Décor as a form of social belonging in Ancient Rome

The purpose of the article consists of exploring the category of décor as a form of social belonging in ancient Rome. The methodology consists in the application of analytical method – to determine the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study of the décor in the works of Roman architects and philosophers: Vitruvius, Cicero, Seneca, Epicurus; formalization method – to clarify the concept of "décor" within the subject field of art history; the hermeneutic method – for interpreting the semantic load of the notion "décor" in the context of the culture of Ancient Rome; method of comparative studies – for analyzing approaches to understanding the category of décor as a form of social belonging in Ancient Rome. The scientific novelty of the work is that for the first time the essence of the décor as a form of social belonging in Ancient Rome. Conclusions. In Ancient Rome, the phenomenon of "Entertainment" was an important component of the socio-cultural life of this period, there was not a single sphere where this phenomenon did not act as the main decoration, the triumphs of emperors, the luxurious life of the patricians, all this was expressed in one definition of Juvenal – "Bread and circuses", Which became a defining marker in the culture and art of Ancient Rome. Décor, as an integral part of this phenomenon, becomes a form of social belonging, reflecting the characteristics of the corresponding lifestyle. The transformation of the concepts "décor" and "ornare" is considered, the first - in the ideological aspect of respect for the imperial power, the second - in the traditional decoration of Roman armor for legionnaires, as a means of emphasizing their belonging to the military. The most striking example of décor was the Arc de Triomphe, built in honor of the emperors (the Arc de Triomphe of Titus, Trajan, Constantine, etc.). On the example of the works of Vitruvius, Cicero, Seneca, the meaning of the category "décor" was considered as "Decor ornamentorum", the correspondence of details in relation to the whole, individual, special beauty that organically combines the combination of individual parts of an object into a single whole, situation or setting. Defined "décor" as a form of social belonging in the context of the transformation of the four Pompeian styles based on the decoration of insula and domus for different segments of the population (Domus aurea, "Villa of the Mysteries" in Pompeii, the house of Marcus Lucretius Frontinus in Pompeii, the villa in Oplontisi, the house of Menander in Pompeii, "House with Red Walls", "House of the Century" and "House of Julius Polybius"). Keywords: décor, interpretation, a culture of Ancient Rome, Vitruvius, Entertainment, Seneca, mosaic.

Ofiara zwierzęca w obrzędowości starożytnych Rzymian: rekonstrukcja rytuału ofiarnego w świetle antycznych świadectw literackich

Religious ceremonies in ancient Rome, foundational for its cult, made manifest the communal piety by the means of sacrificial rites. Adopting a formalist religious approach, the Romans carefully regulated the sacrificial process (sacrificium). Partially preserved literary sources in theory allow one to reconstruct the sequence of acts comprising a Roman sacrificial rite, with the following article employing said sources to propose a template for a Roman animal sacrifice ritual.

Exploring New Ways to Reconstruct the Forma Urbis Romae: An Archaeometric Approach (CL Color and Stable Isotope Analyses)

The Forma Urbis Romae (F.U.) was a 3rd-century-AD monumental map of ancient Rome consisting of 151 rectangular marble slabs. Several efforts have been made to reconstruct it from its current incomplete and fragmentary condition. In this paper, we explore the potential of an archaeometric approach to serve this purpose. Almost a hundred F.U. fragments have been characterized, particularly focusing on cathodoluminescence (CL) microscopy and stable isotopes (δ18O and δ13C). Different statistical methods have been used to quantify the similarity between samples. The central assumption is that samples from a given slab share similar CL colors and isotopic ratios. The assumption has been verified for samples from single fragments and then it has been used to check ten debated reconstruction hypotheses. The measured isotopic ratios confirm the Proconnesian nature of the F.U. marble, except for a fragment. Beyond provenance, the results cast doubts on four out of the ten checked reconstruction hypotheses and support the other six. The reconstruction of the F.U. remains a fascinating challenge, and both isotopic and CL analyses have demonstrated their potential to tackle it. Further research could extend the presented methodology to a higher number of samples. The innovative use of CL to reconstruct a fragmented artwork could be applied to other projects.

The original sources of the idea of human rights and freedoms: from Ancient times to the Renaissance.

