Roman North Africa Research Articles

Концепция души христианских учителей Ранней Церкви

The article is devoted to the teachings about the soul, which were developed in the early Christian tradition before the 4th century. There is no shortage of research on this topic, how-ever, in this article, firstly, no attempt is made to develop a uni-versal patristic teaching, but, on the contrary, an overview of the entire variety of ideas that were formed in the Early Church is give; secondly, the observation is made that the opinion ac-cepted among scientists about the unconditional adherence of Christian authors to one or the other philosophical schools are not supported by the sources. Christian writers argue with their contemporary philosophy, and at the same time rely more on the authority of St. Scriptures and the church tradition, creative-ly reworking the philosophical heritage. Christians use only the general idea of the soul, which was developed by the Greek philosophical schools. Idealistic teaching was spread among the Hellenized Jews of the Diaspora. Christian church teachers used both the «Platonic» immaterial concept of the soul, as well as the «Aristotelian» materialistic one. The author of the article concludes that the choice in favor of one or another model de-pended more on regional specifics. In those provinces of the West and East where the degree of Hellenization was higher, there is a greater attraction to Platonic idealism. On the contra-ry, in Roman North Africa, where Hellenistic culture did not spread, and as the local population as a whole tended to reli-gious literalism and materialism, typical for Punic culture, the materialistic doctrine of the soul also spread. Since it is in Ro-man Africa that Latin Christianity was born, it is in it that Christian materialism would develop. It is precisely caused by cultural specifics of the Mediterranean regions, and not by the difference in Greek and Latin languages, that is usually esti-mated as a core factor of the split between teachings of the soul in the Eastern and Western Christian thought.

Killjoy? Augustine on Pageantry

Augustine’s position on civic spectacles should be evaluated in connection with his fears about a resurgence of paganism in late Roman North Africa. Notwithstanding contemporary claims that those fears were cover for early fifth-century prelatical efforts to manage commercial and political culture, evidence suggests that paganism in North Africa survived and was seductive.

African Theological Education: Retrospect and Prospect — An Anglophone Perspective

Christian theological thinking and vocation has a long and illustrious history on the African continent, dating back to prominent theologians in Roman North Africa and Egypt. To appraise the prospects of theological education in Africa against its complicated and fraught background, I will discuss two issues of primary importance: 1) the need for theological education (programs, research, and institutions) to deeply engage African realities and context; and 2) why overcoming the debilitating effects of captivity to the Western theological/intellectual tradition will be Africa’s greatest gift to the global church. These issues are primary because they will largely define or determine the prospects of African theological education for the next generation and beyond.

Apologist Arnobius, a Christian rhetorician from Sicca Veneria

The article is devoted to one of the most interesting Christian apologists of the turn of the 3rd and 4th centuries from the Afri-can city of Sicca Veneria — Arnobius. Being a pagan and a teacher of rhetoric, he converted to Christianity after the Great Persecution of Diocletian and wrote an extensive work in defense of the Christian faith as confirmation of his new views, known as “Seven Books Against the Pagans”. This Christian apology is a unique example of an essay composed independently of the pre-ceding Christian tradition. Apparently, Arnobius did not have ac-cess to the texts of Sacred Scripture when he wrote it and could not fully rely on the works of preceding Christian authors. The apology is largely devoted to a systematic exposition of the cri-tique of classical paganism, which was characteristic not only of ecclesiastical but also philosophical works. The aim of this arti-cle is to reconstruct Arnobius' worldview, based on which one can judge what he taught as a teacher of rhetoric at the beginning of the 4th century. This allows us to recreate the picture of the educational environment in the Roman provincial town of that time. Arnobius actively uses the writings of Greek and Roman authors, which, as it seems, were his main teaching material. The article raises the question of the relationship between the rhetori-cal school and the Christian community in an ancient city. Tradi-tionally, Arnobius' acquaintance with Christianity is considered from the moment of his conversion to the new faith, but the anal-ysis of his apology suggests that the version of Christianity he proposed was not born by chance and was the product of deep creative search, which allows us to reassess the teaching of rheto-ric in provincial urban spaces. Moreover, it is evident that the conflict between Arnobius and the church initially went beyond the line of paganism-Christianity, and the apologist was closer to the Eastern idealistic model of church doctrine, which was not typical for Roman North Africa.

