the Romans to a new system of governing foreign territory. It functioned as a “bridge” for the conquest of Carthage and, finally, it fed the Roman population and its army. The following paper will examine each of these three steps, as well as use them as a framework to discuss the role of Sicily for the formation of the Roman Empire.

A Re-Appraisal of the Role of Blood Coagulation and Platelets in the Generalized Shwartzman Phenomenon

1966 ◽  
Vol 15 (03/04) ◽  
pp. 519-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Levin ◽  
E Beck
Keyword(s):  
Blood Coagulation ◽  
The State ◽  
Coagulation System ◽  
Renal Lesions ◽  
Intravascular Coagulation ◽  
Renal Glomeruli ◽  
Coagulation Mechanism ◽  
Shwartzman Phenomenon ◽  
Do So

SummaryThe role of intravascular coagulation in the production of the generalized Shwartzman phenomenon has been evaluated. The administration of endotoxin to animals prepared with Thorotrast results in activation of the coagulation mechanism with the resultant deposition of fibrinoid material in the renal glomeruli. Anticoagulation prevents alterations in the state of the coagulation system and inhibits development of the renal lesions. Platelets are not primarily involved. Platelet antiserum produces similar lesions in animals prepared with Thorotrast, but appears to do so in a manner which does not significantly involve intravascular coagulation.The production of adrenal cortical hemorrhage, comparable to that seen in the Waterhouse-Friderichsen syndrome, following the administration of endotoxin to animals that had previously received ACTH does not require intravascular coagulation and may not be a manifestation of the generalized Shwartzman phenomenon.

Economic and Legal Support for Commercialization of Intellectual Property in Russia

2003 ◽  
pp. 66-76
Author(s):  
I. Dezhina ◽  
I. Leonov
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
The State ◽  
Commercial Application ◽  
The West ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Legal Context

The article is devoted to the analysis of the changes in economic and legal context for commercial application of intellectual property created under federal budgetary financing. Special attention is given to the role of the state and to comparison of key elements of mechanisms for commercial application of intellectual property that are currently under implementation in Russia and in the West. A number of practical suggestions are presented aimed at improving government stimuli to commercialization of intellectual property created at budgetary expense.

Budget as an Instrument of Reproduction of Bureaucracy in Russia

2006 ◽  
pp. 87-96
Author(s):  
Yu. Shvetsov
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Material Base ◽  
Characteristic Features

The article considers the problem of bureaucratisation of the state and the most important social and economic consequences of this phenomenon. The essence of bureaucracy has been revealed, characteristic features of its functioning in Russia have been analyzed; the material base of bureaucracy and its dominating status in the society have been substantiated. The conclusion has been made that the process of changing the role of the budget to serve the interests of bureaucracy is being accomplished.

Kropotkin

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Kinna
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Special Character ◽  
Revolutionary Politics

This book is designed to remove Peter Kropotkin from the framework of classical anarchism. By focusing attention on his theory of mutual aid, it argues that the classical framing distorts Kropotkin's political theory by associating it with a narrowly positivistic conception of science, a naively optimistic idea of human nature and a millenarian idea of revolution. Kropotkin's abiding concern with Russian revolutionary politics is the lens for this analysis. The argument is that his engagement with nihilism shaped his conception of science and that his expeditions in Siberia underpinned an approach to social analysis that was rooted in geography. Looking at Kropotkin's relationship with Elisée Reclus and Erico Malatesta and examining his critical appreciation of P-J. Proudhon, Michael Bakunin and Max Stirner, the study shows how he understood anarchist traditions and reveals the special character of his anarchist communism. His idea of the state as a colonising process and his contention that exploitation and oppression operate in global contexts is a key feature of this. Kropotkin's views about the role of theory in revolutionary practice show how he developed this critique of the state and capitalism to advance an idea of political change that combined the building of non-state alternatives through direct action and wilful disobedience. Against critics who argue that Kropotkin betrayed these principles in 1914, the book suggests that this controversial decision was consistent with his anarchism and that it reflected his judgment about the prospects of anarchistic revolution in Russia.

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