scholarly journals I.—Clay Disks from Tarentum

1883 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 156-157
Author(s):  
P. G.
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Artistic Value ◽  
The Third ◽  
Image Position

Among the objects brought from Tarentum by the Rev. G. J. Chester are certain disks of clay of some interest, though not of artistic value. They are circular and flat or cheese-like in form, with a diameter of 3½ to 3¾ inches, and a thickness of about ¾ of an inch. The inscriptions are impressed in the clay by means of a stamp, and run thus:The order in date is that followed in the list. No. 1 is oldest, and the shape of the м seems to indicate that it may date from the fourth century B.C.; the other three are probably not earlier than the third century. Later they can scarcely be, for after that time the obol gave way to the Roman denarius and sestertius as a measure of value at Tarentum.

Principes cum Tyrannis: Two Studies on the Kaisergeschichte and its Tradition

1993 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 491-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Burgess
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Common Source ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Natural Assumption ◽  
Ammianus Marcellinus ◽  
The Third ◽  
Historia Augusta ◽  
Selection Of

The Kaisergeschichte (KG) was a set of short imperial biographies extending from Augustus to the death of Constantine, probably written between 337 and c. 340. It no longer exists but its existence can be deduced from other surviving works. Amongst the histories of the fourth century – Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Festus, Jerome's Chronici canones, the Historia Augusta, the Epitome de Caesaribus, and, in places, even Ammianus Marcellinus and perhaps the Origo Constantini imperatoris (Anonymi Valesiani pars prior) – there is a common selection of facts and errors, and common wording and phrasing in their narratives between Augustus and the death of Constantine, especially in their accounts of the third century. A natural assumption is that later historians copied earlier ones, yet later historians include information not contained in earlier ones, and historians who could not have known each other's work share similarities. For example, it looks as though Aurelius Victor was copying Eutropius, yet Victor wrote before Eutropius, and Eutropius contains information not in Victor and does not reproduce Victor's peculiar style or personal biases, things which he could hardly have avoided. Therefore Eutropius cannot be copying Victor. Since neither could have copied the other, there must therefore have been a common source. In his Chronici canones Jerome appears at first to be simply copying Eutropius. Yet when he deviates from Eutropius, his deviations usually mirror other histories, such as Suetonius, Victor, Festus, even the Epitome and the Historia Augusta, two works that had not even been written when Jerome compiled his chronicle and that did not use, and would never have used, the Christian chronicle as a source. Jerome was hurriedly dictating to his secretary, he had no time to peruse four or five works at a time for his brief notices. There must have been a single source that contained both the Eutropian material and the deviations common to Jerome and the other works. That source was the KG. It is the purpose of this paper to add to the above list of authors who relied upon the KG two other writers whose work can be shown to have derived, either at first hand or later, from the KG: Polemius Silvius and Ausonius.

The Provincial List of Verona

1923 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 127-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Bury
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Military Organization ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military

§ 1. The exact measure of the originality of Diocletian's statesmanship has not yet been taken. ‘Like Augustus,’ said Gibbon, ‘Diocletian may be considered the founder of a new empire’ and these words express the accepted view. In the whole work of pulling the Empire together, which went on from A.D. 270 to 330, the three outstanding actors were Aurelian, Diocletian, and Constantine, and the part played by Aurelian was indispensable for the restitutio orbis. It was he who destroyed the Principate, notwithstanding the negligible episode of Tacitus. It was he who founded the autocracy; Diocletian who regularized and systematized it. Two new things Diocletian certainly did, one of which was a success and the other a failure though not a fruitless one. His division of the Empire into Dioceses was permanent for nearly three hundred years. His throne system led to disaster and disappeared; yet the territorial quadripartition which it involved was afterwards stereotyped in the four Prefectures, and Nicomedia pointed to Constantinople. But in many of the other changes which distinguished the Empire of Constantine from the Empire of Severus and which have generally been regarded as inventions of Diocletian, it is becoming clear that he was not the initiator but was only extending and systematizing changes which had already been begun. The separation of civil from military powers in provincial government had been initiated by Gallienus (the importance of whose reign has in recent years been emerging). Some of the characteristics which mark the military organization of the fourth century had come before Diocletian's accession. Mr. Mattingly's studies in the numismatic history of the third century have been leading him, as he tells us, to similar conclusions.

Aspects of Iconography in Romano-British Mosaics: the Rudston ‘Aquatic’ Scene and the Brading Astronomer Revisited

Britannia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 295-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.J.A. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
North African ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
The Third ◽  
Adjacent Room ◽  
The Subject

ABSTRACTThe fourth-century Rudston ‘aquatic’ mosaic is likely to show Oceanus at the centre rather than Neptune, and the dominant position of the head on the floor suggests that the inspiration for it derives, however remotely, from North African models where the scene was common. This is made more plausible by the fact that African influence, as is well known, is also detectable on the famous Venus mosaic by the same mosaicist in an adjacent room in the same building. At Brading, the central figure in the main reception room – a half-naked man with stick, globe and sundial – is identified, not just as a generic ‘philosopher’ type, but specifically as the third-century B.C. astronomer and poet, Aratus, on the basis of comparanda on mosaics, tapestry, silverware and in an illustrated manuscript of his work, thePhaenomena. It is further suggested that the key to reading the damaged larger part of the Brading floor above Aratus might be a Latin translation of his work, possibly that by Avienusc.A.D. 350, if the mosaic is indeed approximately of that date rather than earlier, and that the subject-matter of the panels alluded to constellations described in the poem. A very tentative attempt is made to identify what might have been depicted in the panels, on the basis of the mythology behind the constellations as explained in Latin adaptations of the poem: those of Perseus and Andromeda are illustrated in the surviving panel, and possibly Phaethon and Eridanus, Hercules and the serpent in the Garden of the Hesperides, and conceivably Pegasus at a spring were shown in the other three. It is also suggested that these unusual scenes might have been based on an illustrated manuscript of the work in the possession of thedominusat Brading. Be that as it may, the mosaic does appear to provide further evidence of the depth of classical learning displayed by at least some members of the Romano-British rural élite in the fourth century A.D.

