Benefactors in the Roman East: 'spiritual euergetism'?

This paper begins with an accusation of theft. 'The fall of the Roman empire' is a common, indeed standard, phrase used to refer to the effects of events such as the sack of Rome in 4io, and the deposing of Emperor Romulus Augus tulus in 476. Yet these events are relevant only to the fall of the western Roman empire. Of course everyone knows this; some authors even using the first formu lation and then changing to the second. What makes this self-deception of 'the fall of the Roman empire' possible, especially as we also all know that the eastern Roman empire continued beyond the fifth century, via Justinian in the sixth, until I453? Part of the answer seems to be that we-or at least those of us writing within the anglophone tradition-obscure the Roman status of the eastern empire by referring to it as the Byzantine empire, a term never as far as I know used by the rulers of that empire themselves. The combined effect of using 'Roman empire' for 'western Roman empire' and 'Byzantine empire' for'eastern Roman empire' is to deprive the eastern Roman empire of its romanitas (the 'theft' of my introduction) and, in turn, to make the West appear the sole inheritor of the Roman tradition. I have introduced the paper with this observation because the end of antiquity in the West is a fulcrum in arguments about the origins of Europe, and because any discussion of those origins involves well-known terms and phrases which may allow more than one meaning. In fact, it is likely that there is not a single concept of any importance in this paper which has not been the subject of debate. This is so not least with the concept of the continent of Europe, since Europe is not a con tinent (in the sense of being separate and contained), but rather a region of Eurasia. Europe is never referred to as a subcontinent, as India is, despite the vastly greater barrier represented by the Himalayas than by the Urals or the Don. Taking Europe to mean the culture identified with Europe for the last few centuries and in the modern world, the most prominent candidates for its origins are the Bronze Age, ancient Greece, the Roman empire, late antiquity in the West, the Carolingian dynasty, the Ottonian dynasty, and finally the Renaissance (or, after prehistory, one might say, the Greeks, the Romans, the barbarians, the Franks, the Saxons, and the Italians). All have been proposed as originators at various points over the last century; deciding between them is not a matter of establishing one right answer and six wrong ones, so much as weighing different criteria against one another. To me the evidence suggests that three criteria in particular are crucial, namely (a) cultural characteristics that are identifiable over an extended length of time; (b) an awareness of the concept of Europe; and (c) signs of a coherent process leading to the culture of present-day Europe.

This paper begins with an accusation of theft. 'The fall of the Roman empire' is a common, indeed standard, phrase used to refer to the effects of events such as the sack of Rome in 4io, and the deposing of Emperor Romulus Augus tulus in 476. Yet these events are relevant only to the fall of the western Roman empire. Of course everyone knows this; some authors even using the first formu lation and then changing to the second. What makes this self-deception of 'the fall of the Roman empire' possible, especially as we also all know that the eastern Roman empire continued beyond the fifth century, via Justinian in the sixth, until I453? Part of the answer seems to be that we-or at least those of us writing within the anglophone tradition-obscure the Roman status of the eastern empire by referring to it as the Byzantine empire, a term never as far as I know used by the rulers of that empire themselves. The combined effect of using 'Roman empire' for 'western Roman empire' and 'Byzantine empire' for'eastern Roman empire' is to deprive the eastern Roman empire of its romanitas (the 'theft' of my introduction) and, in turn, to make the West appear the sole inheritor of the Roman tradition. I have introduced the paper with this observation because the end of antiquity in the West is a fulcrum in arguments about the origins of Europe, and because any discussion of those origins involves well-known terms and phrases which may allow more than one meaning. In fact, it is likely that there is not a single concept of any importance in this paper which has not been the subject of debate. This is so not least with the concept of the continent of Europe, since Europe is not a con tinent (in the sense of being separate and contained), but rather a region of Eurasia. Europe is never referred to as a subcontinent, as India is, despite the vastly greater barrier represented by the Himalayas than by the Urals or the Don. Taking Europe to mean the culture identified with Europe for the last few centuries and in the modern world, the most prominent candidates for its origins are the Bronze Age, ancient Greece, the Roman empire, late antiquity in the West, the Carolingian dynasty, the Ottonian dynasty, and finally the Renaissance (or, after prehistory, one might say, the Greeks, the Romans, the barbarians, the Franks, the Saxons, and the Italians). All have been proposed as originators at various points over the last century; deciding between them is not a matter of establishing one right answer and six wrong ones, so much as weighing different criteria against one another. To me the evidence suggests that three criteria in particular are crucial, namely (a) cultural characteristics that are identifiable over an extended length of time; (b) an awareness of the concept of Europe; and (c) signs of a coherent process leading to the culture of present-day Europe.

