A Most Notable Dwelling: The Domus Romana and the Urban Topography of Roman Melite

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-50
Author(s):  
Benedict Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Imperial Cult ◽  
Urban Topography ◽  
Epigraphic Evidence ◽  
Late Roman

Abstract This paper offers an overview of Roman Melite: the paper examines the epigraphic evidence for the topography of the urban centres of Gaulos and Melite in particular, the activities of wealthy benefactors and the civic government of the municipia through benefactions to the Temples to Apollo and Proserpina and dedications to the Imperial Cult. There is only limited evidence for the buildings themselves apart from the Domus Romana that was discovered on the outskirts of Rabat in 1881. The urban area appears to have been in decline by the fourth century AD despite the presence of a Late Roman see and Byzantine officials. The paper concludes with the abandonment of the island as a consequence of the Aghlabid sack of 870.

The Roman Cemetery at Lankhills: Pre-Roman and Roman Winchester. Part II

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giles Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Special Interest ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Third ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Roman

Outside the north gate of Venta Belgarum, Roman Winchester, a great cemetery stretched for 500 yards along the road to Cirencester. Excavations at Lankhills from 1967 to 1972 uncovered 451 graves, many elaborately furnished, at the northern limits of this cemetery, and dating from the fourth century A.D. This book, the second in a two-part study of Venta Belgarum, which forms the third volume of Winchester Studies, describes the excavations of these burials and analyses in detail both the graves and their contents. There are detailed studies and important re-assessments of many categories of object, but it is the information about late Roman burial, religion, and society which is of special interest.

A new statue-base for Constantius II and the fourth-century imperial cult at Oinoanda

2015 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 181-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.P. Milner
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Imperial Cult ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Constantius Ii

AbstractA long-unpublished statue base for the emperor Constantius II was rediscovered at Oinoanda in 2010. It contains information that Oinoanda was a neokoros city, that is, having a special status in the imperial cult. The article attempts to trace the significance of neokoria and of images in the imperial cult in the fourth century AD, an era of rapid religious change when the Christianity of the emperors and many ordinary people co-existed with deep and widespread pagan traditions that flowed throughout Roman society.

Roman Anglesey: Recent Discoveries

Britannia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 313-322
Author(s):  
David Hopewell
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Northern Coast ◽  
Coastal Defence ◽  
Defence System ◽  
Navigational Aid ◽  
Late Roman

ABSTRACTA series of projects by Gwynedd Archaeological Trust has identified two significant sites on the island of Anglesey. The first is a trading settlement on the shore of the Menai Strait which provides evidence for a hitherto unknown level of Romanisation in the remote west of the province. The second is a late first- to early second-century fortlet on the northern coast of the island that probably functioned as both a navigational aid and a point of strength at a landing place. The presence of a fourth-century watchtower on Carmel Head was also confirmed by excavation and its role in the late Roman coastal defence system is considered.

scholarly journals Reflection, Ritual, and Memory in the Late Roman Painted Hypogea at Sardis

Arts ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Rousseau
Keyword(s):  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Wall Painting ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Social Negotiation ◽  
Discrete Nature ◽  
Late Roman

Wall painting in the Sardis hypogea expresses a regional visual language situated within the context of Late Antique approaches to decorative surfaces and multivalent motifs of indeterminate religious affiliation. Iconographic ambivalence and a typically Late Antique absence of illusionism creates a supranatural world that is grounded in the familiar imagery of home and gardens but does not quite reflect the natural world. Ubiquitous and mundane motifs were thus elevated and potentially charged with polysemic allusions to funerary practice and belief. Twelve fourth century C.E. hypogea form a distinctive corpus with a largely homogenous decorative program of scattered flowers, garlands, baskets, and birds. Related imagery is common throughout the larger Roman world, but compositional parallels from Western Anatolia suggest a particularly local visual vocabulary. The chronologically, geographically, and typologically discrete nature of the Sardis corpus set it apart from the standard of Rome while underscoring commonalities in late Roman funerary decoration and ritual. The painted imagery evoked funerary processes and ongoing social negotiation between the living and the deceased.

