THE HOUSE OF THE LYCIAN ACROPOLIS AT XANTHOS

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 475-494
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie Mani籥-L跪que
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The City

This article discusses the material remains of structures on the Lycian Acropolis in Xanthos. They were formerly interpreted as religious monuments, but it is now clear that they derived from a late antique domus. This grand residence was replete with numerous reception suites and courtyards and was accessed from a street leading from the agora. Its rooms were organised around a grand central courtyard, arrayed on five levels, and lavishly decorated with fountains and marble and mosaic floors. Looming over Xanthos, the House of the Lycian Acropolis represented a symbol of power and status, reinforcing an impression that the city of Xanthos flourished during Late Antiquity.

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.

Environmental Change, the Acts of John, and Shifting Cultic Landscapes in Late Antique Ephesus

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-215
Author(s):  
Travis Proctor
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Deep Water ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Cultural Shift ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The City

The city of Ephesus experienced a marked civic transformation in Late Antiquity. After having centered its settlements and economic fortunes on its proximity to a deep-water harbor for over a millenium, late antique Ephesus gradually shifted to an inland, fortified settlement on Ayasoluk Hill. While several factors undoubtedly informed this civic reorientation, the most commonly cited impetus for Ephesus’s late antique reorientation was the infilling of its deep-water harbor. This article argues that, in addition to this environmental cause, an important cultural shift correspondingly informed Ephesus’s late antique reconfigurations. Namely, the emergence and development of the tomb of John on Ayasoluk Hill, informed by an array of literary legends associating the apostle with the city, increasingly positioned this site as a cultic and economic focal point in Late Antiquity. This article argues that an important early strand in this cultural fabric was the Acts of John, a collection of apocryphal tales that narrate John’s exploits in Ephesus. Significantly, the Acts of John articulates a “counter-cartography” that disassociates Christian identity from prominent Ephesian cultic sites and accentuates the importance of spaces “outside the city” of Ephesus, including and especially the tomb of John. Through its own circulation as well as its influence on later Johannine narratives, the early Acts of John helped inform a shift in the cultural cartographies of Ephesus, where Greco-Roman polytheistic spaces were gradually devalued in favor of Christian sites, the tomb of John on Ayasoluk chief among them.

scholarly journals LATE ANTIQUITY IN THE TERRITORY OF SAGALASSOS

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Vanhaverbeke ◽  
F. Martens ◽  
M. Waelkens ◽  
J. Poblome
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Rural Churches ◽  
Environmental Background ◽  
The City

Excavations at Sagalassos and non-intensive surveys of the city’s territory have yielded a considerable amount of late antique evidence. While the first half of the period (c. A.D. 300 to A.D. 450/75) bears witness to a continued prosperity, both in the city and its hinterland, the latter part of the period (c. A.D. 450/75 to A.D. 640/50) saw some marked changes in the countryside: a reduction in the overall number of sites, an increased tendency toward nucleated settlement, a new emphasis on strategically located settlements, and the establishment of rural churches. This paper attempts to sketch the socio-economic and environmental background to these changes.

scholarly journals From the Tombs into the City: Grave Robbing and the Reuse of Funerary Spolia in Late Antique Italy

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 115-137
Author(s):  
Cristina Murer
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

Archaeological evidence demonstrates that funerary spoil (e.g. sarcophagus lids, funerary altars, epitaphs, reliefs, and statues) were frequently reused to decorate the interiors of public and private buildings from the third to the sixth century. Therefore, the marble revetments of high imperial tombs must have been spoliated. Imperial edicts, which tried to stamp part the overly common practice of tomb plundering, confirm that the social practice of tomb plundering must have been far more frequent in late antiquity than in previous periods. This paper discusses the reuse of funerary spoil in privet and public buildings from Latium and Campania and contextualizes them by examining legal sources addressing tomb violation. Furthermore, this study considers the extent to which the social practice of tomb plundering and the reuse of funerary material in late antiquity can be connected with larger urbanist, sociohistorical, and political transformations of Italian cityscapes from the third to the sixth century.

scholarly journals Statue habit and statue culture in Late Antique Rome

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Carlos Machado
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Free Standing ◽  
Epigraphic Evidence ◽  
The City ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Abstract The statue habit was a defining characteristic of Classical cities, and its demise in Late Antiquity has recently attracted scholarly attention. This article analyzes this process in the city of Rome, charting the decline and abandonment of the practice of setting up free-standing statues between the end of the 3rd c. and the mid 7th c. CE. Focusing on the epigraphic evidence for new dedications, it discusses the nature of the habit in terms of its differences from and continuities with earlier periods. The quantitative evolution of the habit suggests that its end was associated with deeper transformations. The final section examines the broader significance of setting up statues in Late Antique Rome, arguing that the decline of the statue habit must be understood in the context of a new statue culture that saw statue dedications in an antiquarian light, rather than as part of an organic honorific language.

