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Aegean Interactions: Delos and its Networks in the Third Century

Christy Constantakopoulou

This book addresses the history of interaction in the Aegean world during the third century BC. The main focus is the island of Delos and its important regional sanctuary. Through a thorough ... More

This book addresses the history of interaction in the Aegean world during the third century BC. The main focus is the island of Delos and its important regional sanctuary. Through a thorough investigation of the Delian epigraphic and material evidence, it explores how and to which degree the islands of the southern Aegean formed active networks of political, religious, and cultural interaction. The book aims to show that this kind of regional interaction in the southern Aegean resulted in the creation of a regional identity, which was expressed, among other things, in the existence of a federal union of the islands, the so-called Islanders’ League. It is structured along the lines of four case studies which explore different types of networks around Delos: the federal organization of islands (Islanders’ League), the participation of Delian and other agents in the processes of monumentalization of the Delian landscape, the network of honours, and the social dynamics of dedication through the record of dedicants in the Delian inventories.Less

Agathokles of Syracuse: Sicilian Tyrant and Hellenistic King

Christopher de Lisle

Agathokles of Syracuse ruled large areas of Sicily and southern Italy between 317 and 289 BC. This book argues that Agathokles was an important player in the Mediterranean world at a key moment in ... More

Agathokles of Syracuse ruled large areas of Sicily and southern Italy between 317 and 289 BC. This book argues that Agathokles was an important player in the Mediterranean world at a key moment in its history. His career has important implications for our definition of the Hellenistic world and its relationship to both the western Mediterranean and earlier Greek history. However, he has tended not to feature in studies of the Hellenistic world or of ancient Sicily. This work—the first book-length study of Agathokles in English in over a century—places him in the context of both the earlier history of Sicily and the developments in the eastern Mediterranean that mark the start of the Hellenistic era. In ancient discourse about Agathokles, in the coins he issued, in his interactions with the world around him, and in the way he ruled, Agathokles is simultaneously heir to a long tradition and actively engaged in his contemporary world. The failure to place Agathokles in both of these contexts has contributed to the development of an excessively deep separation between the western and eastern Mediterranean and between the Classical and Hellenistic periods.Less

The Alamanni and Rome 213-496: (Caracalla to Clovis)

John F. Drinkwater

The Alamanni were a Germanic people that figure prominently in the history of the later Empire. Despite their high profile, there has been surprisingly little written on them in English. This study ... More

The Alamanni were a Germanic people that figure prominently in the history of the later Empire. Despite their high profile, there has been surprisingly little written on them in English. This study aims to fill the gap. Drawing on the latest literary, historical, and archaeological research, it seeks to establish the origins of the Alamanni, the pattern and character of their settlement, the main features of their society, and the nature and significance of their relationship with Rome. It centres on the mid-4th century, recorded in detail by a variety of sources including Ammianus Marcellinus and the emperor Julian. It argues that, like the other western Germani encountered by Rome from the 1st century BC, the Alamanni were economically, socially, and politically far too weak to endanger the Empire. However, Roman rulers conjured up a ‘Germanic threat’, and exploited it for their own political ends. Rather than constantly imperilling the Empire's existence, the Alamanni became too closely linked to its fortunes. It was for this reason, in particular Roman restriction of their ability to unite under strong leaders, that unlike their long-standing neighbours the Burgundians and Franks, the Alamanni failed to establish a post-Roman successor kingdom in the 5th century.Less

The Alexandra of Lycophron: A Literary Study

Charles McNelis and Alexander Sens

The obscurity of Lycophron’s Alexandra was already notorious in antiquity and has long hampered a holistic approach to the poem. Through a series of distinct but closely integrated literary studies ... More

