Aspects of Iconography in Romano-British Mosaics: the Rudston ‘Aquatic’ Scene and the Brading Astronomer Revisited

Britannia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 295-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.J.A. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
North African ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
The Third ◽  
Adjacent Room ◽  
The Subject

ABSTRACTThe fourth-century Rudston ‘aquatic’ mosaic is likely to show Oceanus at the centre rather than Neptune, and the dominant position of the head on the floor suggests that the inspiration for it derives, however remotely, from North African models where the scene was common. This is made more plausible by the fact that African influence, as is well known, is also detectable on the famous Venus mosaic by the same mosaicist in an adjacent room in the same building. At Brading, the central figure in the main reception room – a half-naked man with stick, globe and sundial – is identified, not just as a generic ‘philosopher’ type, but specifically as the third-century B.C. astronomer and poet, Aratus, on the basis of comparanda on mosaics, tapestry, silverware and in an illustrated manuscript of his work, thePhaenomena. It is further suggested that the key to reading the damaged larger part of the Brading floor above Aratus might be a Latin translation of his work, possibly that by Avienusc.A.D. 350, if the mosaic is indeed approximately of that date rather than earlier, and that the subject-matter of the panels alluded to constellations described in the poem. A very tentative attempt is made to identify what might have been depicted in the panels, on the basis of the mythology behind the constellations as explained in Latin adaptations of the poem: those of Perseus and Andromeda are illustrated in the surviving panel, and possibly Phaethon and Eridanus, Hercules and the serpent in the Garden of the Hesperides, and conceivably Pegasus at a spring were shown in the other three. It is also suggested that these unusual scenes might have been based on an illustrated manuscript of the work in the possession of thedominusat Brading. Be that as it may, the mosaic does appear to provide further evidence of the depth of classical learning displayed by at least some members of the Romano-British rural élite in the fourth century A.D.

scholarly journals I.—Clay Disks from Tarentum

1883 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 156-157
Author(s):  
P. G.
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Artistic Value ◽  
The Third ◽  
Image Position

Among the objects brought from Tarentum by the Rev. G. J. Chester are certain disks of clay of some interest, though not of artistic value. They are circular and flat or cheese-like in form, with a diameter of 3½ to 3¾ inches, and a thickness of about ¾ of an inch. The inscriptions are impressed in the clay by means of a stamp, and run thus:The order in date is that followed in the list. No. 1 is oldest, and the shape of the м seems to indicate that it may date from the fourth century B.C.; the other three are probably not earlier than the third century. Later they can scarcely be, for after that time the obol gave way to the Roman denarius and sestertius as a measure of value at Tarentum.

Principes cum Tyrannis: Two Studies on the Kaisergeschichte and its Tradition

1993 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 491-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Burgess
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Common Source ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Natural Assumption ◽  
Ammianus Marcellinus ◽  
The Third ◽  
Historia Augusta ◽  
Selection Of

The Kaisergeschichte (KG) was a set of short imperial biographies extending from Augustus to the death of Constantine, probably written between 337 and c. 340. It no longer exists but its existence can be deduced from other surviving works. Amongst the histories of the fourth century – Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Festus, Jerome's Chronici canones, the Historia Augusta, the Epitome de Caesaribus, and, in places, even Ammianus Marcellinus and perhaps the Origo Constantini imperatoris (Anonymi Valesiani pars prior) – there is a common selection of facts and errors, and common wording and phrasing in their narratives between Augustus and the death of Constantine, especially in their accounts of the third century. A natural assumption is that later historians copied earlier ones, yet later historians include information not contained in earlier ones, and historians who could not have known each other's work share similarities. For example, it looks as though Aurelius Victor was copying Eutropius, yet Victor wrote before Eutropius, and Eutropius contains information not in Victor and does not reproduce Victor's peculiar style or personal biases, things which he could hardly have avoided. Therefore Eutropius cannot be copying Victor. Since neither could have copied the other, there must therefore have been a common source. In his Chronici canones Jerome appears at first to be simply copying Eutropius. Yet when he deviates from Eutropius, his deviations usually mirror other histories, such as Suetonius, Victor, Festus, even the Epitome and the Historia Augusta, two works that had not even been written when Jerome compiled his chronicle and that did not use, and would never have used, the Christian chronicle as a source. Jerome was hurriedly dictating to his secretary, he had no time to peruse four or five works at a time for his brief notices. There must have been a single source that contained both the Eutropian material and the deviations common to Jerome and the other works. That source was the KG. It is the purpose of this paper to add to the above list of authors who relied upon the KG two other writers whose work can be shown to have derived, either at first hand or later, from the KG: Polemius Silvius and Ausonius.

