Acclamations in the Later Roman Empire: New Evidence from Aphrodisias

1984 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 181-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Roueché
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Late Roman

This article has been engendered by yet another important discovery made during the current excavations at Aphrodisias in Caria, of a unique series of acclamatory texts in honour of a local benefactor, Albinus. The texts were inscribed, probably in the first half of the sixth century, on the twenty columns of the west portico of the Agora, nineteen of which survive. They provide relatively little information either about Albinus or about the history of Aphrodisias; but they are of outstanding interest as the fullest series of inscribed acclamations which has yet been identified anywhere. The purpose of this article is to consider the status and function of acclamations in late Roman society, and their relationship to earlier practice, in order to assess the full significance of the texts presented here.

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maijastina Kahlos
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Religious Dissent ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity reconsiders the religious history of the late Roman Empire, focusing on the shifting position of dissenting religious groups. The groups under consideration are non-Christians (‘pagans’) and deviant Christians (‘heretics’). The period from the mid-fourth century until the mid-fifth century CE witnessed a significant transformation of late Roman society and a gradual shift from the world of polytheistic religions into the Christian Empire. This book demonstrates that the narrative is much more nuanced than the simple Christian triumph over the classical world. It looks at everyday life, economic aspects, day-to-day practices, and conflicts of interest in the relations of religious groups. The book addresses two aspects: rhetoric and realities, and consequently delves into the interplay between the manifest ideologies and daily life found in late antique sources. We perceive constant flux between moderation and coercion that marked the relations of religious groups, both majorities and minorities, as well as the imperial government and religious communities. Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity is a detailed analysis of selected themes and a close reading of selected texts, tracing key elements and developments in the treatment of dissident religious groups. The book focuses on specific themes, such as the limits of imperial legislation and ecclesiastical control, the end of sacrifices, and the label of magic. It also examines the ways in which dissident religious groups were construed as religious outsiders in late Roman society.

Sin, Citizenship, and the Salvation of Souls: The Impact of Christian Priorities on Late-Roman and Post-Roman Society

1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 644-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine MacCormack
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The West ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
The Third ◽  
Fall Of Rome ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Late Roman

The impact of Christianity on the functioning of the later Roman empire has been examined by historians ever since Gibbon published his Decline and Fall. Had the Christians hastened the decline and fall of Rome? Outlining some themes of his projected work, Gibbon suggested before 1774 that indeed they had. In 1776, when publishing the first volume of his history, he touched on this same issue with considerable circumspection; but five years later, his earlier opinion appeared in print under the heading of “General Observations on the Decline of the Empire in the West” by way of concluding the third volume of the work. Here, Gibbon stated:As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear, without surprise or scandal, that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged: and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister; a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity.

scholarly journals Słowianie w Historii powszechnej Teofilakta Simokatty – bizantyńska perspektywa aksjologiczna

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Kotłowska
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Baltic Sea ◽  
High Reliability ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
The Baltic Sea ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Universal History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Baltic

Slavs in Theophylact Simocatta’s „Universal History” – a Byzantine axiological perspectiveThe Universal History of Theophylact Simocatta constitutes a very important source for the history of the Later Roman Empire, especially within the context of appearance of the Avars and the Slavs in the Balkans. This article confirms the high reliability and great value of Theophylact’ s narrative concerning the Slavs in the last two decades of the sixth century. In the second part, some new remarks have been given, which argue for the authenticity of the famous episode about Slavs “living at the end of the Western Ocean” (6.2). Moreover, the author is firmly convinced that the so-called Western Ocean should be identified with the Baltic Sea. Słowianie w Historii powszechnej Teofilakta Simokatty – bizantyńska perspektywa aksjologiczna Historia powszechna Teofilakta Simokatty stanowi bardzo istotne źródło do dziejów późnego Cesarstwa Rzymskiego, m.in. w kontekście pojawienia się Awarów i Słowian na Bałkanach. Przedłożony artykuł potwierdza wysoką wiarygodność i faktograficzne znaczenie narracji Teofilakta odnośnie do Słowiańszczyzny ostatnich dwóch dziesięcioleci VI wieku. Druga część artykułu zawiera nową argumentację na rzecz autentyczności słynnego epizodu o Słowianach „mieszkających przy krańcu zachodniego Oceanu”. Autorka jest przekonana, że tzw. „zachodni Ocean” należy utożsamić z Morzem Bałtyckim.

1. Introduction: Rome—A Historical Sketch

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Paul J. du Plessis
Keyword(s):  
Eighth Century ◽  
Archaic Period ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Sketch

This chapter provides a historical sketch of Rome. It has been written to provide a contextual basis for the study of Roman private law. The history of Rome is traditionally divided into three main periods based on the dominant constitutional structure in Roman society during these three periods. These are the Monarchy (eighth century bc–510 bc), Republic (509–27 bc), and Empire (27 bc–ad 565). Scholars of Roman law tend to refine this division even further. Thus, to the scholar of Roman law, the period from the founding of Rome in the eighth century bc–c. 250 bc is regarded as the ‘archaic’ period of Roman law. The period thereafter, from c. 250 bc–27 bc, is generally described as the ‘pre-classical period’ of Roman law.For scholars of Roman law, the ‘classical’ period, c. first three centuries AD, and the Justinianic period, c. sixth century AD, are the most important, owing to the compilation of ‘classical’ Roman law by order the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian, in the sixth century.