The obscurity of Lycophron’s Alexandra was already notorious in antiquity and has long hampered a holistic approach to the poem. Through a series of distinct but closely integrated literary studies of major aspects of the work, including its style, its engagement with the traditions of epic and tragedy, and its treatment of heroism and of the gods, the book explores the way the Alexandra reconfigures Greek mythology, particularly as presented in Homeric epic and Athenian tragedy, in order to cast the Romans and their restoration of Trojan glory as the ultimate telos of history. In this sense, the poem emerges as an important intermediary between Homeric epic and Latin poetry, particularly Vergil’s Aeneid. By rewriting specific features of the epic and tragic traditions, the Alexandra denies to Greek heroes the glory that was the traditional compensation for their suffering, while at the same time attributing to Cassandra’s Trojan family honors framed in the traditional language of Greek heroism. In this sense, the figure of Cassandra, a prophetess traditionally gifted with the power of foresight but denied credibility, self-reflexively serves as a vehicle for exploring the potentials and limitations of poetry.Less

Almsgiving in the Later Roman Empire: Christian Promotion and Practice 313-450

Richard Finn OP

The book examines the various sources, distinctive forms, privileged recipients, and likely extent of almsgiving in the churches of the later empire. Almsgiving was crucial in the construction of the ... More

The book examines the various sources, distinctive forms, privileged recipients, and likely extent of almsgiving in the churches of the later empire. Almsgiving was crucial in the construction of the bishop's authority, but was also a cooperative task involving clerics and laity in which honour was shared and which exposed the bishop to criticism. Almsgiving by monks belongs in the context of self-dispossession and attracted further alms for distribution to the destitute, but proved controversial not least because of the potential for competition with bishops. Lay people were encouraged to give, at set times and in particular places, both through the Church's agency and directly to the poor. These practices gained meaning from the promotion of almsgiving in many forms, of which preaching was the most important. It involved redescription of the poor and the incorporation of almsgiving within the virtues of generosity and justice. So cast, Christian almsgiving differed from pagan almsgiving as an honourable benefaction typical of leadership. This distinctive pattern of thought and conduct existed alongside an older classical pattern of benefaction, and the interaction between them generated controversy over the conduct of bishops and consecrated virgins. The co-inherence of co-operation and competition in Christian almsgiving, together with the continued existence of traditional euergetism, meant, however, that Christian alms did not, as is sometimes thought, turn bishops into the megapatrons of their cities.Less

Ancient Greek Ideas on Speech, Language, and Civilization

Deborah Levine Gera

The source and nature of earliest speech and civilization are puzzles which have intrigued people for many centuries. This study explores ancient Greek views on the source and nature of the world’s ... More

The source and nature of earliest speech and civilization are puzzles which have intrigued people for many centuries. This study explores ancient Greek views on the source and nature of the world’s first society and first language. Two of the book’s chapters are based on close readings of passages in Homer and Herodotus, while the remaining chapters are broader surveys of a variety of Greek literary texts. Topics covered include the nature of the language used both by men and animals in the idyllic golden age, accounts of humans' ascent to civilised life and their acquisition of language, and exotic creatures and peoples who have only limited linguistic capacities. Discussions of Enlightenment thinkers and modern theories of glottogenesis and language acquisition set Greek assumptions in a wider perspective.Less

Ancient Historiography and its Contexts: Studies in Honour of A. J. Woodman

Christina S. Kraus, John Marincola, and Christopher Pelling (eds)

This volume collects essays written by colleagues and friends as a tribute to Tony Woodman, Gildersleeve Professor of Latin at the University of Virginia. These essays, like Woodman's own work, cover ... More

This volume collects essays written by colleagues and friends as a tribute to Tony Woodman, Gildersleeve Professor of Latin at the University of Virginia. These essays, like Woodman's own work, cover topics in Latin poetry, oratory, and Greek and Roman historiography. Recurrent themes are the importance of rhetoric and rhetorical training, the skilful use of language and recurrent motifs in narrative, the use and adaptation of topoi, the importance of intertextuality, and the subtle and varied ways in which literary texts can have a contemporary resonance for their own day.Less

Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities

Jennifer Ingleheart (ed.)