The article describes that the idea of human rights has ancient roots and is intertwined with the pre-modern doctrines of natural law of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. It is argued that in the context of the historical formation of the ideas of legal regulation of social relations, human rights and freedoms, there are certain connection, logic of succession and the moment of development. The main concepts of the theory of human rights and freedoms are revealed: human, state, right, law. Keywords: human rights, freedom, justice, society, state.

The Formation of the Legal Facts Theory in the Context of the Development of Legal Science

This article reveals misconceptions in the study of the theory of legal facts in Roman law studies . The use of an institutional approach in Roman law studies led to the conclusion that there are no elements of the legal facts theory in Roman jurisprudence. Using a historical and theoretical approach, the author concluded that there was a developed system of legal facts in Ancient Rome and a system of logical and stable concepts of the legal facts theory formed at the level of the concept, which was accepted and developed by the subsequent legal science.

LEGAL CULTURE AND LEGISLATION ON EUTHANASIA: A NEW LEVEL OF LEGAL REGULATION OR THE COLLAPSE OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM?

Euthanasia is a voluntary withdrawal from the life of a person suffering from an incurable disease or having a disease that causes him physical and mental suffering. This practice has been used since the period of antiquity, when in Ancient Rome and Sparta, the elderly and the disabled were thrown from the mountains. The need for such a policy was explained by the inability of the state to support weak members in the conditions of regular military campaigns. A similar position was supported by the Nazis of nazi Germany, who created gas chambers as an analogue of "easy death" for disabled citizens, which included people with mental disorders; people suffering from epilepsy; disabled people with any health abnormalities; patients who had been treated for more than 5 years. In addition to persons with various pathologies, representatives of Gypsy, Jewish, and Polish nationalities were included in the same group. It becomes obvious that in such a context, euthanasia is perceived as a clear abuse of the state to dispose of the lives of its citizens. In modern foreign countries and the Russian Federation, this procedure seems to be a way to satisfy the desire of a person suffering from an incurable or severe disease of both a somatic and mental nature, in a dignified and rapid termination of his existence. To what extent such a desire to classify oneself as deceased is voluntary and conscious and whether it fits into modern legal norms is considered in the presented publication, which at the same time offers more constructive ways to help individuals in need.

THE PHENOMENON OF THE "GREEK RENAISSANCE" IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF IMPERIAL ROME

The article analyzes the phenomenon of borrowing forms of Greek architecture in the architecture of Ancient Rome of Emperor Hadrian's era (II century AD). This phenomenon is interpreted as the first representation of historicism in architecture – the use of elements of the former culture in actual project creativity to convey certain ideas and meanings. The article shows that the "Greek Renaissance" in the architecture of imperial Rome was an organic component of the general process of hellenophilism, characteristic of the general cultural development of that time.

The Symbolism of Green Colour in Neolithic of Serbia

The focus of this text is twofold. The first task is to reconsider the mode of interpretation of various small (4 to 10 cm) objects (axes, chisels, finger-rings, pendants), made of green minerals – jadeite and/or nephrite. These objects are registered on 15 sites in the territory of present-day Serbia, dated into the Neolithic period (6200/6000–4600/4500 cal BC). The second task is to lay out a short history of the green colour. As stated by Michel Pastoureau (Pasturo 2015), the production of a green pigment was almost impossible in the past, especially in praehistory. The first recorded attempts are linked to Ancient Egypt, and the oldest successful production of the green pigment is dated to Ancient Rome. Therefore, the text examines the symbolic role of these small green objects during the Neolithic. The beds of green minerals jadeite and nephrite are not recorded in the territory of Serbia. Jadeite may be found south of Skopje (Mt. Solunska glava), in the Cyclades in Greece, as well as in the Piedmont Alps. Nephrite is registered in the mountain Ogražden (SW Bulgaria), in Poland, Sweden, and Italy. The absence of mineral layers in the region surely suggests the existence of long-distance exchange. This raises the issue of the role and symbolic function of these objects – what was their appeal for the past communities and what was the role of their colour in their manufacture? In archaeology, the studies in symbolics of various colours are rare. Authors have mainly focused upon the origin of the colour and the dating of the objects, but the role of the colour itself as the criterion in choosing various raw materials has largely been neglected. Notable is the exception of the thematic collection “Colouring the Past: The Significance of Colour in Archaeological Research” (2002), where attempts have been made to explain the symbolic importance of various colours in the past. However, the colour green is not mentioned. This paper does not aim to offer final solutions, but to investigate the usage and importance of the colour green on the grounds of the usage of the objects themselves.