Pottery Manufacture in Roman Egypt: A New Papyrus

1981 ◽  
Vol 71 ◽  
pp. 87-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Cockle
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Chemical Analyses ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Pottery Industry ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman Egypt

Our knowledge of the pottery industry in ancient Egypt has so far been derived from sculptured reliefs showing potters at work, from a few excavations of kilns and from chemical analyses of pottery wares. Documentary evidence has now come to light in the form of three pottery leases from Oxyrhynchus, all dated to the middle of the third century a.d.They are so closely related in subject-matter, terminology, date and the names of the contracting parties that I publish in full only the earliest and most complete (which I shall refer to as A); but I include references to the more significant details of the other two (B and C). Their importance lies in the fact that they reveal a remarkably large scale industry, and also much concerning the techniques and terminology of the pottery industry, especially the names of the clays used and the sizes of the jars.

scholarly journals The Garrison of the Roman Fort at Porolissum (Dacia). The Analysis of the Tile-Stamps

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 365-372
Author(s):  
Coriolan Horatiu Oprean
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
The Third ◽  
Building Activity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Military Facilities ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Military

Abstract The author is dealing with the tile-stamps found in the Roman auxiliary fort at Porolissum attempting to establish which of the many units recorded on tile-stamps stayed in garrison at Porolissum. The author of the present article is arguing his own hypothesis on the subject, based on his own excavations at Porolissum and on all the data gathered from the scientific literature. He finally proposes two tables and a graph that correlate all the information on the troops known from the tile-stamps and stone inscriptions, establishing which of them were in garrison at Porolissum and which were only temporarily attached for building activity. At the same time he sets in chronological order the tile-stamps, demonstrating that the three units which built the headquarters building and the gates of the fort (coh III, L VII GF, L III G) were brought to the Porolissum area late in Hadrian‘s reign, to build in stone the fort and other military facilities in the limes area of Porolissum. The permanent garrison of the fort was composed during the 2nd century AD of two infantry auxiliary units, cohors I Brittonum and cohors V Lingonum, while a third one, numerus Palmyrenorum was probably lodged in a smaller fort situated 500 m away, on the Citera Hill. In the third century, cohors V Lingonum was still there, cohors I Brittonum also for Caracalla‘s time (even not recorded by any later inscription, but, at the same time, not attested in another fort), while the smaller Citera Hill fort was out of use and the numerus Palmyrenorum Porolissensium was moved inside the big fort from Pomet Hill. The author is concluding that the garrison of the military site Porolissum was not changed during the Roman rule in Dacia, all the other tile-stamps found belonging to units brought mainly during the 2nd century to built the military facilities of this strengthened sector of the frontier.

The Provincial List of Verona

1923 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 127-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Bury
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Military Organization ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military

§ 1. The exact measure of the originality of Diocletian's statesmanship has not yet been taken. ‘Like Augustus,’ said Gibbon, ‘Diocletian may be considered the founder of a new empire’ and these words express the accepted view. In the whole work of pulling the Empire together, which went on from A.D. 270 to 330, the three outstanding actors were Aurelian, Diocletian, and Constantine, and the part played by Aurelian was indispensable for the restitutio orbis. It was he who destroyed the Principate, notwithstanding the negligible episode of Tacitus. It was he who founded the autocracy; Diocletian who regularized and systematized it. Two new things Diocletian certainly did, one of which was a success and the other a failure though not a fruitless one. His division of the Empire into Dioceses was permanent for nearly three hundred years. His throne system led to disaster and disappeared; yet the territorial quadripartition which it involved was afterwards stereotyped in the four Prefectures, and Nicomedia pointed to Constantinople. But in many of the other changes which distinguished the Empire of Constantine from the Empire of Severus and which have generally been regarded as inventions of Diocletian, it is becoming clear that he was not the initiator but was only extending and systematizing changes which had already been begun. The separation of civil from military powers in provincial government had been initiated by Gallienus (the importance of whose reign has in recent years been emerging). Some of the characteristics which mark the military organization of the fourth century had come before Diocletian's accession. Mr. Mattingly's studies in the numismatic history of the third century have been leading him, as he tells us, to similar conclusions.

The Political Standing of Delos

1924 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. W. Tarn
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Subject ◽  
A Site ◽  
Holy Place

In this paper I am considering two things; the position of Delos as a ‘holy place,’ and the rules of the practice among Greek cities with regard to the grant of a τόπος or site for a stele. From these it follows automatically that the somewhat fashionable dogma of the ‘neutrality’ of Delos is not only (on our present materials) untrue, but is impossible,—it has no chance whatever of being true. It is strange that it should have gained the acceptance it has without any examination of its foundations ever having been made; however, this is so, and it presents rather a striking instance of the effect of mere repetition. Its importance, of course, consists in this, that, if it were true, then the festivals, etc., at Delos can never have any political meaning and we lose our only sure basis for the chronology of the middle of the third century. If this were necessary, one would naturally accept the consequences; the necessity, however, is in fact the other way. I am not going through what others have written; but I have borne in mind Professor Kolbe's argument for Delian neutrality in his drastic reconstruction of this period, a reconstruction which is ingenious, but is unfortunately based on other unsound hypotheses beside the Delian; and I shall notice in their place the four inscriptions with regard to the grant of a site on which he relied as exceptional, but which are really simple illustrations of well-established practice. I am dealing with that practice at some length, as I hope it may possess some interest of its own apart from the theme of this paper, seeing that the rules have never been formulated; but I was glad to find that Professor Wilhelm, who has done so much to elucidate the machinery of setting up decrees, in the two pages which he has incidentally given to the subject, at once noticed what I take to be the important matter, viz. that a question of interstate courtesy is involved.

