The Roman World 44 BC - AD 180 deals with the transformation of the Mediterranean regions, northern Europe and the Near East by the military autocrats who ruled Rome during this period. The book traces the impact of imperial politics on life in the city of Rome itself and in the rest of the empire, arguing that, despite long periods of apparent peace, this was a society controlled as much by fear of state violence as by consent. Martin Goodman examines the reliance of Roman emperors on a huge military establishment and the threat of force. He analyses the extent to which the empire functioned as a single political, economic and cultural unit and discusses, region by region, how much the various indigenous cultures and societies were affected by Roman rule. The book has a long section devoted to the momentous religious changes in this period, which witnessed the popularity and spread of a series of elective cults and the emergence of rabbinic Judaism and Christianity from the complex world of first-century Judaea. This book provides a critical assessment of the significance of Roman rule for inhabitants of the empire, and introduces readers to many of the main issues currently faced by historians of the early empire. This new edition, incorporating the finds of recent scholarship, includes a fuller narrative history, expanded sections on the history of women and slaves and on cultural life in the city of Rome, many new illustrations, an updated section of bibliographical notes, and other improvements designed to make the volume as useful as possible to students as well as the general reader.

Geography, Religion, Gods, and Saints in the Eastern Mediterranean explores the influence of geography on religion and highlights a largely unknown story of religious history in the Eastern Mediterranean. In the Levant, agricultural communities of Jews, Christians, and Muslims jointly venerated and largely shared three important saints or holy figures: Jewish Elijah, Christian St. George, and Muslim al-Khi?r. These figures share 'peculiar' characteristics, such as associations with rain, greenness, fertility, and storms. Only in the Eastern Mediterranean are Elijah, St. George, and al-Khi?r shared between religious communities, or characterized by these same agricultural attributes - attributes that also were shared by regional religious figures from earlier time periods, such as the ancient Near Eastern Storm-god Baal-Hadad, and Levantine Zeus. This book tells the story of how that came to be, and suggests that the figures share specific characteristics, over a very long period of time, because these motifs were shaped by the geography of the region. Ultimately, this book suggests that regional geography has influenced regional religion; that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are not, historically or textually speaking, separate religious traditions (even if Jews, Christians, and Muslims are members of distinct religious communities); and that shared religious practices between members of these and other local religious communities are not unusual. Instead, shared practices arose out of a common geographical environment and an interconnected religious heritage, and are a natural historical feature of religion in the Eastern Mediterranean. This volume will be of interest to students of ancient Near Eastern religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, sainthood, agricultural communities in the ancient Near East, Middle Eastern religious and cultural history, and the relationships between geography and religion.

'Lively' THE TIMES 'Engrossing' THE SPECTATOR 'Stunning' WOMAN & HOME 'Marvellous' BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE Through ancient art, evocative myth, intriguing archaeological discoveries and philosophical explorations, Bettany Hughes takes us on a voyage of discovery to reveal the truth behind Venus, and why this immortal goddess is so much more than nudity, romance and sex. It is both the remarkable story of one of antiquity's most potent forces, and the story of human desire - how it transforms who we are and how we behave.

6 symbols with an ancient past: the scarab beetle, cobra goddess Renenutet, falcon god Horu; vulture goddess Nekhbet, the Eye of Horus, and Amun, "the king of gods," depicted as a ram.

This 500,000 word reference work provides the most comprehensive general treatment available of the peoples and places of the regions commonly referred to as the ancient Near and Middle East - extending from the Aegean coast of Turkey in the west to the Indus river in the east. It contains some 1,500 entries on the kingdoms, countries, cities, and population groups of Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria-Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Iran and parts of Central Asia, from the Early Bronze Age to the end of the Persian empire. Five distinguished international scholars have collaborated with the author on the project. Detailed accounts are provided of the Near/Middle Eastern peoples and places known to us from historical records. Each of these entries includes specific references to translated passages from the relevant ancient texts. Numerous entries on archaeological sites contain accounts of their history of excavation, as well as more detailed descriptions of their chief features and their significance within the commercial, cultural, and political contexts of the regions to which they belonged. The book contains a range of illustrations, including twenty maps. It serves as a major, indeed a unique, reference source for students as well as established scholars, both of the ancient Near Eastern as well as the Classical civilizations. It also appeals to more general readers wishing to pursue in depth their interests in these civilizations. There is nothing comparable to it on the market today.

