scholarly journals Roman Emperors in Dostoevsky’s Calligraphic Notes to The Idiot

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 177-207
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Smirnova
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Imperial Cult ◽  
Imperial Rome ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
Russian State ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

The article focuses on clarifying the role of names of Roman emperors in Dostoevsky’s calligraphic records in his notebooks of the late 1860s (Russian State Archive of Literature and Art. Funds 212.1.6 and 212.1.7). One of the reasons for Fedor Dostoevsky’s invocation of images and themes from Roman history was the idea characteristic of the educated class of the mid-19th century, namely, that the history of Rome is a model of virtues and example of vices and atrocities, and is therefore essential to everyone who is not indifferent to the fate of humankind. Since the writer’s creative reflections mainly refer to Gaius Julius Caesar and the rulers of the first two centuries (and the first three dynasties) of the Imperial Period, the writer’s interest in the Roman Caesars must be correlated with his assessment of Imperial Rome in the I—II centuries as the time of strengthening the sole nature of the Emperor’s power and the spread of the Imperial cult, on the one hand, and the formation of Christianity, on the other. At the same time, Dostoevsky’s attention was drawn to Attila and Romulus Augustulus, whose names are associated with the final pages of the history of the Western Roman Empire. For Dostoevsky, Not only texts authored by ancient and Christian authors, but also images of Imperial Rome in contemporary literature and journalism became the sources of associations and motifs associated with the Roman Caesars for Dostoevsky. The most important nuances of meaning were born from the comparison of ancient Roman history with the new history of Western Europe and Russia. The evolution of the subject of calligraphic notes in The Idiot is significant: in the initial drafts of the novel the emphasis was placed on the despotism and monstrosity of the Roman rulers, while the notes for the final version concentrated on the reflection of the history of Imperial Rome and its fate in the Apocalypse.

scholarly journals A Woman to Rule the World: Rome Personified in the Roman Republic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Campbell Orchard
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Roman Republic ◽  
The Other ◽  
Female Figure ◽  
Imperial Cult ◽  
National Representation ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

<p>Revitalised by Mussolini in the early twentieth century as a symbol of the ‘New Roman Empire’, Roma has endured a long history of national representation. Traditionally the figure of Roma is on the one side associated by historians with the Roman imperial cult and Augustus, and on the other by Numismatists as the helmeted female figure on the coinage of the Roman Republic. However, these figures are not presently considered one and the same. When describing this figure, Roma is considered a Greek innovation travelling west, which naturally discounts well over two centuries of Roman issued coinage. Roma inaugurated by Hadrian and previously manipulated by Augustus was not simply a Greek import, but a complex Roman idea, which, true to Roman form, incorporated native and foreign elements in shaping an outward looking signifier of Roman identity.</p>

IV. Society

1982 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 22-27
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Imperial Rome ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Philosophy And Religion ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

‘Society’ covers a very broad range of human activity, and the interests of historians of Roman society have differed markedly. The great social historians of imperial Rome writing about a century ago were primarily concerned with a description of what anthropologists call ‘high culture’ (including literature, philosophy, and religion). Since then, the primary interest of social historians has shifted from ‘the inner moral life of the time’ to ‘daily life’ in Rome and, more importantly, the structure of Roman society. This last interest will form the subject of the present chapter.Which terms and categories are best suited to the analysis of Roman social structure? Rostovtzeff’s monumental Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, exemplary in its integration of the social with the economic and political developments of the Principate, employs a system of economic classes, including an entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, which is more appropriate to a modern capitalist society than the Roman world. A more satisfactory explanation of the course of Roman history has not yet been provided by any Marxist writer, for example in terms of class struggle between propertied exploiters and propertyless exploited. There will remain overt political conflicts, such as that between propertied freedmen and propertied senators, which are difficult to accommodate in the model.

scholarly journals A Woman to Rule the World: Rome Personified in the Roman Republic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Campbell Orchard
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Roman Republic ◽  
The Other ◽  
Female Figure ◽  
Imperial Cult ◽  
National Representation ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

