Honorific Culture at Delphi in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods

Honorific Culture at Delphi in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods
Author: Dominika Grzesik
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2021-12-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004502491

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This book brings Hellenistic and Roman Delphi to life. By addressing a broad spectrum of epigraphic topics, theoretical and methodological approaches, it provides readers with a first comprehensive discussion of the Delphic gift-giving system, its regional interactions, and its honorific network

Epigraphic Culture in the Eastern Mediterranean in Antiquity

Epigraphic Culture in the Eastern Mediterranean in Antiquity
Author: Krzysztof Nawotka
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2020-09-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000164861

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This book investigates the epigraphic habit of the Eastern Mediterranean in antiquity, from the inception of alphabetic writing to the seventh c. CE, aiming to identify whether there was one universal epigraphic culture in this area or a number of discrete epigraphic cultures. Chapters examine epigraphic culture(s) through quantitative analysis of 32,062 inscriptions sampled from ten areas in the Eastern Mediterranean, from the Black Sea coast to Greece, western to central Asia Minor, Phoenicia to Egypt. They show that the shapes of the epigraphic curves are due to different factors occurring in different geographical areas and in various epochs, including the pre-Greek epigraphic habit, the moment of urbanization and Hellenization, and the organized Roman presence. Two epigraphic maxima are identified in the Eastern Mediterranean: in the third c. BCE and in the second c. CE. This book differs from previous studies of ancient epigraphic culture by taking into account all categories of inscriptions, not just epitaphs, and in investigating a much broader area over the broadly defined classical antiquity. This volume is a valuable resource for anyone working on ancient epigraphy, history or the cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Religious Life in Late Classical and Hellenistic Rhodes

Religious Life in Late Classical and Hellenistic Rhodes
Author: Juliane Zachhuber
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2024-07-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0198897448

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The ancient state of Rhodes was famous for many things in the Hellenistic period; it emerged as an economic powerhouse thanks to its strategic position on maritime trade routes, its status further bolstered by its proud independence in an era of great kings, and its cultural successes and heritage celebrated by contemporaries as well as later writers. But what did this state look like on the inside, and what social and religious forces contributed to its success? This book explores the origins of the Rhodian state in the late fifth century BC, a union born out of three separate city-states, Lindos, Cameiros, and Ialysos. By digging deep into the abundant epigraphic culture that survives, narratives emerge that tell the stories of these Rhodians and their communities. Despite the political unification and the foundation of a famed and successful capital city, Rhodes-town, the three old centres continued to exhibit distinctive and seemingly lively local religious cultures. What these looked like, and the question of whether they indicate cultic vitality rather than ossification, is considered in detail by examining the local pantheons and the religious dynamics and interactions that characterised and shaped them. Pulling together the diverse threads and local customs, a diachronic religious history of Rhodes is sketched. The role religion played in the social landscape of Hellenistic Rhodes is addressed through a thorough examination of priesthoods. Finally, providing a counterbalance to the institutional side of religion, the lived experience of Rhodian religious associations is depicted. The resulting picture offers a nuanced insight into the religious life and history of a Hellenistic city-state.

Athenian Ostracism and Its Original Purpose

Athenian Ostracism and Its Original Purpose
Author: Marek Węcowski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2023-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 019884820X

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Ostracism is by far the most emblematic institution of ancient Athenian democracy. This volume offers a reassessment of recently found ostraka (or potsherds, on which the names of the 'candidates' for exile were inscribed by citizens) from several Greek cities outside Athens, a thorough reconstruction of the history and of the procedure of ostracism in Athens, and a comprehensive account of the political circumstances of the introduction of the law on ostracism by Cleisthenes in 508/507 BCE. Marek Węcowski's original study focuses not only on the final stage, the day of the vote, but on the entire operation and procedure of ostracisation. Tracing the logic of the political play in Athens between the opening and final stages of ostracism, Węcowski argues that Athenian ostracism was a mechanism devised to impose compromise on the main players in Athenian political life, thereby avoiding the punishment of political elites by exile of leading politicians resulting from unpredictable votes by the citizenry. To support this hypothesis, Węcowski turns to the theory of the 'evolution of cooperation' as formulated by the American mathematician and political scientist Robert Axelrod based on the iterated prisoner's dilemma in game theory, applied as a probabilistic analogy to the dynamics of Athenian political life under democracy.

What's in a Divine Name?