If asked what we mean by Hellenism, we should probably answer that we mean the historical period which goes from the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.) to the death of Cleopatra in 30 B.C. Egypt was the last important survivor of the political system which had developed as a consequence both of the victories of Alexander and of his premature death. With the absorption of Egypt into the Roman empire, that political system came to an end. Even today, however, there is considerable disagreement among historians as to what the word Hellenism is intended to signify. Hellenism suggests to us more the idea of a civilization than the idea of a mere political system. When used to indicate a civilization, the word Hellenism is seldom confined to the chronologies and spatial limits within which we use it to indicate a political system. We often speak of Hellenism in the Roman Empire to indicate the cultural tradition of the Greek-speaking part of the Roman Empire: we even incline to extend the Hellenistic tradition into the Byzantine Empire. On the other hand, the word Hellenism is often associated with the cultures of Carthage and Rome not to speak of Southern Italy and Sicily -which were never part of the empire of Alexander. As a rule terminological ambiguities should never detain a scholar for long. We all know what a waste of time the word Renaissance has represented. But at the root of this particular terminological ambiguity there are the ambiguities of the Geschichte des Hellenismus by Johann Gustav Droysen, one of the greatest historians of any time.' It was J. G. Droysen who intro-

Ancient Israel as part of the Near East has encountered the Greek and Roman cultures in their various phases and has partly assimilated partly rejected them through a long lasting interaction. The main issue proposed in this paper is the presentation of several aspects of such an interaction commonly termed as 'Hellenization' and 'Romanization' as reflected by archaeological, epigraphic and artistic material which has been revealed by the archaeological research carried out in Israel during the last decades. The main topics included will cover the transition from 'Orientalism' to 'Hellenism' and will focus on some of the main highlights of Greek and Roman presence in Ancient Israel from the Hellenistic to the Roman period and their problematic as represented by archaeological activity of the last decades. One of the main issues is the use of various building and artistic materials, mainly that of marble. There is no natural marble in the Land of Israel so that it had to be imported from the various marble quarries and workshops around the Mediterranean (Fischer 1998). An overview of some of the main remains of architecture, and architectural and sculptural decoration of the area will be presented. It includes Iraq el-Amir, Marisa, Jerusalem from the Hellenistic period, a selection of aspects of Herodian architecture and decoration; Caesarea, Ascalon and Scythopolis (Beth Shean) and the remoted pseudo-rural areas (Qedesh as a case study) as part of the Roman consensus and modus vivendi; architecture and decoration of the transition to the Late Roman and Byzantine period as reflected by civic and religious monuments as part of the Classical heritage.

