Antinoopolis: A Hadrianic Foundation in Egypt

1940 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. I. Bell

The city state was the most characteristic expression of the Hellenic way of life; and it is appropriate that the most Philhellenic of Roman emperors should have been distinguished as a founder of cities and an encourager of civic institutions. We are ill informed about the constitution and history of most of his foundations, but concerning one, which was in Egypt, a country whose soil preserves so perfectly the antiquities which it covers, we have a considerable amount of evidence. Antinoopolis is thus of interest not only to the historian of Roman and Byzantine Egypt, but also for the light it may throw on Hadrian's aims and ideals as a founder of cities.

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 631-636
Author(s):  
Noam Maggor

Mark Peterson's The City-State of Boston is a formidable work of history—prodigiously researched, lucidly written, immense in scope, and yet scrupulously detailed. A meticulous history of New England over more than two centuries, the book argues that Boston and its hinterland emerged as a city-state, a “self-governing republic” that was committed first and foremost to its own regional autonomy (p. 6). Rather than as a British colonial outpost or the birthplace of the American Revolution—the site of a nationalist struggle for independence—the book recovers Boston's long-lost tradition as a “polity in its own right,” a fervently independent hub of Atlantic trade whose true identity placed it in tension with the overtures of both the British Empire and, later, the American nation-state (p. 631).


Author(s):  
Michael A. Gomez

This prologue provides an overview of the history of early and medieval West Africa. During this period, the rise of Islam, the relationship of women to political power, the growth and influence of the domestically enslaved, and the invention and evolution of empire were all unfolding. In contrast to notions of an early Africa timeless and unchanging in its social and cultural categories and conventions, here was a western Savannah and Sahel that from the third/ninth through the tenth/sixteenth centuries witnessed political innovation as well as the evolution of such mutually constitutive categories as race, slavery, ethnicity, caste, and gendered notions of power. By the period's end, these categories assume significations not unlike their more contemporary connotations. All of these transformations were engaged with the apparatus of the state and its progression from the city-state to the empire. The transition consistently featured minimalist notions of governance replicated by successive dynasties, providing a continuity of structure as a mechanism of legitimization. Replication had its limits, however, and would ultimately prove inadequate in addressing unforeseen challenges.


Classics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Hurwit ◽  
Ioannis Mitsios

The ancient city-state (or polis) of Athens was contiguous with the region known as Attica, a large, triangular peninsula extending southeastward from the Greek mainland into the Aegean Sea. In the western angle of Attica, on a coastal plain surrounded by four mountains (Hymettos, Pentelikon, Parnes, and Aigaleos), lay the city itself. Although the modern city has thickly spread up the slopes of the mountains as well as to the sea, the study of Athenian topography concentrates on the monuments, buildings, and spaces of the ancient urban core, an area roughly 3 square kilometers surrounding the Acropolis and defended in the Classical period by a wall some 6.5 kilometers in length. Athens is the ancient Greek city that we know best, and it is unquestionably the Greek city whose art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and political history have had the greatest impact on the Western tradition and imagination. As a result, “Athenian” is sometimes considered synonymous with “Greek.” It is not. In many respects, Athens was exceptional among Greek city-states, not typical: it was a very different place from, say, Thebes or Sparta. Still, the study of Athens, its monuments, and its culture needs no defense, and the charge of “Athenocentrism” is a hollow indictment when one stands before the Parthenon or holds a copy of Sophocles’ Antigone. This article will refer to the following periods in the history of Athens and Greece (the dates are conventional): late Bronze, or Mycenaean, Age (1550–1100 bce); Dark Age (1100–760 bce); Archaic (760–480 bce); Classical (480–323 bce); Hellenistic (323 –31 bce); and Roman (31 BCE–c. 475 ce).


Author(s):  
Sara Forsdyke

This article looks at the parallel evolution of civic institutions, all of which culminated in the polis, the ‘city-state’, as the backdrop to the rich cultural legacy of the fifth and fourth centuries. Historians have demonstrated that the formal institutions of the Greek city-state are best understood as emerging from, but still very much embedded within, a much broader range of collective practices and discourses. Nevertheless, it is the dynamic interplay between the institutional structures of the state and these broader practices and discourses that has been the focus of much of the most fruitful scholarship on the ancient Greek city-state over the past thirty years. The discussion then turns to some of the most interesting areas of investigation in current scholarship on the interaction between formal institutions and broader cultural activities and norms in the Greek city-state.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-127
Author(s):  
Samira Bashiri

In the present article, an attempt has been made to present a picture of the city of Dezful and to describe the details of the city and the way of life of the people using first-hand sources, and this description, geographical and historical conditions and type of economy And it encompasses the livelihood of the people and provides an overview of the city of Dezful.


