SENSORIVM: The Senses in Roman Polytheism explores how a range of cults and rituals were perceived and experienced by participants through one or more senses. The present collection brings together papers from an international group of researchers all inspired by 'the sensory turn'. Focusing on a wide range of ritual traditions from around the ancient Roman world, they explore the many ways in which smell and taste, sight and sound, separately and together, involved participants in religious performance. Music, incense, images and colors, contrasts of light and dark played as great a role as belief or observance in generating religious experience. Together they contribute to an original understanding of the Roman sensory universe, and add an embodied perspective to the notion of Lived Ancient Religion. Contributors are Martin Devecka; Visa Helenius; Yulia Ustinova; Attilio Mastrocinque; Maik Patzelt; Mark Bradley; Adeline Grand-Clement; Rocio Gordillo Hervas; Rebeca Rubio; Elena Muniz Grijalvo; David Espinosa-Espinosa; A. Cesar Gonzalez-Garcia, Marco V. Garcia-Quintela; Joerg Rupke; Rosa Sierra del Molino; Israel Campos Mendez; Valentino Gasparini; Nicole Belayche; Anton Alvar Nuno; Jaime Alvar Ezquerra; Clelia Martinez Maza.

This book compares the ways in which new powers arose in the shadows of the Roman Empire and its Byzantine and Carolingian successors, of Iran, the Caliphate and China in the first millennium CE. These new powers were often established by external military elites who had served the empire. They remained in an uneasy balance with the remaining empire, could eventually replace it, or be drawn into the imperial sphere again. Some relied on dynastic legitimacy, others on ethnic identification, while most of them sought imperial legitimation. Across Eurasia, their dynamic was similar in many respects; why were the outcomes so different? Contributors are Alexander Beihammer, Maaike van Berkel, Francesco Borri, Andrew Chittick, Michael R. Drompp, Stefan Esders, Ildar Garipzanov, Jurgen Paul, Walter Pohl, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Helmut Reimitz, Jonathan Shepard, Q. Edward Wang, Veronika Wieser, and Ian N. Wood.

Typically carved in stone, the cylinder seal is perhaps the most distinctive art form to emerge in ancient Mesopotamia. It spread across the Near East from ca. 3300 BCE onwards, and remained in use for millennia. What was the role of this intricate object in the making of a person's social identity? As the first comprehensive study dedicated to this question, Selves Engraved on Stone explores the ways in which different but often intersecting aspects of identity, such as religion, gender, community and profession, were constructed through the material, visual, and textual characteristics of seals from Mesopotamia and Syria.

Eldon Jay Epp's second volume of collected essays consists of articles previously published during 2006-2017. All treat aspects of the New Testament textual criticism, but focus on historical and methodological issues relevant to constructing the earliest attainable text of New Testament writings. More specific emphasis falls upon the nature of textual transmission and the text-critical process, and heavily on the criteria employed in establishing that earliest available text. Moreover, textual grouping is examined at length, and prominent is the current approach to textual variants not approved for the constructed text, for they have stories to tell regarding theological, ethical, and real-life issues as the early Christian churches sought to work out their own status, practices, and destiny.

Competition is everywhere in antiquity. It took many forms: the upper class competed with their peers and with historical and mythological predecessors; artists of all kinds emulated generic models and past masterpieces; philosophers and their schools vied with one another to give the best interpretation of the world; architects and doctors tried to outdo their fellow craftsmen. Discord and conflict resulted, but so did innovation, social cohesion, and political stability. In Hesiod's view Eris was not one entity but two, the one a "grievous goddess," the other an "aid to men." Eris vs. Aemulatio examines the functioning and effect of competition in ancient society, in both its productive and destructive aspects.

The study of Archaic Greece has undergone a fundamental transformation in recent decades. Whereas studies up to the 1980s had favoured narratives that converged on the more tangible reality of the Classical period and emphasized radical change, the increase in archaeological data and the cultural turn have led to an emphasis on long-term developments and continuities. After an introduction to the state of research, the volume offers a wide range of studies under the headings "Approaches on early-Archaic Greece," "Citizens and Citizen-States," and "Leaders and Reformers" ranging from Homer to Solon and circling around the central problem of continuity and change in Archaic Greece.

Das vorliegende Buch bietet erstmals eine holistische und diachrone Untersuchung aller Ehrenstatuen der roemischen Provinz Sizilien. Auf Grundlage eines umfangreichen Katalogs von meist unpubliziertem archaologischen und epigraphischen Material werden Fragen zu deren Entwicklung und zum raumlichen sowie sozialen Kontext beantwortet. This book presents the first comprehensive survey of honorary statues in Sicily. A wealth of previously unpublished material reconstructs the spatial and social contexts of honorary statues, offering a unique window on urbanism and society of the first Roman province.