Reviewed by: "Fill the Earth": Settlement in Palestine during the Late Roman and Byzantine Periods, 135–640 CE, and: The "Mother of All Churches": The Church of Palestine from its Foundation to the Arab Conquest Hagith Sivan "Fill the Earth": Settlement in Palestine during the Late Roman and Byzantine Periods, 135–640 CE Doron Bar Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2008. Pp. 203, ISBN 978–9-652–17278–5 The "Mother of All Churches": The Church of Palestine from its Foundation to the Arab Conquest Jacob Ashkenazi Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2009. Pp. 461, ISBN 978–9-652–17290–7 The two important studies under review, both published in Hebrew within a year of each other, provide complementary perspectives on rural settlements, urbanism, and Palestinian Christianity—three crucial and intertwined aspects of Palestine in Late Antiquity. Bar's book is an excellent example of the invaluable contribution of historical geography or, as it is now termed, landscape archaeology, to better understanding of the complexities of the landscape. Based on careful perusal of numerous archaeological reports and surveys, the four chapters of Fill the Earth present an examination of changes in the rural population (ch. 1), the impact of imperial policies on rural areas (ch. 2), the development of the countryside (ch. 3), and the impact of Christianity on patterns of rural settlement (ch. 4). As Bar correctly states, his study stands in a long and venerable line of analyses that has likewise focused on the historical geography of the "Land of Israel," not the least that by Michael Avi Yonah. The novelty proposed here resides in the focus on the constant give-and-take between "history" and "geography," and landscape and society. The end result is a detailed and refined reconstruction of rural hinterlands, rural responses to larger trends, and demands bred by local specificity. A detailed introduction highlights the centrality of the aftermath of the Bar Kochba revolt (132–135 CE) in reshaping land and demography. On balance, the Jewish element lost both dominance and territory. The first chapter begins with a judicious assessment of the main source used to determine the face of the land, namely the Archaeological Survey of Israel, followed with a brief overview of settlement patterns during the Second Temple period (ca. 400 BCE—70 CE); the "Late Roman" period (70–ca. 300); the Byzantine period (ca. 300–640) and the Early Islamic period (640–ca. 750). Bar then considers the factors that enabled settlements in specific areas at specific periods, thus setting the stage for the detailed analysis (in ch. 2) of the impact of the Roman government on the shape of the countryside. On what did the size and structure of the rural landscape depend? Here, the role of cities as diffusers of "Roman" culture and the interdependence of rural dwellers and urban denizens is given a place of honor. An interesting, perhaps controversial, conclusion relates to the [End Page 385] impact of the army in and beyond the city. Although stationed in towns such as Jerusalem (until ca. 300) and along the main roads, the army had a limited role vis-à-vis the rural population, an argument that forms one of the backbones of Bar's larger hypothesis of the marginality of the Roman apparatus (army, administration, central government) in the reshaping of the Palestinian countryside in Late Antiquity. Agricultural production, technology, and the means that engineered the expansion of population into the periphery in Late Antiquity are examined in the third chapter. Here, Bar notes the transformation from subsistence to specialized agriculture, especially the expansion of the olive and grape plantations to the harsh basalt soil of the Golan and the sandy Negev. Although Palestine was hardly a land blessed with fertility, the rate of soil exploitation exploded in Late Antiquity in response to changes in demography, political stability, and greater demand for specialty products. How and whether Christianity had a role to play in these transformations is the theme of the fourth chapter. In other words, did the making of a Christian holy land out of the unprepossessing province of Palestine entail a measurable impact on the rural population, rural institutions, and economic prosperity...

Османи на трьох континентах, пер. з турецьк. О. Кульчинського

Tabae ancient city or modern Tavas is located at southwestern of Lycus valley in the southern side of ancient Lydia. According to Strabo, the city was situated at the Phrygian border of antique Caria and founded by Alexander the Great. It shows a continuous habitation since its foundation in the Hellenistic period and minted silver coins in his name in the Roman period. Also, it entered the bishopric lists in the Byzantine period and became one of the most important cities of Menteşe Emirates by taking of the name of Kale-i Tavas and preserved this importance during the Ottoman period. The first archaeological excavations at Tabae were started in 2007 by Professor Bozkurt Ersoy and many significant results were gathered about the city’s ancient history with its architectural buildings, until recently. A Roman bath, fountains, and some cisterns with their findings were significant among them. A building with niche carved in the rock, probably built in the Roman period and used in the Seljuk and Ottoman periods was also another important building in Tabae. But the most important archaeological buildings are definitively the Roman cisterns for storage of the water with their elaborated architecture. These Roman cisterns at Tabae, excavated during the 2011 and 2012 excavation seasons and many Roman pottery finds were discovered. Among them, especially ‘cistern I’ and ‘cistern III’ give us significant results on the Roman pottery. These pottery finds were uncovered in the filling of cisterns as a group in the context and demonstrate the variety of Roman fine wares and table wares. These are also specific materials due to their qualitative characteristics. Between the pottery finds of the Roman period from cisterns, single and double handled jugs are common with red slip bowls and plates, identified by Hayes as the B1 and B2 groups of the Eastern Sigillatas. Besides, the bag-shaped, wide-mouthed and narrow necked jugs, which can be defined by their basket handles as basket handled jugs, another important ceramic finds group but they are all less known because of their shapes. A few tableware made of jugs and oinochoes are also among the Tabae’s rich Roman table ware pottery repertoire. The pottery finds uncovered from these two cisterns, which both functioned at the same time, must belong to mid first and second century. Today, many of these pottery artifacts are preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Denizli and in this short paper will be discussed their typological aspects. Also, together with their chronology, the importance for the region’s local pottery production process will be discussed. These pottery finds will present important social and economical contributions to the Roman period in Tabae and at the same time it will contribute to the study of Roman pottery in general terms.

