The fourth-century and Hellenistic reception of Thucydides

1995 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 47-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Hornblower
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Complete List ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Dionysius Of Halicarnassus

How well known was Thucydides' history in the fourth century BC and the hellenistic period? Gomme, with an eye on Polybius, once wrote of the ‘nearly complete silence about Thucydides in what remains to us of ancient writers before the age of Cicero and Dionysius of Halicarnassus’. This is startling at first and has to my knowledge led to the misconception that Thucydides virtually disappeared after his own time. Gomme was however referring merely to specific mentions or discussions of Thucydides by name: he went on to speak of the ‘silent compliment paid him by Kratippos, Xenophon, Theopompos, and Philistos’. Even this is far from a complete list, and Gomme's possibly misleading paragraph can serve as my starting-point.

Herennius Pontius: The Construction of a Samnite Philosopher

2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-147
Author(s):  
Phillip Sidney Horky
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Cultural Paradigms ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
Extreme Responses

This article explores the historiographical traditions concerning Herennius Pontius, a Samnite wisdom-practitioner who is said by the Peripatetic Aristoxenus of Tarentum to have been an interlocutor of the philosophers Archytas of Tarentum and Plato of Athens. It argues that extant speeches attributed to Herennius Pontius in the writings of Cassius Dio and Appian preserve a philosophy of “extreme proportional benefaction” among unequals. Such a theory is marked by Peripatetic language and concepts, which suggests that these speeches derive from a single Peripatetic source, probably Aristoxenus. The reception of Aristoxenus' description of Herennius Pontius among Greeks and Romans is sharply divided. Greek theories of ethics among unequals such as those of Aristotle and Archytas, which aim for moderation, can be distinguished from that attributed to Herennius Pontius, which is circumstantial and stipulates extreme responses to extremes. Romans, in particular Appius Claudius Caecus and Sulla, espouse proverbial wisdom strikingly similar to the theory of “extreme proportional benefaction” associated with Herennius Pontius. Such comparisons suggest that starting in the late fourth century bce, Romans and Samnites may have held shared ideological principles, as defined against Greek cultural paradigms. Scholars are thus prompted to consider Herennius Pontius as a starting point for a much larger inquiry into shared ideology among non-Greeks in Italy during the Hellenistic period and beyond.

Art, Craft, and Theology in Fourth-Century Christian Authors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morwenna Ludlow
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Active Response ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Shared Practice ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Literary Techniques ◽  
Applied Arts

Ancient authors commonly compared writing with painting. The sculpting of the soul was a common philosophical theme. This book takes its starting-point from such figures to recover a sense of ancient authorship as craft. The ancient concept of craft (ars, technē) spans ‘high’ or ‘fine’ art and practical or applied arts. It unites the beautiful and the useful. It includes both skills or practices (like medicine and music) and productive arts like painting, sculpting, and the composition of texts. By using craft as a guiding concept for understanding fourth-century Christian authorship, this book recovers a sense of them engaged in a shared practice which is both beautiful and theologically useful, which shapes souls but which is also engaged in the production of texts. It focuses on Greek writers, especially the Cappadocians (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa) and John Chrysostom, all of whom were trained in rhetoric. Through a detailed examination of their use of two particular literary techniques—ekphrasis and prosōpopoeia—it shows how they adapt and experiment with them, in order to make theological arguments and in order to evoke an active response from their readership.

scholarly journals The tale of the fungi of two gardens: non-lichenised fungi of the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-63
Author(s):  
R. Watling
Keyword(s):  
City Council ◽  
Complete List ◽  
Botanic Gardens ◽  
Short Account ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Made In ◽  
Present Site

A brief history of the early days of mycology in Scotland is given to act as a starting point from which to view the fungal records made in the gardens at Sandyford and Kelvinside. The former was vacated in 1842 and the garden transferred to the present site at Kelvinside under the authority of the Glasgow City Council. The role of J.F. Klotzsch in generating the earliest records is emphasised and the compilation of fungal records, mainly of macrofungi, until the present day is discussed. A short account of the microfungi is given. A complete list of the fungi recorded from the two gardens is provided.

The Archaeology of Beirut: A Report on Work in the Insula of the House of the Fountains

2003 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 195-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Perring ◽  
Paul Reynolds ◽  
Reuben Thorpe
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Interim Report ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Western Margin ◽  
Post War

This insula, which lay on the western margin of the earlier Iron Age city, was uncovered during post-war reconstruction work carried out in Beirut during 1994–6. Laid out in the Hellenistic period, the insula was filled out with a series of small courtyard houses after the Roman annexation. A public portico was added along a main street in the second quarter of the second century, before a period of relative inactivity. The district was revived and rebuilt in the middle of the fourth century and was home to a series of handsome town houses in the fifth century, before being devastated by earthquake in AD 551. The site was then left derelict until the early nineteenth century. This interim report sets these findings within their broader historical and archaeological context, as well as summarizing the results of recent work on the site's ceramics and stratigraphy.

ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΙΚΑ: Notes on the Macedonians of Philip and Alexander

1957 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 3-10
Author(s):  
G. T. Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Solid Metal ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
Military Aid ◽  
Expensive Equipment ◽  
Metal Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Military

It seems uncertain whether the Macedonian infantrymen of Philip II had breast-plates or not. How much it matters, too, is also perhaps uncertain, though obviously it mattered not a little to the men themselves at the time, whether or not they carried on them that combination of strength and of weight, of moral comfort and physical encumbrance, that a breastplate meant to the man inside it. There may perhaps be something in this question, too, for the social historian as well as for the military specialist.That Greek hoplites of the archaic period normally wore breastplates appears from vase-paintings, especially those proto-Corinthian examples which show combats not of individuals but of opposing phalanxes: it appears, too, from Tyrtaeus. Xenophon in theAnabasis, when he makes a passing remark about casualties on one occasion, gives the same impression about the Ten Thousand, who were predominantly a hoplite force. But breastplates were not uniform. Metal ones could vary greatly in weight, and there were variants (πĩλοι, σπολάδες) that were probably quite light in metal, on linen or leather. It has been suggested with some likelihood that in the fifth century the solid metal type virtually went out of use. If this were so, then the peltasts of the early fourth century would represent a logical development from a hoplite who had already become lighter than of old. It would seem logical for the pekast to have no breastplate at all, an arrangement incidentally that might suit well the mercenaries of the day who often were peltasts, and who were often poor men unlikely to own expensive equipment. But in spite of their occasional spectacular successes even against hoplites, the peltasts did not supersede them, so far as can be seen, in the citizen armies of the Greek cities. Indeed in the Hellenistic period still, in a treaty of about 270 B.C. between the Aetolians and the Acarnanians, the clause providing for reciprocal military aid distinguishes between three classes of infantry: (1) those who wore breastplates (πανοπλίαν), (2) those wore τὸ ἡμιθωράκιον, and (3) those who had no defensive armour (ψιλῲ). The first class is presumably, still, the hoplite.

OF FOXES AND VINEYARDS: GREEK PERSPECTIVES ON THE SONG OF SONGS

2003 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anselm Hagedorn
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Song Of Songs ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Cultural Milieu ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Greek Vases

AbstractThe article aims at utilising some further Greek parallels for an interpretation of the Song of Songs. Cant. ii 15 serves as starting point for the enterprise. Next to the fairly well known and often discussed parallels from Sappho and Theocritus, for the .rst time evidence from Greek vases and from the Anthologia Palatina is discussed. Rather than postulating any literary inuences between Greek texts and the Song of Songs we regard the study as an investigation into the (Eastern) Mediterranean cultural milieu to which the biblical and Greek texts belong. However, if Song of Songs can indeed be dated to the Hellenistic period, such inuences and possible dependencies seem not impossible.

Representations of Children in Ancient Greece

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olympia Bobou
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Vase Painting ◽  
Funerary Reliefs ◽  
The Relationship

Children’s representations appear early in the Greek visual material culture: first they appear in the large funerary vases of the geometric period, while in the archaic period they appear in funerary reliefs and vases. To the representations in vase painting, those in terracotta statuettes can be added in the fifth century, but it is in the fourth century bc that children become a noteworthy subject of representation, appearing both in small- and large-scale objects in different media. This chapter considers the relationship between changing imagery of children in ancient Greece and social and religious developments from the geometric period, through the Hellenistic period and into the Roman period in Greece.

Long-lived Samian?

Britannia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 259-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Closed Groups

ABSTRACTIn order to study the possibility that some samian (terra sigillata) vessels remained available and/or in circulation for quite some time, a review has been made of closed groups (especially grave-assemblages), as a useful starting point. This paper argues that it is reasonable to expect some complete first-century samian vessels to have survived into the second century; also that some second-century vessels had survived into the fourth century at least throughout Roman Britain.

The Greek Impact in Asia Minor 400–250 BCE

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Persian Empire ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
Political Objective ◽  
The Impact

Until the end of the fourth century BCE the impact of Greek culture in Asia Minor was limited. Lykians, Karians, and Lydians offered alternatives to Hellenism and preserved their own languages until the end of the fourth century BCE. However, by 250 BCE these Anatolian languages ceased to be used in public or private documents, and polis organization became normative. After the overthrow of the Persian Empire the autonomy of Greek cities became the highest political objective. Greek civic decrees in the early Hellenistic period emphasized that democratic legitimacy depended on quorate citizen votes, the Greek language became the only medium for official public communication, and the native populations maintained their identity and independence by adopting polis organization. Between 400 and 250 BCE these populations did not merely absorb Greek cultural influence but underwent the encompassing experience of becoming Greek.

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