Athenian Twilight: A.D. 267–600

1959 ◽  
Vol 49 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 61-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Homer A. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Case History ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Ancient Civilization ◽  
The Third ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The City

The excavations that have been conducted since 1931 by the American School of Classical Studies in the Athenian Agora have illumined virtually all phases in the development of the civic centre from its modest beginnings in the time of Solon to its dramatic end in the third century of our era. The exploration has also made it possible to trace the history of habitation in the area from Neolithic times down to the present day. One of the periods for which the excavations have yielded especially abundant documentation is late antiquity, more specifically the centuries from the third through the sixth. The new evidence has led to the correction of various misapprehensions that had arisen because of the paucity of evidence previously available for the study of this period. The results are the more interesting because our detailed knowledge of what happened in the Agora now helps in understanding contemporary developments in the city as a whole. Athens in fact has become a useful ‘case history’ for the study of the actual way in which ancient civilization went to pieces in one of the best known and most characteristic communities of the ancient world.

The so-called “Magazzini Repubblicani” near the Porta Romana at Ostia

1935 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 77-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick H. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Considerable Importance ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Building Activity ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Region Ii ◽  
Eastern Half

The building with which this study is concerned occupies the eastern half of Region ii, 2, just inside the city gate at Ostia. Two specific statements have been made concerning it, that it commenced as magazzini or horrea in the republican era, and that it was converted into baths in the late third century A.D.; these were the suggestions of the excavators, and have never yet been questioned. They are points of considerable importance, because this building would thus be the only example of republican horrea yet discovered in Ostia, and the conversion of horrea into baths or shops, which the theory implies, would be important for the economic history of Ostia, whether the reason for the change was the concentration of horrea elsewhere or merely the decline of the city. The second statement, too, would point to building activity in Ostia at a time when no other big building was being put up. This paper is an attempt to prove that at no time was the building used as horrea, and that the conversion to baths is to be placed not in the third, but in the late first, or very early second century A.D. Five main periods will be distinguished, of which the appended table gives a summary.

Athens and Tenos in the Early Hellenistic Age

1992 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Reger
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Greek History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Old Evidence ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Standing Problem

Some recent work on the history of Athens and Tenos in the third century B.c. has brought to light new evidence and new interpretations of old evidence for this notoriously shadowy period of Greek history. Reflection on this material has suggested to me solutions to a few minor puzzles (Sections IA, IB, III), a contribution to a long-standing problem in the history of Athens in the early third century (Section IB), and a new explanation for the entry of Rhodos into the war with Antiokhos (Section II).

scholarly journals THE ANTIKYTHERA WRECK: A NUMISMATIC APPROACH

2021 ◽  
pp. 105-120
Author(s):  
Daniele Castrizio
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Relative Chronology ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