Silifke is a district of Mersin province, currently located in the Mediterranean Region. Silifke Castle is located in the south of the region called Rough Cilicia in history, on the west side of the city, on the route that provides passage from the Mediterranean coast to Central Anatolia, at the intersection of land and sea trade. Silifke Castle was built at a point overlooking all roads, controlling both the trade route and the port. After the Silifke Castle excavations (2011-2022); Four periods have been identified: Roman, Byzantine, Karamanid and Ottoman Periods. It is understood that Silifke Castle was built in the Roman Period, and that it took its final shape by adding the defensive moat around the castle, the B-1 entrance gate, the A-16 military place adjacent to the walls, the church, the chapel, and some of the public and civil buildings in the Byzantine Period. After Silifke Castle was conquered by the Karamanids, the church in the center of the castle was converted into a mosque as a symbol of the Conquest, and the walls, moat, fortress veil and the spaces inside the castle began to be shaped according to the needs of the Turks. During the Ottoman Period, the settlement pattern inside the castle took its final shape. Thus, the castle, which is an important element of the medieval Turkish urban fabric, shows itself in the Silifke castle settlement pattern with the general characteristic of Turkish-Islamic cities. The settlement structure inside the castle was renewed according to need during the Ottoman Period. Rough-cut masonry, which is the traditional masonry of the region and built without the use of mortar, was applied in the interior spaces of the castle. With the excavations, the texture of the settlement inside the castle; It has been determined that the residences and social buildings belonging to the administration in the west, the mosque and the commercial buildings developed around it in the middle, and the residences and social buildings belonging to the public and the military in the east. Excavation findings are one of the most important data in identifying the castle. Excavation findings provide us with a wide range of data, from the art environment to daily life and aesthetic tastes of the Roman, Byzantine, Karamanid and Ottoman periods. The majority of the findings reflect the Turkish- Islamic period, and how the settlement pattern developed in every area we work can be followed.Each piece, especially architectural plastics, ceramics, metal, glass, stone, bone and wooden findings, is of great importance to us. These findings allow us to establish a bond with the master who made the work and the person who used it, understand their practices, and share this with today’s people.It also tells us about the social taste of that period, the technology they used, the exchange and solidarity between societies or different tastes. After the Silifke Castle excavation (2011-2022); It has been revealed that the castle has been used since ancient times and continued its effectiveness in the Roman and Byzantine periods. From the architectural remains and small artifacts identified, it is understood that Silifke Castle was inhabited until the last times of the Karamanoğlu and Ottoman Periods. Thus, it was revealed that Silifke Castle is one of the rare ruins in Anatolia that display the castle-city feature of the Turkish period. For more detailed information, please refer to the Extended Abstract at the end of the text

<i>Hellenistic and Roman Gerasa: The Archaeology and History of a Decapolis City</i>. Edited by Achim Lichtenberger and Rubina Raja. Turnhout: Brepols 2020. Pp. xviii + 390. €110. ISBN 978-2-503-58504-8 (paper).

From the Roman conquest to the end of Constantine's reign, the finds in Macedon allow one to examine mainly two categories of large-scale art: sculpture and mosaic floors. The surviving monuments are numerous, whereas wall-paintings are not, but they differ in their chronological duration and, up to a point, in their function. The types and imagery of the funerary monuments of the late Hellenistic and early imperial period show a continuation of Hellenistic tradition. In the imperial period, sculpture flourished in Macedonia. It is easier to trace elements of Romanisation in monuments coming from the Roman colonies. The types of the portrait statues are not new, with the exception of the togati. Of the numerous private portrait statues, honorary and funerary, and of the busts, few examples retain the torso and the head together. The idealistic statues largely reproduce known types of the classical and Hellenistic period. Keywords: early imperial period; funerary monuments; Hellenistic period; Macedon's art; mosaic floors; private portrait statues; Roman period; wall-paintings

