scholarly journals Philanthropy and places of care (xenodochia) in the late Roman empire, 350-600 CE

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Júlio Matzenbacher Zampietro ◽  
Pedro Paulo Abreu Funari
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
General Population ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Good Tool ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era

Hospitals and places of care in general are topics that have received little attention from historians of Late Antiquity. The scarcity of detailed studies, although explained by a proportional scarcity of primary sources, written or archaeological, seems unjustified. The study of places of care can be a good tool to assess changes in power relations in the Later Roman Empire, as well as a way of comprehending important features of the Late Antique landscape that affected the general population in a myriad of ways. Our research chiefly intends to learn how Byzantine places of care related to the social surroundigs from the fourth to the sixth centuries of the Common Era, while also aiming to understand internal aspects of these institutions, ranging from its healthcaring practices to the objectives of their members.

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.

The pagan holy man in late antique society

1982 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 33-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garth Fowden
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Indefinite Future ◽  
Holy Man ◽  
The Church

A Love and desire, to sequester a Mans Selfe, for a Higher Conversation … is found, to have been falsely and fainedly, in some of the Heathen; As Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; And truly and really, in divers of the Ancient Hermits, and Holy Fathers of the Church.F. Bacon, Of friendshipThe holy men of Greco-Roman paganism will never inspire either the reverence or the fascinated horror that the ascetics and monks of early Christianity have commanded ever since they first impinged on the common mind in the time of Antony and Athanasios. Writing for a Christian audience, Francis Bacon could dismiss the semi-mythical Epimenides and Numa, and notorious exhibitionists like Empedokles and Apollonios, as self-evident imposters; while in our own less devout times the abundance of the hagiographical literature ensures that the Christian saint will preoccupy scholars for the indefinite future, if only as the unwitting patron of a mass of historical and sociological data that is only just beginning to be analysed. Yet this is poor excuse for neglecting the pagan holy man, who came in the later Roman empire to play a conspicuous part in his own religious tradition, and also affords instructive points of comparison with his Christian competitors. This paper offers a first orientation towards such wider perspectives, by investigating the social and historical consequences entailed by the distinctive pagan concept of personal holiness. It will be suggested that a tendency to associate holiness with philosophical learning (Section I) determined the essentially urban (II) and privileged (III) background of the pagan holy man, and also encouraged his gradual drift to the periphery of society (IV).

Late Antique Letter Collections

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
The Social ◽  
Letter Writer ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Letter Collection ◽  
Latin Letter

This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the extant Greek and Latin letter collections of late antiquity (ca. 300-600 C.E.). Bringing together an international team of historians, classicists, and scholars of religion, it illustrates how letter collections advertised an image of the letter writer and introduces the social and textual histories of each collection. Nearly every chapter focuses on the letter collection of a different late ancient author—from the famous (or even infamous) to the obscure—and investigates its particular issues of content, arrangement, and publication context. On the whole, the volume reveals how late antique letter collections operated as a discrete literary genre with its own conventions, transmission processes, and self-presentational agendas while offering new approaches to interpret both larger letter collections and the individual letters contained within them. Each chapter contributes to a broad argument that scholars should read letter collections as they do representatives of other late antique literary genres, as single texts made up of individual components, with larger thematic and literary characteristics that are as important as those of their component parts.

Rye’s Rise and Rome’s Fall: Agriculture and Climate in Europe during Late Antiquity

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-169
Author(s):  
Paolo Squatriti
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Climate Patterns ◽  
Cultivated Plant ◽  
Successes And Failures

Abstract This essay discusses the introduction and circulation of plants in the western Roman empire between roughly AD 300 and 800. It focuses on one cultivated plant, rye, and on a few ecologically different regions in Gaul and Italy, in order to probe the causes of botanical successes and failures. It suggests that late antique people increasingly took care of rye for economic, social, and cultural reasons. It reaches this conclusion through an analysis of other explanations for the success of rye, such as late antique climate patterns and late antique human migration. It suggests that these explanations are unsatisfactory because they do not account for all the varied instances of increased rye cultivation between the 4th and 8th c. in Europe.

Christianisation and Local Names in Asia Minor: Fall and Rise in Late Antiquity

2019 ◽  
pp. 258-276
Author(s):  
Sylvain Destephen
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Personal Names ◽  
The Rich

This article analyses processes in detail based on the evidence now provided by the relevant volumes of Prosopographie chr�tienne du Bas-Empire, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Lexicon of Greek Personal Names and the rich cemetery at Korykos. It is argued that the onomastic patrimony of late antique Asia Minor underwent a twofold process of transformation and simplification but did not vanish. The complete hegemony that the Romans achieved in Asia Minor in the 1st century BC induced a Latinisation of the region that was only superficial. This development had two contrasting effects. Firstly, Hellenistic and Roman influences reduced ethnic and cultural diversity in Asia Minor to the point where indigenous languages were more or less extinct when Christianity arose. Secondly, Hellenisation and Romanisation allowed a general enrichment of the onomastic patrimony in Asia Minor. The study of names therefore provides a balanced response since Asia Minor possesses a rich, varied onomastic patrimony. It also relates to how the conversion of the Roman Empire in general, and of Asia Minor in particular, brought about an overall transformation of the names people bore, even though modifications occurred more rapidly within ecclesiastical and monastic milieus than among ordinary laymen.

