Roman Greece Research Articles

:Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity

:<i>Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity</i>

:The Archaeology of Roman Macedonia: Urban and Rural Environments

:<i>The Archaeology of Roman Macedonia: Urban and Rural Environments</i>

The ancient city between Archaeology and History: an interview with Rebecca Sweetman

Interview with Rebecca Jane Sweetman, a renowned Irish researcher specializing in the archaeology of Roman Greece and Late Antiquity. Currently, she holds the position of Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of St Andrews, where she previously led the School of Classics. In September 2022, she assumed the role of Director of the British School at Athens, having previously served as Assistant Director from 2000 to 2003.

Isis in a Global Empire: Greek Identity through Egyptian Religion in Roman Greece

Isis in a Global Empire: Greek Identity through Egyptian Religion in Roman Greece

Sanctuaries and cult places from the Roman conquest to Late Antiquity: a survey of recent work in Achaea, Epirus and the islands

This paper surveys archaeological work on Greek sanctuaries of the Roman period conducted over the past 20 years. Previously largely ignored or simply overlooked, in recent times the Roman phases of sanctuaries have seen a tremendous amount of excavation and research work, mirroring the increased interest in the archaeology of Roman Greece as a whole. In addition to brief presentatons of new and recent archaeological discoveries and material studies, this survey also aims to highlight the importance of current work based on the re-examination of sites excavated long ago and the contribution of various strands of archaeological evidence to an enhanced understanding of the history and function of Greek sanctuaries from the time of the Roman conquest to Late Antiquity.

Building technique of the Theater at ancient Messene

AbstractThis paper reports and examines the building techniques of the recently excavated Messene Theater in Greece. In the Hellenistic period, both traditional building materials (poros and limestone) and methods (masonry, jointing, and transportation) were employed in the Messene Theater. The massive retaining wall of the auditorium and the skenotheke were built using limestone, but local poros stone was favored for use in the retaining wall of the parodos and other parts of the building. Traces of traditional joint and lifting techniques (dowels, clamps, lifting ropes, and lewis) have been observed. In the Roman imperial period, both Roman building materials (marble, granite, and brick) and local traditional masonry have been observed. The white and multi‐colored marble applied to the scaenae frons was most likely delivered from quarries from both local and other provinces. Remarkably, the mason marks on the stone blocks of the Roman imperial period suggest a systematic modification by previous building materials. Similarly, the vaulting of the Roman scene building seems to have been built using cut‐stone voussoirs instead of fired‐brick. The observed building techniques of the Messene Theater suggest a conservative tendency in provincial Roman Greece.

Sensing Water in Roman Greece: The Villa of Herodes Atticus at Eva-Loukou and the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis

The water displays in Roman Greece in the villa of Herodes Atticus at Eva-Loukou and in the forecourt of the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis demonstrate diverse uses and contexts of flowing water. By focusing on the sensorial experience an ancient individual had with these structures, especially through the framework of a sensorial assemblage, we can highlight how sensory elements had the power to create immersive encounters. This permits further understanding of how an ancient Roman experienced a monument and created memories in the surrounding built environment and natural landscape. The two water displays at Eva-Loukou and Eleusis in Greece, one in a domestic context and one in a religious context, can then be placed in relation to the empire-wide phenomenon of constructing fountains for their sensorial effects. Examinations of the two sites suggest the motivations that moved patrons to install innovative water displays and help elucidate a common Roman sense of identity connected to the display of water.1

The Imperial Qualities in Roman Greece (31 BC – AD 235) : The Evidence and a First Assessment

The imperial cult in the Roman provinces is a major subject in current scholarly works on religion in the Roman world. Scholars so far have perhaps undervalued an interesting aspect: not only was the emperor himself worshipped, but also the various qualities of the emperors were objects of worship (e.g. ‘Pietas Augusti’, ‘Providentia Augusta’). The latter are often regarded as merely subordinate to the ‘main’ imperial cult. Yet, qualities had a rich past in Greek religion as well as in the Roman political tradition. This paper aims to examine how events throughout the empire were interpreted through the worship of imperial qualities in Roman Greece. Did the emperor himself give the example by honouring an imperial quality in Rome or can we speak of a more provincial practice? If the latter is more valid, did Roman officials, associated with the imperial rule, introduce ‘Roman’ ideals and combine them with traditional Greek beliefs? Or, alternatively, was it the initiative of Greek inhabitants, who wished to approach the emperor by exploiting ancient concepts? The following imperial qualities are discussed; the imperial ‘Hygieia’, ‘Dikaiosyne’, ‘Providentia’, ‘Aequitas’, ‘Quies’, ‘Nemesis’, ‘Tutela’ and ‘Tyche’. These various Augustan qualities were mainly celebrated in response to events in Rome (e.g. the sickness of an emperor led to the public honouring of ‘Sebaste Hygieia’ in Athens), within the borders of the Empire (a military campaign caused the dedication to ‘Nemesis Augusta’ by an ex-soldier in Corinth) or within the cities themselves. Moreover, the flexible character of the imperial qualities is also demonstrated by the fact that dedications to such qualities occasionally honoured the ability of the emperor to bestow benefits (e.g. ‘Tutela Aug.’). In this way, a glance upon the imperial qualities in Roman Greece offers us a fruitful reconstruction of the perceptions the provincials formed on the person of the princeps and the latter’s rule.

