Old Society, New Belief

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
First Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Common Era ◽  
New Religion

In the first century of the Common Era, two new belief systems entered long-established cultures with radically different outlooks and values: in that century, missionaries started to spread the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in the Roman empire and the Buddha in China. Both were not only ancient cultures but also cultures whose elites felt no particular urgency to adopt a new religion. Yet a few centuries later, the two new faiths had become so well established that their names were virtually synonymous with the polities they had entered as strangers. This book brings together specialists in the history and religion of Rome and China with a twofold aim. First, it wishes to explore in detail some of the similarities and differences in the processes by which each religion merged into its new cultural environment. Second, by juxtaposing the two cases, it aims to reveal aspects of these processes that are often overlooked when studying the history of just the one or the other. The approach of this volume is thematic as well as comparative. It provides a series of essays focusing on key questions and specific aspects of the very complex, multifaceted processes of accommodation, assimilation, and contestation that played out in each society. The chapters also showcase methods from different disciplines including history, philology, economic history, and religious studies.

Dictators and Philosophers in the First Century A.D.

1944 ◽  
Vol 13 (38-39) ◽  
pp. 43-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jocelyn M. C Toynbee
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Economic History ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of

It was just over half a century ago, in 1892, that Gaston Boissier published a discussion of the Stoic ‘martyrs’ under Nero in the second chapter of his well-known work L'Opposition sous les Cèsars. Since then two especially noteworthy studies of the ‘philosophic opposition’ in the first century A.D. have appeared in English, that of M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (1926), pp. 108 ff., and, more recently, that of D. R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism (1937), pp. 125 ff. The story of men who maintained a critical or, at the least, independent attitude in the face of a totalitarian règime is obviously of great significance for us to-day. Theoretically, of course, the term ‘autocracy’, in its strict sense of ‘unaccountability’ of government, cannot be applied to the imperial system of the early Empire. On paper the ‘tyrants’, Tiberius, Gaius, Nero, and Domitian, no less than the ‘enlightened monarchs’, Augustus, Claudius, Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, were delegates senatus populique Romani, chief magistrates and servants of the state. But in practice the ever-expanding range of the imperial provincia, coupled with the unceasing growth of the ‘mystical’ auctoritas bequeathed by the first Princeps to his successors, had produced an effective absolutism comparable, in many respects, to that of the autocrats or ‘dictators’ of modern authoritarian states. How did political thought and action in the Roman Empire respond to this de facto autocracy? How, above all, did they respond to its abuse? For us these are no merely academic questions. The parallelism, such as it is, between the ancient and the modern situations must serve as an excuse for presuming to rehandle a familiar theme.

scholarly journals Pieniądz w "Historia religiosa" autorstwa Teodoreta z Cyru

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 481-492
Author(s):  
Ireneusz Milewski
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Theodoret Of Cyrus ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

The paper analyses the reports regarding money, which appear in the Historia religiosa writen by Theodoret of Cyrus. Historia religiosa, on the one hand, presents the life of the Syrian monks, and the other hand depicts the realities of everyday life of the inhabitants of the collapsed provinces of the Roman East at the turn of the fourth and fifth century. On this occasion, we also find in Historia religiosa nu­merous references to the role of money in everyday life. In the work of Theodoret money appears in several contexts: as an important element of trade on the market, as taxes, as a ransom paid for releasing captives but also as a money in welfare ac­tivities (amounts of money donated to charity). Unfortunately, in Historia religiosa, we didn’t found any information about the prices and wages. The analyzed reports, despite a certain lack of precision, are a valuable sources of knowledge. They depicts everyday life in eastern provinces, “stories” unknown to the “great history”, allow­ing for a reconstruction of social and economic history of the later Roman Empire.

Phoenicia in the Roman Empire

2019 ◽  
pp. 110-124
Author(s):  
Julien Aliquot
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
New Order ◽  
History Of ◽  
Local Traditions

This chapter traces the history of Phoenicia from the advent of Rome in Syria at the beginning of the first century bce to the foundation of the Christian empire of Byzantium in the fourth century ce. It focuses on the establishment of Roman rule and its impact on society, culture, and religion. Special attention is paid to the establishment of Roman rule and its impact on society, culture, and religion. The focus is on provincial institutions and cities, which provided a basis for the new order. However, side trails are also taken to assess the flowering of Hellenism and the revival of local traditions in the light of the Romanization of Phoenicia and its hinterland.

Slavery and Scientific Management

1973 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 811-824 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Keith Aufhauser
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
American South ◽  
Scientific Management ◽  
Productivity Increase ◽  
History Of ◽  
The American South ◽  
The One ◽  
Early Discussion ◽  
Slave Mode ◽  
Mode Of Production

In the last few years, the controversy over the economic history of slavery has centered about two positions. On the one hand, Genovese has argued that the slave mode of production was fundamentally antagonistic to the bourgeois mode and that the conflicts between the two systems doomed slavery to a nineteenth-century grave. On the other hand, Conrad and Meyer spawned many studies which, on the whole, denied that any specifically economic difficulties resulted from the fact that the American south was based on slave labor. Against Genovese's original claim that “the material basis of the planters' power was giving way,” the statistical evidence indicated that the profits of the slave plantation were as high as those on non-slave business investments, and that the diffusion of technological changes was rapid enough to cause a rate of productivity increase equal to that of all but the most rapidly growing sectors of the free economy. Sheer volume supplemented the elegance of the early discussion and our knowledge of the slave economy expanded considerably.

Studies in the Campanian ‘Villae Rusticae.’