scholarly journals Late Antiquity and World History

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Humphries
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Final Section ◽  
World History ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
Local Perspectives ◽  
Evolutionary Interpretation

The flourishing of late-antique studies in the last half-century has coincided with the rise of “world history” as an area of academic research. To an extent, some overlap has occurred, particularly with Sasanian Persia being considered alongside the late Roman Empire as constituting an essential component in what we think of in terms of the “shape” of late antiquity. Yet it is still the case that many approaches to late antiquity are bound up with conventional western narratives of historical progress, as defined in Jack Goody's The Theft of History (2006). Indeed, the debate about whether late antiquity was an age of dynamic transformation (as argued by Peter Brown and his disciples) or one of catastrophic disruption (as asserted, most recently, by Bryan Ward-Perkins) can be regarded as representing two different faces of an essentially evolutionary interpretation of western historical development. This article argues, however, that we can challenge such conventional narrative frameworks by taking a world historical perspective on late antiquity. It shows, first, that our interpretation of late antiquity depends on sources that themselves are representative of myriad local perspectives. Secondly, it argues that since Gibbon's time these sources have been made to serve an essentially western construct of and debate about history. The final section considers how taking a more global perspective allows us to challenge conventional approaches to and narratives of late antiquity.

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.

The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Shepard Kraemer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Large Population ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Mediterranean Population ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The Mediterranean

The alliance of the Roman Empire with the emerging orthodox Christian church in the early fourth century had profound consequences for the large population of Greek- (and Latin-)speaking Jews living across the Mediterranean diaspora. No known writings survive from diaspora Jews. Their experiences must be gleaned from unreliable accounts of Christian bishops and historiographers, surviving laws, and limited material evidence—synagogue sites, inscriptions, a few papyrus documents. Long neglected by historians, the diaspora population, together with its distinctive cultural forms, appears in decline by the early seventh century. This book explores why. In part, diaspora Jews suffered from disasters that affected the whole late antique Mediterranean population—continuing warfare, earthquakes, and plague. But, like all other non-orthodox Christians, Jews were subject to extensive pressures to become orthodox Christian, which increased over time. Late Roman laws, sometimes drafted by Christian lobbyists, imposed legal disabilities on Jews that were relieved if they became Christians. Fueled by malicious sermons of Christian bishops, Christian mobs attacked synagogues and sometimes Jews themselves. Significantly, Jews retained many of their earlier legal rights while other non-orthodox Christians lost theirs. In response, some Jews became Christians, voluntarily or under duress. Some probably emigrated to escape orthodox Christian pressures. Some leveraged political and social networks to their advantage. Some violently resisted their Christian antagonists. Jews may occasionally have entertained the possibility of divine messianic intervention or embraced forms of Jewish practice that constructed tighter social boundaries around them—an increased use of Hebrew, and heightened interest, perhaps, in rabbinic practices.

Know Place: Heaven’s Gate and American Gnosticism

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-164
Author(s):  
Cathy Gutierrez
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Initial Phase ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Self Recognition ◽  
The Common ◽  
Heaven's Gate ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Prior State

Abstract Bonnie Nettles and Marshall Applewhite, the founders of the millenarian movement Heaven’s Gate, began teaching at a retreat they called Know Place, where one came to “know thyself” in the “no-place of Utopia.” This initial phase set the stage for a process of self-recognition that would become the hallmark of conversion to the movement, much as Gnosticism employed in the first centuries of the common era. The parallels between late antique Gnosticism and Heaven’s Gate are remarkable. Both posited two breeds of humans, one a material husk and the other an enlightened soul temporarily trapped on earth. Both proposed radical gender equality and maintained a rigorous ascetic regime. Both proffered death as a return to a prior state of gnosis rather than a disjuncture into a new life and afterlife. This paper examines the rhetoric of self-verification employed by both movements as it relates to a modified monotheism.

Anti-Imperial Rhetoric in the New Testament

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Diehl
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
New Testament ◽  
First Century ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Interpretive Methods ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Common ◽  
Book Of Acts ◽  
Common Era

The first of a series of three articles, this essay introduces current scholarship concerned with the use of anti-imperial rhetoric in the New Testament Gospels and the book of Acts. In the first century of the Common Era, if the powerful Roman Emperor was considered a god, what did that mean for the earliest Christians who committed loyalty to ‘another’ God? Was it necessary for the NT authors to employ subversive language, words and symbols, to conceal their true meanings from the imperial authorities in their communications to the first Christian communities? The answers to such key questions can give us a clearer picture of the culture, society and setting in which the NT was written. The purpose of this complex study is to observe how current biblical scholarship views anti-imperial rhetoric and anti-emperor implications found in the NT, assuming such rhetoric exists at all. This initial article reviews recent scholarship with respect to the background of the Roman Empire, current interpretive methods and research concerning anti-imperial rhetoric found in the NT Gospels and Acts.

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