The Mixtec peoples were among the major original developers of Mesoamerican civilization. Centuries before the Spanish Conquest, they formed literate urban states and maintained a uniquely innovative technology and a flourishing economy. Today, thousands of Mixtecs still live in Oaxaca, in present-day southern Mexico, and thousands more have migrated to locations throughout Mexico, the United States, and Canada. In this comprehensive survey, Ronald Spores and Andrew K. Balkansky--both preeminent scholars of Mixtec civilization--synthesize a wealth of archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data to trace the emergence and evolution of Mixtec civilization from the time of earliest human occupation to the present.
The Mixtec region has been the focus of much recent archaeological and ethnohistorical activity. In this volume, Spores and Balkansky incorporate the latest available research to show that the Mixtecs, along with their neighbors the Valley and Sierra Zapotec, constitute one of the world's most impressive civilizations, antecedent to--and equivalent to--those of the better-known Maya and Aztec. Employing what they refer to as a "convergent methodology," the authors combine techniques and results of archaeology, ethnohistory, linguistics, biological anthropology, ethnology, and participant observation to offer abundant new insights on the Mixtecs' multiple transformations over three millennia.

Despite their removal from England's National Curriculum in 1988, and claims of elitism, Latin and Greek are increasingly re-entering the 'mainstream' educational arena. Since 2012, there have been more students in state-maintained schools in England studying classical subjects than in independent schools, and the number of schools offering Classics continues to rise in the state-maintained sector. The teaching and learning of Latin and Greek is not, however, confined to the classroom: community-based learning for adults and children is facilitated in newly established regional Classics hubs in evenings and at weekends, in universities as part of outreach, and even in parks and in prisons. This book investigates the motivations of teachers and learners behind the rise of Classics in the classroom and in communities, and explores ways in which knowledge of classical languages is considered valuable for diverse learners in the 21st century. The role of classical languages within the English educational policy landscape is examined, as new possibilities exist for introducing Latin and Greek into school curricula. The state of Classics education internationally is also investigated, with case studies presenting the status quo in policy and practice from Australasia, North America, the rest of Europe and worldwide. The priorities for the future of Classics education in these diverse locations are compared and contrasted by the editors, who conjecture what strategies are conducive to success.

Private property in Rome effectively measures the suitability of each individual to serve in the army and to compete in the political arena. What happens then, when a Roman citizen is deprived of his property? Financial penalties played a crucial role in either discouraging or effectively punishing wrongdoers. This book offers the first coherent discussion of confiscations and fines in the Roman Republic by exploring the political, social, and economic impact of these punishments on private wealth.

How to Do Things with History is a collection of essays that explores current and future approaches to the study of ancient Greek cultural history. Rather than focus directly on methodology, the essays in this volume demonstrate how some of the most productive and significant methodologies for studying ancient Greece can be employed to illuminate a range of different kinds of subject matter. These essays, which bring together the work of some of the most talented scholars in the field, are based upon papers delivered at a conference held at Cambridge University in September of 2014 in honor of Paul Cartledge's retirement from the post of A. G. Leventis Professor of Ancient Greek Culture. For the better part of four decades, Paul Cartledge has spearheaded intellectual developments in the field of Greek culture in both scholarly and public contexts. His work has combined insightful historical accounts of particular places, periods, and thinkers with a willingness to explore comparative approaches and a keen focus on methodology. Cartledge has throughout his career emphasized the analysis of practice - the study not, for instance, of the history of thought but of thinking in action and through action. The assembled essays trace the broad horizons charted by Cartledge's work: from studies of political thinking to accounts of legal and cultural practices to politically astute approaches to historiography. The contributors to this volume all take the parameters and contours of Cartledge's work, which has profoundly influenced an entire generation of scholars, as starting points for their own historical and historiographical explorations. Those parameters and contours provide a common thread that runs through and connects all of the essays while also offering sufficient freedom for individual contributors to demonstrate an array of rich and varied approaches to the study of the past.

In From Document to History: Epigraphic Insights into the Greco-Roman World, editors Carlos Norena and Nikolaos Papazarkadas gather together an exciting set of original studies on Greek and Roman epigraphy, first presented at the Second North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy (Berkeley 2016). Chapters range chronologically from the sixth century BCE to the fifth century CE, and geographically from Egypt and Asia Minor to the west European continent and British isles. Key themes include Greek and Roman epigraphies of time, space, and public display, with texts featuring individuals and social groups ranging from Roman emperors, imperial elites, and artists to gladiators, immigrants, laborers, and slaves. Several papers highlight the new technologies that are transforming our understanding of ancient inscriptions, and a number of major new texts are published here for the first time.

The study presents a critical analysis of the political relations between Rome and Near Eastern kingdoms and principalities during the age of civil war from the death of Julius Caesar in 44 to Mark Antony's defeat at Actium in 31 BC. By examining each bilateral relationship separately, it argues that those relations were marked by a large degree of continuity with earlier periods. Circumstances connected to the civil war had only a limited impact on the interstate conduct of the period despite the effects that the strife had on Rome's domestic politics and the res publica. The ever-present rival Parthia and its external policies were more influential in steering the relations between Rome and Near Eastern powers.