This volume analyses the importance of ancient Rome in the construction of post-classical homosexual identities. The book explores the contested history of responses to Roman homosexuality, in areas ... More

This volume analyses the importance of ancient Rome in the construction of post-classical homosexual identities. The book explores the contested history of responses to Roman homosexuality, in areas including literature, the visual arts, popular culture, scholarship, and pornography. Much has been written about the contribution of ancient Greek homosexuality to modern discourses of homosexuality, but this volume argues that Rome has been largely overlooked in this respect. It explores the demonization of Rome and the attempts to write it out of the history of homosexuality by early activists such as John Addington Symonds, who believed that decadent, licentious Rome had corrupted ideal (and idealized) ‘Greek love’. The volume also interrogates the identification with Rome by men and women who have sought an alternative ancestry for their desires. It asks what it means to look to Rome instead of Greece, theorizing the way in which Rome itself appropriates Greece, and the consequences of such appropriations and identifications, ancient and modern. It argues that Rome has been central to homosexual desires and experiences, and the discourse surrounding them, from early Christian responses to the sexual incontinence of the emperors, to learned discussions of lesbian cunnilingus in Renaissance commentaries on Martial and Juvenal, to the use of Rome by the early sexologists, to modern pornographic films that linger on the bodies of gladiators and slaves. By interrogating the desires that create engagements with the classical past, this volume illuminates both classical reception and the history of sexuality.Less

Ancient Slavery and Abolition: From Hobbes to Hollywood

Richard Alston, Edith Hall, and Justine McConnell (eds)

Originating in a conference held at the British Library in 2007 to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in British colonies, this book offers a study of the role played by ancient ... More

Originating in a conference held at the British Library in 2007 to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in British colonies, this book offers a study of the role played by ancient Greek and Roman sources and voices in the struggle to abolish slavery in Britain and North America. It contains thirteen chapters by an interdisciplinary team of specialists in literature, history, political thought, postcolonial studies, drama and classics from three continents, led by the Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome at Royal Holloway University of London. Focussing on Britain, North America, the Caribbean, and South Africa from the late 17th century, the chapters, which are chronologically arranged, examine the arguments created by both critics and defenders of slavery, in media ranging from parliamentary speeches to historiography, nationalist polemic to poetry, fiction, drama, cinema, and the visual arts. In particular, they ask how, why and to what effect these often passionate as well as learned campaigners summoned the ghosts of the ancient Spartans, Homer, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Pliny, Spartacus, and Prometheus to participate in this most significant of debates.Less

Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200

Maria-Zoe Petropoulou

Next to older scholarly approaches to sacrifice, a new way of understanding the mechanism of animal sacrifice is presented in this book, based on the intersection of two axes: the one vertical ... More

Next to older scholarly approaches to sacrifice, a new way of understanding the mechanism of animal sacrifice is presented in this book, based on the intersection of two axes: the one vertical (linking humans to the deity), the other horizontal (that of reality). The horizontal axis consists of many sections, each one representing a particular realm of the offerer's reality. The book emphasizes the vigorous continuity of both Greek and Jewish animal sacrificial worship in the period studied. After presenting the sacrificial multiplicity characterizing Greek religion, the book stresses the sometimes obligatory character which the act of offering a sacrifice had in Greek communities, and so the importance of the objection to sacrifice. As regards to Judaism, the vigour of animal sacrifice in the Jerusalem Temple is stressed. Animal sacrifice was important even to the Diaspora, as an original study of Philo's sacrificial allegorisations proves. The Mishnah is used as a source for attitudes towards sacrifice before and after AD 70. The section dedicated to Christianity emphasizes the different backgrounds of early Christians (e.g., Jewish, Gentile). Evidence for anti-sacrificial attitudes is mainly attested in the 2nd-century Apologetics. However, the book finds anti-sacrificial hints in the earliest layers of Christianity. The book emphasizes on the use of sacrificial metaphors by Christians. Returning to the initial interpretive scheme, the book explains how metaphors transpose meanings from one section of the horizontal axis to the other, and thus help to dissociate sacrificial terms from animal sacrifice. Finally, attempting at answering the question of why Christians abolished animal sacrifice, the book traces the existence of an anti-sacrificial stream of thought emanating from the contact with Jesus.Less

