Ancient Thebes

The principal city of Boiotia, Thebes exerted influence and at times control over the great expanse of Central Greece, from the South Euboean Gulf at east to the Gulf of Corinth at west. Lying north of the massif of Parnes (and its most famous spur, Cithaeron), Thebes bestrides the western reaches of a low mountain range running east toward Tanagra and governs access to the flatlands along the Asopus river to the south, to the plains stretching north and east toward Helicon and the Copais (the Teneric plain), and to the level expanses extending west toward the sea south of the Messapion-Ptoon line (the Aonian plain). Thebes itself sits on a dense cluster of hills. One such hill, the Cadmea, is the age-old acropolis. The river Dirce runs just west of the Cadmea. Two rivers lie east: the Strophia (or Chrysoroas), which runs immediately next to the Cadmea, and, further east, the Ismenos. Thebes has a grand mythic history. Founded by the Phoenician Cadmus (in one tradition) while in search of his sister, Europa, the city is the birthplace of two sons of Zeus, Dionysus and Heracles, and an imposing mortal line which includes Oedipus. Impressive Bronze Age remains have long lent intrigue to these traditions. Thebes had regional and extra-regional aspirations by the 6th century, with mythic, epigraphic, and historical references indicating rivalry with neighboring Boiotian communities as well as Athens and Thessaly. Famous for medizing during the Persian Wars, Thebes likely acted within a Boiotian collective by the middle of the 5th century. Thebans joined the Peloponnesian cause in the Peloponnesian War but thereafter came into running conflict with Sparta. The city expelled an imposed Spartan garrison in 379, and the leaders Epaminondas and Pelopidas brought forth a period of expansive Theban hegemony after Leuctra (371). Following the shared defeat at Chaeronea in 338—where Thebes’ renowned Sacred Band came to ruin—the city endured a Macedonian garrison. Destroyed by Alexander in 335 for rebellion, Thebes was rebuilt in the time of Cassander (316). The city functioned as a member of a Boiotian collective subsequently, but Sulla stripped its territory in 86 for Thebes’ backing of Mithridates. Thebes sank to relative insignificance thereafter and did not rise to prominence again until Byzantine times. A prosperous international city after Justinian and into the Middle Ages, Thebes’ importance receded under Ottoman domination.

Cicero’s Philosophical Works

Cicero (106–43 bce) was a Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher. As well as speeches, letters, and rhetorical treatises, Cicero wrote numerous philosophical works. These can be divided into two periods—those written before the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great (pre-49 bce), and those written during and after it (46 bce onward). Those written before are in dialogue form and the central topics are political: the ideal orator (De Oratore), the best citizen and the best state (De Re Publica), the best laws (De Legibus). Those following are predominately part of an ambitious project to bring philosophy to Rome in a systematic fashion; they are also mainly in dialogue form. Cicero composed an exhortation to philosophy (Hortensius), followed by books on epistemology (Academica, Lucullus) and works on broadly ethical concerns—the nature of good and evil (De Finibus); honor and glory (De Gloria); old age and friendship (De Senectute, De Amicitia); the soul, death, and suffering (Tusculans); consolation (Consolatio); the nature of the gods, divination, and providence (De Natura Deorum, De Divinatione, De Fato). Cicero’s final philosophical work is the De Officiis, presented as a letter to his son. Philosophy also figures prominently throughout Cicero’s letters, speeches, and rhetorical works. Indeed, it should be noted that Cicero felt his rhetorical works Orator and Brutus should be included in his philosophical corpus (Div. 2.4). There are two schools of thought on the novelty and value of Cicero’s philosophical works: (1) he is essentially just repackaging Greek material in Latin, offering renditions of existing ideas that are invaluable for saving much of the lost tradition of Hellenistic philosophy; (2) he is doing something more than that, developing distinctive philosophical contributions of his own. Most recent studies stress the innovative elements of Cicero’s philosophical thinking. Cicero’s own philosophical convictions are varied. Stoicism figures largely, as does his sympathy with Plato, Aristotle, and the Academic and Peripatetic traditions that follow them. He is strongly anti-Epicurean in both periods of his philosophical activity. Most scholars maintain that he is a pragmatic and flexible Academic skeptic, who weighs both sides of every argument and gives his assent to whatever he finds most compelling given the particular circumstances. Ostensibly a lack of political opportunity motivated Cicero to write philosophy. In the prefaces to his philosophical works he insists that it is not an escape from politics, but an intervention in it by other means.