This engaging and accessible textbook provides an introduction to the study of ancient Jewish and Christian women in their Hellenistic and Roman contexts. This is the first textbook dedicated to introducing women's religious roles in Judaism and Christianity in a way that is accessible to undergraduates from all disciplines. The textbook provides brief, contextualising overviews that then allow for deeper explorations of specific topics in women's religion, including leadership, domestic ritual, women as readers and writers of scripture, and as innovators in their traditions. Using select examples from ancient sources, the textbook provides teachers and students with the raw tools to begin their own exploration of ancient religion. An introductory chapter provides an outline of common hermeneutics or "lenses" through which scholars approach the texts and artefacts of Judaism and Christianity in antiquity. The textbook also features a glossary of key terms, a list of further readings and discussion questions for each topic, and activities for classroom use. In short, the book is designed to be a complete, classroom-ready toolbox for teachers who may have never taught this subject as well as for those already familiar with it. Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean is intended for use in undergraduate classrooms, its target audience undergraduate students and their instructors, although Masters students may also find the book useful. In addition, the book is accessible and lively enough that religious communities' study groups and interested laypersons could employ the book for their own education.

The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts analyzes a large corpus of early Christian texts and Pseudepigraphic materials to understand how the authors of these texts used, abused and silenced enslaved characters to articulate their own social, political, and theological visions. The focus is on excavating the texts "from below" or "against the grain" in order to notice the slaves, and in so doing, to problematize and (re)imagine the narratives. Noticing the slaves as literary iterations means paying attention to broader theological, ideological, and rhetorical aims of the texts within which enslaved bodies are constructed. The analysis demonstrates that by silencing slaves and using a rhetoric of violence, the authors of these texts contributed to the construction of myths in which slaves functioned as a useful trope to support the combined power of religion and empire. Thus was created not only the perfect template for the rise and development of a Christian discourse of slavery, but also a rationale for subsequent violence exercised against slave bodies within the Christian Empire. The study demonstrates the value of using the tools and applying the insights of subaltern studies to the study of the Pseudepigrapha and in early Christian texts. This volume will be of interest not only to scholars of early Christianity, but also to those working on the history of slavery and subaltern studies in antiquity.

Providing a model of how to 'do' biblical theology, this book also explores important emerging trends over the last five years including: reception-history as a means to grasping the theology of the bible; theological interpretation as a new form of lectio divina (meditative reading); the place of Jewish interpretation in forming a biblical theology; and the ever-present problem of losing Old Testament theology in New Testament theology. The second half of the book discusses the theme of Providence, as found in both Testaments, with insights gained from the history of biblical interpretation and from major attempts at working out a theology of Providence. Elliott focuses on Providence as it has been perceived rather than the themes of God's goodness and powerfulness in themselves.

The Death of Sacred Texts draws attention to a much neglected topic in the study of sacred texts: the religious and ritual attitudes towards texts which have become old and damaged and can no longer be used for reading practices or in religious worship. This book approaches religious texts and scriptures by focusing on their physical properties and the dynamic interactions of devices and habits that lie beneath and within a given text. In the last decades a growing body of research studies has directed attention to the multiple uses and ways people encounter written texts and how they make them alive, even as social actors, in different times and cultures. Considering religious people seem to have all the motives for giving their sacred texts a respectful symbolic treatment, scholars have paid surprisingly little attention to the ritual procedures of disposing and renovating old texts. This book fills this gap, providing empirical data and theoretical analyses of historical and contemporary religious attitudes towards, and practices of text disposals within, seven world religions: Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Exploring the cultural and historical variations of rituals for religious scriptures and texts (such as burials, cremations and immersion into rivers) and the underlying beliefs within the religious traditions, this book investigates how these religious practices and stances respond to modernization and globalization processes when new technologies have made it possible to mass-produce and publish religious texts on the Internet.

