Rolf Strootman brings together various aspects of court culture in the Macedonian empires of the post-Achaemenid Near East. During the Hellenistic Period (c. 330-30 BCE), Alexander the Great and his ...successors reshaped their Persian and Greco-Macedonian legacies to create a new kind of rulership that was neither 'western' nor 'eastern' and would profoundly influence the later development of court culture and monarchy in both the Roman West and Iranian East. Drawing on the socio-political models of Norbert Elias and Charles Tilly, After the Achaemenids shows how the Hellenistic dynastic courts were instrumental in the integration of local elites in the empires, and the (re)distribution of power, wealth, and status. It analyses the competition among courtiers for royal favour and the, not always successful, attempts of the Hellenistic rulers to use these struggles to their own advantage.
James Joyce’s Ulysses presents new humanism and portrays a new image of Christ. Thereby, it deconstructs early 20th century Dublin, a city based on the two pillars of Western culture, Hellenism and ...Hebraism. The lotus flower paralyzes the minds of those who eat by triggering in the urge to indulge in pleasure. Joyce displays discrete forms of paralysis encountered on Dublin streets through Bloom’s eyes, including horse racing, the Irish penchant for religion, and colonial remnants that Dubliners fail to recognize. The male protagonist Bloom’s exchange of love letters with Martha Clifford is also merely lotus eating: he tries to satisfy his desires through language. Joyce also associates the image of a man floating in the sea reading a book with the properties of lotus eating, manifesting the lure of language inscribed in books as an effect of ingesting the lotus flower. Above all, the Catholic religion represents the most evident lotus in this chapter: Bloom secularizes the Eucharist during the Mass, elucidating that the body of a living man is a better means of salvation than eating a ‘dead body.’ Ulysses focuses primarily on the sexual vitality of women: however, the chapter “Lotus Eaters” attends to the reproductive abilities of men. Bloom’s immersion in the water in the final scene of the chapter amounts to the declaration that he is purifying the church as a new Christ of life. Christ in the symbolic world is replaced by Christ in the real world by connecting Christ, the Word, with the sexually inactive love letter (word), then shifting to the author’s work (book), and finally moving to Bloom’s body.
The idea of Greek influences on Hellenistic Judaism appears to be so deeply engrained within modern scholarship that nothing could upset this apple cart, at least as reflected in two recent books on ...various aspects of magic, astronomy, and medicine in Jewish sources from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The usual frame of reference relies upon paradigms clearly outlined by Saul Lieberman and Martin Hengel, that Greek culture and science had penetrated Jewish thinking to such an extent, that even Hebrew and Aramaic texts from Qumran or the Mishnah were eventually integrated into an undefined Hellenistic-Greek Jewish episteme. The present review article advocates an alternative Near Eastern context for Jewish writings in the period, one that did not reflect Hellenism in any form.
The influence of Plato’s concept of the soul as innately immortal and indestructible had a profoundly unbiblical influence upon many of the early church fathers’ views regarding human nature, the ...final judgment of the wicked, and God’s gift of immortality to believers. I will argue my thesis by initially defining the nature of the soul according to the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, with an emphasis on its mortality. I will primarily utilize Scripture itself, although secondary sources—such as commentaries on the Hebrew and Greek versions—are essential due to interpretational differences. This will help to demonstrate how the Biblical view differs significantly from the Platonic view. Likewise, I will explore the Platonic view of the nature of the soul through the use of various primary and secondary sources. Additionally, I will use the writings of many early church fathers to highlight various instances in which the early church adopted the Platonic view of the soul and applied it to areas of their theology. Lastly, I will use both primary and secondary sources to make the case that the adoption of Platonic doctrine on the immortal soul has had an ‘unbiblical’ influence on how many Christians have viewed human nature, which alters the views of the final judgment of the wicked as well as the concept of God’s gift of immortality to believers in Christ. Ultimately, I will argue that this issue is important because it affects how we see the character of God and is, therefore, related to how we worship him.
I propose to reverse the prevailing understanding of the novel's concluding episode, "Penelope," as affirming and optimistic, and instead situate it as the wellspring of Modernist nostalgia. This ...darker reading of Molly Bloom's nostalgic reverie depends, as we will see, upon Molly's resonant psychological ties to her mythological antecedent: Homer's Penelope. Despite Molly's manipulative, contradictory, and at times self-deceptive consciousness, scholars still tend to read her famous final utterance as one of firm affirmation. Taking into consideration her semblance to Homer's Penelope, Molly's final "Yes" is likely less sanguine than previously considered. And even my own "reading" may confine her role too narrowly. Nevertheless, we should establish this countersign as a means of exploring the consequences of her nostalgic reverie.
The history of the Hellenistic kingdoms remains the subject of many scientific discussions. The question of the peculiarities of the Macedonian monarchy has been widely discussed again in recent ...years. To solve this problem, they study certain aspects of the political, social and cultural life of the state, which confirms the relevance of the chosen topic. The purpose of this study is to identify the role of the royal wedding ceremony in the politics of the Macedonian rulers. The research is based on narrative and epigraphic sources. The main methods are analysis and synthesis, as well as comparative-historical. The celebration of the royal wedding is designed to demonstrate the power of the dynasty and seal the political union of the two states. However, with regard to Hellenistic Macedonia, these statements should be considered in the context of the reign of Philip II. Although narrative sources have preserved little information, but their comparison allows us to assert that the beginning of such luxurious events was laid by Philip II. At the same time, his own weddings, apparently, were limited to a feast and did not serve as a guarantor of peace and the union of the two states. The changes took place at the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra. Probably, the changes are connected with the new status of the king himself, who became the head of the Corinthian League. Since that time, the marriage ceremonies of the Hellenistic kings have been held on the same scale. Conclusions. In fact, Philip has established a new tradition. Marriage was not a guarantee of non-aggression of new relatives against each other. The pomp of the ceremony, on the one hand, was a demonstration of the power and authority of the dynasty, and on the other hand, it was used to promote a particular political idea.
Absract. Nowadays ball games are the most popular types of sport in the world including Russia. This fact contrasts sharply with the almost total absence of research in the field of ancient Greek ...ball games in Russian historical science. The aim of this article is to fill that gap at least on a small scale. The history of Greek ball games in the Hellenistic period is especially interesting because of the rise of their significance at that time. Τhe method of historicism and the comparative method are applied in this article. The most important sources for our article are the fragments of Athenaios’ Deipnosophistai (I, 26, 34) related to playing ball in Hellenistic times. We reconsidered the fragment by Damoxenus, the 3rd century BC writer of comedies, quoted by Athenaeus and usually interpreted as devoted to homosexual feelings. In our view it rather reflects a rapture of Athenian fans over a ball-player’s skill. However, the dramatist hyperbolizes this rapture in order to make it more comical. We correlate this fragment of Damoxenus with Athenaeus’ mention of significant honors (including granting of citizenship) given by Athenes to Aristonicus, Alexander the Great’s coach in ball games. Those honors are also reflected in the extant Athenian decree honoring Aristonicus. The talented ball-players became popular in the Hellenistic period possibly because at that time popularity was won by the idea that playing ball is useful for the military training. However conservators, continuing to regard ball games as mere entertainment (as it had been typical in the Classical period) could probably still exist, and Damoxenus’ mockery at the rapture over talent in ball game may reflect their views.
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