Posidonius

Posidonius of Apamea (135–c. 51 bce), Stoic philosopher, scientist, and historian, was one of the foremost intellectuals of his day. Born in Apamea, a Greek city in northwestern Syria, he came to Athens as a young man to study with Panaetius of Rhodes, then head of the Stoa. After his studies Posidonius took up residence in Rhodes, where he taught philosophy, wrote a large number of treatises, and was visited by prominent Romans, notably Cicero and Pompey. Having acquired Rhodian citizenship, he held high public office and took part in at least one embassy to Rome (87–86 bce). In the 90s he traveled extensively in the Mediterranean world, studying the geography of its various regions and the habits and customs of its peoples. Of his many treatises none has survived. Until well into the last century the fragmentary and indirect state of the evidence led to divergent reconstructions of his thought, giving rise to the “Posidonian question” (see further commentary section under Fragment Collections). Today, there is a growing consensus that Posidonius by and large stayed within the philosophical framework he had inherited from his predecessors in the Stoic school: Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and Panaetius. Even so, Panaetius and Posidonius are often referred to as the two main representatives of a phase in the history of Stoicism called Middle Stoicism, a term coined by the 19th-century German scholar Schmekel (Schmekel 1892, cited under Comprehensive Accounts). The underlying assumption is that they made significant adaptations to Stoicism, in particular by introducing Platonic and Aristotelian notions, e.g., in moral psychology. The extent to which they did has often been exaggerated and the motivation behind their references to Plato misunderstood. At the same time there is much that remains uncertain and controversial. What does seem certain is that Posidonius, in psychological analysis as elsewhere, insisted on the exploration of causes, going beyond the point where predecessors like Chrysippus believed this was needed or possible. Another feature that sets him apart from his fellow Stoics is that he undertook the study of history, geography, ethnography, geology, meteorology, astronomy, medicine and, not least, mathematics. He saw these “special sciences” as instrumental and subordinate but also indispensable to philosophy. His wide-ranging interests provided him with many opportunities to elaborate upon Stoic concepts and doctrines. He was one of the most important Stoics of antiquity.

Theoderic the Great and Ostrogothic Italy

The Ostrogothic king Theoderic is the only non-Roman ruler of Late Antiquity to have acquired the epithet the Great, albeit only in modern times. Born around 453 in Pannonia (Hungary) as the son of a Gothic king named Thiudimir, he grew up in Constantinople, where he was held as a hostage for ten years. He returned to Pannonia in 471, in 474 succeeding his father, who had meanwhile led the “Pannonian Goths” into Macedonia. For several years Theoderic fought a Gothic king and rival claimant to imperial favor likewise named Theoderic whose power base was in Thrace (hence “Thracian Goths”). Only after the latter’s death in 481 did he succeed in uniting the two groups under his leadership. Although he was subsequently appointed magister militum and held the consulship in 484, relations with the emperor Zeno soon became hostile. In 488, Theoderic and Zeno made an agreement that Theoderic should take his people to Italy and eliminate Odovacer. After a devastating war, he slew Odovacer by his own hand in March 493, in breach of an oath sworn shortly before to share rule in Italy. Having secured sole rule in Italy, Theoderic turned his mobile and militarized followers into a standing army by allotting them ownership rights to landed estates (rather than shares in land tax, as some have argued). He defined his position as ruler over two peoples, Goths and Romans, to which he assigned complementary but separate roles (“integration by separation”). While Goths were warriors by definition, the civilian population was labeled Roman. Theoderic won over the senatorial elites by preserving their privileges, wealth, and social power and by giving them a share in his rule. He left the administrative structures of the Late Roman state largely unaltered and filled all positions of a civilian nature with people from the senatorial milieu. Although he belonged to a Christian denomination considered heretical by Catholics (“Arian”) he treated Catholic bishops with respect; they in turn asked him to act as an arbitrator when in 498 Symmachus and Laurentius were simultaneously elected to be bishop of Rome. From 508 to 511 he extended his rule over Provence and the Iberian peninsula. Relations with the senatorial elites and the Roman church became strained at the end of Theoderic’s life. He died in Ravenna on 30 August 526 without having nominated an heir to the throne. His kingdom fell within a generation after his death, but his memory lived on in Italy and in all Germanic-speaking lands where legend transformed him into Dietrich of Berne.