Text, translation, theology - the three nouns in the title indicate the main fields of Old Testament study which are covered in this collection of essays. Text refers both to the history of biblical texts and to problems of textual criticism. Translation of the Hebrew Bible as a philological task is a central subject in several essays. Theology does not define what the essays are but what some of them are about: religious ideologies are objects of enquiry. Bertil Albrektson gathers together a selection of his essays, some of which have become classics, which were written on separate occasions and published in different, sometimes rather remote, places. They cover more than four decades of research, and for the first time they are now brought together in this accessible volume. Bertil Albrektson is a Swedish Old Testament scholar of international repute, awarded the Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies by The British Academy in 2003. His writing was characterized by the late Professor P.R. Ackroyd of King's College, London, as 'a model of learning, clarity and dry humour'. This volume offers a unique resource to current scholars of biblical studies.

There are many books about how people ought to interpret the Bible. This book is about how people in churches actually interpret the Bible, and why they interpret it in the way that they do. Based on a study of Anglicans in the Church of England, it explores the interaction of belief, personality, experience and context and sheds new light on the way that texts interact with readers. The author shows how the results of such study can begin to shape an empirically-based theology of scripture. This unique study approaches reader-centred criticism and the theology of scripture from a completely new angle, and will be of interest to both scholars and those who use the Bible in churches.

This book examines how ancient authors explored ideas of kingship as a political role fundamental to the construction of civic unity, the use of kingship stories to explain the past and present unity of the polis and the distinctive function or status attributed to kings in such accounts. It explores the notion of kingship offered by historians such as Herodotus, as well as dramatists writing for the Athenian stage, paying particular attention to dramatic depictions of the unique capabilities of Theseus in uniting the city in the figure of the 'democratic king'. It also discusses kingship in Greek philosophy: the Socratics' identification of an 'art of kingship', and Xenophon and Isocrates' model of 'virtue monarchy'. In turn, these allow a rereading of explorations of kingship and excellence in Plato's later political thought, seen as a critique of these models, and also in Aristotle's account of total kingship or pambasileia, treated here as a counterfactual device developed to explore the epistemic benefits of democracy. This book offers a fascinating insight into the institution of monarchy in classical Greek thought and society, both for those working on Greek philosophy and politics, and also for students of the history of political thought.

This book proposes an original typology for grasping the differences between diverse types of biblical interpretation, fashioned in a triangle around a major theological and philosophical lacuna: the relation between divine and human action. Despite their purported concern for reading God's word, most modern and postmodern approaches to biblical interpretation do not seriously consider the role of divine agency as having a real influence in and on the process of reading Scripture. Mark Bowald seeks to correct and clarify this deficiency by demonstrating the inevitable role that divine agency plays in contemporary proposals in relation to human agency enacted in the composition of the biblical text and the reader. This book presents an important contribution to the emerging field of theological hermeneutics. Bowald discusses in depth the hermeneutics of George Lindbeck, Hans Frei, Kevin Vanhoozer, Francis Watson, Stephen Fowl, David Kelsey, Werner Jeanrond, Karl Barth, James K.A. Smith, and Nicholas Wolterstorff.

This volume examines the prevalence, function, and socio-political effects of slavery discourse in the major theological formulations of the late third to early fifth centuries AD, arguably the most formative period of early Christian doctrine. The question the book poses is this: in what way did the Christian theologians of the third, fourth, and early fifth centuries appropriate the discourse of slavery in their theological formulations, and what could the effect of this appropriation have been for actual physical slaves? This fascinating study is crucial reading for anyone with an interest in early Christianity or Late Antiquity, and slavery more generally.

