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Books > History > World history > BCE to 500 CE
For more than fifty years the standard debates about Roman
Imperialism were written more or less entirely in terms of male
agency, male competition, and male participation. Not only have
women been marginalized in these narratives as just so much
collateral damage but there has been little engagement with gender
history more widely, with the linkages between masculinity and
warfare, with the representation of relations of power in terms of
gender differentials, with the ways social reproduction entangled
the production of gender and the production of empire. This volume
explores how we might gender Roman Imperialism.
The first early modern women Latinists lived in mid-fourteenth
century Italy, and were educated as diplomats. By the fifteenth
century, other upper-class women were educated in order to perform
as prodigies on behalf of their city. Both strands of education for
women spread to other European countries in the course of the
sixteenth century: the principal women humanists were either
princesses or courtiers. In the seventeenth century Latin lost its
importance as a language of diplomacy and was no longer needed at
court, but there was still a place for the 'woman prodigy', and a
variety of women performed in this way. However, the productions of
seventeenth and eighteenth-century women Latinists are more
extensive and more varied than those of their predecessors, and
include scientific writing and ambitious translations. By the
mid-nineteenth century the integration of studious women into the
wider academy was well under way.
Life in ancient Greece was musical life. Soloists competed onstage
for popular accolades, becoming centrepieces for cultural
conversation and even leading Plato to recommend that certain forms
of music be banned from his ideal society. And the music didn't
stop when the audience left the theatre: melody and rhythm were
woven into the whole fabric of daily existence for the Greeks.
Vocal and instrumental songs were part of religious rituals,
dramatic performances, dinner parties, and even military campaigns.
Like Detroit in the 1960s or Vienna in the 18th century, Athens in
the 400s BC was the hotspot where celebrated artists collaborated
and diverse strands of musical tradition converged. The
conversations and innovations that unfolded there would lay the
groundwork for musical theory and practice in Greece and Rome for
centuries to come. In this perfectly pitched introduction, Spencer
Klavan explores Greek music's origins, forms, and place in society.
In recent years, state-of-the-art research and digital technology
have enabled us to decipher and understand Greek music with
unprecedented precision. Yet many readers today cannot access the
resources that would enable them to grapple with this richly
rewarding subject. Arcane technical details and obscure jargon veil
the subject - it is rarely known, for instance, that authentic
melodies still survive from antiquity, helping us to imagine the
vivid soundscapes of the Classical and Hellenistic eras. Music in
Ancient Greece distills the latest discoveries into vivid prose so
readers can come to grips with the basics as never before. With the
tools in this book, beginners and specialists alike will learn to
hear the ancient world afresh and come away with a new, musical
perspective on their favourite classical texts.
With contributions by J.N. Bremmer, J. Carlsen, D.P. Kehoe, L. De
ligt, E. Lo Cascio, F.J.A.M. Meijer, H.W. Pleket, D. Rathbone, P.
Rosafio, H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H.W. Singor, W. Scheidel, R.J.
v.d. Spek, H.C. Teitler, H.S. Versnel, H.T. Wallinga, D. Yntema.
While researching for my book about the Indian Air Force Himalayan
Eagle - The Story of the Indian Air Force, I came across some very
interesting details about the military/warrior traditions of India
that seemed at odds with the general image of a country thought to
be spiritual and pacifist - the Buddha and "Mahatma" Gandhi
immediately spring to mind in this context. The details were
intriguing enough for me to embark upon another ambitious project -
to gather together and collate the data available on this Indian
warrior tradition and its resurgence in modern-day India. This work
is the presentation of certain pertinent details that are available
in the open sources but told in a comprehensive, objective and
readable form so that an interested reader gains a better
understanding of India's little-known martial and warrior history!
It is a narrative of the warrior/military traditions of India going
back to its pre-Vedic roots and covers the birth of the Indian
warrior caste, the Kshatriyas. How these warriors dominated among
the empire builders, and how their pre-eminence was superseded by
civilian rule, a change in the political scene of India that was to
have ramifications from the 10th to 20th century CE. The title
chosen for this work may confuse those readers who are aware that
the emperor Ashoka eschewed violence for pacificism as a Buddhist.