Author(s):  
Fabio Raimondi

This work begins with a question posed by Machiavelli: ‘In what mode a free state, if there is one, can be maintained in corrupt cities; or, if there is not, in what mode to order it.’ The book analyses the different solutions proposed by Machiavelli starting with the hypothesis of the ‘civil principality’, passing through both the definition of the republican ‘civil and free way of life’ and the examination of the history of the Florentine institutions, to two short writings from the years 1520–22. In the Discursus florentinarum rerum and the Minuta di provisione per la riforma dello Stato di Firenze, Machiavelli exposed publicly for the first time, his proposals to bring back republican freedom to Florence after the fall of the first republic and the Medici’s return. The main thesis put forward in this work is that Machiavelli, when he worked for the Medici, was always a committed republican, even if he believed that the city’s constitution needed to change after the fall of Soderini. In the Discursus and in the Minuta Machiavelli proposed a constitution in which the ‘humours’ were forced to mix together in order to generate a new form of ‘equality’ that according to Machiavelli is the main characteristic of a free, just, and stable republic. The aim was not to obtain equilibrium among the parts of the city leaving them unaltered, but to mix them.


Author(s):  
Polly Low

This article argues that problems of terminology also plague the study of the Athenian Empire, drawing attention to the many ancient Greek words that have been translated as ‘empire’. Arriving at the right terms to describe Athenian ‘imperialism’ would go hand in hand with the larger process of understanding other features of Athens' hegemony. For example, while the financial aspects of the Athenian Empire are heavily discussed, the cultural imperialism of the city-state still needs to be analysed more fully. Further study may well show that the major importance of the empire lies in its role as the transmitter of Hellenic culture during the period of Athens' dominance and not in its place as a decisive moment in the history of imperialism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110510
Author(s):  
Creighton Connolly ◽  
Hamzah Muzaini

While Singapore is often considered an island city in the singular sense, the city-state actually consists of many islands, with the Singapore mainland being by far the largest. While most of these islands traditionally had thriving indigenous communities, all have since been displaced over time as the islands were developed to service Singapore's economic and metabolic needs as a rapidly urbanizing and developing nation. Some of the islands have also undergone considerable transformation (through reclamation) which has had significant impacts on the ecologies of the offshore islands. This simultaneously allowed for the ‘ruralization’ of mainland Singapore to provide more green space for nature conservation, recreation and leisure. This paper will provide a brief history of these transformations, drawing on specific examples which serve to illustrate how Singapore's offshore islands have been redeveloped over time to service the nation-state and in response to the changing needs of the urban core. In doing so, the paper examines how spaces on the urban periphery are deeply bound up with processes of ‘urbanization’, given their important role in processes of urban metabolism. In this way, the paper contributes to recent work in urban political ecology which has sought to trace processes of urbanization beyond the city and render visible the socio-environmental inequalities produced therein.


2017 ◽  
pp. 47-51
Author(s):  
M. М. Rohozha

The paper deals with the research of philosophic way of life as an invariant of the Western culture. The author tries to revealthe answers to the questions: What is the influence of the time and place of life on a thinking person? Is it possible to put a question in such away? The first part of the paper gives methodological explanation for such putting the questions. Two conceptual strategies of thinking in the contemporary history of philosophy are mentioned – compartmentalismand biographical method. The latter one allows to understand philosophizing through research of maître à penser. Such approach makes possible cultural studies prospect for the life of a philosopher in the context of unique time and space. To designate the uniqueness of time and space, the category of chronotope (M. Bakhtin) is introduced in the paper. Chronotope sets condensed signs in a definite period at the result of which a unique image of a thinker is born in a definite cultural space. The Antiquity image of philosopher is Socrates. Not a biographical person but a mythologized image, Socrates entered the great time of culture and influenced on the Western civilization. Since Socrates, the philosophizing of Antiquity is considered as the spiritual exercises (P.Hadot), in which the spirit of publicity is combined with the inner dialoguewith oneself. Late Antiquity changed practical orientation ofphilosophy by contemplative one. Plotinus is considered as the example of such life style. Medieval culture transmits philosophizing from agora to the monastery, and since the 13thcentury, philosophizing came back to the city space again – tomedieval university. Two opposite images of medieval philosophers are considered, Thomas Aquinas and Siger de Brabant, who were didactic examples, full of moral content. Stories about Siger’s life were spread at once after his death as the warning from inheritance; later on hewas forgotten. Thomas Aquinas’ life is known as hagiography, didactic story free from details of private life.


2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 225-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dotan Leshem

Nearly every economist has at some point in the standard coursework been exposed to a brief explanation that the origin of the word “economy” can be traced back to the Greek word oikonomia, which in turn is composed of two words: oikos, which is usually translated as “household”; and nemein, which is best translated as “management and dispensation.” Thus, the cursory story usually goes, the term oikonomia referred to “household management” and while this was in some loose way linked to the idea of budgeting, it has little or no relevance to contemporary economics. This article introduces in more detail what the ancient Greek philosophers meant by “oikonomia.” It begins with a short history of the word. It then explores some of the key elements of oikonomia, while offering some comparisons and contrasts with modern economic thought. For example, both Ancient Greek oikonomia and contemporary economics study human behavior as a relationship between ends and means which have alternative uses. However, while both approaches hold that the rationality of any economic action is dependent on the frugal use of means, contemporary economics is largely neutral between ends, while in ancient economic theory, an action is considered economically rational only when taken towards a praiseworthy end. Moreover, the ancient philosophers had a distinct view of what constituted such an end—specifically, acting as a philosopher or as an active participant in the life of the city-state.


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