Roman Power Research Articles

Luke's Preface: The Greek Decree, Classical Historiography and Christian Redefinitions

The single type of writing that Luke's Preface resembles most is the Greek decree. Along with other indications, the structure situates Luke in the tradition of Classical historiography. It also creates important links to the narrative, helping to define: the relationships between Roman power and Christianity and between Classical and Lukan historiography; the character of the Christianpoliteia; the superiority of Lukan historiography both to Classical and to previous Christian historiography; the superiority of Lukan Christian doctrine; and the superiority of the ‘reward’ from Luke's Christian ‘contract’ to the ‘rewards’ of the Classical historians Thucydides, Livy and Augustus and to those of the Romanpoliteia.

Obelisk: A History (review)

Reviewed by: Obelisk: A History Tom F. Peters (bio) Obelisk: A History. By Brian A. Curran, Anthony Grafton, Pamela O. Long, and Benjamin Weiss. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009. Pp. 383. $27.95. Like the pyramids, Egyptian obelisks have fascinated Western culture as archetypical built forms for millennia. Unlike the pyramids, these impressive monoliths have served cultures that followed the Egyptian as souvenirs of conquest and symbols of power. An important aspect of their political importance was the technological act of moving them, an issue that Bern Dibner treated so well in his 1950 monograph Moving the Obelisks. The authors of this book undertook to supplement Dibner’s work with an examination of obelisks’ role as cultural symbols and the shifting meaning that society invested in these objects. This meaning runs the full gamut of human concern from religion and philosophy in ancient Egypt to pomp and power in Rome and the Papal States to antiquarianism and then esoteric concerns on the borderline between faith and science to pomp, pretention, and sexuality in the modern period. Each of these concerns has its chronologically organized chapter in the historical development. Although there is no thesis that unites the concerns, there are twelve chapters that document twelve stages in this evolution, and each of them is treated in great detail inextricably mingled with the development of modern thought, personal ambition, and national politics. The authors’ goal was to explain why moving obelisks was an important political and societal issue in Western culture. There is therefore little technology in this account but a great deal of social context, much of it never explained before. Where the authors do venture into technology or the scientific basis of technology they do miss some questions of interest. We miss any speculation, for instance, on a reason for the “sudden” shift from earth to stone construction around 2700 bce in Egypt (p. 13). We do gain new knowledge from archaeological reports of the method of carving the monoliths from [End Page 389] the rock (pp. 25–29), but without sufficient detail to understand it fully. In comparing the transportation of the Paris obelisk in the early nineteenth century (essentially the same techniques developed by Domenico Fontana for Rome in the sixteenth century) to the steam-powered methods subsequently used by the English and then the Americans half a century later (pp. 254–55), the heroic use of muscle power is considered symbolically superior to the use of mechanical means. In fact, the authors regard the modern, mechanized movement of the obelisks as a “retreat into practicality” in comparison with the socially important symbolic aspect (p. 269). This contrasts with what Michele Mercati wrote in the sixteenth century about Fontana’s technical innovation of using capstans in improvement of what he thought was the method the Romans had used in antiquity (p. 134), and it negates the intellectual and especially the cultural value of both industrialization and the consequent development of technology in the nineteenth century. That said, the descriptions of the political competition between Fontana and others for the contract to move the Vatican obelisk (pp. 109–16), or Athanasius Kircher’s esoteric speculations that influenced the siting and reerection of the Piazza Navona obelisk (chapter 7), as well as the political symbolism of Bernini’s small elephant-borne obelisk behind the Pantheon (pp. 172–73) provide insight into the intellectual mindset and the political realities that support or resist the development of technological solutions—and that is indeed both interesting and very useful. Supplementing the information in Dibner’s book, the study reveals that there were many more obelisks moved under varying degrees of difficulty than the iconic ones—Saint Peter’s at the Vatican, Paris, London, New York—with which we are familiar. A comparison of the various forms and stages of technological development in such work would be interesting as a demonstration of the role of technology in the expression of power. That book has yet to be written, but here we find an exhaustive catalog of the history and intellectual background of moving obelisks that provides us with a roadmap for future research. Herein lies the interest of this book for the historian...