Pytheas of Massalia (Marseille), mariner, explorer, geographer and astronomer, made a pioneering voyage into the then unknown Atlantic around 325 BC, reaching Britain and the Baltic; this book collects and translates the references to him and his book (which is lost), and discusses and explains them. The Greeks of Pytheas' time knew virtually nothing of northern Europe beyond the often-fantastical stories of traders, and Pytheas was the first person to provide factual, first-hand information on this region. His journey covered Iberia, France, Britain, from where he travelled so far north that he encountered ice floes; he then reached the Baltic. It was he who recorded Thule, and his astronomy enabled him to locate it on the Arctic Circle. Two thirds of our references to Pytheas come from Pliny and Strabo; their methods of work, as well as the perils of manuscript transmission, are explored in this volume. Scott also includes discussions and appendices on these areas to enable the scope of available references to be understood as a whole. There are some details of Pytheas' voyage that are lost, but the book offers balanced reasons for proposing how we may reasonably fill them in. The breadth of Pytheas' achievements and the areas and topics his work covers mean that he has a wide range of appeal within classical studies and ancient history. This volume provides an invaluable resource to undergraduate and postgraduate students of early geography and astronomy, and Greece's knowledge of and relationship to the rest of Europe in this period.

A perennial favourite, Edith Hamilton's best-selling The Greek Way captures the spirit and achievements of Greece in the fifth century B.C. The New York Times called The Greek Way a "book of both cultural and critical importance".

This is the first book fully dedicated to Indian philosophical doxography. It examines the function such dialectical texts were intended to serve in the intellectual and religious life of their public. It looks at Indian doxography both as a witness of inter- and intra-sectarian dialogues and as a religious phenomenon. It argues that doxographies represent dialectical exercises, indicative of a peculiar religious attitude to plurality, and locate these 'exercises' within a known form of 'yoga' dedicated to the cultivation of 'knowledge' or 'gnosis' (jnana). Concretely, the book presents a critical examination of three Sanskrit doxographies: the Madhyamakah?dayakarika of the Buddhist Bhaviveka, the ?a?darsanasamuccaya of the Jain Haribhadra, and the Sarvasiddhantasa?graha attributed to the Advaitin Sa?kara, focusing on each of their respective presentation of the Mima?sa view. It is the first time that the genre of doxography is considered beyond its literary format to ponder its performative dimension, as a spiritual exercise. Theoretically broad, the book reaches out to academics in religious studies, Indian philosophy, Indology, and classical studies.

New, network-based perspective on the genesis of ancient empires and their long-term impact, which can be applied to other cases of imperial state formation as well as in the comparative study of empires. First English-language monograph that extensively uses the recently published archival documents from Liye, a uniquely detailed source that sheds light on the early stages of Chinese imperial rule in southern East Asia. Integrates the recent breakthroughs in archaeological and historical research on specific regions of southern East Asia with the analysis of political-economic dynamics of ancient Chinese empires. First study that focuses on the southern frontier zone as a crucial stage of institutional innovation in ancient Chinese empire. The concept of "imperial network" proposed in the present study contributes to the debates about the applicability of world-system model for interpreting long-distance economic interactions in premodern world.

Scholars have recently begun to study collections of Byzantine historical excerpts as autonomous pieces of literature. This book focuses on a series of minor collections that have received little or no scholarly attention, including the Epitome of the Seventh Century, the Excerpta Anonymi (tenth century), the Excerpta Salmasiana (eighth to eleventh centuries), and the Excerpta Planudea (thirteenth century). Three aspects of these texts are analysed in detail: their method of redaction, their literary structure, and their cultural and political function. Combining codicological, literary, and political analyses, this study contributes to a better understanding of the intertwining of knowledge and power, and suggests that these collections of historical excerpts should be seen as a Byzantine way of rewriting history. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780429351020, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Numerous studies have been carried out on Byzantine coins, but there are still no univocal interpretations on the details of the figures represented there and in particular on those relating to Jesus Christ. The information derived from the studies on the Holy Shroud, the most important Relic of Christ in Christianity, has clearly resulted in some new interpretations. This is the first book in the world that deals extensively with the effigy of Christ, despite being the most sought after and collected by numismatists. Furthermore, the book relates the different images of the Redeemer on Byzantine coins with the image of Jesus Christ on the Shroud, the most important Relic of Christianity. The numerous collectors will therefore be interested in having not only a numismatic analysis of these coins but also a historical-religious study. This book, which should be understandable to everyone, demonstrates the strong influence that the Shroud had in the Byzantine era.