Ceramic production was one of the leading sector of the Colchian economic in the Roman and Byzantine periods. Some types were exported. This improved by discovering of concave body amphorae in the southern Black Sea area. In parallel, there are traced Sinopean and Heraclean amphorae in the territory of Colchis in much number. Nine types of Roman and Byzantine period Sinopean clay amphorae were identified just in Apsarus. Those also were discovered in Bichvinta, Nokalakevi and Vardtsikhe. Recent finds also improve on the close contacts between the eastern Black Sea and the southern Black Sea which framed in new shape. The researchers believe that fortified "cities" of Colchis, unlike of Classical and Hellenistic era, became strategically important centres of the Roman and later, the Byzantine Empires. Therefore, imported productions are mainly intended for the supply of Roman and Byzantine garrisons.

Extract In accordance with the normal conventions of British—and most other European—studies of Roman archaeology, dating is given using the ad/bc system, rather than the ce/bce system widely used in American and Israeli archaeology. If you prefer the ce/bce system, it is easy to convert these dates, because 1 ce is equivalent to ad 1; 1 bce to 1 bc. For convenience, the region today encompassed within modern Israel and the Palestinian territories is called here ‘the Holy Land’. The main historical periods with which this book is concerned are the Hellenistic period, from the fourth century bc until the Roman conquest, the Roman period—which in Galilee is from the late first century bc until the end of the fourth century ad—and the Byzantine period, which in this region dates from the fifth century ad until the seventh century. The Byzantine period was interrupted near its end by a Persian invasion in the early seventh century, and followed by the Muslim conquest later in the seventh century. Muslim control of Nazareth ceased when the European Crusaders took the city in 1099. The Crusaders lost Nazareth in 1187, but effective Crusader control of the town was restored between 1250 and 1263, after which it again came under Muslim control.

The present report deals with reconstructing the facial shapes of ancient inhabitants of Israel based on their cranial remains. The skulls of a male from the Hellenistic period and a female from the Roman period have been reconstructed. They were restored using the most recently developed programs in anthropological facial reconstruction, especially that of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Balueva & Veselovskaya 2004). The basic craniometrical measurements of the two skulls were measured according to Martin & Saller (1957) and compared to the data from three ancient populations of Israel described by Arensburg et al. (1980): that of the Hellenistic period dating from 332 to 37 B.C., that of the Roman period, from 37 B.C. to 324 C.E., and that of the Byzantine period that continued until the Arab conquest in 640 C.E. Most of this osteological material was excavated in the Jordan River and the Dead Sea areas. A sample from the XVIIth century Jews from Prague (Matiegka 1926) was also used for osteometrical comparisons. The present study will characterize not only the osteological morphology of the material, but also the facial appearance of ancient inhabitants of Israel. From an anthropometric point of view, the two skulls studied here definitely belong to the same sample from the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine populations of Israel as well as from Jews from Prague. Based on its facial reconstruction, the male skull may belong to the large Mediterranean group that inhabited this area from historic to modern times. The female skull also exhibits all the Mediterranean features but, in addition, probably some equatorial (African) mixture manifested by the shape of the reconstructed nose and the facial prognatism.