<p>Revitalised by Mussolini in the early twentieth century as a symbol of the ‘New Roman Empire’, Roma has endured a long history of national representation. Traditionally the figure of Roma is on the one side associated by historians with the Roman imperial cult and Augustus, and on the other by Numismatists as the helmeted female figure on the coinage of the Roman Republic. However, these figures are not presently considered one and the same. When describing this figure, Roma is considered a Greek innovation travelling west, which naturally discounts well over two centuries of Roman issued coinage. Roma inaugurated by Hadrian and previously manipulated by Augustus was not simply a Greek import, but a complex Roman idea, which, true to Roman form, incorporated native and foreign elements in shaping an outward looking signifier of Roman identity.</p>

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.

scholarly journals High-resolution late Holocene sedimentary cores record the long history of the city of Cádiz (south-western Spain)

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Ferréol Salomon ◽  
Darío Bernal-Casasola ◽  
José J. Díaz ◽  
Macarena Lara ◽  
Salvador Domínguez-Bella ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Urban Centre ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Lisbon Earthquake ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western Spain ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

Abstract. Today, coastal cities worldwide are facing major changes resulting from climate change and anthropogenic forcing, which requires adaptation and mitigation strategies to be established. In this context, sedimentological archives in many Mediterranean cities record a multi-millennial history of environmental dynamics and human adaptation, revealing a long-lasting resilience. Founded by the Phoenicians around 3000 years ago, Cádiz (south-western Spain) is a key example of a coastal resilient city. This urban centre is considered to be one of the first cities of western Europe and has experienced major natural hazards during its long history, such as coastal erosion, storms, and also tsunamis (like the one in 1755 CE following the destructive Lisbon earthquake). In the framework of an international, joint archaeological and geoarchaeological project, three cores have been drilled in a marine palaeochannel that ran through the ancient city of Cádiz. These cores reveal a ≥50 m thick Holocene sedimentary sequence. Importantly, most of the deposits date from the 1st millennium BCE to the 1st millennium CE. This exceptional sedimentary archive will allow our scientific team to achieve its research goals, which are (1) to reconstruct the palaeogeographical evolution of this specific coastal area; (2) to trace the intensity of activities of the city of Cádiz based on archaeological data, as well as geochemical and palaeoecological indicators; and (3) to identify and date high-energy event deposits such as storms and tsunamis.

scholarly journals Jeden z herezjarchów? Przedstawienia ikonograficzne Mahometa w rękopisie Рнб, f.IV.151 w kontekście staroruskich narracji na jego temat

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 449-469
Author(s):  
Zofia Brzozowska
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Russian Literature ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Extensive Sequence ◽  
Old Russian ◽  
The Third ◽  
Russian State ◽  
Identical Manner ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ivan The Terrible

The РНБ, F.IV.151 manuscript is the third volume of a richly illustrated his­toriographical compilation (so-called Лицевой летописный свод – Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible), which was prepared in one copy for tsar Ivan IV the Terrible in 1568-1576 and represents the development of the Russian state on the broad background of universal history. The aforementioned manuscript, which contains a description of the history of the Roman Empire and then the Byzantine Empire between the seventies of the 1st century A.D and 919, includes also an extensive sequence devoted to Muhammad (Ѡ Бохмите еретицѣ), derived from the Old Church Slavonic translation of the chronicle by George the Monk (Hamartolus). It is accompanied by two miniatures showing the representation of the founder of Islam. He was shown in an almost identical manner as the creators of earlier heterodox trends, such as Arius or Nestorius. These images therefore become a part of the tendency to perceive Muhammad as a heresiarch, a false pro­phet, and the religion he created as one of the heresies within Christianity, which is also typical of the Old Russian literature.

