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Mithras, Neoplatonism and the stars
161–180Views:369The main ideas of this study (which is a continuation of my former article entitled “Mithras, Sol Invictus, and the Astral Philosophical Connections”) are the following: I. The dichotomy and differences between the two main groups of theories regarding the origins of the Roman mystery cult of Mithras, namely the school of the great Belgian scholar Franz Cumont, who considered Mithraism in the Roman world as an essentially Iranian cult adapted to the new cultural Hellenistic-Roman context, and the theory of the 19th century German scholar K. B. Stark (revived in the 1970s by academics like R. Beck, J. R. Hinnells, S. Insler, R. Gordon, and A. Bausani, who considered that the Roman cult of the solar god Mithras was a new mystery cult which was born in the Roman world because of the Hellenistic scientific discovery of the precession of the equinoxes.1 My conclusion is that the Roman cult of Mithras, fused with the cult of Sol Invictus (the Hellenistic-Roman cult of the Unvanquished Sun), has more things Iranian than the name of the central deity of this initiation-mystery cult (despite its undeniable Hellenistic-Roman and astrological-astronomical elements). II. The astral element as a potent religious component of the religious and philosophical mentality of the so-called “mystery religious and initiation cults” in the Roman Empire is seen in Roman Mithraism as a ladder for the journey of the soul through the astral spheres towards perfection or possibly towards liberation (these are modern interpretations, since we do not have any consistent Mithraic religious-liturgical text). III. The role of Neo-Platonist philosophy in the religious and philosophical landscape of the 3rd and 4th centuries CE of the Late Roman Empire and its possible relationship with the Roman cult of Mithras.
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Isis the immigrant and Roman toleration
49–71Views:170In adopting a foreign cult, ancient Roman worshippers were not searching for a new religion to replace their old one, but rather seeking to expand the range of gods and practices at their disposal. They assumed that all traditional gods and religions were valid and effective. There was, therefore, an implicit toleration built into the system of ancient polytheism, and this was admired by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, though the Roman state never guaranteed freedom of worship. The cult of Isis was distasteful to the Roman élite, and the government often reacted brutally to particular actions by her worshippers. Nevertheless, her cult was always popular with the general public and the state never wished to abolish it, and eventually built a public temple to Isis. The worshippers of Isis tested the limits of Roman toleration and demonstrated its vitality.
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The Gems in the Ustinow Collection, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo
101-141Views:230Scientifically, the collection’s primary importance is its Middle-Eastern origin; collections of gemstones from the Middle East have rarely been published unlike those from European archaeological sites. Thus the possibility opens up to compare finds from the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire with a focus on similarities and differences. While in the western provinces the gemstones typically spread during the era of the Roman Empire, in the eastern provinces the use of seals and gemstones goes back several thousand years. It follows that in the western regions, representations of the official themes of the age of the emperors, including the characteristic figures of gods of the state religion (Jupiter, Minerva, Mars, Venus Victrix), are the most common. In contrast, the eastern provinces saw the spread of representations of local gods (Zeus Ammon, Zeus Heliopolitanos, Sarapis) or the Hellenistic types of the Greek gods (Apollo Musagetes, Aphrodite Anadyomene, Hermes Psychopompos). However, there were figures of gods that were equally popular in both regions, such as Tyche–Fortuna, Nike–Victoria, Eros–Amor, Dionysos–Bacchus, Heracles–Hercules. Each of these became rather popular in the Hellenistic World, spreading basically spontaneously throughout the entire Roman Empire. There was a similar unity in the popularity of represenations of animals, too.
The eastern region was, however, characterised by the relatively large number of magic gemstones. There is a piece among these which has no exact analogy (Cat. 69) and its analysis sheds new light on the previous interpretation of similar pieces. The popularity of magic gemstones is highlighted by the fact that some of their motifs became distorted beyond recognition in the popularisation process. Understandably, Sasanian gemstones and seals, which revived the Romans’ dying custom of sealing for some time, were also typical of the eastern regions. What is conspicuous is that the stone cameos (agate, sardonyx) so common in the western regions are completely missing from the collection, while there is a fair number of glass cameo pendants made in the eastern regions.