The lions in the title refer to the four represented on the Ashoka
pillars at Sarnath, each facing to the points of the compass and
which are symbolic of the present-day warriors of the country, the
Indian armed forces, guarding against intrusions from any point.
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text.
Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book
(without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.
1896 Excerpt: ...highly praised; Itiv. p. III. Praise of the true
Brahman, S. Nip. p. 116. 7 Ang. N. II, p. 68. 8 Ang. N. I, p. 149:
"Atta te, purisa, jSnati saccam va yadi va musa." The addition The
other sources, the smrti-sile iadviddm and the dcarah s&dhunam
of Manu, have not been lost sight of by the Buddhists. To these
categories belong the duties qualified as panditapaiinatta and
sappurisapahfiatta, and consisting in almsgiving, in ahimsd, and in
supporting father and mother1. It is hardly accidental that almost
all passages where moral duties are enjoined are either wholly or
partly in metrical form, and this circumstance in combination with
the fact of those passages containing so much that is contrary to
the fundamental articles of the creed, leads us to the inference
that the sect originally had no moral code at all, except the
prohibitions and duties prescribed to the members of the Order,
which only partly coincide with the laws of society in general. If
we wish to form a just estimate of the character of Buddhist
morals, such as laid down in the final redaction of the canonical
books, we must bear in mind: 1. that the prescriptions were
intended to supply the wants both of the ecclesiastics and of the
laity; 2. that the Arhats are, to a certain extent, above common
morality. The Sage, muni, has no attachment, does nothing what is
pleasant nor what is unpleasant2. Those who are wise abandon their
children3. A man who leaves his poor wife, the mother of his child,
in order to become a. monk, and obstinately refuses to take care of
her and the child, is held up to the admiration of the world as
having done something very grand. Still at other times we read that
one's wife is the best friend, and that a wife is the most
excellent of goods, though rep...
This volume considers how Greco-Roman authorities manipulated water
on the practical, technological, and political levels. Water was
controlled and harnessed with legal oversight and civic
infrastructure (e.g., aqueducts). Waterways were 'improved' and
made accessible by harbors, canals, and lighthouses. The
Mediterranean Sea and Outer Ocean (and numerous rivers) were
mastered by navigation for warfare, exploration, settlement,
maritime trade, and the exploitation of marine resources (such as
fishing). These waterways were also a robust source of propaganda
on coins, public monuments, and poetic encomia as governments vied
to establish, maintain, or spread their identities and
predominance. This first complete study of the ancient scientific
and public engagement with water makes a major contribution to
classics, geography, hydrology and the history of science alike. In
the ancient Mediterranean Basin, water was a powerful tool of human
endeavor, employed for industry, trade, hunting and fishing, and as
an element in luxurious aesthetic installations (public and private
fountains). The relationship was complex and pervasive, touching on
every aspect of human life, from mundane acts of collecting water
for the household, to private and public issues of comfort and
health (latrines, sewers, baths), to the identity of the state writ
large.
In this volume, literary scholars and ancient historians from
across the globe investigate the creation, manipulation and
representation of ancient war landscapes in literature. Landscape
can spark armed conflict, dictate its progress and influence the
affective experience of its participants. At the same time, warfare
transforms landscapes, both physically and in the way in which they
are later perceived and experienced. Landscapes of War in Greek and
Roman Literature breaks new ground in exploring Greco-Roman
literary responses to this complex interrelationship. Drawing on
current ideas in cognitive theory, memory studies, ecocriticism and
other fields, its individual chapters engage with such questions
as: how did the Greeks and Romans represent the effects of war on
the natural world? What distinctions did they see between spaces of
war and other landscapes? How did they encode different experiences
of war in literary representations of landscape? How was memory
tied to landscape in wartime or its aftermath? And in what ways did
ancient war landscapes shape modern experiences and representations
of war? In four sections, contributors explore combatants'
perception and experience of war landscapes, the relationship
between war and the natural world, symbolic and actual forms of
territorial control in a military context, and war landscapes as
spaces of memory. Several contributions focus especially on modern
intersections of war, landscape and the classical past.
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