What's in a Divine Name?
Author: Alaya Palamidis
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 896
Release: 2024-03-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 3111326519

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Divine Names are a key component in the communication between humans and gods in Antiquity. Their complexity derives not only from the impressive number of onomastic elements available to describe and target specific divine powers, but also from their capacity to be combined within distinctive configurations of gods. The volume collects 36 essays pertaining to many different contexts - Egypt, Anatolia, Levant, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome - which address the multiple functions and wide scope of divine onomastics. Scrutinized in a diachronic and comparative perspective, divine names shed light on how polytheisms and monotheisms work as complex systems of divine and human agents embedded in an historical framework. Names imply knowledge and play a decisive role in rituals; they move between cities and regions, and can be translated; they interact with images and reflect the intrinsic plurality of divine beings. This vivid exploration of divine names pays attention to the balance between tradition and innovation, flexibility and constraints, to the material and conceptual parameters of onomastic practices, to cross-cultural contexts and local idiosyncrasies, in a word to human strategies for shaping the gods through their names.

Roman Delphi and Its Pythian Games

Roman Delphi and Its Pythian Games
Author: Robert George Alexander Weir
Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN:

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The Pythian Games are not as well known as the Olympic Games but were nonetheless important over a period of more than a thousand years of Greek and Roman history (c.580 BC to AD 395). In this study Robert Weir examines the rise and significance of this festival of athletics, horsemanship, music and drama held at or near the Delphic temple every four years. The chapters assess the nature of the games and those taking part, its administration and financing, the experience of the visitor, and asks why individuals took part and why people chose to attend the games. Weir argues that, contrary to theories of decline, religious aspects of the games in particular ensured its continued relevance throughout the Roman period although some changes were necessary in line with the demands of the emperor and imperial ideology. The final chapters look at this imperial intervention and at festivals outside Delphi and the spread of its influence.

Empire of Images

Empire of Images
Author: Alyson Roy
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2024-04-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 3111326632

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Rome was an empire of images, especially images that bolstered their imperial identity. Visual and material items portraying battles, myths, captives, trophies, and triumphal parades were particularly important across the Roman empire. But where did these images originate and what shaped them? Empire of Images explores the development of the Roman visual language of power in the Republic in Iberian Peninsula, the Gallic provinces, and Greece and Macedonia, centering the development of imperial imagery in overseas conquest. Drawing on a range of material evidence, this book argues that Roman imperial imagery developed through prolonged interaction with and adaptation by subjugated peoples. Despite their starring role in Roman imagery, the populations of Rome’s provinces continuously reinterpreted and reimagined Roman images of power to navigate their membership in the new imperial community, and in doing so, contributed to the creation of a universal visual language that continues to shape how Rome is understood.

Early Greek Portraiture

Early Greek Portraiture
Author: Catherine M. Keesling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2017-05-03
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1108211275

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In this book, Catherine M. Keesling lends new insight into the origins of civic honorific portraits that emerged at the end of the fifth century BC in ancient Greece. Surveying the subjects, motives and display contexts of Archaic and Classical portrait sculpture, she demonstrates that the phenomenon of portrait representation in Greek culture is complex and without a single, unifying history. Bringing a multi-disciplinary approach to the topic, Keesling grounds her study in contemporary texts such as Herodotus' Histories and situates portrait representation within the context of contemporary debates about the nature of arete (excellence), the value of historical commemoration and the relationship between the human individual and the gods and heroes. She argues that often the goal of Classical portraiture was to link the individual to divine or heroic models. Offering an overview of the role of portraits in Archaic and Classical Greece, her study includes local histories of the development of Greek portraiture in sanctuaries such as Olympia, Delphi and the Athenian Acropolis.

Private Associations and Jewish Communities in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities

Private Associations and Jewish Communities in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities
Author: Dr. Benedikt Eckhardt
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2019-07-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 900440760X

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In 'Private Associations and Jewish Communities in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities', Benedikt Eckhardt brings together a group of experts to investigate a problem of historical categorization. Traditionally, scholars have either presupposed that Jewish groups were "Greco-Roman Associations" like others or have treated them in isolation from other groups. Attempts to begin a cross-disciplinary dialogue about the presuppositions and ultimate aims of the respective approaches have shown that much preliminary work on categories is necessary. This book explores the methodological dividing lines, based on the common-sense assumption that different questions require different solutions. Re-introducing historical differentiation into a field that has been dominated by abstractions, it provides the debate with a new foundation. Case studies highlight the problems and advantages of different approaches.

The Springtime of the People: The Athenian Ephebeia and Citizen Training from Lykourgos to Augustus

The Springtime of the People: The Athenian Ephebeia and Citizen Training from Lykourgos to Augustus
Author: Thomas R. Henderson
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2020-08-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004433368

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In this book Thomas Henderson provides a new history of the Athenian ephebeia, a system of military, athletic, and moral instruction for new Athenian citizens.