Introduction: Rhetoric and realities

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Maijastina Kahlos
Keyword(s):  
Church Leaders ◽  
The West ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Christian Congregations ◽  
Late Roman

The introduction defines several concepts that are used throughout the book. The religious dissidents in late Roman society were pagans and heretics. These terms are only shorthand: ‘pagans’ for non-Christians, and ‘heretics’ for deviant Christians. They are relational, meaning that there would have been no pagans without the viewpoint of Christians. Similarly, the question of who was a heretic depended on the perceiver. The period under scrutiny saw the Christianization of imperial and ecclesiastical discourses of control. Imperial power is understood as the emperors in both the East and the West, the imperial courts, and the administration. Ecclesiastical power refers to church leaders—mainly bishops, whose authority was increasing during the fourth and fifth centuries. There was no uniform church, and Christian congregations were miscellaneous assemblages of adherents.

"Not worth one Groat": The Status, Gentility and Credit of Lawrence and Sarah Crabb of Antigua

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Barber
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Base Point ◽  
The West ◽  
Leeward Islands ◽  
George Moore ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Initial Wealth ◽  
Plantation Society

AbstractThis article recreates the lives of two settlers in Antigua between the years 1690 and 1740. As such, it is a key addition to the paltry number of studies of the island of Antigua and the other Leeward Islands of the West Indies. It takes as its base point the study of the Antigua settler elite identified by Richard Sheridan in his article, now forty years old, which constructed the institutional systems of landholding, taxation, customs and the Slave Trade which produced so-called Plantation Society. In the years preceding this, however, life for everyone concerned in the West Indies was uncertain and insecure. is was as much the case for those at the top of the socio-political ladder, such as island governors and Crown viceroys, as for relatively modest settlers, such as the subjects of this essay, Lawrence and Sarah Crabb. For all of those who were incorporated into the 18thcentury Plantocracy, many more were sacrificed in the struggles of early capitalism, buoyed up not by the level of 'credit' that they were accorded, but by the levels of debt they carried. The construction of a social history of modest settlers is made possible through the survival of documents which were kept by the Crabb's agent, George Moore, and which he would subsequently use in a Chancery case against his late friend's widow. These manuscripts have not been used before, except for occasional references to the legal precedents established by the case, Moore v. Meynell, and, given the paucity and patchiness of manuscript survivals for the Caribbean in the seventeenth century, show what can be reconstructed from otherwise overlooked sources. The result is a study of the measurement of a person's worth, and the increasing elision of God and Mammon in gauging credit, value and trust. In the case of the Crabbs, particularly because Lawrence was himself a man of little initial wealth who clawed his way up through his own ingenuity and his wife's family's West Indian estates, we are able to demonstrate how the language of credit and worthiness applied not only to men of business and politics but also to women.

scholarly journals The Venetians and the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople to the close of the Twelfth Century

1920 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horatio F. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Free State ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Eastern Empire

The foundation and development of the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople, and the history of the early trading relations between Venice and the Roman Empire are intimately connected with and illustrate the movement by which the Republic gradually passed from actual, through merely nominal, vassalage to actual and formal independence. That movement constitutes an essential part of early Venetian history, the growth of the Republic as a free State between the Empire of the East and the Empire of the West, both weak at sea and in need of a fleet which Venice alone was able to supply, and shows us the Republic skilfully steering her course between Saracens, Normans, Greeks and Germans towards her goal, naval supremacy in the Adriatic and the Levant.It is not the object of this paper to dwell on the larger movement, but rather to examine the relations between Venice and the Eastern Empire with special reference to the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople. Those relations were governed by the Chrysobulls, or Golden Bulls, whereby the Emperors made gradually extending concessions to the seamen and merchants of their vassal State.

TWO ALLUSIONS TO TERENCE,EUNUCHUS579 IN JEROME

2013 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 407-412
Author(s):  
Andrew Cain
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Roman

During the Late Roman Empire Terence was the most revered and the most quoted classical Latin poet after Virgil. Among authors both pagan and Christian, none (to judge, of course, by the surviving written record) made as frequent or as creative literary use of his comedies as Jerome, one of the most accomplished polymaths in all of Latin antiquity. In his estimation Terence ranked, alongside Homer, Menander and Virgil, as one of the greatest of all poets. Jerome had an encyclopedic knowledge of Terence's dramatic corpus and quoted or appropriated phraseology from all six of his comedies. A significant number of these reminiscences have already been identified, but others await discovery. The purpose of the present study is to make a further contribution to this particular branch of HieronymianQuellenforschungby adducing and analysing two hitherto unrecognized allusions in Jerome's correspondence to Terence'sEunuchus, apparently one of the biggest blockbusters in the history of the Roman stage.

scholarly journals International Slavic Studies: Concepts, History and Evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenfei Liu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The West ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Formal Establishment ◽  
Slavic Studies

Abstract This paper departs from the definition of Slavistics and reviews the history of international Slavic studies, from its prehistory to its formal establishment as an independent discipline in the mid-18th century, and from the Pan-Slavic movement in the mid-19th century to the confrontation of Slavistics between the East and the West in the mid-20th century during the Cold War. The paper highlights the status quo of international Slavic studies and envisions the future development of Slavic studies in China.

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