Pax Romana/Pax Americana: Perceptions of Rome in American Political Culture, 2000–2010

The citation of the parallels between ancient Rome and the modern U.S. enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in American journalism, political commentary, and popular current affairs literature during the first decade of the twenty-first century. These discussions, however, are riddled with errors about Roman history and mired in contemporary political partisanship, and the specific parallels cited are often irrelevant or too superficial to be meaningful, while other, more salient parallels are simply overlooked. Underlying such problems are American prejudices concerning Republics and Empires, an unsophisticated popular understanding of the terms “empire” and “imperialism,” as well as the predominance in modern American consciousness of a caricatured image of Rome that originates in Hollywood films. Recent discussions of the Rome-America parallel have been informed by all of these distortions, and by “projection”—the simultaneous identification and distancing impulses Self experiences when encountering the Other. Projection theory suggests that discussions of Roman power on both ends of the American political spectrum in the early 2000s tended towards the same end: the articulation of a desire for the preservation and perpetuation of American power and pre-eminence in an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world.

Trojan Glory: kleos and the survival of Troy in Lycophron's Alexandra

Cassandra's prophecy in Lycophron's Alexandra consists of two main sections: an account of the Trojan War and its aftermath, and a broader explanation of the conflict between East and West. Both sections conclude by celebrating Roman power. These “Roman” passages have been considered intrusive, but we argue that they form part of the broader strategy of Cassandra's prophecy. The first belongs to a series of thematically connected narratives in which Cassandra awards glory, kleos, to Trojans or their descendants in the West while systematically denying it to the Greeks, a phenomenon evident in her treatment of the events covered in the Iliad and Odyssey. The prediction that Cassandra's descendants will restore Trojan glory evokes Iliad 20.302–308, and may serve as a lens through which Vergil's Aeneid reconsiders that Iliadic prophecy.

Reflections on Science and Ethics

Reflections on Science and Ethics

The Christian West and its singers: the first thousand years

A renowned scholar and musician presents a new and innovative exploration of the beginnings of Western musical art. Beginning in the time of the New Testament, when Christians began to develop an art of ritual singing with an African and Asian background, Christopher Page traces the history of music in Europe through the development of Gregorian chant-a music that has profoundly influenced the way Westerners hear-to the invention of the musical staff, regarded as the fundamental technology of Western music. Page places the history of the singers who performed this music against the social, political and economic life of a Western Europe slowly being remade after the collapse of Roman power. His book will be of interest to historians, musicologists, performing musicians, and general readers who are keen to explore the beginnings of Western musical art.

'Just as Befitting a Good Friend and Ally' - Rome, Aphrodisias and the Transaction of Empire

The purpose of this paper is to explore the operation of Roman rule through the case of an exchange between a Roman proconsul, Q. Oppius, and the city of Aphrodisias preserved in two inscriptions from Aphrodisias (Reynolds 1982, nos. 2 & 3). This pair of texts is not just a record, but an artefact of the exchange – its language, arrangement, and performance – and thus allows us to witness the transaction of power between the Romans and their subject (Ma 2000). The interaction itself is carried out in the language of reciprocity and friendship (rather than, say, compulsion or force) and φιλία appears as an active and dynamic relationship with normative rules that helped to normalize and direct Roman power in the Greek East (contra Badian 1984). This pair of texts reveals for us a complex performance of Roman rule in the form of reciprocity and the discourse of friendship, and better helps us to understand the character of the Romans’ empire in the East and their success in establishing it. The earlier text is a civic decree of Aphrodisias, relating Oppius’ request for aid against Mithridates VI of Pontus and the city’s decision to send troops in response; the later document is a letter of Oppius to the city some years later thanking them for these efforts and promising to look out for the city in the future. Here we observe the interaction between ruler and ruled played out in terms of reciprocity, a mode of interaction formulated as a perpetual cycle of mutual exchange. Both parties speak of a series of past, present, and future actions that not only shaped the interaction itself, but provided an opportunity for negotiating their respective positions in relation to one another. Central to this reciprocal mode of interaction was the relationship of φιλία (Dahlheim 1967, Gruen 1984, Mitchell 1997; Low 2007); according to Oppius, through their efforts the Aphrodisians had acted in a manner “befitting a good friend and ally”. Interstate friendship was grounded in the Hellenic tradition, with discursive norms of egalitarianism, goodwill, and mutual exchange (Cooper 1999; Mitchell 2007) that at once located Roman authority within a local framework and within the larger narrative of Greek freedom that circumscribed Greco-Roman relations generally (Gruen 1984, Ferrary 1988), while directing and constraining their actions along these lines. In the decrees, Aphrodisias’ efforts toward Oppius are not compelled by the proconsul, but rather are decisions freely made and executed on the autonomous authority of the city. At the same time, the Aphrodisians openly accept Roman superiority and proclaim their undying support for Roman ἡγeμονία, which sense of loyalty is here the moral obligation due to a friend. Through these texts, we can see the tension in φιλία, and the space that existed within it so that a Greek polis could identify and exercise its autonomy while admitting and obeying Roman hegemony.

