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• The Educational Policy of Julian the Apostate

  123–134.

  Katalin Csízy

  Views:

  73

  Julian 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.

• The Kulmian letters patent of the Teutonic Order of 1233

  205–232

  László Pósán

  Views:

  54

  This study subjects to scrutiny the articles of the Kulmian letters patent of 1233 which determined the conditions of private and public law in the would-be state of the Teutonic Order in Prussia. The Kulmer Handfeste had laid down, at the same time, the privileges facilitating planned settlement prior to the conquest of Prussian lands. This diploma ruled on the conditions pertaining to the order of succession, the size of plots, the system of field utilization, fishing and hunting rights as well as those of criminal law and court procedures. It determined the privileges as well as the obligations linked to land-grants while it also determined the conditions of providing for the sustenance of parishes, as well as the currency of the future Teutonic state.

• The inscription of the statue of Divus Commodus in Sopron

  83–90

  Ádám Szabó

  Views:

  98

  The 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.

• The date and circumstances of the Heliodoros affair: Considerations on the Seleucus IV dossier from Maresha

  9–19

  Tibor Grüll

  Views:

  80

  In 2005 and 2006 in the Hellenistic city of Marise (Marisha/Bet Guvrin, Israel) five adjoining fragments of a Greek inscription has been found. The stele contains three letters: an order from Seleucus IV (187-175 B.C.) to his chancellor Heliodoros about a certain Olympiodoros, who was put in charge of the sanctuaries of Koilē Syria and Phoinikē; a letter from Heliodoros to Dorymenes (who was in all probability the strategos of Koilē Syria and Phoinikē at that time); and a letter from Dorymenes to a certain Diophanes (probably the hyparchos of the district of Marise). The letters are dated to the month Gorpiaios of the year 134 S.E. (summer of 178 B.C.). There is no doubt that Heliodoros in the dossier of Marise, and Heliodoros in the Second Book of Maccabees (ch. 3–4) is the same person who attempted to plunder the Temple of Jerusalem, but according to the 2Macc 3:25–27 he has suffered a divine punishment. In this paper I am arguing that the “Heliodoros-affair” happened in the earlier years of Seleucus IV’s reign, probably nine or eight years before Olympiodoros was put in charge of religious affairs in Koilē Syria and Phoinikē. If we accept this chronological order, the known list of four strategoi of Koilē Syria and Phoinikē can be easily put together.

• Quintus Aurelius Symmachus and the Roman Religion

  135–146.

  Orsolya Tóth

  Views:

  63

  Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, the renowned orator of Late Antiquity, took an active role in upholding the traditions of the ancient Roman religion. The present paper examines his relationship to religion and his priestly activities, mainly through his letters.

• Ennodius und Martial

  195–205

  Tamás Adamik

  Views:

  95

  Magnus Felix Ennodius, the bishop of Ticinum (modern Pavia), died in 521. He has left letters, poems, oratorical pieces, saints’ lives and controversial literature. Ennodius’ writings were composed for specific audiences on particular occasions. His Latinity is very literate, syntactically complex, and difficult to understand. He cultivates the short literary forms: letters, panegyrics, declamatory themes (dictiones), short poems, epithalamium, epigrams, epitaphs, hymns. In the preface of his epithalamium for Maximus, he displays the essential qualities of spring with Martial’s vocabulary. This fact directed my attention to the relation of Ennodius to Martial. Comparing Ennodius’s epigrams with Martial’s, I realized that in his epigrams Ennodius imitated Martial both in topics and expressions.

• Characters and magic signs in the Picatrix and other Medieval magic texts

  69–77

  Benedek Láng

  Views:

  327

  The word „characters” covers a number of different phenomena in the Middle Ages. It might refer to a list of incomprehensible signs and astrological symbols inscribed in a talismanic sigil, to a series of Latin letters used for magical purposes, and also to a written form of verbal incantation, a written charm. Characters were often used in the field of talismanic or celestial magic in order to name spiritual beings. The paper reviews the use of characters in various medieval sources: textual amulets, necromantic manuals, texts on talismanic magic and the most famous medieval magical summary, the Picatrix.

• Eine magische Gemme mit Inschriften im Akademischen Kunstmuseum der Universität Bonn

  205–216

  Erika Zwierlein-Diehl

  Views:

  95

  The magical gem published here belongs to the Akademisches Kunstmuseum der Universität Bonn (Abb. 1–2.; measurements: 33 x 24 x 6 mm). It stems from the collection of Klaus Müller, who acquired it in the 1960th or 1970th. Obverse and reverse of the gem are filled with inscriptions, most of them consisting of unknown voces magicae, and possibly some meaningless letters to fill the space. On the obverse a prominent inscription invokes Eloe, that is Elohim, the Jewish God, who entered the magic pantheon like Greek and Egyptian ones and under the name of Iaō, even got an image in the figure of the cock-headed, snake-legged warrior. Eloe here means the great magic Sun god, as becomes apparent by Semese(ilam) in col. d 6. The reverse names Thoth, the Moon god. Thus the gem was an amulet for day and night, that is for ever. The bevel of the gem is left plain, so it could have been personalizied by an inscription, which was not the case; thus in its present form the gem was an amulet for every owner.

• The Question of Life and Death by Cicero and Macrobius

  31–41

  Orsolya Tóth

  Views:

  129

  To Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis Macrobius prepared a Neoplatonic commentary in Late Antiquity. On the grounds of these two works and Cicero’s other political or philosophical writings and letters this study seeks an answer to the question what similarities and differences can be demonstrated between the two authors’ way of thinking as regards the nature of the virtues, the issue of vita activa and vita contemplativa, the meaning of life and the necessity of voluntary death.

• A Possible Interpretation

  17–24

  Edina Gradvohl

  Views:

  120

  This paper attempts to interpret a gem of uncertain date and questionable origin, with Greek inscriptions and letters, and which is in the National Library of France (BNF inv.58.2220). Based on previous interpretations and the surviving impression and description of a pendant which is very similar to it in material and subject, it can be shown that the gem is original, and Christian, based on the depictions on it and the clearly legible word "ΧΡΙCΤΟC".

• A gold lamella for ‘Blessed’ Abalala

  7–20

  Roy D. Kotansky

  Views:

  107

  This article examines a previously unpublished gold lamella of unknown provenance, datable on palaeographical grounds to the 1st century BCE, give-or-take a half century, either side. The tablet preserves three words written in Greek letters that may contain a GrecoPersian formula of protection in the afterlife for its bearer, Abalala, a name of pre-Islamic extraction. The study compares the formula with those on a number of shorter ‘Orphic’ gold lamellae to show that the tiny piece represents a ‘Totenpaß’ for the beneficent dead, rather than a protective charm (phylactery) with the usual voces magicae, although the distinction between magic words and meaningful text is not always clear in such instances.