From an educational and community cultural aspect, the significance of the Ustinow collection lies in the fact that it represents several historical and cultural eras between the fourth century B.C. and the fifth century A.D. for the benefit of the interested public, private collectors, and students of archaeology and the antiquities. The gemstones may be small, but the representations on them can be extraordinarily rich in meaning. With adequate enlargement and due professional expertise, which this catalogue aims to promote, all this information can come to life in front of us, allowing us a glimpse into the lives and thoughts of the citizens of a Mediterranean world two thousand years back. -
Visigoths and Romans after 410
185–194Views:225In 410, the Roman Empire was shaken to its core after Rome was sacked by the Visigoths. The Barbarian attacks and the emergence of the usurpers created a severe crisis in the Western Roman Empire. The study of contemporary authors reveals that the crisis engendered a change in attitudes. For the Empire to be reconstructed, the traditional Roman, anti-barbarian attitude had to be changed, and living together and cooperating with the Goths was now a must. The change in attitude can be detected in Orosius’ work, a formerly anti-barbarian author who places Athaulf’s speech at Narbonne in the centre. The marriage of the Visigoth king with Galla Placidia (414), the Romanization of the Goths, their imperial service, and their new relationship with Romans as described in the speech is all a solid basis for a reestablishment of Goth-Roman relations and the creation of a new federal agreement, which actually took place in 418.
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How does a Goddess of the Earth became the Mistress of the Sea?
35–48Views:184With the coming of the Ptolemaic dynasty to the Egyptian throne, the goddess Isis goes through a series of changes that will turn her into a very different divinity. This new Hellenistic or Greco-Roman Isis not only stands out for the degree of expansion attained throughout the Mediterranean world but also for displaying a series of attributes, among which we highlight one in particular: Her role as goddess of the Sea. This not only changed the attitude of her devotees but also entailed deeper ritual implications, festivities and iconographic motifs. There are innumerable variations that brought about her “metamorphosis” into a maritime deity, especially since this was one of the most popular facets of Isis that penetrated the Roman Empire.
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The Lombars' Move into Italy
135–144Views:93The present study disputes stereotypes in historical scholarship related to the Lombards’ move into Italy and takes a position contrary to those common views. It calls into question the idea that the Lombards entered Italy as ruthless conquerors and holds the view that they moved into Italy from Pannonia not unlike the foederati in the late Roman Empire on the basis of an agreement concluded with the Romans. The author disputes the idea that King Alboin set out on this journey together with all his people in a single move in the spring of 568, and maintains on the grounds of various logistical considerations that the Lombards migrated to Italy in a number of groupings (so-called farae) stretched over a longer period of time and along diverse routes.
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The cult of Glykon as a 'New Religious Movement'
147–160Views:135This essay explores the integration of eastern religions into the Roman world during the early Empire by examining one particularly successful example, the Cult of Glykon, which became popular during the later second century and following. Drawing on the characteristics that social scientists have identified as most significant in contributing to the success of New Religious Movements (NRMs) in the recent past, the presence of these features in the Cult of Glykon is considered from the surviving evidence, including the satire Alexander or the False Prophet, which was written by Lucian of Samosata. As this discussion makes clear, the Cult of Glykon appears to have achieved some measure of success as a New Religious Movement in the Roman world because it possessed many of the same characteristics. They are, therefore, a useful starting point for exploring the integration of other religious groups in the Roman world.
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King of Kings Ardashir I as Xerxes in the Late Antique Latin Sources
143-153Views:281The last ruler of the Severan dynasty, Emperor Severus Alexander had to face an entirely new threat in Mesopotamia, because in 224 AD the Parthian royal house of the Arsacids, which had ruled in the East for nearly half a millennium, was dethroned by the Neo-Persian Sasanian dynasty and the new rulers of Persia were extremely hostile to the Roman Empire. The vast majority of the late antique Latin sources (Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Festus, Jerome, Orosius, Cassiodorus, Iordanes) call the first Sasanian monarch, Ardashir I (reigned 224–241 AD), who was at war with Rome between 231 and 233 AD, Xerxes, although the Greek equivalent of the Middle Persian name Ardashir is Artaxerxes, as used by the Greek sources. In the Latin textual tradition we can find the correct Greek name of Ardashir only in the Historia Augusta. The paper seeks answers to the question of why Ardashir was usually called Xerxes by late antique Latin sources.
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Bemerkungen zur öffentlichen Sklaverei in Pannonien
89–99Views:92The monograph of Alexander Weiß on public slavery in the cities of the Roman Empire based on Greek and Latin inscriptions shed light on the role and functions of the public slaves, arguing that they had a much larger role in the administration of the provincial cities than previously thought. Weiß intended to collect all epigraphical data on public slavery, although he could not study some smaller corpora in Pannonia, like IlJug or the Corpus of Greek inscriptions found in Pannonia (CIGP). A new collection of inscriptions from Aquincum (Tituli Aquincenses) and new inscriptions offer a great opportunity to reexamine the epigraphical data of Pannonia on public slavery, and examine whether the public slaves of Pannonia fit into the administrative categories listed by Weiß, or might reveal new functions.