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maijastina Kahlos
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity reconsiders the religious history of the late Roman Empire, focusing on the shifting position of dissenting religious groups. The groups under consideration are non-Christians (‘pagans’) and deviant Christians (‘heretics’). The period from the mid-fourth century until the mid-fifth century CE witnessed a significant transformation of late Roman society and a gradual shift from the world of polytheistic religions into the Christian Empire. This book demonstrates that the narrative is much more nuanced than the simple Christian triumph over the classical world. It looks at everyday life, economic aspects, day-to-day practices, and conflicts of interest in the relations of religious groups. The book addresses two aspects: rhetoric and realities, and consequently delves into the interplay between the manifest ideologies and daily life found in late antique sources. We perceive constant flux between moderation and coercion that marked the relations of religious groups, both majorities and minorities, as well as the imperial government and religious communities. Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity is a detailed analysis of selected themes and a close reading of selected texts, tracing key elements and developments in the treatment of dissident religious groups. The book focuses on specific themes, such as the limits of imperial legislation and ecclesiastical control, the end of sacrifices, and the label of magic. It also examines the ways in which dissident religious groups were construed as religious outsiders in late Roman society.

Climbing the Capitoline Hill

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Moralee
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Traditional Uses ◽  
The Hill ◽  
Do So ◽  
High Politics ◽  
Late Roman

Chapter 1 introduces the transformations of the traditional uses of the hill from the third to the sixth century, in particular when emperors climbed the Capitoline Hill, when they chose not to do so, and the dynamics that eventually led to the abandonment of the Capitoline Hill. By the end of the fourth century, Christian rulers and administrators began to treat Rome as pilgrims did, thus terminating processions not at the Capitoline Hill, as they had in the past, but instead at St. Peter’s, the Lateran Palace, or the Forum of Trajan. Far from signaling the end of the hill’s history, the absence from the hill of emperors and their ritual power lifts the hill from the shadow of late Roman high politics and allows us to see how the hill functioned in other ways.

Christian Initiation

2018 ◽  
pp. 522-537
Author(s):  
Paul F. Bradshaw
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Stage Structure ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Christian Initiation ◽  
The Third ◽  
The City

The limited evidence for Christian initiation practices in Syria and North Africa in the third century suggests ritual patterns that differed from each other in some ways but followed the three-stage structure of rites of passage outlined by Arnold van Gennep, even if the first and third of the stages were relatively undeveloped at that time. The fourth century saw the elaboration of these together with the temporal contraction of the middle or liminal phase in the rites of Syria and Milan, as well as in the variant practice of the city of Jerusalem.

scholarly journals Damophon

1904 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 330-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Waldstein
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
American School ◽  
Public Meeting ◽  
Widespread Acceptance ◽  
Late Roman

Mr. A. M. Daniel's article on the above subject (pp. 41 seq.) is so thorough and convincing that it hardly requires further support. But in view of the widespread acceptance of the attribution of the Lycosura statues to a late Roman date, I think a few words in further confirmation of his contention are not out of place.In spite of the almost unanimous volte-face in the opinion of archaeologists since Dr. Doerpfeld expressed his doubts as to the Greek character of the buildings at Lycosura, my own view (expressed in the Athenaeum, March 22nd, 1890, and at a public meeting of the American School at Athens, January 6th, 1891) that Damophon's work belongs to the first half of the fourth century B.C. has not been shaken. Of course we must all remember that we have here to deal with the question of probability and not of certainty. Yet within these limits it appears to me that the balance of evidence strongly inclines towards the fourth century B.C.

Notes on the Third Century A.D. in Spartan Epigraphy

1984 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 263-288
Author(s):  
A. J. S. Spawforth
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
Imperial Cult ◽  
The Third ◽  
Epigraphic Evidence

This article contains epigraphically based studies which aim to bring increased order to the chronology and prosopography of Roman Sparta. It is concluded that only one occurrence of the nomen Aurelius can be assigned with any confidence to the period before the Constitutio Antoniniana. A dedication for Septimius Severus and his family is discussed. Epigraphic evidence for M. Aurelius Aristocles of Taenarum and his family is presented. An epigraphic reference to the ‘Pitanate Lochos’ recruited by Caracalla is discussed. The dating of the occasions when the god Lycurgus is attested as eponymous patronomos is discussed, when it is argued that Woodward's dating for the fourth to eleventh patronomates (c. 180–90) is some fifty to sixty years too early. The career of the champion runner P. Aelius Alcandridas is elucidated. Texts referring to the sculptor Demetrius are discussed. An account is given of priests of the imperial cult at Sparta under the Severi, fifteen priests being identified. A list of Spartan patronomoi of the third century is compiled. In an appendix a revised text of IG v. 1. 168 + 603 is proposed.

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