Boiotia was - next to Athens and Sparta - one of the most important regions of ancient Greece. Albert Schachter, a leading expert on the region, has for many decades pioneered and fostered the exploration of it and its people through his research. His seminal publications have covered all aspects of its history, institutions, cults, and literature from late Mycenaean times to the Roman Empire, revealing a mastery of the epigraphic evidence, archaeological data, and the literary tradition. This volume conveniently brings together twenty-three papers (two previously unpublished, others revised and updated) which display a compelling intellectual coherence and a narrative style refreshingly immune to jargon. All major topics of Boiotian history from early Greece to Roman times are touched upon, and the book can be read as a history of Boiotia, in pieces.

The site of medieval Euchaita, on the northern edge of the central Anatolian plateau, was the centre of the cult of St Theodore Tiro ('the Recruit'). Unlike most excavated or surveyed urban centres of the Byzantine period, Euchaita was never a major metropolis, cultural centre or extensive urban site, although it had a military function from the seventh to ninth centuries. Its significance lies precisely in the fact that as a small provincial town, something of a backwater, it was probably more typical of the 'average' provincial Anatolian urban settlement, yet almost nothing is known about such sites. This volume represents the results of a collaborative project that integrates archaeological survey work with other disciplines in a unified approach to the region both to enhance understanding of the history of Byzantine provincial society and to illustrate the application of innovative approaches to field survey.

Early medieval Britain saw the birth of England, Scotland and of the Welsh kingdoms. Naismith's introductory textbook explores the period between the end of Roman rule and the eve of the Norman Conquest, blending an engaging narrative with clear explanations of key themes and sources. Using extensive illustrations, maps and selections from primary sources, students will examine the island as a collective entity, comparing political histories and institutions as well as societies, beliefs and economies. Each chapter foregrounds questions of identity and the meaning of 'Britain' in this period, encouraging interrogation and contextualisation of sources within the framework of the latest debates and problems. Featuring online resources including timelines, a glossary, end-of-chapter questions and suggestions for further reading, students can drive their own understanding of how the polities and societies of early medieval Britain fitted together and into the wider world, and firmly grasp the formative stages of British history.

In this study, Marcello Mogetta examines the origins and early dissemination of concrete technology in Roman Republican architecture. Framing the genesis of innovative building processes and techniques within the context of Rome's early expansion, he traces technological change in monumental construction in long-established urban centers and new Roman colonial cites founded in the 2nd century BCE in central Italy. Mogetta weaves together excavation data from both public monuments and private domestic architecture that have been previously studied in isolation. Highlighting the organization of the building industry, he also explores the political motivations and cultural aspirations of patrons of monumental architecture, reconstructing how they negotiated economic and logistical constraints by drawing from both local traditions and long-distance networks. By incorporating the available evidence into the development of concrete technology, Mogetta also demonstrates the contributions of anonymous builders and contractors, shining a light on their ability to exploit locally available resources.

Slavery in ancient Greece was commonplace. In this book Sara Forsdyke uncovers the wide range of experiences of slaves and focuses on their own perspectives, rather than those of their owners, giving a voice to a group that is often rendered silent by the historical record. By reading ancient sources 'against the grain,' and through careful deployment of comparative evidence from more recent slave-owning societies, she demonstrates that slaves engaged in a variety of strategies to deal with their conditions of enslavement, ranging from calculated accommodation to full-scale rebellion. Along the way, she establishes that slaves made a vital contribution to almost all aspects of Greek society. Above all, despite their often brutal treatment, they sometimes displayed great ingenuity in exploiting the tensions and contradictions within the system of slavery.

Early medieval Britain saw the birth of England, Scotland and of the Welsh kingdoms. Naismith's introductory textbook explores the period between the end of Roman rule and the eve of the Norman Conquest, blending an engaging narrative with clear explanations of key themes and sources. Using extensive illustrations, maps and selections from primary sources, students will examine the island as a collective entity, comparing political histories and institutions as well as societies, beliefs and economies. Each chapter foregrounds questions of identity and the meaning of 'Britain' in this period, encouraging interrogation and contextualisation of sources within the framework of the latest debates and problems. Featuring online resources including timelines, a glossary, end-of-chapter questions and suggestions for further reading, students can drive their own understanding of how the polities and societies of early medieval Britain fitted together and into the wider world, and firmly grasp the formative stages of British history.

