A Reflection on African Religious Life Through the 21 Conferences of "L'Africa Romana” (1983-2020)

The international conferences of “L’Africa romana”, organized by the University of Sassari since 1983, are the most important events of the last forty years, regarding the history, archaeology and epigraphy of North Africa; they have given the opportunity to well-established and young scholars alike, from dozens of countries, to compare their experience and knowledge. The result is a new vision of the Roman provinces of Africa, due to the presentation of a considerable amount of unpublished material. The African provinces, although included in the Mediterranean koine, have been regarded in their specific characteristics, paying due attention to the essential local religious strata, to the internal and external non-religious aspects of the cult and to the original merging of said elements in the religious life between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of the Great Sirte. Ever since the first conferences it was decided to overcome the ethnocentric view, remnant of the colonial past, and underline how in the African provinces local and imported divinities have come together. The present contribution proposes a first annotated bibliographic overview of the works that involved Universities, Research Centers, Agencies for the Development Heritage and Scientific Societies who carried out international research by comparing methods and going beyond a traditional view that was incapable of understanding the ancient world in depth.

Iconography and Imagery between Rome and the Provinces

This chapter examines iconography and imagery in the Roman provinces with a particular focus on decorative media in domestic contexts in the eastern Roman provinces. Specifically, we investigate how decorative ensembles in second- and third-century ce Roman-era houses, and the interplay of imagery in multiple media, further inform our comprehension of how domestic visual vocabularies from distinct cultural and social contexts in the eastern provinces might express both local and Roman identity at Ephesus and Zeugma. The chapter begins with highlighting historiographic and methodological practices and structures inherent in the study of iconography in the Roman provinces and emphasizing issues at play within these structures, such as chronology, geography, cultural continuities, and relationships between center and periphery. We further outline some of the challenges of studying and interpreting domestic ensembles (as opposed to singular monuments), which, to a degree, parallels the broader challenges in making sense of Roman imagery and iconography, including problems in establishing linear progressions and the compartmentalization by media and specialization.

Conclusion

The Conclusion revisits the questions that lie at the heart of studies of the Roman provinces and that have driven this study. What is the best way to tell the story of a landscape, and its peoples, that have been the subject of successive conquests throughout history and when the few written sources have been composed by outsiders? What approach should be taken to draw out information from a landscape’s material culture to bring the voices and experiences of those who inhabited its space to the fore? Is it ever possible to ensure that certain evidence types and perspectives are not privileged over others to draw balanced conclusions? The main findings of this work are that the Cypriots were not passive participants in the Roman Empire. They were in fact active and dynamic in negotiating their individual and collective identities. The legacies of deep-rooted connections between mainland Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Near East were maintained into the Roman period and acknowledged by both locals and outsiders. More importantly, the identity of the island was fluid and situational, its people able to distinguish themselves but also demonstrate that the island was part of multiple cultural networks. Cyprus was not a mere imitator of the influences that passed through it, but distinct. The existence of plural and flexible identities is reflective of its status as an island poised between multiple landscapes

Revaluing Roman Cyprus

This study addresses the traditional characterization of Roman Cyprus’s history as a Roman province as uneventful, insignificant, and ‘weary’. It brings fresh insight to the study of its culture and society by taking an integrated approach and bringing together well-known, less familiar, and new evidence to reassess cultural change, local responses to Roman rule, and the articulation of local identity in the Cypriot context. While it focuses primarily on material from the annexation of the island in 58 BC until the mid fourth century AD, or more specifically the refoundation of Salamis by Constantius II between AD 332 and 342, where relevant space will be given to discussion of evidence from across all periods of the island’s ancient history to facilitate a meaningful investigation of the key themes of this work. Ultimately, this study aims to reinsert Roman Cyprus into academic narratives about culture and society of the Roman provinces. Furthermore, it has been put together with the undergraduate student in mind to encourage and promote the study of Roman Cyprus—and, of course, ancient Cyprus—by collating key studies, evidence, and material, and thus making them accessible to new audiences

