Crossing the Pomerium

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Koortbojian
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
Civic Life ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Religion And Law ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

The ancient Romans famously distinguished between civic life in Rome and military matters outside the city—a division marked by the pomerium, an abstract religious and legal boundary that was central to the myth of the city's foundation. This book explores, by means of images and texts, how the Romans used social practices and public monuments to assert their capital's distinction from its growing empire, to delimit the proper realms of religion and law from those of war and conquest, and to establish and disseminate so many fundamental Roman institutions across three centuries of imperial rule. The book probes such topics as the appearance in the city of Romans in armor, whether in representation or in life, the role of religious rites on the battlefield, and the military image of Constantine on the arch built in his name. Throughout, the book reveals how, in these instances and others, the ancient ideology of crossing the pomerium reflects the efforts of Romans not only to live up to the ideals they had inherited, but also to reconceive their past and to validate contemporary practices during a time when Rome enjoyed growing dominance in the Mediterranean world. The book explores a problem faced by generations of Romans—how to leave and return to hallowed city ground in the course of building an empire.

Image and Authority

2021 ◽  
pp. 113-138
Author(s):  
Stephan Faust
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Visual Language ◽  
Local Elites ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Private Realm ◽  
Roman Culture ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

This chapter investigates the role of authorities in the production of images in Roman culture. It focuses on imperial art of the Julio-Claudian period by analyzing significant visual and literary evidence in order to reconstruct social interactions and power relations among agents such as the emperor, the Senate and People of Rome, provincial elites, artists, and soldiers. The first part of the chapter addresses the question of how the images of public monuments erected within the city of Rome reflect the interests of the parties involved. This leads to some general considerations about authority and auctoritas in Roman society. The following section discusses the intentions of the local elites who initiated the construction of imperial monuments in provincial cities, interpreting the specific visual language of the decoration of these monuments. Finally, the impact of imperial motifs and themes on images in the military and private realm is discussed.

scholarly journals ARQUITETURA, IDEOLOGIA E PRODUÇÃO: o uso do edifício público como veículo de comunicação no período do “Regime Militar” brasileiro

Revista Labor ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (18) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Eneas de Araújo Arrais Neto
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Military Government ◽  
Specific Group ◽  
The Public ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Architectural Language ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar os edifícios sedes dos órgãos públicos federais construídos na cidade de Fortaleza durante os anos de vigência do “Regime Militar”. Parte da compreensão de que a arquitetura, enquanto objeto de fruição coletiva, assume o papel de meio de comunicação de massa no espaço urbano e, como tal, foi um dos instrumentos de divulgação ideológica dos governos militares dirigidos aos setores sociais urbanos; veiculando principalmente idéias de modernização, desenvolvimento, racionalidade, onipotência do poder estatal e autoritarismo. Analisa igualmente as influências, neste processo, da cultura de classe do setor burocrático-estatal, e propõe que estas edificações, ao estabelecerem novos padrões estéticos e de utilização de materiais e equipamentos de procedência tecnológica estrangeira, se constituíram em elementos importantes do processo de abertura da economia nacional ao capital multinacional, em particular no que diz respeito ao mercado da construção civil.Abstract This paper presents the arquitectural critique of a specific group of edifications built in the city of Fortaleza during the period of the military governments in Brazil. The character of the architecture developed by the military government in public buildings in this period is common all over the country: the facilities were built to with the intention to occupy the cities as out-doors of the military governments, diffusing images of modernization, rationality, economic development and the power of the state.   Through the use of architectural language, by the means of design, project, materials, forms and other ways, the architecture of the public sector played the role of ideology, besides introducing imported materials and equipment previously unused in the building sector of the country.

