scholarly journals Anubis in the “Isiac Family” in the Hellenistic and Roman World

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 529-548
Author(s):  
Giulia Sfameni Gasparro
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Religious Meaning ◽  
Roman Age

Summary The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of Anubis as a member of the “Isiac Family” (Isis–Osiris/Sarapis–Horus/Harpokrates–Anubis) during the Hellenistic and Roman age. A new religious-historical analysis allows us to detect more or less profound changes of Anubis' ancient religious meaning due to the transfer from Egypt to Greece and Rome. The spread of this cult from its motherland to the Hellenistic world and subsequently to the Roman Empire caused, as well, the creation of its new religious identity.

THE RHETORIC OF RELIGIOUS CONFLICT IN ARNOBIUS’ADVERSVS NATIONES

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 402-416
Author(s):  
Konstantine Panegyres
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Conflict ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
Local Religion ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Writer

In this paper I discuss the ways in which the early Christian writer Arnobius of Sicca used rhetoric to shape religious identity inAduersus nationes. I raise questions about the reliability of his rhetorical work as a historical source for understanding conflict between Christians and pagans. The paper is intended as an addition to the growing literature in the following current areas of study: (i) the role of local religion and identity in the Roman Empire; (ii) the presence of pagan elements in Christian religious practices; (iii) the question of how to approach rhetorical works as historical evidence.

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 Cristianesimo delle origini e politica linguistica

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Barzanò
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Effective Communication ◽  
National Character ◽  
The Other ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Communication Needs

The Roman world was a multilingual community. Aiming on one side to ensure effective communication (as Latin was not so widely known and spoken) but not to encourage nationalistic revivals on the other, Romans choose Greek as an additional official language. Indeed, Greek, by then already deprived of any national character, was already used as a ‘lingua franca’ in the eastern Mediterranean. Despite Jewish tendency to refer to Hebrew as a mark of national and religious identity, early Christianity adopted (and maintained until the second half of the II century) Greek as its own language. This choice was not only due to practical considerations related to communication needs, but also to more ‘political’ reasons, and therefore it must be framed in the more general friendly approach to the Roman empire which was always taught during his life by Jesus and was practiced by him even in front of Pilate.

“Who is his mother so I can curse him?”: The role of the mother as a passive (dangerous) medium on curse tablets

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 353-362
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Interesting Phenomenon ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Care Giving ◽  
Private Action ◽  
The Family ◽  
The One

Abstract Curse tablets are artefacts of a very specific nature. They are generally interpreted as material expression of a particular magic action, usually performed by an individual. Such finds are especially interesting for the study because they represent an epigraphic monument, on the one hand, as well as a standard archaeological find with its specific context on the other hand. A particularly interesting phenomenon is visible on curse tablets throughout the Mediterranean – the presence of mother's name to identify the victim of the curse. The “boom” of this phenomenon occurs in the 2nd century AD, but there also are much older examples, particularly from the 4th and 3rd century BC. In the 2nd century AD, the identification of the mother spread to Italy and the African provinces, where this kind of targeting became dominant. In my paper, I will focus on the later, Latin and Greek curse tablets in the Roman Empire. Mothers' names were assigned to identify a particular person: This is interesting because patronyms were usually used in the Greco-Roman world as the identifier. The purposes of the curse tablets bearing the mother's name were thus different: the tablets were used in cases of private action in competition, love or trials linked to family affairs – all within a ritual framework. For this reason, this paper aims to observe the curse tablets as an important medium of the ritual practice which should enable us to answer the questions: Why should the name of the father, which is usually used, be replaced by the name of the mother? Could the reason for such replacement be the recognition of the mother as a mediator for targeting her child? Is this the most precise identification, as the mother is more accurately identifiable than the father? What does it tell us about the care-giving function of the mother within the family and about the authors of the curse tablets?

Nerva as Supreme Military Commander

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan T. Elkins
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Military Commander ◽  
Broad Audience ◽  
Historical Representations

As Nerva’s coinage has been studied almost exclusively with historical hindsight, and with the biases of later historians in mind, there is an impulse to read Nerva’s “weak” character into his coinage. This bias is most pronounced on his coinage bearing military themes, which are interpreted as “apologetic,” “hopeful,” or a “desperate plea” to the army to forestall mutiny. State-sanctioned art did not operate in this way and always presented the emperor positively. Reinterpreted in the context of historical representations, the martial imagery on the coinage was traditional and to be expected of the emperor, who had always played the role of supreme military commander. Although often understood as courting the sympathies of the army, many types are excessively rare, suggesting they had little communicative potential in the Roman world. Those proclaiming the “harmony of the armies” are common throughout the Roman Empire and spoke to a broad audience.