Book Review of What’s New in Roman Greece? Recent Work on the Greek Mainland and the Islands in the Roman Period: Proceedings of a Conference Held in Athens, 8–10 October 2015, edited by Valentina Di Napoli, Francesco Camia, Vasilis Evangelidis, Dimitris Grigoropoulos, Dylan Rogers, and Stavros Vlizos

Book Review of What’s New in Roman Greece? Recent Work on the Greek Mainland and the Islands in the Roman Period: Proceedings of a Conference Held in Athens, 8–10 October 2015, edited by Valentina Di Napoli, Francesco Camia, Vasilis Evangelidis, Dimitris Grigoropoulos, Dylan Rogers, and Stavros Vlizos

Gender and Body Language in Roman Art by Glenys Davies

Reviewed by: Gender and Body Language in Roman Art by Glenys Davies J. F. D. Frakes Glenys Davies. Gender and Body Language in Roman Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xii, 357. $120.00. ISBN 978-0-521-84273-0. Asserting that modern studies of body language offer comparative support to an understanding of ancient gestural codes, and marshaling decades of theorization of how gesture and comportment together work to establish social configurations of identity, Glenys Davies promises here an analysis of how visual art in the Roman world made use of body language to express "status, and the relationship between status and gender" (1). The introduction quickly clarifies the author's methods and assumptions: that art from all Greek and Roman periods can be lumped together as evidence for Roman visual modes (she begins the discussion with a red-figure vase from 430 bce); that literary evidence is of primary value when interpreting visual evidence (she consults Cicero, Valerius Maximus, Seneca, Quintilian, and Plutarch, among others, throughout); and that display context is irrelevant to how artworks communicated ideas of gender and status (the Barberini Faun, the Capitoline Seated Girl, some philosophers, and the Terme Ruler illustrate opening themes, with no discussion of placement and little acknowledgement of dating or replication). A case-study is then built upon Cancelleria Relief B, focusing on the gestural connections between its principal figures, that indulges in Jocelyn [End Page 364] Toynbee's reading (in The Flavian Reliefs from the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome [Oxford 1957]) of the scene's emotional subtext before signaling that Vespasian's gesture toward Domitian is unique and interpreting it remains problematic. What to make of this strange impasse is evidently up to each reader to decide—a difficult challenge considering there will not be any more images to consider for a good sixty pages. The first two chapters present the surviving ancient testimonies relevant to body language, each one devoted to a normative gender: first male, then female. About male comportment we read of exempla traditions, of oratorical training and performance, and of good manners. Themes include status display, imperial power, and the dangers to men of femininity. About female comportment we read of proofs of inferiority and weakness, of tendencies toward frivolity, and of matronly values and modesty. Veiling and clothing requirements follow, along with demonstrations of subordination, and some closing thoughts on the dangers to men of female masculinity, before we are promised an analysis of the representation of Roman women in art. How disappointing it was after all this to turn the page to chapter 3 (82) and discover the Vatican copy of the Aphrodite of Knidos. "The Standing Nude," so Davies argues, best illustrates the differentiated body languages of males and females on account of their opposed sexes being so visually evident, and before too many pages go by there appears the inevitable Naples Doryphoros. Although these famous statues are in fact Roman artworks, they are here treated as unproblematic exemplars of Greek Classical design, works that demonstrate (one assumes?) the timelessness of gendered gestural codes. The bibliography is thorough and responsible—one finds the support of Ridgway, Havelock, and Lefkowitz, among others—but the discussion fails to take us far beyond the luscious treatments of Andrew Stewart's Art, Desire and the Body in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 1997). Beyond their status in elite culture, how do these opera nobilia inform us on the gestural attitudes of lived experience promised earlier? I fear it was a mistake to linger so long among elite male opinion and fetishized works of Classical culture, rather than jumping straightaway into well-documented viewing contexts from the Roman period. What might be said of these as Roman works? I think of Valentina di Napoli's recent study of displays in Roman Achaea of exactly these two statue types, the Knidia installed in baths and domestic contexts in small-scale formats while the Doryphorus was placed in civic settings on scales life-size or greater ("Looking at the Classical Past: Tradition, Identity, and Copies of Nobilia Opera in Roman Greece," in S. E. Alcock, M. Egri, and J. Frakes [eds.], Beyond Boundaries: Connecting Visual Cultures in the Provinces...