THE DATING OF PHILIPPOS OF AMPHIPOLIS (BNJ 280 T2)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Brent Arehart
Keyword(s):  
Short Note ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third

Abstract On the basis of two neglected testimonia, this short note argues that the terminus ante quem for Philippos of Amphipolis (BNJ 280) should be moved forward to the third century or to the early fourth century c.e. if not earlier.

The Romano-British Shrines at Brigstock, Northants

1963 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Greenfield
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Polygonal Shape

SummaryTwo shrines of circular and polygonal shape, probably part of a larger group, were erected early in the second half of the third century A.D., and occupied until late in the fourth century. The shrines occur in an area of widespread settlement dating from the late Iron Age until the end of the fourth century. Many objects of bronze and iron of ritual significance, together with a large number of votive deposits and coins, were recovered from the circular shrine. Miss M. V. Taylor's discussion of the principal objects appears on pp. 264–8.

Danebury, Hampshire: Second Interim Report on the Excavations 1971–5

1976 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Cunliffe
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Interim Report ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Hill ◽  
Religious Nature ◽  
Continuous Strip

SummaryThe results of five seasons of excavation (1971–5) are summarized. A continuous strip 30–40 m. wide extending across the centre of the fort from one side to the other was completely excavated revealing pits, gullies, circular stake-built houses, rectangular buildings, and 2-, 4-, and 6-post structures, belonging to the period from the sixth to the end of the second century B.C. The types of structures are discussed. A sequence of development, based largely upon the stratification preserved behind the ramparts, is presented: in the sixth–fifth century the hill was occupied by small four-post ‘granaries’ possibly enclosed by a palisade. The first hill-fort rampart was built in the fifth century protecting houses, an area of storage pits, and a zone of 4-and 6-post buildings laid out in rows along streets. The rampart was heightened in the third century, after which pits continued to be dug and rows of circular houses were built. About 100 B.C. rectangular buildings, possibly of a religious nature, were erected, after which the site was virtually abandoned. Social and economic matters are considered. The excavation will continue.

The Eudemian Theogony and Early Orphic Poetry

2018 ◽  
pp. 87-118
Author(s):  
Dwayne A. Meisner
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
The Third

The third chapter is about a theogony that had been known to the philosopher Eudemus (fourth century BC), and all of the other fragments that modern scholars have associated with this theogony. The Neoplatonist Damascius (fifth century AD) says that the theogony started with Night, but modern scholars have tried to link this to other early fragments of Orphic poetry. This chapter discusses Aristophanes in the first section, and Plato and Aristotle in the second section, arguing that their scattered references to Orphic poems might not have been from the same theogony. The third section introduces the Orphic Hymn(s) to Zeus that appear in different variations, the earliest of which are from around the same time as these other fragments. The fourth section suggests that early Orphic fragments about Demeter and Dionysus are not from the Eudemian theogony.

scholarly journals THE EARLY RECEPTION OF PLINY THE YOUNGER IN TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE AND EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA

2017 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Corke-Webster
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Pliny The Younger ◽  
The Third ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea ◽  
Sidonius Apollinaris

In 1967 Alan Cameron published a landmark article in this journal, ‘The fate of Pliny'sLettersin the late Empire’. Opposing the traditional thesis that the letters of Pliny the Younger were only rediscovered in the mid to late fifth century by Sidonius Apollinaris, Cameron proposed that closer attention be paid to the faint but clear traces of the letters in the third and fourth centuries. On the basis of well-observed intertextual correspondences, Cameron proposed that Pliny's letters were being read by the end of the fourth century at the latest. That article now seems the vanguard of a rise in scholarly interest in Pliny's late-antique reception. But Cameron also noted the explicit attention given to the letters by two earlier commentators—Tertullian of Carthage, in the late second to early third century, and Eusebius of Caesarea, in the early fourth. The use of Pliny in these two earliest commentators, in stark contrast to their later successors, has received almost no subsequent attention.

Christian Initiation

2018 ◽  
pp. 522-537
Author(s):  
Paul F. Bradshaw
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Stage Structure ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Christian Initiation ◽  
The Third ◽  
The City

The limited evidence for Christian initiation practices in Syria and North Africa in the third century suggests ritual patterns that differed from each other in some ways but followed the three-stage structure of rites of passage outlined by Arnold van Gennep, even if the first and third of the stages were relatively undeveloped at that time. The fourth century saw the elaboration of these together with the temporal contraction of the middle or liminal phase in the rites of Syria and Milan, as well as in the variant practice of the city of Jerusalem.

Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa: VI

1969 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian M. Fagan
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
European Contact ◽  
The Third ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Eastern And Southern Africa

The Sixth List contains many dates from Eastern and Southern Africa. An important sequence of dates from Malawi is published, indicating that the Iron Age there had begun as early as the third century A.D. The beginnings of the Zambian Early Iron Age are well established by the fourth century, while important new dates for ‘Dimple-based’ wares in Rwanda and Kenya place that pottery type within the same time span.The Palabora dates from the Transvaal indicate that the Limpopo valley was settled by Iron Age people by the eighth century, and numerous isolated samples are recorded. The five dates from Ife in Nigeria confirm that the terracotta sculpture there was being made before European contact, while numerous samples for earlier sites are published.

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