Anna Komnene: The Life and Work of a Medieval Historian

Leonora Neville

The authorial persona constructed by Anna Komnene in her Alexiad (a history of her father the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios Komnenos, 1081–1118) responded to the challenges Byzantine culture created for ... More

The authorial persona constructed by Anna Komnene in her Alexiad (a history of her father the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios Komnenos, 1081–1118) responded to the challenges Byzantine culture created for female historical authorship. Fundamental cultural conceptions of masculinity, femininity, authority, deference, and morality within Byzantine society worked to make history writing an activity for men. Once the masculinity of history writing is understood, we can see how Anna endeavored to construct herself as both an authoritative historian and a meritorious woman. The first half of this book offers explanations of how various aspects of Anna’s self-presentation in the Alexiad work to convince her audience that she was capable of writing a reliable history, even though she was a woman, and that she was a morally virtuous woman, even though she wrote a history. These new interpretations of Anna’s authorial persona then spark a thorough re-thinking of the standard narrative that defines Anna’s life by the failure of her supposed political ambitions. The second half of this work reviews the medieval sources pertaining to the succession of John II Komnenos with fresh eyes and questions the foundations of the story that Anna disputed her brother’s rule. The story of Anna’s bloodthirsty ambition owed its creation less to medieval evidence than to eighteenth and nineteenth century scholars who did not perceive her efforts to appear modest and feminine in the Alexiad, but still considered female historical authorship to be problematic.Less

The Antiquity of the Italian Nation: The Cultural Origins of a Political Myth in Modern Italy, 1796-1943

Antonino De Francesco

At the beginning of the 19th century, with Italy under Napoleon, the antiquarian topic of anti-Romanism was turned against the dominant French culture and became a pillar of the nation-building ... More

At the beginning of the 19th century, with Italy under Napoleon, the antiquarian topic of anti-Romanism was turned against the dominant French culture and became a pillar of the nation-building process. The antiquity of the Italian nation—prior to the Roman dominion—was evoked in order to support an inveterate Italian cultural primacy and proved very useful for creating Italian nationalism. However, this topic is completely forgotten today because, at the end of the 19th century, Italian studies of Roman history, following the example of Mommsen, would drape a long veil over the period of earliest Italy, while, subsequently, Fascism openly claimed the legacy of the Roman Empire. Italic antiquity would, however, remain alive throughout those years and it often returned as a theme, intersecting deeply with the political and cultural life of modern Italy. This book examines the constantly reasserted antiquity of the Italian nation and its different uses in history, archaeology, palaeoethnology, and anthropology, from the Napoleonic period to the collapse of Fascism. Examining the fortunes and misfortunes of this subject, it challenges the view of 19th-century Italian nationalism as an ethnical movement, suggesting how deeply the image of pre-Roman Italy forged the political and cultural sensibility of modern Italy.Less

Approaching the Roman Revolution: Papers on Republican History

Ronald Syme

Federico Santangelo (ed.)

A collection of twenty-six previously unpublished papers on Roman Republican history by the late Sir Ronald Syme. Titles: The Divorce of Aemilius Paullus; The Predominance of the Fulvii; The Politics ... More

A collection of twenty-six previously unpublished papers on Roman Republican history by the late Sir Ronald Syme. Titles: The Divorce of Aemilius Paullus; The Predominance of the Fulvii; The Politics of the Marcii; The Abdication of Sulla; The Speech for Roscius of America; M. Aemilius Lepidus (cos. 78 BC); Satellites of Sulla; The Unspeakable Fufidius; Rex Leptasta; Sallust and Bestia; Rome and Arpinum; The Consular Elections, 70–66 BC; Catilina’s Three Marriages; Crassus, Catilina, and the Vestal Virgins; Sallust on Crassus; Sallust’s List of Conspirators; P. Sulla (cos. cand. 66 BC); The Gay Sempronia; The End of the Fulvii; Caesar as Pontifex Maximus; Cicero’s Change of Plan; Nicolaus of Damascus XXVIII and XXXI Virgil’s First Patron; Caesar and Augustus in Virgil; How Many Fasces?; Rome and Umbria.Less

The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia: From the End of Late Antiquity until the Coming of the Turks

Philipp Niewohner (ed.)