Macella and Makelloi in Roman Greece: The Archaeological and Textual Evidence

Macella and Makelloi in Roman Greece: The Archaeological and Textual Evidence

Response to a review by J. C. Donati (JRA 31 [2018] 893-906)

I am grateful to J. C. Donati for reviewing my book On the Agora. The evolution of a public space in Hellenistic and Roman Greece (c. 323 BC–267 AD). He gives compliments and raises valid points for further reflection, but the review also, in several ways, misrepresents my aims, my use of evidence and, most troublingly, my words. I am grateful for this chance to respond to the review and restrict myself to the most pressing issues.

Christopher Dickenson: On the Agora. The Evolution of a Public Space in Hellenistic and Roman Greece (c. 323 BC – 267 AD).

Christopher Dickenson: On the Agora. The Evolution of a Public Space in Hellenistic and Roman Greece (c. 323 BC – 267 AD).

르 꼬르뷔제 건축의 투시도를 통한 공간분석에 대한 연구 - 1920년대 주택작품의 선형투시도법에 따른 분석을 중심으로 -

There has been lots of studies about Corbusier's house through typological and morphological way. However, the majority of studies are emphasized in morphological analysis, not in spacial view. Architects represent their architectural concept and architectural space in many ways, and 'perspective drawing[view]' is the most important way of expressing and planning architectural space. 'Perspective drawing[view]' was used for expressing the space since Renaissance in the field of paintings and also in the architectural fields. Comparison analysis about Renaissance(which established Human-centered view of the world by reviving the Greece Rome studies and the arts based on the Humanism) 'perspective' and Corbusier(who argued rationalism of architecture) 'perspective drawing[view]' will be the important way of understanding his architecture. The purpose of this study is to show the process of formation of architectural space and the architectural vocabulary of Modern Architecture space appeared in Corbusier's 'perspective drawing[view].' Also I hope that this study can be a guideline for architectural expression of space through a perspective drawing.

Reception of Greco-Persian wars in Roman Greece: criticism of Herodotus in Plutarch

The traditional image of Sparta in the European cultural tradition is an idealized distortion of reality, based on the works of non-Spartan writers in both Greek and Roman antiquity. Plutarch has influenced our image of Sparta more than any other author, though he was not the first to create the so-called Spartan mirage. Plutarch idealized Sparta, according to him the ideal of a polis community was best of all realized in the Sparta of Lycurgus. It is the ethics of the rulers, not the type of the political system, that really matters for him; the moral standards of the rulers determine the moral value of the state. The example of the Spartan ethics to the last degree has been demonstrated, according Plutarch, in the battle at Thermopylae. Plutarch regards this battle as the most important moment of the Greco-Persian wars; in his eyes it brought the final victory to Greeks at the end. Therefore he is extremely harsh in criticizing Herodotus for his description of this epizode (De malignitate Herodoti). Plutarch’s attitude towards Herodotus in this work and in Lives, which owe material to Herodotus, is extremely different. According to Plutarch, Herodotus had a personal dislike for Sparta and therefore he had blackened the greatest deed of Leonidas.Herodotus and Plutarch look at this epizode from the different points of view. Herodotus is not influenced by later Spartan ideology here. Though his narrative of Thermopylae is infused with Homeric elements, he presents it not simply as an act of heroism, but as the deepest personal tragedy of Leonidas and the 300 Spartiatai; there is a colour of ambivalence in his story. Therefore Plutarch relies more on Ephorus/Diodorus than on Herodotus reconstructing his version of events and widely uses the rhetorical and moralistic approach, elaborated already by the authors mentioned. It is the rhetorics of Plutarch and his predecessors that underlies the ideological cliché of nowadays political rhetorics.

Rahab, Esther, and Judith as Models for Church Leadership in 1 Clement

ABSTRACTSeveral powerful women receive praise in 1 Clement. Clement introduces women into the historical survey known from Hebrews. He compares female martyrs with apostles, and he lists Esther and Judith with foreign kings. I argue that Clement's validation of the prayer and prophecy of figures such as Esther and Judith indicates that Clement is not opposed to female leadership, and, indeed, Clement does not forbid women from office in his discussion of the leadership structures of the Corinthian church. Clement's concerns may be connected to the contemporary movement from temporary ecclesial offices to less democratic, permanent priesthoods in Roman Greece. Roman control of Greece increased the importance of belonging to the Greek aristocracy. Corinthian Christian support for democratically elected leaders could be the impetus for Clement's letter. Arguing against Roman Greek priestesses and Christian female leaders on account of their sex is not part of Clement's project. We have no evidence from 1 Clement that the letter, which refers to the Pauline correspondence with churches of Corinth, knows of and adheres to the injunction against female public speech in the Pastoral Stratum of 1 Corinthians 14:34–35.