Early Hellenistic Elegy: P. Sorbonn. 2254

1972 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 63-64
Author(s):  
Dennys Page
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Large Specimen ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

Apart from Callimachus, I know no new piece of Hellenistic elegy more interesting than P. Sorbonn. inv. 2254, first published by M. Papathomopoulos in Recherches de Papyrologie II and most admirably edited by Professor Barns and Professor Lloyd-Jones in SIFC xxxv, 205 ff.Lloyd-Jones proves, I believe beyond question, two points:(a) That this elegy belongs to the world as it was before Callimachus; it is only our fourth large specimen of the literary elegy from the early part of the third century, the others being the long extracts from Hermesianax, Phanocles and Alexander Aetolus most conveniently read in Powell's Collectanea Alexandrina.(b) That the subject-matter is of a very unusual nature; the lines are ‘spoken by an unknown person threatening an enemy with a punishment quite out of the ordinary’ – viz. with tattooing on his skin the images of punishments suffered by notorious legendary sinners. The poet's enemy is to be tattooed with a picture of the stone of Tantalus, with another of the Calydonian boar sent to punish Oeneus, and with at least one other (there is a fragmentary second column, one line beginning στίξ[ω).

Polybius and Rome's Eastern Policy

1963 ◽  
Vol 53 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. W. Walbank
Keyword(s):  
Fiftieth Anniversary ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
The Third ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Satisfactory Answer ◽  
Constitutional System

Any discussion of the policy of the Roman Senate towards the Hellenistic world at the end of the third century B.C. must inevitably take account of the work of two men who wrote their most important books around this topic. One is, of course, Polybius, the other Maurice Holleaux. Holleaux's book on Rome, Greece and the Hellenistic monarchies appeared in 1921; but it came as the culmination of several studies on this subject, which had been exercising his attention particularly since 1913. Today, then, we stand virtually at the fiftieth anniversary of Holleaux's thesis, and we can appropriately consider how far it has stood the test of time. However, that is not my main purpose in this paper, which will be concerned much more with what Polybius has to say on the subject. As everyone knows, it is the evidence of Polybius that stands behind Holleaux's remarkable reconstruction of Roman policy; and Holleaux's problem is quite central to Polybius' interests—indeed it is very close to, though not identical with, his main theme. ‘Who,’ he asks, ‘is so worthless and so indolent as not to want to know by what means and under what constitutional system the Romans in less than fifty-three years have succeeded in subjecting nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole government—a thing unique in history?’ It is perhaps not unfair to judge a historian by the degree of success he attains in tackling his main theme. If that seems a reasonable proposition, we may ask ourselves: Does Polybius in fact offer a satisfactory answer to the question he has raised?

Myth and Metrology: The Early Trans-Saharan Gold Trade

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy F. Garrard
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ivory Coast ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Weight System ◽  
North African ◽  
Tax System ◽  
The Third ◽  
The North

Coins and weights provide evidence which can throw light on the origins of the trans-Saharan gold trade. Such a trade does not seem to have existed before the end of the third century a.d., but from 296 to 311 an irregular gold coinage was issued at Carthage, and by the end of the fourth century there were significant changes in the North African tax system to enable more gold to be collected. The solidus, a coin first issued in 312, provided the standard used for weighing gold-dust in the trans-Saharan trade, while copper, a major item of merchandise in that trade, was being imported to Jenne-Jeno by a.d. 400. This strongly suggests that the gold trade first assumed significance in the fourth century. The trade was evidently flourishing before the Arab conquest, for the Byzantine mint of Carthage produced a copious output of gold between 534 and 695. For weighing gold-dust, the standard based on the Roman ounce and the solidus was retained by the Arabs, and survived until the nineteenth century in the Western Sudan. It was also adopted by the Akan of Ghana and Ivory Coast, who made it the basis of their weight-system from about 1400 to 1900.

Historical Fragments’ Mobile Echo

Transfers ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Bell ◽  
Kathy Davis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Ming Dynasty ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The Third ◽  
Opium War ◽  
The Subject

Translocation – Transformation is an ambitious contribution to the subject of mobility. Materially, it interlinks seemingly disparate objects into a surprisingly unified exhibition on mobile histories and heritages: twelve bronze zodiac heads, silk and bamboo creatures, worn life vests, pressed Pu-erh tea, thousands of broken antique teapot spouts, and an ancestral wooden temple from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) used by a tea-trading family. Historically and politically, the exhibition engages Chinese stories from the third century BCE, empires in eighteenth-century Austria and China, the Second Opium War in the nineteenth century, the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the mid-twentieth century, and today’s global refugee crisis.

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