Athens

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clyde E. Fant ◽  
Mitchell G. Reddish
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
City State ◽  
Peasant Farmers ◽  
The Hill ◽  
The City

In the Mediterranean world, only Rome rivals Athens as a city famed for its antiquities. Ancient travelers came to marvel at its grand temples and civic buildings, just as tourists do today. Wealthy Romans sent their children to Athens to be educated by its philosophers and gain sophistication in the presence of its culture. Democracy, however faltering its first steps, began in this city, and education and the arts flourished in its environment. Even at the height of the Roman Empire, the Western world’s government may have been Roman but its dominant cultural influence was Greek. Latin never spread abroad as a universal language, but Greek did, in its Koine (common) form. By the 4th century B.C.E. this Attic dialect of Plato and the Athenian orators was already in use in countries around the Mediterranean. The monuments of Athens and the treasures of its National Museum still amaze and delight millions of visitors from every nation who come to see this historic cradle of Western culture. A settlement of some significance already existed at Athens in Mycenaean times (1600–1200 B.C.E.). Toward the end of the Dark Ages (1200–750 B.C.E.) the unification of Attica, a territory surrounding Athens of some 1,000 square miles, was accomplished under the Athenians. The resulting city-state was governed by aristocrats constituted as the Council of the Areopagus, named for the hill below the Athenian Acropolis where they commonly met. But only the nobility—defined as the wealthy male landowners—had any vote in the decisions that influenced affairs in the city, a situation increasingly opposed by the rising merchant class and the peasant farmers. The nobles seemed paralyzed by the mounting social tensions, and a class revolution appeared imminent. In 594 B.C.E. the nobles in desperation turned to Solon, also an aristocrat, whom they named as archon (ruler) of the city with virtual dictatorial powers. Solon, however, refused to rule as dictator of the city, instituting instead a series of sweeping reforms that mollified the lower classes without destroying the aristocracy.

IMPERIAL JUSTICE? THE ABSENCE OF IMAGES OF ROMAN EMPERORS IN A LEGAL ROLE

2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-260
Author(s):  
Olivier Hekster
Keyword(s):  
Source Material ◽  
Religious Leadership ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Ultimate Source ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

Roman emperors were at the pinnacle of society. They were supreme commanders of the armies, the highest priests and the ultimate source of law and justice. These three roles were made clear to the inhabitants of the empire from the reign of Augustus onwards through a variety of media. Public ceremonies showed emperors leaving the city for campaigns, and returning in triumph, at sacrifice, or sitting in judgement. Inscriptions likewise indicated the main roles of emperors through titulature or narrative. The military and the religious leadership of emperors were also made abundantly clear through public monuments and on centrally issued coinage. Yet, throughout Roman imperial history these last two types of source material are surprisingly silent on the emperors’ legal role.

scholarly journals Archaeology of Tara in the context of Siberia’s accession to the Russian state (based on 2007–2019 studies)

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 89-93
Author(s):  
S. F. Tataurov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Western Siberia ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Russian State ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City ◽  
Archaeological Excavations

The article considers the materials of the archaeological excavations of the city of Tara as a source on the history of the accession of Western Siberia to the Russian state in the end of XVI–XVIII centuries. The analysis of finds testifying to the role of the city in the military, commercial, economic and cultural aspects of this process is given.

The conquest of Antioch by the Persians and the beginning of the geopolitical catastrophe of Byzantium in the East

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-633
Author(s):  
Yu.V. Buzanakov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Military History ◽  
Persian Wars ◽  
Coordination Center ◽  
History Of ◽  
Regional Centers ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

The article discusses the military history of Antioch, one of the regional centers of the Byzantine state from the 4th to 7th centuries. The author analyse the role of the city in the Byzantine-Persian wars. The characteristic of the history of the conquest of the Byzantine East is given. Being the capital of the province of Syria, Antioch was a major economic, political and religious center. In addition, Antioch has a rich military history. From the 4th century until the beginning of the Arab conquests, the Syrian Province was one of the centers of the Byzantine-Persian wars. As a rule, the city, in this war, played the role of a supply and coordination center for troops, but history knows examples when Antioch went on to experience direct enemy attacks. With the beginning of the era of Arab conquest, neither Byzantium nor Persia, exhausted by the war with each other, were unable to withstand the new threat. As a result of this, the Persian power ceased to exist, and Byzantium lost its vast territories in the East, including Antioch. It is worth noting that Antoch did not suffer a single major siege, neither in the period of Late Antiquity nor in the Middle Ages.