Ancient and Modern World Views

This chapter brings together the few geographical surveys of Cyprus written by outsiders (i.e. non-Cypriots) during the Roman Empire. The accounts of Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Claudius Ptolemy, Pausanias, Ammianus Marcellinus, and the anonymous Expositio totius mundi et gentium represent the culmination and transmission of ideas about the island based on key events, scenarios, and anecdotes. Situating the key passages within the motivations and themes of these authors’ works reveals how and why particular ideas about the island and its space came to fruition, what purpose these served, and what the perceived status and role of Cyprus in relation to Rome and to the wider Empire was. Discussion of the wider research-context study of the Roman provinces and the current ‘state of the field’ for the study of Roman Cyprus follows. In Cyprus no colonies were founded by the Romans, nor were any existing towns given colonial status; the island did not receive benefits, nor was it awarded any special status by Rome, despite being taxed. Furthermore, its inhabitants did not engage in aggressive military action to resist Roman control of the island, nor is its Roman period characterized by internal turmoil because of the Roman government, in contrast to some other provincial case studies. Therefore, this investigation draws upon a range of studies and models, utilizing vocabulary that acknowledges identity, culture, and experience as fluid, nuanced, and situational. It also emphasizes the importance of geography, geology, space, and place as active in the formation of local identity

The Middle East in the 620s

The narrative halts temporarily, for some analysis of structures. The steep decline of urbanism documented later in the Roman successor state (Byzantium) had not yet set in, but a first stage in the centralization of government functions was already discernible. The costs of the war bore heavily on both belligerents, but there was more strain on Roman finances. The Sasanians were able to draw on the resources of the occupied Roman provinces, but were careful not to increase the rate of taxation. They also showed sensitivity in handling local elites and minimizing changes to administrative practices. At home confidence grew in ultimate victory and preparations were made for its commemoration in monumental rock reliefs.

Ianus Augustus, Caput Viae (Mengíbar, Spain): An interprovincial monumental border in Roman Hispania

Recent research undertaken as part of the Iliturgi Project has located the remains of an Early Imperial building complex linked to the Via Augusta. They include the foundations of an arch and a monumental platform whose size and characteristics allow it to be identified as the Ianus Augustus, a monumental complex near the River Baetis that marked the limit between the Roman provinces of Baetica and Tarraconensis. Its location makes it a reference point for our knowledge of the ancient geography of Hispania and for understanding Roman interprovincial frontiers. Geophysical prospections in its surroundings have also revealed the possible remains of a bridge across the river.

Aristocracy, Family, and Property

Chapter 3 describes the senatorial aristocracy of Rome and divisions within its ranks. Even after the seat of western government left the city for safer territory, its aristocrats retained their pride of place. When Constantine founded Constantinople as his capital in the East, an entire senatorial aristocracy was created for it, although its members could not claim the ancient lineage and traditions of their Roman counterparts. The chapter details senatorial wealth, including that of Melania and Pinian. It explores the diverse meanings of “family” in ancient Rome and relevant inheritance law. It traces the family trees of Melania and Pinian and their extensive real estate—mansions, villas, and agricultural properties, spread across eight Roman provinces. It analyzes the fraught question of whether an excavated palace on Rome’s Caelian Hill was Melania and Pinian’s, and its probable fate.

Melania the Younger

Melania the Younger: From Rome to Jerusalem analyzes one of the most richly detailed stories of a woman of late antiquity. Melania, an early fifth-century Roman Christian aristocrat, renounced her many possessions and staggering wealth to lead a life of ascetic renunciation. Hers is a tale of “riches to rags.” Born to high Roman aristocracy in the late fourth century, Melania encountered numerous difficulties posed by family members, Roman officials, and historical circumstances themselves in disposing of her wealth, property spread across at least eight Roman provinces, and thousands of slaves. Leaving Rome with her entourage a few years before Gothic sack of Rome in 410, she journeyed to Sicily, then to North Africa (where she had estates upon which she founded monasteries), before settling in Jerusalem. There, after some years of semi-solitary existence, she founded more monastic complexes. Toward the end of her life, she traveled to Constantinople in an attempt to convert to Christianity her still-pagan uncle, who was on a state mission to the eastern Roman court. Throughout her life, she frequently met and assisted emperors and empresses, bishops, and other high dignitaries. Embracing an extreme asceticism, Melania died in Jerusalem in 439. Her Life, two versions of which (Greek and Latin) were discovered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was composed by a longtime assistant who succeeded her in directing the male and female monasteries in Jerusalem. An English translation of the Greek version of her Life accompanies the text of this book.