Reviewed by: When Wisdom Calls: Philosophical Protreptic in Antiquity ed. by O. Alieva, A. Kotzé, S. Van der Meeren Diego De Brasi Alieva, O., Kotzé, A., and Van der Meeren, S. (edd.) 2018. When Wisdom Calls: Philosophical Protreptic in Antiquity. Turnhout: Brepols. Pp. 517. ISBN 978-2-503-56855-6. €100.00. At least since Paul Hartlich's dissertation De exhortationum a Graecis Romanisque scriptarum historia et indole (Leipzig: Hirzel 1889) the study of protreptic has been a significant aspect of research on classics, especially ancient philosophy and early Christianity. However, while scholarly attention in the last 130 years focused more on canonical authors like Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Paul of Tarsus, authors from the imperial era and late antiquity have been slightly neglected and a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of ancient protreptic literature is still missing. The book under review represents, thus, an extremely welcome addition to the analysis of ancient protreptic as it tries to fill this gap. Indeed, the volume offers a very good outline of protreptic and its interaction with other literary genres from the 'beginning' up to the 'end' of Antiquity. Of course, one cannot and should not expect from a collective volume a systematic approach to the subject matter, but the absence of methodological unity is not problematic in this case. As Olga Alieva in her inspiring opening essay shows ('Protreptic: a protean genre', pp. 29–45), scholars are far from reaching consensus on the criteria which define protreptic. Only the quite general claim that protreptic, as its etymology suggests, aims at the 'conversion' of the addressed audience seems to be widely accepted. Further, as Alieva also shows, and many contributors to the volume claim, even ancient authors – or at least some of them – use the term προτρέπειν and its cognates vaguely and do not distinguish clearly, for instance, between protreptic and παραίνεσις. In this regard, Alieva seems to side with those scholars of early Christianity who argue for different functions of protreptic and παραίνεσις (cf. also the contribution by Annemaré Kotzé, esp. p. 368). Although she recognizes the importance of questioning this dichotomy, Alieva explicitly challenges the analysis of Diana Swancutt, who systematically disputed the traditional interpretation. Swancutt argues that the difference between protreptic and παραίνεσις is explicable in socio-cultural [End Page 255] terms and is not an expression of different functions.1 Alieva is right in pointing out that we cannot find explicit mentions of socio-cultural aspects in the texts examined by Swancutt. However, it is questionable whether the absence of evidence in ancient texts is evidence of absence. We should not forget, indeed, that ancient philosophical texts are usually the expression of a 'closed' socio-cultural community, and philosophical authors perhaps did not feel the need to put the spotlight on such aspects in their arguments. After Alieva's contribution, which in some way represent a second, methodological introduction to the whole collection (while the actual 'Introduction', pp. 19–27, mainly epitomizes all contributions), the volume offers sixteen 'case studies' ranging from Hesiod to Marinus of Neapolis and dealing with more (e.g. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Galen, Augustine) and less (e.g. Philo of Alexandria, Lucian of Samosata, Marinus) 'canonical' authors. The last essay by Sophie van der Meeren ('Protreptique et isagogique: les vestibules de la philosophie', pp. 407–55) deals more generally with the protreptic implications of late antique isagogical literature. The essays are subdivided into two main sections ('Classical and Hellenistic World' pp. 47–227, 'Imperial Rome' pp. 229–455) and ordered mainly chronologically. There is only one easily explicable exception: Johan C. Thom's paper deals with Iamblichus' use of protreptic but is the second contribution in the section on 'Classical and Hellenistic World' since it also elaborates on Iamblichus' use of the so-called Pythagorean Sayings. A general bibliography and an index locorum complete the volume. All contributions are well written, of very high scientific standards and quite engaging, but since it would be impossible to assess every single one, I will focus on very few essays which I found particularly stimulating. Johan C. Thom's contribution focuses, as I mentioned above, on Iamblichus' Protrepticus and its use of Pythagorean Sayings ('Protreptic and Pythagorean sayings: Iamblichus' Protrepticus...

Julian, the last pagan emperor of the Roman empire, died in war in 363. In the Byzantine (that is, the Eastern Roman) empire, the figure of Julian aroused conflicting reactions: antipathy towards his apostasy but also admiration for his accomplishments, particularly as an author writing in Greek. Julian died young, and his attempt to reinstate paganism was a failure, but, paradoxically, his brief and unsuccessful policy resonated for centuries. This book analyses Julian from the perspectives of Byzantine Culture. The history of his posthumous&nbsp;reputation reveals differences in cultural perspectives and it is most intriguing with regard to the Eastern Roman empire which survived for almost a millennium after the fall of the Western empire. Byzantine culture viewed Julian in multiple ways, first as the legitimate emperor of the enduring Roman empire; second as the author of works written in Greek and handed down for generations in the language that scholars, the Church, and the state administration all continued to use; and third as an open enemy of Christianity. Julian the Apostate in Byzantine Culture will appeal to both researchers and students&nbsp;of&nbsp;Byzantine perspectives on Julian, Greco-Roman Paganism, and the Later Roman Empire, as well as those interested in Byzantine Historiography.