scholarly journals Athletes, Citizenships and Hellenic Identity during the Imperial Period

Klio ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 675-703
Author(s):  
Georgios E. Mouratidis

Summary During the Hellenistic and Imperial periods, Greek populations coexisted with several other cultures, which were very often more multitudinous. Those ‘Hellenes’, however, came together in big Panhellenic and smaller, local festivals to honour their gods and celebrate their common Hellenic culture. As a result, numerous new festivals and contests were founded (and older ones grew bigger or were even re-founded) after the third century BC, gradually forming a large festival network. Even though this festival network has repeatedly been at the centre of scholarly attention – and still is – the rhetoric of athletic inscriptions, i.e. how athletic Panhellenism is demonstrated and what it is prompted by still remains largely unexplored. The main contribution of this paper is to demonstrate how the accumulation of citizenships by athletes contributes to Panhellenic self-representation, by showing another way that this association with Hellenic culture was communicated and negotiated in the public discourse. The portrayal of citizenships by an array of ethnic names along with the name of the honoree, presented the athlete as a larger-than-city figure and an essential part of that Hellenic community. One of the other aims of this paper is to suggest two factors in the development of these conventions of athletic representation, whose significance has not been understood in full: the athletic synod and the formation of Panhellenion. It is a central tenet of this paper that the study of citizenship in athletic inscriptions cannot only help us reveal more ways that Hellenicity was projected, but also better understand how all these different textual images helped shape views about what Hellas was.

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 153-176
Author(s):  
Tihomir Cipek ◽  
Stjepan Lacković

The influence of the radical right in the whole of Central Europe not only continues to grow, but has reached its apex by gaining power in Poland and Hungary. Its success is often attributed to two factors: a) the weakness of civil society, and b) economic and social crisis. We shall try to dispute these theses by using the example of Poland. We will defend a thesis that contradicts the usual claim that developed civil society also fosters democracy, and will show that the radical right owes its success precisely to its strength in civil society. This text will also show that there is no direct connection between the radical right and economic crisis, and that the real reason for its success is the dominance over the public discourse. The text is divided into three parts: the first will define the concept of the radical right and give an overview of the theories about its rise; the second part will focus on different explanations of the relationship between civil society and liberal democracy; and the third part will discuss the characteristics and activities of the most important organisations of the Polish radical right and their place in civil society and politics.


Author(s):  
Wannes Gyselinck

This paper examines the literary strategies with which Philostratusquestions, constructs and affirms a Greek universalising identity in his VitaApollonii. Despite the rapidly changing position of pagan Greeks and the riseof Christianity in the third century A.D., Philostratus constructs in hisfictionalised biography an idealised Greek identity, embodied by the protagonist,Apollonius of Tyana. This idealised identity is confirmed byApollonius' confrontation with "alterity" during his travels around the world:he finds Greece everywhere. A discussion of the issue of "Greekness" in theSecond Sophistic is revealing for Philostratus' characterisation of both hisGreek hero and the various forms of "otherness" he encounters. Perhaps themost important "other" for a Greek of the Imperial period was the Romanemperor. His dealing with the "good" emperor Vespasian is presented as aparadigmatic relationship between a Greek philosopher and a Roman emperor.His conflict, on the other hand, with the "evil" Roman emperor Domitian,whom he gloriously overcomes by his miraculous disappearance, demonstratesthe superiority of Philostratus' superhero. This ultimate divinisation of hishero reveals certain tensions between literary fiction and the historical positionof a Greek elite under Roman rule.


1976 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Cunliffe

SummaryThe results of five seasons of excavation (1971–5) are summarized. A continuous strip 30–40 m. wide extending across the centre of the fort from one side to the other was completely excavated revealing pits, gullies, circular stake-built houses, rectangular buildings, and 2-, 4-, and 6-post structures, belonging to the period from the sixth to the end of the second century B.C. The types of structures are discussed. A sequence of development, based largely upon the stratification preserved behind the ramparts, is presented: in the sixth–fifth century the hill was occupied by small four-post ‘granaries’ possibly enclosed by a palisade. The first hill-fort rampart was built in the fifth century protecting houses, an area of storage pits, and a zone of 4-and 6-post buildings laid out in rows along streets. The rampart was heightened in the third century, after which pits continued to be dug and rows of circular houses were built. About 100 B.C. rectangular buildings, possibly of a religious nature, were erected, after which the site was virtually abandoned. Social and economic matters are considered. The excavation will continue.


Author(s):  
Dora P. Crouch

A brief reprise of the geological aspects, organization, physical constraints, and appearance of each city will remind us of their common and unique features. Then we can compare them by groups linked by research questions. Agrigento is built on two ridges of 120 and 320–390 m, setting generous limits not yet filled by the modern city. A plain extends from the lower ridge south to the sea. Vistas were provided along contours and across elevations. Grouping the public buildings on stony ridges, with temples above and below and government structures along the west side, made economic and aesthetic sense. Landslides provide important clues to the nature of the hill the city is built on, and they correlate with occupation of various parts of the site. Additionally, the water system shows unexpected correlation with the families of discontinuities in the stone rather than the surface grid of the streets (Ercoli and Crouch 1998; Crouch 1989). Morgantina stretches along a ridge about 600 m in elevation. The agora most clearly reveals the interface of urban design and geology. Sanctuaries and fountains were the focus during the fifth century B. C. E. In the third century, modest but elegant new architecture (theater, great steps, flanking stoas, fountains, sanctuary) combined with pragmatic engineering as framework and connector between points of observation. Morgantina had one aqueduct, from the springs that later supplied Aidone. The site has numerous springs although some are now dry or give less than 1 l/s. Yet, during the third century B. C. E. when the population was at its maximum, the aquifer was also at maximum, and higher springs were fed from it more amply than at present. Improper management of water resources likely hastened the demise of the town after the Roman conquest. At the turn of the era, the shift from small rural towns to great landed estates as centers of population affected Morgantina strongly. Deforestation of the hills and mountains for fuel and building materials could have resulted in desiccation, with climate change a related factor. Occupation by the Hispanii (Spanish veterans) who replaced the Hellenized Sicilians after 211 B. C. E. coincided with a negative water balance.