The Politicization of Paul: Romans 13:1-7 in Recent Discussion

To those who regard the Letter to the Romans as part of a thoroughgoing critique of Roman power and ideology on the part of Paul, the first seven verses of Chapter 13 represent a major problem of interpretation, since they appear to represent endorsement rather than criticism of the prevailing political authorities. This paper looks at the way the text has been handled by those involved in the debate, as well as making some suggestions as to how the passage should be understood in its context.

Sallust’s Historiae in Eumenius’ Pro instaurandis scholis. A new source for fragment I.11 Maurenbrecher

In an oration in the corpus of the Panegirici Latini, the rhetorician Eumenius, after having celebrated the restoration of Roman power by the tetrarchy, insists on the need to stimulate the renaissance of eloquence and cites a passage (the beginning of the fragment I.11 Maurenbrecher) from the Historiae of Salluste, thus furnishing an important witness hitherto unnoticed. Eumenius does not seem to perceive the bitter reflection of Salluste concerning the contrast between the growth of material power and the moral degeneration of Rome after the third Punic War. What interests the orator is in fact the renaissance of the schools of rhetoric. Eumenius thus does not reproduce the ideological complexity of the fragment, but uses it to underline that one of the aspects of the greatness of Rome in the past was eloquence, which he wishes to see reborn.

Curio, Juba and the Limits of Myth in Lucan's <i>Bellum Civile</i>

In his comments on Lucan’s treatment of Curio at B.C. 4.581-824, Fred Ahl writes that the narrative is “key to the entire epic” (1972, p. 1000, cf. Saylor 1982). Curio’s defeat is certainly a marked moment in the text – not only does it further demonstrate the decay of Roman power and mores, but, in including a description of the wrestling match between Hercules and the African giant Antaeus, the narrative also contains one of only two extended mythological excurses in Bellum Civile (the other is the description of Medusa at 9.619ff.). The story of Hercules’ victory over Antaeus is juxtaposed with Curio’s defeat in a way that suggests we are to read them in light of one another. Accordingly, correspondences between the two scenes and the characters themselves have been proposed and discussed with varying conclusions as to who represents whom (e.g., Saylor 1982, Thompson and Bruere 1970, Grimal 1949). In contrast to this approach, I argue that Lucan deliberately confuses the correlations between the mythic narrative and Curio’s defeat, and in doing so, he denies us the satisfaction of interpreting Curio’s struggle in light of the myth. Lucan even uses Curio, who hears the story from a Libyan local and then subsequently misinterprets it, as an example of the “misreading” of the mythic tale within the context of civil war (B.C. 4.661-5). In the end, both Curio and Juba fail to measure up fully to either Hercules or Antaeus, who belong to a remote and unattainable mythic tradition. Lucan’s depiction of Hercules and Antaeus in itself emphasizes this distance. Not only does the wrestling match contain many comic elements and quickly devolves into a paradox (B.C. 4.646-9), but Lucan explicitly models the match on Ovid’s Hercules and Achelous (Met. 9.1-88, esp. 9.32-61). Lucan’s gestures toward the Ovidian model imbue the narrative with hints of parody that further complicate any attempts to take the description seriously. Curio and Juba fare even worse. Both vacillate between representing either Hercules or Antaeus at different points in the narrative (B.C. 4.723, 748, 754-58), and their battle concludes with a paradoxical outcome of its own: Curio’s men, surrounded and packed the enemy into a tight circle, wound and kill themselves with their own weapons (B.C. 4.779-7). Unlike their mythic counterparts, neither Curio nor Juba are victores: Curio’s army is the instrument of its own defeat and a re-enactment of Rome’s act of turning the sword inward upon her own viscera through civil war (in sua victrici conversum viscera dextra B.C. 1.3). Lucan’s treatment of myth in this episode certainly gives new meaning to the commonplace idea that one of Lucan’s stylistic goals is to “out-Ovid Ovid.” Insofar as Ovid’s own often flippant adaptations of myth, especially in the Metamorphoses, are a reaction to the serious historicizing treatment of Vergil, Lucan takes the process one step further by even more explicitly severing the bonds between myth and history. In the Bellum Civile, myth itself is ridiculous, but even more so is the historical truth that has been defined by and arisen from civil war and Caesar’s ascent to power. Select Bibliography Ahl, F. 1972. “Hercules and Curio: Some Comments on Pharsalia IV, 581-824. Latomus 31: 997-1009. ______. 1976. Lucan: An Introduction. Cornell University Press. Ithaca, NY. Grimal, P. 1949. “L’Episode d’Antee dans la Pharsale.” Latomus 8: 55-61. Martindale, C. 1981. “Lucan’s Hercules: Padding or Paradigm? A Note on De Bello Civili 4.589-660” Symbolae Osloenses 56: 71-80. Phillips, O.C. 1962. The Influence of Ovid on Lucan’s Bellum Civile. Diss. University of Chicago. Saylor, C. 1982. “Curio and Antaeus: The African Episode of Lucan Pharsalia IV.” TAPA 112: 169-77. Thompson, L. and R.T. Bruere. 1970. “The Vergilian Background to Lucan’s Fourth Book.” CP 65: 152-72.

