Late Antiquity and the City

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-29
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The City

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.

Re-examining Roman Death Pollution

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Allison L. C. Emmerson
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fear Of Death ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Variable Combination ◽  
The City

AbstractThe idea that the dead were polluting — that is, that corpses posed a danger of making the living unclean, offensive both to their own communities and to the gods — has long occupied a fundamental position in Roman funerary studies. Nevertheless, what that pollution comprised, as well as how it affected living society, remain subject to debate. This article aims to clarify the issue by re-examining the evidence for Roman attitudes towards the dead. Focusing on the city of Rome itself, I conclude that we have little reason to reconstruct a fear of death pollution prior to Late Antiquity; in fact, the term itself has been detrimental to current understandings. No surviving text from the late republican or early imperial periods indicates that corpses were objects of metaphysical fear, and rather than polluted, mourners are better conceived as obligated, bound by a variable combination of emotions and conventions to behave in certain, if certainly changeable, ways following a death.

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.

III. Villanovan Veii

1961 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 20-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Ward-Perkins
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
Precise Relationship ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The City

The roads and gates described in the previous section are of very varied dates, and many of them were in use over a long period. They have been described first because they constitute the essential framework for any serious topographical study of Veii. Within this framework the city developed, and in this and the following sections will be found described, period by period, the evidence for that development, from the first establishment of Veii in Villanovan times down to its final abandonment in late antiquity.Whatever the precise relationship of the Villanovan to the succeeding phases of the Early Iron Age in central Italy in terms of politics, race or language, it is abundantly clear that it was within the Villanovan period that the main lines of the social and topographical framework of historical Etruria first took shape. Veii is no exception. Apart from sporadic material that may have been dropped by Neolithic or Bronze Age hunters, there is nothing from the Ager Veientanus to suggest that it was the scene of any substantial settlement before the occupation of Veii itself by groups of Early Iron Age farmers, a part of whose material equipment relates them unequivocally to the Villanovan peoples of coastal and central Etruria.

Antioch in the Sixth Century: Resilience or Vulnerability?

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-41
Author(s):  
Lee Mordechai
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Civil Strife ◽  
Continuous Support ◽  
The City

Abstract Sixth century Antioch is perhaps the best example of state-city resilience in Late Antiquity. Over the century, the city suffered multiple natural disasters, civil strife and external conflict. Scholars have generally accepted that the city declined as a result. This study integrates historical, archaeological and scientific data to illuminate the city’s fate. It concludes that Antioch demonstrated remarkable resilience at the city level throughout the 6th c. The most important factor was the continuous support the city received from the central government.

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

Home from the hunt: the afterlife of a Late Roman copper-alloy vessel

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 483-495
Author(s):  
Marcus Rautman
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Copper Alloy ◽  
Structural Damage ◽  
The City ◽  
Late Roman

The Sardis excavation sector known as MMS was a center of habitation for over a millennium. Archaic houses built near the great mudbrick fortification were succeeded by scattered Hellenistic and Roman dwellings, to be followed in late antiquity by imposing residences of complex plan and ambitious decoration. Like other parts of the city, these houses saw extensive structural damage in the early A.D. 600s. Raised floors, flimsy partitions and makeshift hearths are among the few signs of lingering occupation.1

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 All the Roads to Patavium: Morphology, Genesis and Development of the Roman Road Network Around Padua

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Matteazzi
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Road Network ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Italian Peninsula ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
The City

Abstract This paper deals with the analysis of the ancient road network around the city of Padua, attempts to reconstruct its morphology and to define its genesis and development between the second Iron Age and Late Antiquity (6th/5th cent. BC to 6th cent. AD). The study follows a methodological approach that today we define as „archaeomorphological“, first proposed by E. Vion in the late 1980s. By applying this methodology to the Paduan territory, it was possible to identify a series of routes of probable ancient origin radially converging toward the center of Roman Patavium, and linking it to other urban centers in the region and to the minor centers located within its ager. The presence of Iron Age settlements along the path of many of these routes suggests that the development of such a road network likely begins in pre-Roman times, which also highlights the ancient strategic importance of Padua and its territory as a fundamental junction between the center and the North-East of the Italian peninsula. On the other hand, the Roman road network somehow survived into the Late Antiqueand Early Medieval times, always influencing the distribution of settlements and the orientation of churches, until it was for the greater part restored by the Commune of Padua over the 13th century.

ARCHITECTURE AND CHURCH POWER IN LATE ANTIQUITY: CANOSA AND SAN GIUSTO (APULIA)

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-168
Author(s):  
Giuliano Volpe
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Rural Landscapes ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church

Two Early Christian complexes will be presented here: one urban (San Pietro in Canosa), and one rural (San Giusto in the territory of Lucera). Both cases represent clear evidence of the Christianising policy promoted by the Church in the cities and countryside, especially during the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., which led to a new definition of urban and rural landscapes. The Early Christian complex of San Pietro in Canosa—the most important city in Apulia et Calabria in Late Antiquity—and the Early Christian complex of San Giusto, most likely the seat of a rural diocese, are notable expressions of ecclesiastical power in the city and the countryside during the transitional period between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

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