The paper examines the coins found inside the Antikythera wreck. The wreck of Antikythera was discovered by chance by some sponge fishermen in October 1900, in the northern part of the island of Antikythera. The archaeological excavation of the wreck has allowed the recovery of many finds in marble and bronze, with acquisitions of human skeletons related to the crew of the sunken ship, in addition to the famous “Antikythera mechanism”. Various proposals have been made for the chronology of the shipwreck, as well as the port of departure of the ship, which have been based on literary sources or on the chronology of ceramic finds. As far as coins are concerned, it should be remembered that thirty-six silver coins and some forty bronze coins were recovered in 1976, all corroded and covered by encrustations. The separate study of the two classes of materials, those Aegean and those Sicilian allows to deepen the history of the ship shipwrecked to Antikythera. The treasury of silver coinage is composed of thirty-six silver cistophoric tetradrachms, 32 of which are attributable to the mint of Pergamon and 4 to that of Ephesus. From the chronological point of view, the coins minted in Pergamon have been attributed by scholars to the years from 104/98 B.C. to 76/67 B.C., the date that marks the end of the coinage until 59 B.C. The coins of Ephesus are easier to date because they report the year of issue, even if, in the specimens found, the only legible refers to the year 53, corresponding to our 77/76 B.C., if it is assumed as the beginning of the era of Ephesus its elevation to the capital of the province of Asia in 129 B.C., or 82/81 B.C., if we consider 134/133 B.C., the year of the creation of the Provincia Asiana. As for the three legible bronzes, we note that there are a specimen of Cnidus and two of Ephesus. The coin of the city of Caria was dated by scholars in the second half of the third century B.C. The two bronzes of Ephesus are dated almost unanimously around the middle of the first century B.C., although this fundamental data was never considered for the dating of the shipwreck. The remaining three legible bronzes from Asian mints, two from the Katane mint and one from the Panormos mint, belong to a completely different geographical context, such as Sicily, with its own circulation of coins. The two coins of Katane show a typology with a right-facing head of Dionysus with ivy crown, while on the reverse we find the figures of the Pii Fratres of Katane, Amphinomos and Anapias, with their parents on their shoulders. The specimen of Panormos has on the front the graduated head of Zeus turned to the left, and on the verse the standing figure of a warrior with whole panoply, in the act of offering a libation, with on the left the monogram of the name of the mint. As regards the series of Katane, usually dated to the second century B.C., it should be noted, as, moreover, had already noticed Michael Crawford, that there is an extraordinary similarity between the reverse of these bronzes and that of the issuance of silver denarii in the name of Sextus Pompey, that have on the front the head of the general, facing right, and towards the two brothers from Katane on the sides of a figure of Neptune with an aplustre in his right hand, and the foot resting on the bow of the ship, dated around 40 B.C., during the course of the Bellum siculum. We wonder how it is possible to justify the presence in a wreck of the half of the first century B.C. of two specimens of a very rare series of one hundred and fifty years before, but well known to the engravers of the coins of Sextus Pompey. The only possible answer is that Katane coins have been minted more recently than scholars have established. For the coin series of Panormos, then, it must be kept in mind that there are three different variants of the same type of reverse, for which it is not possible to indicate a relative chronology. In one coin issue, the legend of the ethnic is written in Greek characters all around the warrior; in another coin we have a monogram that can be easily dissolved as an abbreviation of the name of the city of Panormos; in the third, in addition to the same monogram, we find the legend CATO, written in Latin characters. In our opinion, this legend must necessarily refer to the presence in Sicily of Marcus Porcius Cato of Utica, with the charge of propraetor in the year 49 B.C. Drawing the necessary consequences from the in-depth analysis, the data of the Sicilian coins seem to attest to their production towards the middle of the first century B.C., in line with what is obtained from the ceramic material found inside the shipwrecked ship, and from the dating of the coins of Ephesus. The study of numismatic materials and a proposal of more precise dating allows to offer a new chronological data for the sinking of the ship. The presence of rare bronze coins of Sicilian mints suggests that the ship came from a port on the island, most likely from that of Katane.

scholarly journals Mogontiacum: czynniki rozwoju

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leszek Mrozewicz
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Military Base ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Real City

The history of Mogontiacum spans the period from 17/16 BCE to the end of the fourth century CE. It was a strong military base (with two legions stationed there in the first century) and a major settlement centre, though without municipal rights. However, the demographic and economic development, as well as the superior administrative and political status enabled Mogontiacum to transform – in socio-economic and urbanistic terms – into a real city. This process was crowned in the latter half of the third century with the construction of the city walls.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Carlos Machado
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
The Third ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The City

Scholars have traditionally approached the history of Rome in late antiquity as a metaphor for the fate of the empire and the ancient world, focusing on the distancing of the imperial court or on the growing importance of the Christian church. However, as this introduction argues, it is by focusing on the Roman aristocracy and its relationship with the city and its spaces that we can form a comprehensive understanding of the physical and historical developments that redefined Rome during this period. After providing a brief overview of the developments that shaped the city and its elite, between the end of the third and the beginning of the sixth century, the introduction discusses the nature of the evidence available, as well as the approach adopted in the book.

The Conception of India in Hellenistic and Roman Literature

1964 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 15-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albrecht Dihle
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Scientific Texts ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Big Rivers ◽  
The Ganges

Going through the literature of late antiquity, of, say, the third and fourth centuries A.D., one is likely to discover very easily three different concepts of Indian geography.(1) In literary—not in scientific—texts which belong to the classical tradition, India is usually thought of as the country of two big rivers, namely the Indus and the Ganges. This India does not include the region south of the Vindhya mountains, in spite of the fact that the commercial relations between South India and the Roman empire had been particularly close during the first and second centuries A.D. India, according to this literary tradition, was accessible by land, by following the course of Alexander's campaign, whereas Indian trade in the Roman period actually followed the passage provided by the monsoon, which had been discovered in the late Hellenistic period. Many details of that classical or rather classicistic conception of India can be gathered from Philostratus' Life of Apollonius, written early in the third century A.D., as well as from the History of Alexander, falsely attributed to Callisthenes.