The Construction of Etruscan ‘Otherness’ in Latin Literature

This paper deals with issues of ethnic representation; it aims at highlighting how Roman authors tend to portray the Etruscans as ‘others’, whose cultural models deeply differ from those proposed by Rome. Several studies, conducted from different disciplinary and methodological positions, have highlighted the existence, in the Greek world, of complex representations of ‘other peoples’, representations that served political, cultural, and economic purposes. Whether the study of alterity is to be set in the context of a Greek response to the Persian wars (as P. Cartledge and others have pointed out, the creation of the barbarian seems to be primarily a Greek ideology opposing the Greeks to all other peoples), or not, it seems clear from scholarly studies that the Romans often drew upon and reworked Greek characterizations, and created specific representations of other peoples. Latin literature, which (as T. N. Habinek has noted), served the interests of Roman power, abounds with examples of ethnographic and literary descriptions of foreign peoples consciously aimed at defining and marginalizing ‘the other’ in relation to Roman founding cultural values, and functional to evolving Roman interests. Outstanding examples are Caesar's Commentarii and Tacitus' ideological and idealized representation of the Germans as an uncorrupted, warlike people in the Germania. In several cases there is evidence of layering in the representation of foreign peoples, since Roman authors often re-craft Greek representations: thus, the biased Roman portrayal of the Near East or of the Sardinians largely draws on Greek representations; in portraying the Samnites, Latin authors reshaped elements already elaborated by the Tarentines.

Gladiators: violence and spectacle in ancient Rome

The games comprised gladiatorial fights, staged animal hunts (venationes) and the executions of convicted criminals and prisoners of war. Besides entertaining the crowd, the games delivered a powerful message of Roman power: as a reminder of the wars in which Rome had acquired its empire, the distant regions of its far-flung empire (from where they had obtained wild beasts for the venatio), and the inevitability of Roman justice for criminals and those foreigners who had dared to challenge the empire's authority. Though we might see these games as bloodthirsty, cruel and reprehensible condemning any alien culture out of hand for a sport that offends our sensibilities smacks of cultural chauvinism. Instead one should judge an ancient sport by the standards of its contemporary cultural context. This book offers a fascinating, and fair historical appraisal of gladiatorial combat, which will bring the games alive to the reader and help them see them through the eyes of the ancient Romans.It will answer questions about gladiatorial combat such as: What were its origins? Why did it disappear? Who were gladiators? How did they become gladiators? What was there training like? How did the Romans view gladiators? How were gladiator shows produced and advertised? What were the different styles of gladiatorial fighting? Did gladiator matches have referees? Did every match end in the death of at least one gladiator? Were gladiator games mere entertainment or did they play a larger role in Roman society? What was their political significance?