Knocking on the Doors of Scripture

Several times, when faced with a difficult passage of scripture in Sermones ad populum, Augustine implores his audience, “knock and it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7c; par. Luke 11:9c). Augustine uses this phrase to stress humility and the human need for God’s activity when interpreting scripture. Studying the archeological record of domestic architecture of locked doors in Roman North Africa elucidates Augustine’s message. Knowledge of the material culture shows that Augustine calls upon Christians to “knock” upon scripture as if it were a door, locked and barred in such a way that it could only be opened from inside. Thus, a reader of scripture is like a petitioner calling from outside a locked door, needing God to open its meaning. Augustine’s use of “knocking” contrasts with the metaphor of “keys” to scripture, which was favored by Tyconius and other early Christian writers. In De doctrina Christiana, Augustine expresses concern that “keys” could lead a person into overconfidence, expecting to unlock obscure passages of the Bible by his or her own power. Augustine’s frequent use of Matt. 7:7c is a call for exegetes to approach scripture with humility. All members of the totus Christus, great and small, must humbly knock. The image of “knocking” provides a versatile theological message: human effort is important, but the meaning of the Bible is ultimately unlocked by God’s activity.

Morphometric and husbandry changes among livestock in ancient North Africa from c. 1000 BCE to c. 700 CE

Assessment of zooarchaeological data for the principal livestock (i.e., cattle, sheep, goats and pigs) reveals regional and cultural variability in how animals were manipulated, marketed, bred, and utilized over the course of antiquity. This paper focuses upon those developments, as reconstructed through zooarchaeological frequency and morphometric data for the period from c. 1000 BCE to c. 700 CE. Regionally, North Africa encompasses a vast territory, from Egypt, in the East, to Mauretania, in the West. Ecologically, there are variations within each of these zones. Culturally, moreover, these regions witnessed the introduction and influence of different social and economic agents and factors over the timeframe under investigation. This paper examines patterns in these components in a broad synthetic manner, using zooarchaeological data across the entire expanse of Roman North Africa—from Egypt to Mauretania. Focus centers upon the nature and degree of size and shape changes within the principal livestock, modifications that were in part influenced by aspects such as the scale and pattern in trade, dietary appeal for animal products (notably fatty meats), market demands, ecological adaptations, as well as economic and cultural contact among areas. Key similarities and differences in faunal patterns, across time and space within ancient North Africa, and the links these share with changes in animal husbandry schemes are outlined.

Roma Mozaiklerinde Mevsim Hayvanları

Animals were popular subjects for Roman mosaics, featuring in many contexts. In his influential book, Season Mosaics of Roman North Africa, David Parrish included a short section on animals symbolising the Seasons, appearing either with personifications or representing the Seasons by themselves.This article widens the discussion and looks beyond North Africa. It begins by examining mosaics on which personifications of the Seasons ride animals and continues with those in which the association is progressively less direct, with a view to analysing which animals can be shown to carry seasonal connotations and whether those animals were associated with more than one season.Mosaics in which four animals appear without personifications are also considered in order to assess whether or not they represented the Seasons. The presence of other seasonal imagery supports this idea, while factors such as the context in which the animals appear and the order in which they are shown can suggest an answer one way or the other.The aim of the article is to demonstrate that whenever four animals are depicted in a mosaic it is worth considering whether they might have seasonal associations, while bearing in mind that this will not necessarily be the case in every instance.

Squatters’ Rights

Although ‘squatters’ have been identified in excavated contexts globally, it is unclear what this term actually means. In most archaeological publications, it seems to refer to the occupants of abandoned or destroyed buildings, especially those of the elite. ‘Squatting’, however, carries additional negative connotations which have been under-interrogated in the field. In this study, I explore the treatment of squatters in Anglophone archaeological writing, drawing upon two chronologically and geographically distinct examples: the Aegean Bronze Age and Late Roman North Africa. I argue that, in general, ‘squatters’ are identified uncritically and used as an index of cultural decline, with little consideration of the squatters—or reoccupants—themselves. Because ‘legitimacy’ of occupation is difficult to ascertain in archaeological contexts, I argue that this term is of little use in describing ancient reoccupation levels, particularly where they are distinguished only by their relative poverty. I suggest instead that an agency-centered assessment of impoverished architectural contexts is required.

Louise Cilliers, Roman North Africa: Environment, Society and Medical Contribution

Louise Cilliers, Roman North Africa: Environment, Society and Medical Contribution

Local Religions in Roman North Africa on the Eve of the Middle Ages

This paper considers how late antique Latin authors (mainly Augustine and Corippus) dealt with ancestral rites and practices of probable autochthonous (i. e. Berber) origin and provided an ideological resemantisation. Although motivated by anti-pagan pleas and also allowing for some exaggeration, they nevertheless provide reliable information, which can be compared against epigraphic evidence, and offer further contributions that enrich the knowledge of the North African local pantheon, otherwise largely documented by epigraphical evidence. It might therefore be surmised that, notwithstanding the deep Christianisation of the region, at the end of the Roman Empire, North Africa still witnessed the survival of residual and isolated pagan fringes.