Rural sites in Roman Greece

[W]hile pretending to throw some light upon classical authors by careful observation of the manners of the present day, romantic travellers succeeded in fact in accommodating reality to their dreams … by creating for themselves and for their readers carefully edited portraits of modern Greece that transformed the present into the living image of the past (Saïd 2005: 291).Thirty years ago archaeological field survey promised to reshape radically our understanding of the countryside (Keller and Rupp 1983: 1–5). Traditional archaeological approaches to cities and monuments were increasingly seen to be extensions of textual research, and research on the rural landscape was envisaged as a way to access the other side of the traditional urban-rural dichotomy (though see the comments in Alcock 2007: 671–72). Some scholars estimated that, in the Classical period, the vast majority of Greek poleis had populations of less than 3,000 and territories no more than a few hours” walk from the urban core. Given that, they asked, does it make sense to divide elements of Greek life into “city” and “country”? In a sense, the study of landscapes was seen as a way to redress perceived imbalances between this urban-rural division and the picture painted by the ancient sources of Roman Greece as a pale reflection of its Classical brilliance. In the years since, landscape studies have grown to include much more than archaeological field survey, but this tension between textual and archaeological narratives remains at the heart of understandings of rural Roman Greece.

Central Greece and the Peloponnese (Archaic to Roman)

The much shorter Archaiologikon Deltion for the single year of 2005 invariably offers far fewer reports on the work of the Archaeological Service than the four-year volume with which we were presented last year. This, in itself, is no bad thing, although the geographical and chronological balance generated by such a large dataset is notable by its absence. This unevenness is, as ever, partially offset by the publication of fieldwork, although certain areas maintain a far more visible archaeological presence than others. This is particularly true for the northeastern Peloponnese, which has, in recent years, been the recipient of an almost unparalleled focus of both research and rescue excavation; a fact reflected in the significant contribution made to this year's report by the edited proceedings of the conference The Corinthia and the Northeast Peloponnese: Topography and History from Prehistoric Times until the End of Antiquity (Kissas and Niemeier 2013). A total of 56 individual papers provide details on sites that range in date from the Neolithic to the Byzantine period. A great strength of this collection lies in the contribution of so many current and former staff of the Archaeological Service, and, of the numerous papers that engage directly or indirectly with the archaeology of the Archaic to Roman period, several are discussed in greater depth in the course of this report. A complementary Hesperia supplement detailing the current state of prehistoric and historic research on the Corinthian Isthmus is due to appear before the end of the year (Gebhard and Gregory forthcoming), as is a study of material from Henry Robinson's 1961–1962 excavation in the North Cemetery (Slane forthcoming). The study of religious practice during the Classical period benefits from the publication of the first volume of material from excavations conducted by the Canadian Institute in Greece between 1994 and 2001 in the Sanctuary of Athena at Stymphalos (Schaus 2014a), while the consolidation of synthetic regional studies and individual site reports within Villae Rusticae: Family and Market-oriented Farms in Greece under Roman Rule (Rizakis and Touratsoglou 2013) will no doubt ensure that it becomes a standard text for the study of the rural economy of Roman Greece (see Stewart, this volume).

Da Nietzsche a Heidegger: Mondo classico e civiltà europea

Da Nietzsche a Heidegger: Mondo classico e civiltà europea

AGORAS AND FORA: DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CENTRAL PUBLIC SPACE OF THE CITIES OF GREECE DURING THE ROMAN PERIOD

Despite the old image of degradation and fall, modern research has shown that Roman Greece underwent a series of changes which are best reflected in the central public space of the ancient city, the agora. A variety of different factors, such as the dynamic presence of the local elite, the exploitation of the past, the imperial presence and most importantly the will to maximise functionality and monumentality, contributed to the formation of the spatial and architectural framework of the agora. In many cities the development of the agora is best described as the juxtaposition of old and new, which was achieved by the preservation and enhancement of the traditional landscape as well as by its enrichment with new buildings, many of which, like the Roman-style baths, improved the provision of services. In this context the term Romanisation describes the effort of each city to adapt to the requirements of the urban framework of the Imperial period, a framework characterised by monumentality and functionality. Roman colonies were the newest additions in the city pattern of Greece. In contrast to the Roman colonies in the west, many of the Roman foundations in Greece were founded over pre-existing cities with long histories. Therefore, they raise a series of questions concerning not only their architectural development but also the process of restructuring the existing landscape in order to create an urban framework that reflects their romanitas.