A Companion to Roman Rhetoric (review)

Reviewed by: A Companion to Roman Rhetoric Aislinn Melchior William Dominik and Jon Hall (eds.). A Companion to Roman Rhetoric. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2007. Pp. xix, 523. $149.95. ISBN 978-1-4051-2091-3. This Blackwell Companion successfully communicates the efflorescence of Roman rhetorical practices and the centrality of rhetoric in Roman thought. There are recurring points: the influence of Greek on Latin rhetoric and Rome's attendant struggle to create her own identity, as well as the contestation of both an evolutionary model (derived primarily from Cicero's writings) and [End Page 356] a model of decline (drawn principally from Tacitus' Dialogus). Because the approach of the editors is inclusive, dissenting voices do appear, imbuing the volume with an intellectual vibrancy that is rare in this genre. Following a survey of modern critical approaches, Part One attempts to excavate native Roman rhetoric, even seeking traces in Roman comedy. Despite the attempt here to reach back in time, the temporal range of the collection remains mostly within the first centuries, framed by Cicero on one side, Quintilian, Seneca, and Tacitus on the other. Likewise, although there is a chapter on the Second Sophistic and another on the afterlife of Roman rhetoric, forays into later periods are rare. Part One is rounded out by Sciarrino's discussion of Cato Maior and Gaius Gracchus in which she quotes a fascinating fragment from De Sumpto Suo that appears to show Cato in the act of composition. Stroup treats the way that Latin both influenced and appropriated its Greek models. The overarching themes that emerge are the tensions inherent in imperial expansion and the richness of the cultural ferment in second-century Rome. Part Two discusses the cultural role and contexts of oratorical performance and opens with a chapter on declamation. Such education was the purview of the elite and Corbeill argues that the Controversiae were ultimately conservative, reinforcing traditional values. Republican practice, centered upon political and historical themes, contrasts with that of the empire where the focus was instead upon the social hierarchy. Ramsey demonstrates the fungible nature of the written artifact by listing the letters where Cicero contemplated making changes to his speeches. In an elegant chapter, Rees contextualizes panegyric as a mistrusted Greek form during the republic and traces its rise to become a stamp of Romanitas in the late antique period. Other offerings explore the anxieties underlying rhetoric's obsessive discourse on gender or tackle political realities (e.g., contiones, patron-client relationships, and senatorial procedure). The third section maps how rhetoric was approached as "a systematic body of knowledge" (6) and contains chapters on humor, elocutio, and delivery. Gaines, covering the handbook tradition, provides a tidy summary of the differences between De Inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium. Small points out, in her chapter on mnemotechnics, that rather than disappearing with the advent of writing, the ability to keep records led to a proliferation of memory technologies. Once words could be fixed, the desire for exact reproduction increased, much as modern concertgoers expect a pop star to perform a hit song note for note. Part Four moves away from the exploration of technical systems to look at language practitioners such as grammarians. Here the idealized orator appears as imagined by men who were orators themselves. Cicero's desire to crown himself the ideal contrasts with the wistful backward glances of imperial authors. These writings display a certain optimistic insistence upon the marriage of goodness and persuasion. The closing section demonstrates some of the insights offered by viewing literature through the lens of rhetoric. While not all of the readings were entirely successful, these chapters serve as a thematic bookend to the collection. They revisit again the polarized view of persuasion, well attested in many of the Latin sources, as a medium of Roman power and yet still somehow unsettling, still a bit Greek. Damon, in her chapter on historiography, tests the limits of inventio in history and offers a useful corrective to pessimistic views of the genre's evidential value. The danger is minimization; that recognizing rhetoric becomes a charge of merely rhetoric, and so undermines the foundation of truth upon which historical...

Why Did the Barbarian Cross the Rhine?