Louise Cilliers, Roman North Africa: Environment, Society and Medical Contribution

Louise Cilliers, <i>Roman North Africa: Environment, Society and Medical Contribution</i>

Authority beyond Tribe and State in the “Middle Maghrib”

The history of ancient and medieval North Africa has all too often been written as the history of its conquerors. Accounts of Roman, Vandal, Byzantine or Islamic North Africa typically focus on the...

Curse-Practices in the Late-Antique Roman Levant and North Africa

Curse-Practices in the Late-Antique Roman Levant and North Africa

Bonnie Effros. Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa.

Bonnie Effros. Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa.

Epigraphy and Ambition: Building Inscriptions in the Hinterland of Carthage

abstractBuilding inscriptions are not a good proxy for building activity or, by extension, prosperity. In the part of Roman North Africa where they are the most common, the majority of surviving building inscriptions document the construction of religious buildings by holders of local priesthoods, usually of the imperial cult. The rise of such texts in the second centurya.d., and their demise in the early third century, have no parallel in the epigraphic evidence for other types of construction, and should not be used as evidence for the pace of construction overall. Rather than economic change, these developments reflect shifts in the prospects of aspirational local elites, for whom priesthoods served as springboards to more prestigious positions. These positions were linked to Carthage through administrative arrangements that made this city the metropolis for scores of dependent towns and their ambitious elites.

Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa, by Bonnie Effros

Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa, by Bonnie Effros

Roman North Africa: Environment, Society and Medical Contribution by L. Cilliers

Reviewed by: Roman North Africa: Environment, Society and Medical Contribution by L. Cilliers Jessica Wright Cilliers, L. 2019. Roman North Africa: Environment, Society and Medical Contribution. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Pp. 256. ISBN 978-94-6298-990-0. €95.00. This is the first book-length work in English to take late-antique Roman North African medical authors as its focus, but it represents a rising interest in the social context and popularization of learned medicine in Late Antiquity. The extraction and clear presentation of information about and from late-antique medical works is welcome indeed. In this book, Cilliers accomplishes three central tasks: she synthesizes the limited knowledge we have about late-antique medical writers in Roman North Africa, she situates these writers against the backdrop of ancient and late-antique medicine, Roman North Africa, and the rise of Christianity, and she makes the fairly obscure medical texts of Late Antiquity accessible to a wider audience of scholars and students. Following a series of introductory chapters, Cilliers offers individual discussions of key late-antique medical authors closely associated with North Africa: Vindicianus (mid-/late fourth century ce), Theodorus Priscianus (late-fourth and early-fifth centuries ce), Caelius Aurelianus (fourth or fifth century ce), Cassius Felix (fifth century ce), and Muscio (fifth or sixth century ce). The information available for each of these authors is sparse, and Cilliers is careful not to speculate further than is justified by the existing evidence. The final third of the book moves on to consider the role of Christianity in the preservation and transformation of learned medicine in late-antique Roman North Africa, focusing especially upon the fourth-/fifth-century bishop Augustine of Hippo. The first chapter, 'History, environment, population and cultural life' (pp. 15–56), is the longest in the book. It offers a cultural history of North Africa from Punic settlement in c. 800 bce to Islamic settlement in the seventh century ce. Cilliers organizes this survey around key themes: important cities; olive and wheat production, as well as red-slip pottery; people groups (Berbers, Ethiopians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Vandals); languages; and intellectual life. This chapter is an impressively deft account of a broad range of scholarship on North African cultural history in Antiquity. It is marred in parts by its presentation from a Romanocentric perspective, as reflected in the absence of 'Romans' from the list of people groups accounted for. The Romans are not the object of study, but the lens. This results in some infelicities that seem out of step with Cilliers' own agenda. While Cilliers does point out to the reader that 'a negative view of the Berbers' has, in recent decades, been 'repudiated as Eurocentric' (p. 43), this very perspective manifests itself in the text through valorization of Roman imperialism, as on p. 23: [End Page 258] 'The revival under Byzantine rule … had the benefit that the high level of civilisation of the previous centuries was maintained, with the result that the Arabs' inheritance was not that left by the Vandals and Berbers, but that of cultured people who could still read and write and remembered what the Romans had taught them.' Chapters Two through Four provide background information on ancient medicine in its social context. Chapter Two, 'Health facilities in the cities of Roman North Africa' (pp. 57–78), offers a useful guide to aqueducts in the Roman Empire in general, and in Roman North in particular, to the public baths, and to sewers; it also includes a discussion of hospitals, including military hospitals. Chapter Three, 'Greek, Roman and Christian views on the causes of infectious epidemic diseases' (pp. 79–96), offers a brief account of the development of learned medicine and rationalistic explanations of disease, a discussion of ancient views on contagion, and a brief account of epidemics known from literary sources. As Cilliers emphasizes, bacteriology is a modern discovery, and the closest that ancient sources come to theorizing contagion is in theories of pollution or transmission through airbourne 'seeds'. Chapter Four, 'The knowledge and competence of physicians in the late Roman Empire' (pp. 97–116), gives an account of state regulation of the medical profession (drawing on information from late-antique legal digests) and surveys what...

