Comparing and contrasting speeches attributed to barbarian leaders by ancient Roman historians, this book offers a systematic examination of the ways in which those historians valorized foreigners ...and presented criticisms of their own society.
Images of episodes from Greek mythology are widespread in Roman art, appearing in sculptural groups, mosaics, paintings and reliefs. They attest to Rome's enduring fascination with Greek culture, and ...its desire to absorb and reframe that culture for new ends. This book provides a comprehensive account of the meanings of Greek myth across the spectrum of Roman art, including public, domestic and funerary contexts. It argues that myths, in addition to functioning as signifiers of a patron's education or paideia, played an important role as rhetorical and didactic exempla. The changing use of mythological imagery in domestic and funerary art in particular reveals an important shift in Roman values and senses of identity across the period of the first two centuries AD, and in the ways that Greek culture was turned to serve Roman values.
The subject of this study is a relatively rare category of artefacts, bronze and terracotta statuettes that represent deities, human figures and animals. They were introduced in the northwestern ...provinces by Roman troops from the end of the first century BCE onwards. The statuettes have been recovered from military and non-military settlements, the surrounding landscape and, to a far lesser extent, from sanctuaries and graves. Until now, their meaning and function have seldom been analysed in relation to their find-spots. Contrary to traditional studies, they have been examined as one separate category of artefacts, which offers new insights into the distribution pattern and iconographic representation of deities. When studying a group of artefacts, a large research area or a large dataset is required, as well as dateable artefacts and find-contexts. These conditions do not apply to the Netherlands and to the majority of statuettes that are central to this study. Moreover, although the changing appearance of statuettes suggest a transformation of cults, the identities of the owners of these statuettes remain invisible to us. Therefore, the issue of Romanization is not put central here. Instead, the focus is on a specific aspect of religion, known as lived religion, within the wider subject of its transformation in the Roman period: how people used statuettes in everyday life, in the context of their houses and settlements.
Over the past few decades, there has been a significant amount of research on the Roman Lower Danube frontier by international teams focusing on individual forts or broader landscape survey work; ...collectively, this volume represents the best of this collaboration with the aim of elevating the Lower Danube within broader Roman frontier scholarship.
The Lower Danube, running between Singidunum (modern Belgrade) and Halmyris in the Danube Delta, was one of the most densely fortified regions of the Roman Empire. The region has long been a border zone, today forming part of the border between Serbia and Romania, and the majority of the border between Romania and Bulgaria. Despite its importance for understanding both Roman frontier policy and the relationship between ancient and modern borderscapes, the region has not yet made its full contribution to international Roman scholarship. Bridging the theoretical divide that exists between different regional research traditions, chapters in this volume focus on sites like Ratiaria, in modern north-western Bulgaria, while other contributors examine the complex landscape from a wider perspective oriented around roads, temporary camps, or early Christian sites. The Roman Lower Danube Frontier emphasises the importance of engaging with Roman frontier landscapes, particularly in regions such as East-Central Europe, where they remain part of a contemporary borderscape.
As the first Christian emperor of Rome, Constantine the Great has long interested those studying the establishment of Christianity. But Constantine is also notable for his ability to control a ...sprawling empire and effect major changes.The Justice of Constantineexamines Constantine's judicial and administrative legislation and his efforts to maintain control over the imperial bureaucracy, to guarantee the working of Roman justice, and to keep the will of his subjects throughout the Roman Empire.
John Dillon first analyzes the record of Constantine's legislation and its relationship to prior legislation. His initial chapters also serve as an introduction to Roman law and administration in later antiquity. Dillon then considers Constantine's public edicts and internal communications about access to law, trials and procedure, corruption, and punishment for administrative abuses. How imperial officials relied on correspondence with Constantine to resolve legal questions is also considered. A study of Constantine's expedited appellate system, to ensure provincial justice, concludes the book.
Constantine's constitutions reveal much about the Theodosian Code and the laws included in it. Constantine consistently seeks direct sources of reliable information in order to enforce his will. In official correspondence, meanwhile, Constantine strives to maintain control over his officials through punishment; trusted agents; and the cultivation of accountability, rivalry, and suspicion among them.
Augustin Bea war nicht nur das ökumenische Gesicht des Zweiten Vatikanums, sondern eine der prägenden Gestalten der katholischen Bibelwissenschaft seiner Zeit. Das wissenschaftliche und ...kirchenpolitische Handeln des deutschen Jesuiten ermöglicht Einblicke in die wechselvolle Geschichte römischer Bibelexegese im Schatten des Vatikans. Beas Ringen mit Tradition und Moderne bestimmte den kirchlichen Kurs: Wie begegnete der Alttestamentler historischer und naturwissenschaftlicher Kritik an der Bibel? Welche Rolle spielte er bei der kirchlichen Buchzensur? Ermöglichte ihm seine Tätigkeit Kontakte über den katholischen Binnenraum hinaus? Und was verleitete Pius XII. dazu, mitten im Krieg die Bibelenzyklika „Divino afflante Spiritu“ zu veröffentlichen? Diesen Fragen geht Michael Pfister auf der Grundlage bisher unbekannter Dokumente nach und wirft ein neues Licht auf den späteren „Kardinal der Einheit“.
Almost fifteen per cent of the world's population today experiences some form of mental or physical disability and society tries to accommodate their needs. But what was the situation in the Roman ...world? Was there a concept of disability? How were the disabled treated? How did they manage in their daily lives? What answers did medical doctors, philosophers and patristic writers give for their problems? This book, the first monograph on the subject in English, explores the medical and material contexts for disability in the ancient world, and discusses the chances of survival for those who were born with a handicap. It covers the various sorts of disability: mental problems, blindness, deafness and deaf-muteness, speech impairment and mobility impairment, and includes discussions of famous instances of disability from the ancient world, such as the madness of Emperor Caligula, the stuttering of Emperor Claudius and the blindness of Homer.
Roman law as a field of study is rapidly evolving to reflect new perspectives and approaches in research. Scholars who work on the subject are increasingly being asked to conduct research in an ...interdisciplinary manner whereby Roman law is not merely seen as a set of abstract concepts devoid of any background, but as a body of law which operated in a specific social, economic and cultural context. This "context-based" approach to the study of Roman law is an exciting new field which legal historians must address. Since the mid-1960s, a new academic movement has advocated a "law and society" approach to the study of Roman law instead of the prevailing dogmatic methodology employed in many Faculties of law.
The one vs. the many Woloch, Alex; Woloch, Alex
2003., 20090209, 2009, 2003, c2003.
eBook
Does a novel focus on one life or many? Alex Woloch uses this simple question to develop a powerful new theory of the realist novel, based on how narratives distribute limited attention among a ...crowded field of characters. His argument has important implications for both literary studies and narrative theory. Characterization has long been a troubled and neglected problem within literary theory. Through close readings of such novels as Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, and Le Pre Goriot, Woloch demonstrates that the representation of any character takes place within a shifting field of narrative attention and obscurity. Each individual--whether the central figure or a radically subordinated one--emerges as a character only through his or her distinct and contingent space within the narrative as a whole. The "character-space," as Woloch defines it, marks the dramatic interaction between an implied person and his or her delimited position within a narrative structure. The organization of, and clashes between, many character-spaces within a single narrative totality is essential to the novel’s very achievement and concerns, striking at issues central to narrative poetics, the aesthetics of realism, and the dynamics of literary representation.