1931 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Carrington
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scanty Information ◽  
Materials Used

The remains of 39 villas have been discovered, up to the present, in the region which was covered by lapilli and ash during the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Twelve of these were excavated between the years 1749 and 1782, in the vicinity of Castellammare di Stabia; the rest have been excavated during the last half-century, either in the immediate neighbourhood of Pompeii or in the territory of the modern comuni adjoining it (Boscoreale, Scafati, Gragnano). A list of 36 of the villas arranged in the chronological order of their excavation is given in Rostovtzeff's Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire. Rostovtzeff concludes his note with the words ‘Useful work could be done by a scholar who would devote a little time and care to a study of the Campanian “villae rusticae,” and endeavour to investigate the history of the buildings.’ Unfortunately all of the villas were buried again after their excavation, and, in investigating the history of the buildings, we have only the scanty information furnished by the reports, which, often amounts to nothing at all. Inability to see the buildings, however, would not be such a great disadvantage if, at the time of the excavation, adequate records had been made of the building materials used, and the methods of their use.

More Lessons to Learn: Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Ideology and Alternative Archives of Social Experience

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-146
Author(s):  
Andreas Langenohl
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Historical Trajectory ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Alternative Archives

Abstract Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Ideology has been written with the intention to offer lessons from the historical trajectory of economic redistribution in societies the world over. Thereby, the book suggests learning from the political-economic history of ‘social-democratic’ policies and societal arrangements. While the data presented speak to the plausibility of looking at social democracy, as understood by Piketty, as an archive for learning about the effects of redistribution mechanisms, I argue that the book, or future interventions might profit from integrating alternative archives. On the one hand, its current line of argumentation tends to underestimate the significance of power relations in the international political economy that continued after formal decolonization, and thus form the flip side of social democracy’s success in Europe and North America. On the other hand, the role of the polity might be imagined in a different and more empowering way, not just-as in Piketty-as an elite-liberal democratic governance institution; for instance, it would be interesting to explore the archive of the French solidaristes movement more deeply than Piketty does, as well as much more recent interventions in economic anthropology that deal with ‘economic citizenship’ in the Global South.

Karl Polanyi’s Anthropological Theory of Economy

Naukratis ◽  
2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Moller
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Use Of Resources ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

In accordance with the hermeneutical principles laid down in the introduction, this chapter will be devoted to an account of the theoretical models underlying the analysis and interpretation of the source material. Karl Polanyi’s empirical observations resulted in a series of ideal-types such as can be employed for the evaluation of the evidence from Naukratis in the following chapters. Polanyi’s works do not form one single, complete theory of economy; rather, they should be seen—as Sally Humphreys has put it so aptly—as sketches of areas within largely unexplored territory. It is of course true that George Dalton went to great lengths to develop Polanyi’s ideas further; the fact nevertheless remains that they continue to be far from accepted as paradigms for all further research in the field of economic anthropology or economic history. Indeed, such continuations of Polanyi’s approach have served only to limit unduly the openness that is the very advantage of his ideal-types. It is for this reason that one should return to Polanyi himself and employ his original ideas. His work has been taken up by only a few within the realm of the economic history of classical antiquity, something due partly to his own—problematic—statements on the subject of Greek history, and partly to lack of interest shown for anthropological approaches within ancient history. Polanyi disagreed with the view that markets were the ubiquitous form of economic organization—an attitude regarding the notion of the market as essential to the description of every economy—and also with the belief that it is the economic organization of any given society which determines its social, political, and cultural structures. For his part, Polanyi contended that an economy organized around the market first came into being with the Industrial Revolution, and that it was not until then that the two root meanings of the word ‘economic’—on the one hand, in the sense of provision with goods; on the other, in the sense of a thrifty use of resources, as in the words ‘economical’ and ‘economizing’—merged.

The Triumph of the Mule

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Symbolic Value ◽  
The Middle Ages

This chapter starts as the Roman Empire fragmented, encompasses the emergence of Christianity and Islam, and explores the donkey’s place in the history of the Middle Ages, as well as what Fernand Braudel termed ‘the triumph of the mule’ in the ensuing early modern period from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Being closer in time to the present, historical documents are generally richer and more plentiful than for earlier periods, but archaeological excavations and surveys—especially of post-medieval sites and landscapes—are still undeveloped in many regions. Inevitably, therefore, what I present draws as much on textual sources as it does on them. I look first at the symbolic value of donkeys and mules in Christianity and Islam. Next, I consider their disappearance from some parts of Europe in the aftermath of Rome’s collapse and their re-expansion and persistence elsewhere. One aspect of this concerns their continuing contribution to agricultural production, another their consumption as food, a very un-Roman practice. A second theme showing continuities from previous centuries is their significance in facilitating trade and communication over both short and long distances. Tackling this requires inserting donkeys and mules into debates about how far pack animals replaced wheeled forms of transport as Late Antiquity gave way to the Middle Ages. Wide-ranging in time and space, this discussion also provides opportunities for exploring their role in human history in areas beyond those on which I have concentrated thus far. West Africa is one, the Silk Road networks linking China to Central Asia a second, and China’s southward connections into Southeast Asia a third. According to the New Testament Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday seated on a donkey (Plate 20). The seventh-century apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew also envisages donkeys carrying His mother to Bethlehem, being present at the Nativity, and conveying the Holy Family into temporary exile in Egypt. Donkeys thus framed both ends of Jesus’ life and, given their importance in moving people and goods in first-century Palestine, must have been a familiar sight. But the implications of their place in Christianity’s narrative were originally quite different from those that are generally understood today.

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