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Biblical speech and phrases in the Vita sancti Heinrici regis et confessoris by Adalbert of Bamberg
187–203Views:45The vita of the emperor Henry II. of the Holy Roman Empire (ruled between A. D. 1002-1024) compiled by a dean of Bamberg, Adalbert about 1146 or 1170, had became one of the most influential work in the medieval German hagiography. The following paper deals with the problems of the authorship and the narrative and biblical sources of the vita. The study has two parts: in the first will be treated about the authorship, the sources and the reception of the vita as well the author’s method in the use of the biblical phrases. We are examining those chapters of the Vita Heinrici regis, in which the author used the biblical phrasing. In the second division of our study we are setting the details of the vita with their parallels from the Bible, investigating the author’s deep knowledge of the Holy Scripture and his virtuosity in the creative use of the biblical phrases.
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The role of archaisms in the Latin inscriptions of the Roman Empire: some new considerations in light of computerized dialectology
147–169Views:145This paper aims to reconsider the role of archaisms in epigraphy and, above all, their possible dialectal value. Indeed, according to a traditional theory, provinces that were colonized earlier by the Romans preserved archaic varieties of Latin. Scholars have often used inscriptions to support this idea, particularly in the case of Hispania, but the results of this paper, which rely on the methodology of modern Computerized Dialectology, are negative in this regard.
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Nuevas observaciones de lectura de una matriz de molde para crustula de Aquincum
115–122Views:54The paper examines again a form of the well-known crustula from Aquincum, and suggests some new possibilities for various readings of the lectio vulgata.
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The transformation of the case system in African Latin as evidenced in inscriptions
13–36Views:229Present paper intends to explore the process of the transformation of the case system as evidenced in the inscriptions of the Roman provinces Africa Proconsularis and Numidia. First the peculiarities of the transformation of the case system in African Latin in the preChristian and Christian periods will be analysed. Then the African distributional patterns of case system changes will be compared to those of other regions of the Empire selected for the survey including Spain, Gaul (including Germany), Italy, Illyricum, and the city of Rome. Finally, the results of the present analysis, especially those regarding the dialectological positioning of Roman Africa, will be compared with the results of the investigation of Gaeng 1992 regarding the later, Christian period.
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The inscription of the statue of Divus Commodus in Sopron
83–90Views:82The collection of the Liszt Ferenc Museum Sopron, contains, among other pieces, a fragment of a marble slab. The elegantly cut letters follow the writing style of the Antonine age, with their forms close to those of scriptura monumentalis. The formal features of the fragment, its thickness and frame breadth as well as its elaboration suggest, excluding the possibility of funerary or building contexts, that the slab was the front side of a statue base. The letters COM at the beginning of the first line can be restored to give the name Com[modus], while the fragmentary word FRAT in line 2 gives frat[er] or some of its inflected forms, if one considers the internal coherence of the two words and excludes similar but improbable variants.
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Magic Symbols (Charaktêres) on North African Curse Tablets as a Regional Feature
199–215.Views:168This study examines the practice of magic symbols in North Africa to find out whether there was a regional peculiarity in the use of charaktêres that distinguished this area from other parts of the Roman Empire. Two phenomena appear to be more common in North Africa, though they may also occur elsewhere: first, charaktêres as encrypted names, and second, charaktêres as framing devices. First and foremost, though, some introductory remarks concerning charaktêres in general are made.
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The Educational Policy of Julian the Apostate
123–134.Views:60Julian the Apostate, the last pagan ruler of the Roman Empire has left a rich correspondence, the content of which is extremely varied. The epistles, most of which are authentic, form a separate volume in the editions and can be divided into four groups. The first group consists of the so-called Gallic letters, the second group includes the letters of Illyria and Constantinople, the letters from Asia Minor form the third group. Finally, the letters written from Antioch complete the list. In the following, we will discuss the School Edict and more particularly the letter that accompanies it (Ep. 61 Bidez – second group of letters). The decree of the Codex Theodosianus, dated 17 June 362, was rather short-lived, being in force only from July 362 to 11 January 364, but it is nevertheless an outstanding document of ancient educational history since no other emperor had previously issued similar regulations on the operation of teachers. Alongside this decree we may place the edict associated with Justinian (Cod. Just. I,5,18,4; I,11,10,2), which, conversely, forbids the pagan rhetors from education, but in the sixth century no one attempted to criticise it.
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Consonantal Degemination in Latin Inscriptions of the Roman Empire:: A Dialectological and Sociolinguistic Perspective
165-178Views:136In this paper, a survey is conducted on the phenomenon of consonantal degemination through the corpus of epigraphic materials. The aim of this research is to understand the nature of this phenomenon and its possible implications in the field of dialectological studies.