This book explores the early Jewish understanding of divine knowledge as divine presence, which is embodied in major biblical exemplars, such as Adam, Enoch, Jacob, and Moses. The study treats the concept of divine knowledge as the embodied divine presence in its full historical and interpretive complexity by tracing the theme through a broad variety of ancient Near Eastern and Jewish sources, including Mesopotamian traditions of cultic statues, creational narratives of the Hebrew Bible, and later Jewish mystical testimonies. Orlov demonstrates that some biblical and pseudepigraphical accounts postulate that the theophany expresses the unique, corporeal nature of the deity that cannot be fully grasped or conveyed in some other non-corporeal symbolism, medium, or language. The divine presence requires another presence in order to be transmitted. To be communicated properly and in its full measure, the divine iconic knowledge must be "written" on a new living "body" which can hold the ineffable presence of God through a newly acquired ontology. Embodiment of Divine Knowledge in Early Judaism will provide an invaluable research to students and scholars in a wide range of areas within Jewish, Near Eastern, and Biblical Studies, as well as those studying religious elements of anthropology, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and gender studies. Through the study of Jewish mediatorial figures, this book also elucidates the roots of early Christological developments, making it attractive to Christian audiences.

This book delineates how Thornton Wilder (1897-1975), a learned playwright and novelist, embeds himself within the classical tradition, integrating Greek and Roman motifs with a wide range of sources to produce heart-breaking masterpieces such as Our Town and comedy sensations such as Dolly Levi. Through this study of archival sources and close reading, readers will understand Wilder's avant-garde staging and innovative time sequences not as a break with the past, but as a response to the classics. The author traces the genesis of unforgettable characters like Dolly Levi in The Matchmaker, Emily Webb in Our Town, and George Antrobus in The Skin of Our Teeth. Vergil's expression, "Here are the tears of the world, and human matters touch the heart" haunts Wilder's oeuvre. Understanding Vergil's phrase as "tears for the beauty of the world," Wilder utilizes scenes depicting the beauty of the world and the sorrow when individuals recognize this too late. Wilder exhorts us to observe lovingly, alert to the wonder of the everyday. This work will appeal to actors and directors, professors and students in classics and in American literature, those fascinated by modern drama and performance studies, and non-specialists, theatre-goers, and readers in the general public.

This book explores Grahame's engagements with classical antiquity in The Wind in the Willows, including ancient epic, parody (Batrachomyomachia), and pastoral imagery. Irby demonstrates how subtle echoes - such as the structure into 12 books, arming scenes, epic catalogues, anabases and katabases, lying tales, Toad's "cleverness"-cumulatively suggest a link between The Wind in the Willows and classical literature. This study offers the first sustained treatment of classical allusions in The Wind in the Willows, considering the entire novel, not isolated scenes, building on existing scholarship to yield an interpretation through the lens of classical literature and its reception in Victorian and Edwardian England. This volume will provide a unique resource for students and scholars of classical reception and literature, as well as comparative literature, English literature, children's literature, gender studies, and Grahame's writing.

The Byzantine Neighbourhood contributes to a new narrative regarding Byzantine cities through the adoption of a neighbourhood perspective. It offers a multi-disciplinary investigation of the spatial and social practices that produced Byzantine concepts of neighbourhood and afforded dynamic interactions between different actors, elite and non-elite. Authors further consider neighbourhoods as political entities, examining how varieties of collectivity formed in Byzantine neighbourhoods translated into political action. By both acknowledging the unique position of Constantinople, and giving serious attention to the varieties of provincial experience, the contributors consider regional factors (social, economic, and political) that formed the ties of local communities to the state and illuminate the mechanisms of empire. Beyond its Byzantine focus, this volume contributes to broader discussions of premodern urbanism by drawing attention to the spatial dimension of social life and highlighting the involvement of multiple agents in city-making.

The ancient history of Greece holds a great deal of interest to many, particularly to those whose culture and religion grew from early Greek civilisation. Originally published in 1913, Hall provides a thorough history of the origins of Ancient Greek civilisation as well as commenting on Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Babylon amongst others. This title will be of interest to students of Classics and Ancient History.