Anatolia was the only major part of the Roman Empire that did not fall in late antiquity, but remained continuously under Roman rule through the eleventh century. Anatolia can, therefore, show the ... More

Anatolia was the only major part of the Roman Empire that did not fall in late antiquity, but remained continuously under Roman rule through the eleventh century. Anatolia can, therefore, show the difference Roman administration continued to make, once pan-Mediterranean rule had collapsed. Urban decline did not set in before the fifth century, after Anatolia had already been thoroughly Christianized in the course of the fourth century. The urban decline, when it occurred from the fifth century onwards, was paired with rural prosperity, an increase in the number, size, and quality of rural settlements and in rural population. The ruralization was interrupted during the seventh to ninth centuries, when Anatolia was invaded first by the Persians and then by the Arabs and the population appears to have sought shelter behind new urban fortifications and in large cathedrals. Once the Arab threat was over in the ninth century, ruralization set in again and most cities seem to have been abandoned or reduced to villages during the ensuing peacetime, while the countryside experienced renewed prosperity and a resurgence of small rural church buildings. This trend was reversed once more, when the Seljuk Turks appeared on the scene in the eleventh century, devastated the countryside, and led to a revival and refortification of the former cities.Less

Architectural Restoration and Heritage in Imperial Rome

Christopher Siwicki

This book addresses the treatment and perception of historic buildings in imperial Rome, examining the ways in which public monuments were restored in order to develop an understanding of the Roman ... More

This book addresses the treatment and perception of historic buildings in imperial Rome, examining the ways in which public monuments were restored in order to develop an understanding of the Roman concept of built heritage. The study considers examples from the first century BC to second century AD, focusing primarily on the six decades between the Great Fire of AD 64 and the AD 120s, a period of dramatic urban transformation and architectural innovation in Rome. Through analysing how the design, materiality, and appearance of buildings, including the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and hut of Romulus, developed with successive restorations, the case is made for the existence of a consistent approach to the treatment of historic buildings in this period. With the purpose of uncovering attitudes to built heritage in Roman society more widely, the book also explores how changes to particular monuments and the urban fabric as a whole was received by the people who experienced it first-hand. By examining descriptions of destruction and restoration in literature of the first and second centuries AD, including the works of Seneca the Younger, Pliny the Elder, Martial, Tacitus, and Plutarch, a picture is formed of the conflicting ways in which Rome’s inhabitants responded to the redevelopment of their city. The results provide an alternative way of explaining key interventions in Rome’s built environment and challenge ideas that heritage is a purely modern phenomenon.Less

Arminius the Liberator: Myth and Ideology

Martin M. Winkler

This book deals with the mythical and ideological afterlife of the historical facts concerning Arminius the Cheruscan, commonly called Hermann in German. Arminius inflicted one of their most ... More

This book deals with the mythical and ideological afterlife of the historical facts concerning Arminius the Cheruscan, commonly called Hermann in German. Arminius inflicted one of their most devastating defeats on the Romans in the year 9 AD, when he destroyed three legions under the command of Quinctilius Varus in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, as it is called generally but inaccurately. The book traces the origin and development of the Arminius myth in antiquity and in nationalist and patriotic appropriations of Arminius-Hermann, primarily but not exclusively in Germany, since the nineteenth century. The book’s central theme is the variety of ideological uses and political abuses of history and historical myth: Weimar-era nationalism, National Socialism, and the different reactions to the ideological taint of the Arminius-Hermann legend after 1945. The book also examines the chief appearances of Arminius in literature, art, and visual media from the nineteenth century until today. Special emphasis is on the representation of Arminius in the era of mass media in Europe and in the United States: painting, theater, and, most extensively, cinema, television, and computer videos.Less