On the last day of 406 a large coalition of barbarian groups crossed the Rhine. No surviving contemporary source tells us why. Two recent studies have accepted that large numbers of outsiders were involved in the action, but whereas I argued in 1995 that further westward movement on the part of the nomadic Huns was the likeliest trigger of the bigger crisis, Walter Goffart and Guy Halsall have suggested that divisions between the two halves of the western empire and/or an effective withdrawal of Roman power from the northwest encouraged the invasions. In the absence of direct evidence, all attempts to understand the crisis must take the form of argued hypothesis, and there is certainly room for more than one point of view. But all hypotheses must be judged on their capacity to account for the entirety of the evidence, and this study argues that because the first of these attacks (Radagaisus) affected Italy rather than the Rhine, then any withdrawal from the northwest (for which the evidence is weak) cannot have been the trigger. Likewise, although division between east and west certainly affected what happened afterward, it is an insufficient explanation for the original invasions, because the vast majority of the invaders who emerged from the middle Danubian region between 405 and 408 had not been living there in the fourth century. Any convincing explanation of the crisis also must account for what had brought large numbers of Alans, Goths, and Vandals west of the Carpathians in the first place, before they then invaded the Roman Empire. It is argued here that a desire on their part to escape the Hun-generated chaos and predation remains the best overall explanation.

Papes, princes et savants dans l’Europe moderne: Mélanges à la mémoire de Bruno Neveu (review)

Reviewed by: Papes, princes et savants dans l’Europe moderne: Mélanges à la mémoire de Bruno Neveu Daniella Kostroun Papes, princes et savants dans l’Europe moderne: Mélanges à la mémoire de Bruno Neveu. Edited by Jean-Louis QuantinJean-Claude Waquet. [École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sciences historiques et philologiques VI, Hautes Études Médiévales et Modernes, 90.] (Geneva: Librarie Droz. 2007. Pp xii, 441. $75.00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-600-01125-9.) When Jean-Louis Quantin and Jean-Claude Waquet approached Bruno Neveu in 2003 with an idea to assemble a volume of essays in his honor, they had no idea how timely their tribute would be. Neveu died the following year while on a research trip. The volume, which Neveu helped to assemble before his death, contains eighteen essays divided equally into three sections reflecting the major themes permeating his work on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France, England, and Italy: (1) the culture, exchanges, and production of knowledge among religious scholars; (2) diplomatic relations and practices of negotiation; and (3) the instruments, representations, and power of Rome and the papacy. Two introductory essays by Quantin and Waquet and a complete bibliography of Neveu’s printed works precede the core essays. Quantin’s “De l’Histoire de l’érudition [End Page 155] ecclésiastique à l’histoire de l’orthodoxie religieuse: Bruno Neveu et le catholicisme” is a bio-bibliographic essay that traces Neveu’s interests as they swung from French Jansenism and Gallican politics at Port Royal, to the study of theology—particularly problems of orthodoxy and papal infallibility—at the court of Rome. Neveu’s most current and unfinished book settled on the topic of English recusant history. For Neveu, the ecclesiology of English Catholics represented a possible synthesis, or “third way,” between the two extremes of French conciliarism and papal infallibility that he had examined in earlier works. Waquet’s essay, “Bruno Neveu: Historien des relations diplomatiques,” emphasizes Neveu’s defense of positivist historical methods in the 1960s and 1970s when French intellectuals were rejecting the importance of individual agency and authorial intent as historical frameworks. For Neveu, the diplomatic dispatches he studied provided tangible evidence of texts in which human intent and authenticity were integral to their meaning and production. The eighteen invited essays represent original research by scholars whose works intersect with Neveu’s interests in various ways. In part 1, Sylvio Hermann de Francheschi’s article “Gallicanisme, antirichérisme et reconnaissance de la romanité ecclésiale: La dispute entre le cardinal Bellarmin et le théologien parisien André Duval (1614)” explores resistance in France to the doctrine of papal infallibility. Whereas Neveu focused on the diehard resistance of those associated with Port Royal, Francheschi examines the case of André Duval, who had sought a compromise between the extremes of Gallican conciliarism and papal infallibility in the early-seventeenth century by supporting papal authority but with some concessions to the French clergy. Duval’s correspondence with Bellarmine reveals how authorities in Rome tried to manage their supporters abroad and undermined them by preventing them from straddling the gap between national and international Catholic interests. In part 2, Robert Anthony Beddard’s essay, “Queen Henrietta Maria’s Mission and the Reopening of the Catholic Chapel Royal in Restoration England,” reveals the potential of Neveu’s interests and methods to enrich other fields—in this case, women’s history. By placing Henrietta Maria at the center of his analysis, Beddard highlights the role played by dynastic marriage and female conversion in international diplomacy and negotiations in seventeenth-century Europe. Pietro Stella’s article in part 3, “Quesnel autore spirituale nell’Italia dei secoli XVIII e XIX,” considers the Italian editions of texts by Pasquier Quesnel, the French Oratorian and Jansenist whose reflections on the New Testament were famously condemned by the bull Unigenitus in 1713. The timing of Italian editions of his works and several of the adjustments made to his original texts reveal how editors tailored these translations to fit specific controversies surrounding Italian bishops. Thus, although the ideas of French Jansenists permeated Italy, their ideas passed through linguistic and political filters that made them distinctly Italian by the time they circulated...

