Political Religions in the Graeco-Roman World

This article seeks to define a theoretical framework for the study of the relation between religion and the political community in the Roman world and to analyze a particular case in point. The first part reviews two prominent theories of religion developed in the last fifty years through the combined efforts of anthropologists and classicists, arguing for their complementary contribution to the understanding of religion's political dimension. It also provides an overview of the approaches of recent scholarship to the relation between religion and the Roman polity, contextualizing the efforts of this article toward a theoretical reframing of the political and institutional elements of ancient Christianity. The second part focuses on the religious legislation of the Theodosian Code, with particular emphasis on the laws against the heretics and their performance in the construction of the political community. With their characteristic language of exclusion, these laws signal the persisting overlap between the borders of the political community and the borders of religion, in a manner that one would expect from pre-Christian civic religions. Nevertheless, the political essence of religion did also adapt to the ecumenical dimension of the empire. Indeed, the religious norms of the Code appear to structure a community whose borders tend to be identical to the borders of the whole inhabited world, within which there is no longer room for alternative affiliations; the only possible identity outside this community is that of the insane, not belonging to any political entity and thus unable to possess any right.

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Correspondances étymologiques, lexicales et sémantiques dans le processus de féminisation de noms de profession, métiers et activités dans les sociétés française et roumaine

Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia ◽

10.24193/subbphilo.2020.4.24 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 65 (4) ◽

pp. 401-422

Author(s):

Estelle Variot

Keyword(s):

The Other ◽

Roman World ◽

Other Hand ◽

The One ◽

Over Time

"Etymological, Lexical and Semantic Correspondences in the Process of Feminization of Professional Names, Trades and Activities in French and Romanian Societies. The feminization of thought represented by language and of its varieties in the Roman World has allowed to highlight some convergences that come from a common linguistic heritage, often from Greek and Latin and some hesitation about adapting society to its realities. The feminization of some words which comes from an ancient process illustrates on the one hand the potential of the language and on the other hand some constraints sometimes linked to the society itself, which creates transitional periods, between matching grammatical correction and the evolution of linguistic uses over time. The possibilities of lexical enrichment (internal creation or loan) show the means available in French and Romanian and some convergences in the area of derivation, of lexical units and their etymologies. The grammatical perspective and word constructing methods make it possible to give keys for the feminization of names of trades or professions. Likewise, recording entries in the lexicon, their evolution, their assimilation or sometimes their forgetfulness, for the benefit of new constructions highlight the existence of objective and subjective criteria which teach us a lot about society as a whole. Keywords: feminization of professions, internal and external enrichment, suffixal match, use of words, grammar, lexicon, French and Romanian."

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The Genesis of Early Christian Art: Syncretic juxtapostion in the Roman world

10.30861/9781407303727 ◽

2008 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yukako Suzawa

Keyword(s):

Early Christian ◽

Roman World ◽

Christian Art

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The popularity of the Ricci C wheel-made lamps in southeastern Sicily: questions and hypotheses

10.31338/1234-5415pam.28.1.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Laurent Chrzanovski ◽

Roksana Chowaniec

Keyword(s):

Daily Life ◽

Huge Amount ◽

South Eastern ◽

Roman World ◽

Type C

At Akrai, in South-Eastern Sicily, the UW excavations unveiled a huge amount of small, wheel-made, beige-slipped lamps belonging to the Roman Republican Ricci type C. The most important elements witnessed by this research are both the role those lamps played – laid unused in votive deposits but also used in daily life – and their permanence way after times when they disappeared elsewhere in the Roman world. As a matter of fact, they derivate from an old form and they knew a floruit during the 3rd and 2nd century BC, while the last individuals seem to have been produced until the reign of Augustus.

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