Greek Domestic Architecture c. 800 bce to c. 100 bce

This article discusses research on the housing of culturally-Greek settlements dating between c. 800 bce and c. 100 bce but with an emphasis on the central part of this period, and offers an overview of the various approaches. (Information on individual sites can be found by consulting the volumes listed under Period-Specific Overviews). While surviving textual sources shaped early research, relevant surviving texts are very limited in their number and scope. The most detailed source of information about Greek domestic architecture (and also about the organization of domestic activities) is the excavated remains of the houses themselves, which offer access to a wider range of aspects of the construction, in a greater variety of locations. Although the domestic buildings in ancient Greek settlements have historically received less attention from excavators than monumental civic and religious ones, sufficient evidence exists from which to generalize, and the available database continues to grow. This, coupled with the application of ever more sophisticated theoretical frameworks and archaeological field methods, has meant that the majority of current scholarship has come to focus on excavated houses. Over more than 150 years of research, the questions asked about domestic architecture have shifted, from the basic appearance of a house or attempts to ascertain how closely archaeological findings map onto the descriptions of ancient writers, toward analyses of a range of larger issues which include social relationships, the organization of the domestic economy, the cultural identities of households in various parts of the Mediterranean, and the way in which households changed between the earlier first millennium bce and Roman times. Throughout the period covered here, it is impossible to be certain whether the small sample of houses that have been excavated is representative of the range that were originally inhabited: it is likely that the homes of wealthier members of society are over-represented, since they were probably larger and more sturdily-built, hence surviving better in the archaeological record and more easily identified and excavated by archaeologists.

The Arabic “Theology of Aristotle”

The Theology of Aristotle is an Arabic adaptation of parts of Plotinus’s Enneads IV–VI. Both the translation into Arabic of treatises from these Enneads and their reworking, which originated the text known as Theology of Aristotle, were produced within the first philosophical circle of the Arabic-speaking world: that which was animated in the ʿAbbasid Baghdad by Abu Yusuf Yaʿqub ibn Ish aq al-Kindi (d. c. 870). Together with another adapted translation, that of Proclus’s Elements of Theology that originated the so-called Liber de causis, the Theology conveys under Aristotle’s name the Neoplatonic doctrines of the One-Good as the first cause of reality as a whole, of the Intellect as a separate substance near the One, and of the Soul both as a cosmic principle endowed with the power to rule nature, and as the rational immortal principle of human beings. The first chapter of the Theology of Aristotle contains a long introduction independent of Plotinus, which reflects the convictions of the milieu it stems from. The work is described as Aristotle’s “Theology” (transliterated from the Greek as Uthulujiya) plus the “commentary” by Porphyry. Then “Aristotle” takes the floor, introduced by the words “The Sage says.” He declares his intention to complete by this theological account his previous treatment of the four causes—material, formal, efficient, and final cause; this treatment, says “Aristotle,” has been already provided in the Metaphysics. The Uthulujiya will now be devoted to the three higher principles: the One, the Intellect, and the universal Soul. The causality of the One expands over reality in its entirety but first over the Intellect; then, through the mediation of the Intellect, over the universal Soul; then again, through the mediation of the Intellect and Soul, over nature, which in its turn contains the things that come to be and pass away. This doctrine forms the backbone of “Aristotle’s” Uthulujiya (henceforth ps.-Theology). The ps.-Theology has come down to us in Arabic and in a Latin version, dating from the Renaissance, that differs from the Arabic on various counts. The Arabic text comprises ten chapters, each of them dependent upon sections of Plotinus’s treatises that are reorganized in a layout often very different from the Greek original. Not only the order of the treatises is altered, but also Plotinus’s wording and doctrines are modified to convey the idea that the One is pure Being and the Creator all of reality. The ps.-Theology deeply influenced the subsequent development of Arabic-Islamic philosophy: al-Farabi (d. 950) structured his work Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Perfect City according to the Neoplatonic hierarchy described in it, and Avicenna (d. 1037) commented upon it. In the Western Muslim world, Averroes rejected Avicenna’s emanationism, but was still committed to the doctrine of the Agent Intellect, a doctrine which is rooted in the ps.-Theology at least as well as it is in Alexander of Aphrodisias’s interpretation of Aristotle’s De Anima (see Doctrine).