Byzantium: the surprising life of a medieval empire

For a thousand years, an extraordinary empire made possible Europe's transition to the modern world: Byzantium. An audacious and resilient but now little known society, it combined orthodox Christianity with paganism, classical Greek learning with Roman power, to produce a great and creative civilization which for centuries held in check the armies of Islam. Judith Herrin's concise and compelling book replaces the standard chronological approach of most histories of Byzantium.Instead, each short chapter is focused on a theme, such as a building (the great church of Hagia Sophia), a clash over religion (iconoclasm), sex and power (the role of eunuchs), an outstanding Byzantine individual (the historian Anna Komnene), a symbol of civilization (the fork), and a battle for territory (the crusades). In this way, she makes accessible and understandable the grand sweeps of Byzantine history, from the founding of its magnificent capital Constantinople (modern Istanbul) in 330, to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

Prayer Rescue and Redemption in the Mekilta

AbstractIt is generally acknowledged that activist Jewish opposition to Rome waned after the futile Bar Kokhba revolt. This judgement has been based on the historical record, in which such opposition is absent. In this paper I show that this shift in policy has left literary traces, particularly in the Tannaitic midrash, Mekilta. Such traces show the rabbis disparaging physical violence in their reading of the exodus from Egypt, and then urging prayer as the most appropriate and potent tactic in the struggle for freedom. In all this, the release from Egyptian bondage symbolizes the ultimate deliverance from Roman power.

The Acts of the Apostles, Greek Cities, and Hadrian's Panhellenion

"This was not done in a corner," asserts Paul in the Acts of the Apostles about the ideas and origins of his movement (Acts 26:26).1 In this brief sentence Lukes geographical imagination spills from Pauls mouth. Paul has just explained his own travel from Damascus to Jerusalem and throughout Judea and to the Gentiles, echo ing Lukes understanding that "the Way" moves through the entire oikoumene, or inhabited world, eclipsing Jerusalem. And as he utters these words, Paul himself stands on the cusp of his final journey; after this he will be sent from Caesarea (where he had arrived from his Jerusalem imprisonment) to Rome. "This was not done in a corner." Lukes economical assertion, placed in Pauls mouth, leads us to wonder: In the midst of Roman power and claims to possess the oikoumene?chims manifest literarily and in the built environment2?how did some early Christian communities imagine the space of the world? What kind of geographical thinking did they engage? Scholars have long noted that there is something peculiarly geographical about Luke-Acts. Luke refers to Christianity as "the Way" ( ), and the canonical

Empire by Invitation: Greek Political Strategies and Roman Imperial Interventions in the Second Century B.C.E.

Greek politicians in the second century b.c.e. increasingly turned to Roman authorities in order to defeat their political opposition. Charges of demagoguery and socio-economic revolution became commonplace in these political struggles in the presence of Roman authority. This evidence provides a key to understanding a famous inscription dating to 144/143 b.c.e. (Syll. 684), which records a letter from the Roman praetorian proconsul to Macedonia, relaying his ruling on recent civil unrest in Achaean Dyme. More importantly, Greek appeals to Roman power, such as we find in Syll. 684, support a model of second-century Roman imperial expansion in Greece focusing on the imperial periphery rather than the imperial metropole.

Peuples et préjugés chez Dion de Pruse et Lucien de Samosate

During classical era, the notion of Greek identity was built relatively to barbarian identities. What did it become during the first two centuries of Roman Empire, according to sophist philosopher Dion of Prusa and writer Lucian of Samosata, two representatives of imperial hellenism who weren't Greeks from main Greece, who widely travelled and experienced disenchantements with their relations to Roman power ? This study attempts to compare their acceptance and use of traditional Greek prejudices and models, as well as their thoughts about the concepts of alterity and barbarity. Dion and Lucian, in different ways, spread a kind of hellenism built relatively to classical Grecism and his prejudices.