Roman North Africa: Environment, society and medical contribution [Book Review

Review(s) of: Roman North Africa: Environment, Society and Medical Contribution, by Cilliers, Louise, Social Worlds of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019) hardcover, 256 pages, b and w illustrations, RRP euro99; ISBN: 9789462989900.

Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa by Bonnie Effros

Reviewed by: Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa by Bonnie Effros Eileen M. Angelini Effros, Bonnie. Incidental Archaeologists: French Officers and the Rediscovery of Roman North Africa. Cornell UP, 2018. ISBN 978-1-5017-0210-5. Pp. 371. Effros examines the previously understudied French military officers' fascination with the Roman remains they discovered in Algeria from 1830 to 1870 (the period immediately following the conquest of the Ottoman Regencies of Algiers and Constantine), and the resulting violence that arose out of their archaeological exploration, which led to the development of a new identity for French military and civilian settlers. In her introduction, "War and the Destruction of Antiquities in the Former Ottoman Empire," Effros sets the stage for her study by drawing a comparison between the current press given to the destruction of ancient archaeological sites in Syria and northern Iraq by Daesh and the lack of attention given by journalists to the fact that "for more than a century Europeans argued that these antiquities, and the monuments of which they were a part, had little or no value to the Arab inhabitants of the lands from which they were purchased, stolen, received as gifts, or taken by force" (1). She further elucidates how 1870 and 1880 legislation met with limited success in its efforts [End Page 263] to ban the export of ancient remains as well as to establish antiquities museums in Istanbul and Tunis. Yet, even more painful to learn in "Knowing and Controlling: Early Archaeological Exploration in the Algerian Colony" is that while these French colonizers were conducting their work, they destroyed the history of long-established Muslim communities, thereby establishing an odd combination of respect for the Maghreb's ancient past while violently suppressing and exploiting its nineteenth-century existence. Particularly relevant in "Envisioning the Future: French Generals' Use of Ancient Rome in the 1840s" is her demonstration of how the French believed that in learning from Roman successes and mistakes, they would achieve complete domination of the region. Across the chapters "The View from Ancient Lambaesis," "Institutionalizing Algerian Archaeology," and "Cartography and Field Archaeology during the Second Empire," Effros demonstrates that through their efforts to record the history of the ancient Romans, while at the same time persecuting the Arab and Berber inhabitants of colonial Algeria, the French sought to acquire knowledge at the expense of others in order to become European imperialists: "By the early 1850s, however, French archaeologists, a significant number of whom were by this point metropolitan scholars or civilian settlers rather than military officers, were content to claim that Arabs and Kabyles were entirely uninterested in Roman antiquities" (161). But Effros is deliberate in explaining the actual position of the Arabs and Kabyles: "Antiquities played an integral part in their daily lives, belief systems, and customs, as has been demonstrated in contemporary cases in other parts of the Mediterranean such as newly independent Greece" (161). Complementing her analysis of how the French conducted themselves in Algeria from 1830 to 1870 is her epilogue, "Classical Archaeology in Algeria after 1870," which underscores how French actions in Algeria contributed to the professionalization of archaeology in France. Eileen M. Angelini SUNY Empire State College Copyright © 2020 American Association of Teachers of French

Carceral Practices and Geographies in Roman North Africa

I explore the landscape of carceral practices and geographies in late antique Roman North Africa by applying a comparative lens to carceral punishments of exile and condemnation to the mines. I situate the research within the field of carceral studies, using the concept of carceral practices and geographies (as opposed to the narrower concepts of prison and imprisonment). I first offer a contextualization of the punishments of exile and condemnation to the mines as carceral punishments, remaining especially sensitive to the legal, material, and spatial aspects of each punishment. I then consider how different North African Christians used their carceral punishments and geographies to negotiate issues of political and social power in the broader Roman Mediterranean, specifically the letter exchange between Cyprian and three other groups of Christians condemned to the mines (Ep. 76–79). I use the letter correspondence as a case study to explore the “real-and-imagined” aspects of carceral practices and geographies in Roman North Africa. The carceral punishments of exile and condemnation to the mines have legal, material, social, gendered, rhetorical, and lived-experience components, all of which are treated as distinct, yet also fluid and intersectional with each other. I conclude by gesturing to how the case study adds texture to our understanding of how carceral punishment worked in Late Antiquity.