Orosius

Orosius was a Spanish priest, attested in the years 414–419. He is best known as the author of the Histories against the pagans (416–417), a world history that was conceived as a companion piece to the first ten books of Augustine’s City of God. The Histories would become the most-read history of the Middle Ages and be translated in Old English and Arabic in the 9th to the 10th centuries. Orosius also plays a secondary role in other controversies of the period. He wrote a tract against Priscillianism, and an Apology to defend himself from accusations of heresy coming from partisans of Pelagius. Finally, bringing relics of St Stephen to Spain, he landed in Minorca, sparking one of the most-discussed episodes of conversion of the Jews. If Orosius is, all in all, a minor figure in late antique history, his Histories have been treated as proof of some strongly held opinions about late antique historiography and early Christianity. The Histories, relying mainly on earlier sources, have been seen to exemplify the essentially derivative nature of late antique historiography, while its apologetic tendency has been taken as proof that Christians were not interested in historical events and subordinated everything to theological views on the course of history. Scholarship also tends to stress the gulf between Augustine’s apparent rejection of the alliance between empire and Church and Orosius’s apparent espousal of it. More recent scholarship has shed doubt on these long-held views, which are, in fact, shaped by modern theological responses to enthusiasm for dictatorial regimes found in some Christian circles in the 1930s. Scholarship on Orosius is very international, with numerous publications in Spanish, Italian, French, and German. Only starting in the early 21st century has scholarship in English picked up.

Roman Roads and Transport

The total length of the Roman Empire’s highway network is not known, but can be estimated at well above 100,000 kilometers. Some roads were surveyed and built from scratch, others created by upgrading pre-existing routes. The bibliography on the subject is correspondingly vast, running into thousands of titles. Most published studies are focused on the remains of the roads as preserved in the landscape, taking a morphological approach and identifying or dating roads on the basis of their alignment and construction. Some more recent studies, however, take a contextual approach (“dots on the map”), identifying and dating ancient roads from their relation to known and datable features such as settlement sites, necropoleis, or forts. Within ancient history generally, focus has shifted from the construction and administration of roads or their use for military campaigns to a wider consideration of their place in the economic life of the Roman world. Unlike sea transport, which exploited the winds, ancient land transport was at all times dependent on muscle power, human or animal, and hence more costly than sea transport. On the other hand, transit times by land were more predictable and communications could be maintained throughout the year, whereas ships mostly remained in port during the winter months. The highway network was also fundamental to the maintenance of official communication through the so-called cursus publicus or vehiculatio, with stations along the major overland routes. In some areas, road transport was complemented by shipping on navigable rivers or—rarely—canals.