Nicopolis ad Istrum: Backward and Balkan?

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. WHITTOW
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of

The story of Nicopolis ad Istrum and its citizens exemplifies much that is common to the urban history of the whole Roman Empire. This chapter reviews the history of Nicopolis and its transition into the small fortified site of the fifth to seventh centuries and compares it with the evidence from the Near East and Asia Minor. It argues that Nicopolis may not have experienced a cataclysm as has been suggested, and that, as in the fifth and sixth century west, where landowning elites showed a striking ability to adapt and survive, there was an important element of continuity on the lower Danube, which in turn may account for the distinctive ‘Roman’ element in the early medieval Bulgar state. It also suggests that the term ‘transition to Late Antiquity’ should be applied to what happened at Nicopolis in the third century: what happened there in the fifth was the transition to the middle ages. This chapter also describes late antique urbanism in the Balkans by focusing on the Justiniana Prima site.

Carmina Latina Epigraphica

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred G. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
The Third ◽  
Latin Verse ◽  
History Of ◽  
Funerary Texts ◽  
Textual Content

Latin verse inscriptions, the so-called carmina epigraphica, are among the treasures of our epigraphic heritage. They are especially demanding because of their metrical form, length, and sophisticated textual content. Depending on the writer’s intentions, they are related to epideictic literary genres such as encomium and biography, scoptic epigram, lament and consolation, hymn and prayer, as well as ecphrasis. The chapter provides a brief history of the study of verse inscriptions and by means of examples ranging from the third century BCE to late Antiquity presents a typology of this genre of Latin inscriptions, c. 80% of which are funerary texts.

LITHIC POETICS: POSIDIPPUS AND HIS STONES

Ramus ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaś Elsner
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Aesthetic Response ◽  
Standard View ◽  
The Third ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Insight Into

The 20 poems collected together as thelithikaof Posidippus, the first surviving poems on a papyrus roll only published in 2001 and dating from the third century BCE, offer a range of spectacular new evidence for a series of issues in Hellenistic history, art and literature. The standard view is that Posidippus was probably author of all the epigrams in the roll known as P. Mil. Vogl. VIII 309, although this has been contested and by no means need certainly be the case. For my purposes here, I do assume that the interconnected poetics of the poems in thelithikado imply a single poet who is quite likely to be Posidippus, since poem 15—independently anthologised in antiquity and known through a manuscript tradition—was attributed to Posidippus in the twelfth century by the Byzantine poet and grammarian John Tzetzes. Historically speaking, the fact that so many of these poems focus on gems from the east gives remarkable insight into the interchange between Hellenistic and Achaemenid cultures: specifically, they signal the prestige of treasures from the east in the Hellenistic courts. In the history of collections, they represent a very early example of exoticism in elite collecting, of the accumulation of valuables in what we may assume was a royal and non-sacredSchatzkammer, of the need for an aesthetic response (in this case through short poems) to ‘label’ and valorise the precious items in the collection. In the history of ancientWissenschaft, the poems’ use of late Classical gem-lore (exemplified in texts like theOn Stonesof Theophrastus) offers a vivid instance of the ways theoretical knowledge circulated at least in elite contexts around the royal circle.

The Transformation of Cities in Late Antiquity within the Provinces of Macedonia and Epirus

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-P. SODINI
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
General Situation ◽  
Local Production ◽  
The Third ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
The City

The provinces of Epirus and Macedonia, although divided into distinct regions by their mountains, were important for the Roman Empire, particularly because they were crossed by the via Egnatia which snaked its way eastwards, serving as the vital link between Rome and Constantinople at a time when insecurity was increasing along the Danubian frontier. From the middle of the third century, cities in this part of the Empire were under threat and their fortifications were reinforced in the fifth (Thessalonika) and sixth centuries (Byllis under Justininian). There was prosperity in the fourth century and beginning of the fifth. During the fifth century, the houses of Philippi were partly transformed into workshops. The sixth century was difficult and the second half was especially bleak. However, contacts between east and west were still maintained, along with local production. From 540–550, however, barbarian invasions and plague worsened the general situation. Graves appeared inside the city walls. Archaeology (Slav pottery and fibulae) and texts (Miracula Sancti Demetrii) all demonstrate how hard times were from the 580s to the 630s.

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