The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law

Edwin Carawan

The civil war at Athens came to a precarious conclusion in 403 bc with an agreement brokered by the Spartans. Thereafter the Athenians rebuilt their democracy and lived at peace with themselves for ... More

The civil war at Athens came to a precarious conclusion in 403 bc with an agreement brokered by the Spartans. Thereafter the Athenians rebuilt their democracy and lived at peace with themselves for generations. This Athenian Amnesty is generally regarded as the model of political forgiveness or ‘pardon and oblivion’ embraced in later conflict resolution. This book presents a new interpretation of the Athenian Amnesty in its original setting and in view of the subsequent reconstruction of laws and democratic institutions. The book draws upon ancient historians and speechwriters together with the surviving inscriptions. The chapters begin with the evidence on the original agreement, the events that shaped it, and the ancient parallels that help us to understand it. The later chapters then proceed with a case history of the major trials that challenged and reinterpreted key elements of that amnesty agreement, including the trial of Socrates. These studies reveal the Athenian Amnesty as a contractual settlement between the warring parties, a bargain for peace and reconciliation. The oath ‘not to recall wrong’ was the closing to that contract, a pledge not to go back on the covenants that spelled out remedies and restrictions—not a promise to forgive and forget. The same contractual principle inspired major reforms of the restored democracy, barring litigation on settled claims and ensuring that new legislation not conflict with the constitutional framework that the Amnesty embraced.Less

Athenian Democratic Origins: and Other Essays

Geoffrey de Ste. Croix

David Harvey and Robert Parker (eds)

This book presents a number of interconnected essays, in which the late Geoffrey de Ste. Croix defends the institutions of the Athenian democracy, showing that they were much more practical, ... More

This book presents a number of interconnected essays, in which the late Geoffrey de Ste. Croix defends the institutions of the Athenian democracy, showing that they were much more practical, rational, and impartial than has usually been acknowledged. One major essay provides a new view of Aristotle's use of sources in The Constitution of the Athenians, on which so much of our knowledge of Athenian constitutional history depends. The essays also argue that commercial factors had much less influence on Greek politics than modern scholars tend to assume, and that there was no such thing in any Greek state as a ‘commercial aristocracy’. As always, Ste. Croix works out these general positions with lucidity and pungency, and in meticulous detail. Though written in the 1960s, these hitherto unpublished essays by a great radical historian will still constitute a major contribution to contemporary debate.Less

Athens and the Cyclades: Economic Strategies 540-314 BC

Brian Rutishauser

This book examines the history and economy of the region of the Cyclades during the late sixth through late fourth centuries bc. Although certain aspects of geography in the Cyclades remained ... More

This book examines the history and economy of the region of the Cyclades during the late sixth through late fourth centuries bc. Although certain aspects of geography in the Cyclades remained constant through ancient Greek history, islanders were able to adapt to changing conditions and to changing hegemony imposed from outside the region, in order to increase their levels of economic prosperity. By the end of the Archaic period, many of these islands had constructed their own naval forces and monumental architecture, and also minted their own coins. Athens established a naval hegemony over the region during the fifth century, which eventually put an end to independent navies and coinage and set the tone for conditions in the Cyclades until the end of the Classical period. Until the Peloponnesian War the Athenians maintained stability but redirected a portion of the wealth generated from the export of local island products and from commerce to Athens, through the exaction of tribute and other forms of taxation. The end of the Peloponnesian War saw a period of shifting hegemonies during the early fourth century, the most influential being the Second Athenian League. After this second period of Athenian hegemony came to an end, the Cyclades renewed local monumental construction and the issue of local coinage during the second half of the fourth century. This took place at a time when Athens became more dependent upon grain, including grain shipped on routes through the Cyclades, and when the Athenians took steps to promote commerce. The Cyclades prospered during this period due to their mutual economic interests with Athens.Less