Cicero's Rhetorical Works

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 bce) rose to prominence in the state during the final decades of the Roman Republic. Blessed with a goodly measure of natural ability, an extraordinary amount of self-discipline, and a remarkably broad and deep education not only in rhetoric but also in philosophy and the other noble arts, Cicero employed his oratorical skill to establish himself in the courts and on the Rostra as Rome’s finest orator. He was elected to the state’s chief political offices at the youngest possible age, and during the final months of his consulship (63 bce), he foiled a plot by L. Sergius Catilina to overthrow the government. His decisive action in that affair was the source of great glory and pride in having saved the state, but also of great pain and heartache, for some five years later he was forced into exile for his part in the summary execution of Catilinarian co-conspirators who were also Roman citizens. Following his return to Rome, he found himself at loggerheads with members of the so-called “First Triumvirate,” a situation that resulted for him in something like a forced retirement from political activity. A decade later, in the wake of Julius Caesar’s victory in the civil war and subsequent dictatorship, Cicero was placed in a similar situation. During both these occasions (namely, the mid-50s and mid-40s bce), he channeled his energies in the direction of his other great love, i.e., contemplation, study, and writing. Remarkably, these two periods saw him produce nearly a score of treatises, including his most important and influential rhetorical writings, wherein he enunciated his deeply-held conviction that eloquent speech (coupled with reason) was a chief civilizing factor in human society—a glue that binds and builds well-ordered communities when employed responsibly by its most expert practitioners. Following the assassination of Caesar and the emergence of Marcus Antonius as a force who appeared to be aiming to secure his own dictatorial powers, Cicero once again took up the mantle of the Republic, hoping for its restoration. He opposed Antonius and his actions by writing and delivering to the Senate and people a series of speeches known as the Philippics. But on the brink of success, young Caesar Octavianus allied himself with Antonius, and Cicero’s name found a prominent place on the list of those proscribed: his head and hands, severed by Antonius’s henchmen, were gruesomely displayed on the speaker’s platform in the Roman forum. See the separate Oxford Bibliographies article in Classics Cicero for a general and more comprehensive bibliography of Cicero and his other works. Other Oxford Bibliographies articles that may be of interest include Greek Rhetoric, Latin Rhetoric, and Rhetoric.

Death

Life and death is a vast subject, potentially taking in a massive chunk of the published output of Greco-Roman scholarship since the time of Homer and his contemporaries. So, some serious restriction of extent is required: this article will focus on life and death and how the two interrelate throughout the Greek and Roman periods. “Death” will cover eschatology, funeral and burial rites, funerary epigraphy, as well as different forms of death such as suicide, death in war and in the arena, death through disease, and murder. Poisonings, toxicology, osteoarchaeology, and forensics are also covered. “Life” will take in life where death impinges on it in whatever form. As with any culture and civilization, life and death were inextricably linked in ancient Greece and Rome: how one led one’s life was dictated to a large degree by belief in and expectations of a further life in the afterworld; similarly, the kind of afterlife one might expect was thought to be predicated on how one conducted oneself during life. The Greek tragedies underscore the absolute necessity for proper burial rites in Greek society while the Romans too had strict rules relating to funerary protocol and ritual. Epigraphy takes in military inscriptions and the formulaic praise, particularly of wives, husbands, children and mothers. We will see much on necromancy, communion with the dead, the underworld journey, underworld topography, and denizens of Hades and Tartarus such as Charon. The section on Postmortem Studies takes in works on memories of the departed, mourning, commemoration of the dead, the Parentalia, dining with the deceased, death pollution, corpse abuse, and cremations that went badly wrong. War death covers military and civilian death in battle and siege, disasters, and atrocities while suicide gives us Lucretia, euthanasia, and depictions of suicide in art. Finally, from murder, toxicology, and forensics we find studies on the effects of lead poisoning, the patricide of Verginia, three infamous women poisoners, and amateur toxicologists—Mithridates and Cleopatra. The citations range from Homer to late Roman, from the Greek polis to the Roman Empire at its widest extent and to its fall; they take in all available types of evidence as found in journal articles, books, visual arts, epigraphy, archaeology, architecture, science, and online sources.