SOME CASES OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY? PANTOMIME MASKS AND THEIR CONTEXT

2001 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN JORY
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Mistaken Identity ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Hellenistic World

Abstract Pantomime, a form of masked mime, is known in the Hellenistic world from the third century BC. In a modified form it was the most popular type of performance on the stages of the Roman empire. The masks worn differed from the masks of drama in that they had closed mouths. The first part of the paper demonstrates that it is possible to classify types of pantomime mask in the same way that the masks of drama have been classified. The second part looks at the chronology and provenance of the surviving representations of pantomime masks and suggests reasons for the different dates at which they were incorporated into the theatrical iconography of various areas of the Roman world.

scholarly journals Subversive Faith and Competition in Patronage: A Note on ΠίΣΤΙΣ in Mark

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter-Ben Smit
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Gospel Of Mark ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
General Picture ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The People ◽  
Christian Discourse

Abstract In her influential monograph Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches, Theresa Morgan has convincingly shown how closely the early Christian discourse on ‘faith’ was bound up with similar notions in the broader Greco-Roman world, particularly in relation to the system of patronage, with both humans and deities fulfilling the role of (trustworthy and trusted) patrons. Thus, she has shifted attention from πίστις/fides as a primarily ‘theological’ notion to an interpretation along more ‘social’ lines and situated it in realm of human and divine/human relations. She also analyses this in relation to the Gospel of Mark, showing how Mark also fits this general picture. This note builds on Morgan’s work and will further develop one aspect of Mark’s use of the language (and concept) of patronage and πίστις. This is its subversive character, which is present to a lesser extent in Morgan's work; by calling for πίστις directed to him on the part of the people that he encounters, Jesus also draws these people away from other allegiances and ‘πίστις commitments’, that is, intersubjective relationships based on trust and leading to personal allegiance.

scholarly journals Proces romanizacije u prvom stoljeću nove ere u unutrašnjosti rimske provincije Dalmacije / The process of Romanisation in the inland of the Roman province of Dalmatia in the 1st century

2017 ◽  
pp. 78-89
Author(s):  
Amra Šačić Beća
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Basic Parameters ◽  
Roman Province

In contemporary Roman historiography and archaeology the process of Romanisation is studied from two opposite viewpoints. Post-processualists and structuralists usually define Romanisation as a construct of Mommsen’s school of thought, whereas traditionalists believe that the process of Romanisation is one of the evident cultural and political processes that marked the Roman civilisation. For traditionalists it represents a process of cultural transformation that helped indigenous communities to integrate into the Roman Empire. Perhaps the best solution to this problem was offered by Curchin who believes that instead of giving up on the term Romanisation it’s better to deconstruct this term and revise it as a useful descriptor of an important cultural process in the Roman world. The inland of the Roman province of Dalmatia can serve as an exact example of the methodological analysis of the aforementioned historiographical problem. Although the 1  century in Dalmatia was marked by construction undertakings of Publius Cornelius Dolabella, the basic parameters of Romanisation in the inland can be observed not until under the Flavian dynasty. This is the period of first municipia in the inland: municipium Bist(uensium), municipium Malvesiatum, municipium Raetinum, municipium Arupium, municipium Doclea. We observe that local, preRoman aristocracy continues to reign in these municipia as part of the Roman administrative  machinery. Therefore, even with Roman citizenship, indigenous elite did not renounce their  pre-Roman identity. This can be inferred from epigraphic monuments of decuriones from the  abovementioned municipia who, although being granted Roman citizenship, retained onomastic  elements of Western Balkans (Illyrian) origin within their nomenclature (Bato, Blodus, Tatta,  Epicadus, Laedio , Aplius and Annia). Local aristocracy evidently played a key role in spreading  the Roman political power, because it took over the role of military prefects under the Julio Claudian dynasty.

The role of affect in feelings of obligation

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefen Beeler-Duden ◽  
Meltem Yucel ◽  
Amrisha Vaish
Keyword(s):  
Positive Emotions ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Sense Of Obligation

Abstract Tomasello offers a compelling account of the emergence of humans’ sense of obligation. We suggest that more needs to be said about the role of affect in the creation of obligations. We also argue that positive emotions such as gratitude evolved to encourage individuals to fulfill cooperative obligations without the negative quality that Tomasello proposes is inherent in obligations.

They think they find themselves: radical violence and narcissistic-identity suffering

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Brunet
Keyword(s):  
Lone Wolf ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Ideal Ego ◽  
Group Regression ◽  
The Ideal

This article proposes a model of individual violent radicalisation leading to acts of terrorism. After reviewing the role of group regression and the creation of group psychic apparatus, the article will examine how violent radicalisation, by the reversal of the importance of the superego and the ideal ego, serves to compensate the narcissistic identity suffering by “lone wolf” terrorists.

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