Barbarian Disturbances in North Africa in the Mid-Third Century

Antichthon ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 78-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.W. Clarke
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Open Letter ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Entire World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Way

Gibbon describes the years that correspond with the lifetime of Cyprian of Carthage thus: ‘the whole period was one uninterrupted series of confusion and calamity’. On the whole the impression to be gained from the extant correspondence of Cyprian of Carthage (the eighty-two letters are to be dated between the years c.249 and 258) is not of this kind and this evidence ought to act in some degree as a brake on exaggerated descriptions of the chaos of the period. Cyprian can assume, without the slightest hint of doubt, uninterrupted ease of communications all around the Mediterranean, freely cross-referring to other public letters of his on the assumption that they must have come the way of his correspondents. Similarly he is prepared to claim of an open letter written by the Roman clergy that it ‘has been circulated throughout the entire world and has reached the knowledge of every Church and of all the brethren’. The official correspondence which Cyprian conducted is indeed of notable breadth and frequency—among the letters which we chance to have figure communications with Christian communities in Spain, in Gaul, in Cappadocia (all suggesting previous correspondence with these areas), and of course in Rome and elsewhere in Italy. As Metropolitan of the African Church he sends to Rome on one occasion a list of all the orthodox African bishops and their sees, no doubt in order to keep the Roman records up-to-date—and also their address-list for their communications. Furthermore, after the abortively threatening persecution of Gallus the regular meetings in Carthage of the African synod appear to have been resumed. At Carthage, at any rate, life appears to have been little affected by the military and administrative débâcle that was becoming evident in imperial circles and from Cyprian’s point of view the Mediterranean world still appeared to be very much a unity.

scholarly journals Skogler: Photography at the Service of Falangism (Zaragoza, July 1936)

Fascism ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-84
Author(s):  
Diego Navarro-Bonilla ◽  
Jesús Robledano-Arillo
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Physical Characteristics ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Special Profile ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Military ◽  
The City

Abstract This article analyses the role of ‘Skogler’ (Ángel Cortés Gracia), a photographer who worked for the insurgent Falangist forces in the city of Zaragoza, the capital of Aragón, from the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Skogler’s strong and early ties to the fascist movement, going back years before the war, suggest a special profile of an individual who supported the Falangist party by means of visual propaganda and printed photographs. Most of the photographs selected for study here have never been published before. They were shot in the early days of the military uprising against the Republic and help give us a more accurate understanding of armed fascism in the Aragonese capital, which ultimately fell to the rebels. This paper is part of an ongoing research project and exhibition to analyse and describe the contents and physical characteristics of the Skogler Archive, composed of more than 3,500 negatives recovered in diverse chronological phases.

scholarly journals “Locking up the Strait in the fifteenth century’s Ottoman Mediterranean”: The Bosporus’ sea forts of Mehmet II (1452)

X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Ory
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The City ◽  
Bear Witness

In the fifteenth century, the Mediterranean world was in turmoil. A new sultan, Mehmet II, had just inherited a vast empire stretching over two continents in the centre of which the ruins of the Byzantine Empire survived through the city of Constantinople. In order to seal his accession, he therefore undertook important preparations to conquer the “City guarded by God”. Mehmet then ordered the construction, within 4 months, of an imposing fortress nicknamed Boǧazkesen (the throat cutter). This coup de force is a testimony to the incredible military and economic power of this growing empire that masters a new war technology: artillery. The Ottomans, who were still novices in this field, had therefore had to adapt their fortifications to the use of firearms. Using local and foreign architects and engineers, the Ottoman fortifications built in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries bear witness to an architectural experimentation that seems to testify, like the work carried out in Rhodes by Pierre d’Aubusson or in Methoni by the Venetians, to a real research in terms of offensive and defensive effectiveness. In this context, the fortifications of Rumeli Hisarı and Anadolu Hisarı, built on either side of the narrowest point of the Bosporus in 1451-1452, are characterized by the presence of large coastal batteries that operate together. They were to block access to Constantinople by the Black Sea, combining sinking and dismasting fire.

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