Seneca the Elder, the Controuersia Figurata, and the Political Discourse of the Early Empire

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-150
Author(s):  
Matthew Leigh
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Roman History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Specific Event ◽  
Imperial Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Seneca The Elder

This paper studies examples of how exponents of Roman declamation could insert into arguments on the trivial, even fantastic, cases known as controuersiae statements of striking relevance to the political culture of the triumviral and early imperial period. This is particularly apparent in the Controuersiae of Seneca the Elder but some traces remain in the Minor Declamations attributed to Quintilian. The boundaries separating Rome itself from the declamatory city referred to by modern scholars as Sophistopolis are significantly blurred even in those instances where the exercise does not turn on a specific event from Roman history, and there is much to be gained from how the declaimers deploy Roman historical examples. Some of the most sophisticated instances of mediated political comment exploit the employment of universalizing sententiae, which have considerable bite when they are related to contemporary Roman discourse and experience. The declamation schools are a forum for thinking through the implications of the transformation of the Roman state and deserve a place within any history of Roman political thought.

Martin Luther in the Age of Confessionalization

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

Luther was a point of reference in all three of the confessional cultures during the confessional age, though this was not something he had intended. His theological “self-fashioning” was not meant to secure, canonize, or stabilize his own works or his biography. Rather, he believed, and was convinced, that the hidden God rules in a strange way. He hides himself in the course of the world and realizes what we would have liked to realizes. Apart from this theological viewpoint, historiographic differentiation is needed: Luther had different impacts on each of the three confessions. Furthermore, one also has to differentiate between a deep impact and the unintended effects of Luther’s thinking. Luther was an extremely polarizing figure. From the beginning, he underwent a heroization and a diabolization by his contemporaries. Apart from this black-and-white reception of his person, it was, and still is, extremely difficult to analyze Luther, his work and medial effects. Historians have always been fixated on Luther: he was the one and only founder of Protestantism. His biography became a stereotype of writing and was an important element of Protestant (or anti-Protestant) identity politics. For some Protestants, his biography became identical with the history of salvation (Heilsgeschichte). For his enemies, his biography was identical with the history of the devil. In all historical fields, one has to differentiate between the different groups and people who protected or attacked Luther or shared his ideas. The history of Luther can only be written as a shared history with conflict and concordances: the so-called Anabaptists, for example, shared Luther’s antihierarchical ideal of Christian community, although on the other hand “they” were strongly opposed toward his theology and person. Luther or example, had conflicts with the humanists and with Erasmus especially; he argued about the Lord’s Supper with Zwingli, he criticized the Fuggers because of their financial transactions in an early capitalist society; and, last but not least, he was in conflict with the Roman Church. The legitimization of different pictures of Luther always depends upon the perspectives of the posterity: either Luther was intolerant against spiritualists, Anabaptists, or peasants who were willing to resort to violence; or he was defended by humanists like Sebastian Castellio for defending religious tolerance. During his lifetime Luther was an extremely polarizing figure. Hundreds of pro-Lutheran and polemical anti-Lutheran leaflets or texts were published. The many literary forms of parody, satire, caricature, the grotesque, and the absurd were cultivated during the confessional age. Luther’s biography was often used by Lutheran theologians as an instrument of heroization and identity politics in public discourse. Historically, one can differentiate between the time before and after Luther. The political and religious unity of the Holy Roman Empire was strongly disturbed, if not broken, through the Reformation. The end of the Universalist dreams of universal powers like theology and politics (pope and emperor) were some of the central preconditions for political, cultural, and theological differentiation of Europe. Religious differentiation was one of the unintended effects of theology and the interpretation of the scripture. Decades after Luther’s death, the Holy Roman Empire slowly and surprisingly turned into a poly-, multi- and interconfessional society.

Reflections on British and Roman Imperialism

1965 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.A. Brunt
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Imperial Rome ◽  
Roman Imperialism ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancient Times

In the heyday of British imperialism some fifty years ago, when Lord Cromer could find that the empire was “the main title which makes us great”, imperialists were apt to compare the British with the Roman empire and to seek “in the history of imperial Rome for any facts or commentaries gleaned from ancient times which might be of service to the modern empire of which we are so justly proud”.1 A critic of imperialism, J. A. Hobson, sourly remarked of such enterprises that “history devises reasons why the lessons of past empires do not apply to our own”. Prima facie, however, the comparison was encouraging. Both the Romans and the modern imperial powers claimed that it was their purpose to govern in the interests of the subjects; both had undoubtedly established peace and order in a large part of the world; both had extended their own law and their own civilization.

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