1883 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 156-157
Author(s):  
P. G.

Among the objects brought from Tarentum by the Rev. G. J. Chester are certain disks of clay of some interest, though not of artistic value. They are circular and flat or cheese-like in form, with a diameter of 3½ to 3¾ inches, and a thickness of about ¾ of an inch. The inscriptions are impressed in the clay by means of a stamp, and run thus:The order in date is that followed in the list. No. 1 is oldest, and the shape of the м seems to indicate that it may date from the fourth century B.C.; the other three are probably not earlier than the third century. Later they can scarcely be, for after that time the obol gave way to the Roman denarius and sestertius as a measure of value at Tarentum.


Author(s):  
Ann-Kathrin Rothermel

Abstract Given the current polarization of gender knowledge in the public discourse, this article investigates the “other side” of gender knowledge production. Building on feminist standpoint literature, I conduct a close reading of the affective-discursive dynamics of knowledge production in two anti-feminist online communities in the United States and India. I find that anti-feminist communities appropriate feminist practices of consciousness-raising to construct a shared sense of victimization. This appropriation is, however, incomplete. In contrast to feminist practices, anti-feminist knowledge generation is premised on the polarizing themes of “ultimate victimhood” and “ultimate other,” which lead to violence and exclusion, rather than liberation.


1996 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah H. Cormack

New evidence of Roman tomb architecture from the necropolis at Ariassos in Pisidia demonstrates distinctive features of funerary architecture in the east. Over fifty built tombs are in different states of preservation, allowing identification of some features paralleled at other sites in Pisidia, while some features seem unique to Ariassos itself. The similarity of form of one elaborate tomb to the western podium temple reflects the influence of Roman religious architecture, while other tombs reflect features grown out of indigenous Anatolian traditions.Ariassos was founded in the Hellenistic period, and is located c. 50 km. north of the modern city of Antalya. It minted coins in the late Hellenistic period and contains buildings of Hellenistic date, including a prytaneion, bouleuterion and small temple. The majority of the ruins at the site, however, date to the Imperial period, including an extensive nymphaeum and bath complex, a triple arched gateway dating to the third century A.D., and a substantial domestic area. The site was visited in the 1880s by the Austrian team headed by K. Lanckoronski, who thought that the ruins were those of the site of Cretopolis. A few years later the site was correctly identified by a French epigraphical expedition headed by V. Bérard. The Pisidian Survey project, under British directorship, completed a new city plan, focusing attention on Ariassos after years of neglect. [See Fig. 1.]


2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Etienne De Villiers

The question asked in the heading was answered in this article in four steps. In the first step, an attempt was made to find an accurate account of biblical prophecy by means of a critical discussion of certain influential interpretations of it. In the second step, the extent to which biblical prophecy could serve as a model for contemporary Christians was discussed and an acceptable Christian model of prophetic witness was formulated by drawing on the views of different authors. In the third step, the impact of democracy on the prophetic witness of the church was discussed. The Dutch theologian, Gerrit de Kruijf’s view that the public prophetic witness of the church is not appropriate in democratic societies was criticised and the legitimacy of certain forms of prophetic witness in such societies defended. In the final step, a number of examples of the prophetic witness that is needed in the present democratic South Africa were provided.


1993 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 491-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Burgess

The Kaisergeschichte (KG) was a set of short imperial biographies extending from Augustus to the death of Constantine, probably written between 337 and c. 340. It no longer exists but its existence can be deduced from other surviving works. Amongst the histories of the fourth century – Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Festus, Jerome's Chronici canones, the Historia Augusta, the Epitome de Caesaribus, and, in places, even Ammianus Marcellinus and perhaps the Origo Constantini imperatoris (Anonymi Valesiani pars prior) – there is a common selection of facts and errors, and common wording and phrasing in their narratives between Augustus and the death of Constantine, especially in their accounts of the third century. A natural assumption is that later historians copied earlier ones, yet later historians include information not contained in earlier ones, and historians who could not have known each other's work share similarities. For example, it looks as though Aurelius Victor was copying Eutropius, yet Victor wrote before Eutropius, and Eutropius contains information not in Victor and does not reproduce Victor's peculiar style or personal biases, things which he could hardly have avoided. Therefore Eutropius cannot be copying Victor. Since neither could have copied the other, there must therefore have been a common source. In his Chronici canones Jerome appears at first to be simply copying Eutropius. Yet when he deviates from Eutropius, his deviations usually mirror other histories, such as Suetonius, Victor, Festus, even the Epitome and the Historia Augusta, two works that had not even been written when Jerome compiled his chronicle and that did not use, and would never have used, the Christian chronicle as a source. Jerome was hurriedly dictating to his secretary, he had no time to peruse four or five works at a time for his brief notices. There must have been a single source that contained both the Eutropian material and the deviations common to Jerome and the other works. That source was the KG. It is the purpose of this paper to add to the above list of authors who relied upon the KG two other writers whose work can be shown to have derived, either at first hand or later, from the KG: Polemius Silvius and Ausonius.


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