scholarly journals DECONSTRUCTING THE SYMBOLIC CITY: JEROME AS GUIDE TO LATE ANTIQUE ROME

2012 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 125-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Grig
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
History Of ◽  
Saint Jerome ◽  
The City ◽  
Main Attraction

This article considers the writings of Saint Jerome as a source for writing a cultural history of the city of Rome in late antiquity. Jerome is of course, in many respects, an unreliable witness but his lively and often conflicted accounts of the city do none the less provide significant insights into the city during an age of transition. He provides a few snippets for the scholar of topography, but these do not constitute the main attraction. Jerome's city of Rome appears above all as a textual palimpsest: variously painted in Vergilian colours as Troy and frequently compared with the biblical cities of Babylon, Bethlehem and Jerusalem. In the final analysis, it is argued, Jerome's Rome is surprisingly unstable, indeed a ‘soft city’.

scholarly journals How Numerous and How Busy were Late-Antique Presbyters?

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-37
Author(s):  
Robert Wiśniewski
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Small Community ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Third ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

Abstract This article seeks to count late-antique clergy and assess their workload. It estimates the number of clerics, and particularly presbyters, in Christian communities of various sizes, and investigates how and why the ratio of clerics to laypersons changed over time. First, by examining the situation in the city of Rome, it demonstrates that the growth in the ranks of the presbyters from the third to the fifth century was slow, and argues that this resulted from the competing interests of the bishops, lay congregation, rich donors, and above all the middle clergy. It is the last group who were reluctant to raise their number as this had a negative impact on their income. The results of this phenomenon can also be seen in other big sees of Christendom, in which, in Late Antiquity, there was one presbyter per several thousand laypersons. Interestingly, in smaller towns, this ratio was significantly lower, and in the countryside, it remained in the lower hundreds. Second, this article shows how the changing ratio of clerics to laypersons affected the level of professionalization of the former. In the big cities, the ecclesiastical duties of presbyters who served in a growing community were getting heavier. This turned the presbyters into full-time religious ministers, at the same time making them even more dependent on ecclesiastical income. In the towns and villages, however, the pattern was different. In the places in which one presbyter served a very small community, his job was less time-consuming but also brought him less income. In consequence, rural presbyters had to support their families through craft work, commerce, or farming, and they had time for this.

Life and Death, City and SuburbThe Transformations of Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
pp. 229-234
Author(s):  
Allison L. C. Emmerson
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Cultivated Land ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The City

“Life and Death, City and Suburb: The Transformations of Late Antiquity” is a brief epilogue considering urbanism of the fifth century CE and beyond. As Rome’s population shrank, the city reoriented itself into a constellation of small settlements, scattered within the Aurelian Wall and surrounded by cultivated land. The residents of these settlements buried their dead within the wall, a development that has been seen to represent a sea change in mentality, but which is better read as a result of the city’s new topography and demography. Suburbs, furthermore, did not disappear in this period. Late Antique suburbs grew up around the suburban shrines of Christian martyrs, not only at Rome, but also in other Italian cities like Mediolanum and Nola. This period was marked by both continuity and change, but through it the dead remained present in urban life, continuing relationships carried through all stages in the history of Italy’s cities.

ARTISTIC TRENDS AND CONTACT BETWEEN JEWS AND ‘OTHERS’ IN LATE ANTIQUE SEPPHORIS: RECENT RESEARCH

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-188
Author(s):  
Zeev Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Urban Centre ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
Distinct Character ◽  
Major Urban Centre ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into

Sepphoris was a major urban centre in the Lower Galilee in the Roman and late antique periods. Architecturally, artistically, and culturally, it was not very different from the pagan cities of ancient Palestine, and its exposure to and assimilation of Graeco-Roman culture did not hinder Jewish life. This article compares the mosaics found in two public buildings constructed in early-5th c. C.E. Sepphoris, the Nile Festival Building and the synagogue, while arguing that these finds may imply close contact between artists working at different locations and for different communities within the city. This phenomenon demonstrates the city’s distinct character in Late Antiquity and offers insight into the complexity of the cultural relationship between the Jews and other segments of that society.

Statues of Senators in the Forum of Trajan and the Roman Forum in Late Antiquity

2012 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 103-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Chenault
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Roman Forum ◽  
Epigraphic Evidence ◽  
The City

AbstractThe epigraphic evidence from the Forum of Trajan shows that this forum was the most important public venue for the honorific statues of senators in the city of Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries a.d. These dedications celebrated the achievements of individual senators, and thereby helped to promote an image of a coherent senatorial order whose members were defined by their civil offices, literary accomplishment, outstanding personal virtues, and the approbation of their peers and the emperor. In contrast, statuary honours in the Roman Forum continued to be largely restricted to emperors and, in the fifth century, to the powerful generals who increasingly controlled imperial policy. This pattern in the distribution of statues suggests a basic differentiation in the use of the two most important representational spaces of late antique Rome.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document