The narrative of Roman history has been largely shaped by the surviving literary sources, augmented in places by material culture. The numerous surviving coins can, however, provide new information on the distant past. This accessible but authoritative guide introduces the student of ancient history to the various ways in which they can help us understand the history of the Roman republic, with fresh insights on early Roman-Italian relations, Roman imperialism, urban politics, constitutional history, the rise of powerful generals and much more. The text is accompanied by over 200 illustrations of coins, with detailed captions, as well as maps and diagrams so that it also functions as a sourcebook of the key coins every student of the period should know. Throughout, it demystifies the more technical aspects of the field of numismatics and ends with a how-to guide for further research for non-specialists.

The Boxford Mosaic has been described as the most spectacular and innovative Roman mosaic ever found in Britain. Yet it lay hidden beneath a Berkshire field for some 1,600 years until it was fully uncovered in the Summer of 2019. Dating from around 350 AD and set amid the ruins of a villa, the mosaic depicts tales of famous heroes from Greek mythology. Hercules slays the half-man, half-horse Centaur. Pelops wins the hand of a king's daughter by sabotaging the wheel linchpin of his racing chariot. And the handsome Bellerophon kills the fire-breathing Chimaera monster with the help of his flying horse Pegasus - a legend that became our very own St George and the Dragon. The full description of this artistic masterpiece and its excavation, by local enthusiasts working under professional supervision, is told here by the three who played key roles in the operation. JOY APPLETON is Chairwoman of the Boxford History Project. MATT NICHOL is a leading archaeologist with Cotswold Archaeology. ANTHONY BEESON is one of the UK's leading authorities on mosaics and Roman and Greek architecture. He is also the archivist of the Association for Roman Archaeology.

A large gap exists in the literature of ancient numismatics between general works intended for collectors and highly specialized studies addressed to numismatists. Indeed, there is hardly anything produced by knowledgeable numismatists that is easily accessible to the academic community at large or the interested lay reader. The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage will fill this gap by providing a systematic overview of the major coinages of the classical world. The handbook begins with a general introduction by volume editor William E. Metcalf followed by an article establishing the history and role of scientific analysis in ancient numismatics. The subsequent thirty-two chapters, all written by an international group of distinguished scholars, cover a vast geography and chronology, beginning with the first evidence of coins in Western Asia Minor in the seventh century BCE and continuing up to the transformation of coinage at the end of the Roman Empire. In addition to providing the essential background and current research questions of each of the major coinages, the handbook also includes articles on the application of numismatic evidence to the disciplines of archaeology, economic history, art history, and ancient history. With helpful appendices, a glossary of specialized terms, indices of mints, persons, and general topics, and nearly 900 halftone illustrations, The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Coinage will be an indispensable resource for scholars and students of the classical world, as well as a stimulating reference for collectors and interested lay readers.

The Dioscuri first appeared at the Battle of Lake Regillus in 496 BC to save the new Republic. Receiving a temple in the Forum in gratitude, the gods continued to play an important role in Roman life for centuries and took on new responsibilities as the needs of the society evolved. Protectors of elite horsemen, boxers and sailors, they also served as guarantors of the Republic's continuation and, eventually, as models for potential future emperors. Over the course of centuries, the cult and its temples underwent many changes. In this book, Amber Gartrell explores the evolution of the cult. Drawing on a range of methodological approaches and a wide range of ancient evidence, she focuses on four key aspects: the gods' two temples in Rome, their epiphanies, their protection of varied groups, and their role as divine parallels for imperial heirs, revealing how religion, politics and society interacted and influenced each other.

Bringing together philologists, historians, and archaeologists, Rome, Empire of Plunder bridges disciplinary divides in pursuit of an interdisciplinary understanding of Roman cultural appropriation - approached not as a set of distinct practices but as a hydra-headed phenomenon through which Rome made and remade itself, as a Republic and as an Empire, on Italian soil and abroad. The studies gathered in this volume range from the literary thefts of the first Latin comic poets to the grand-scale spoliation of Egyptian obelisks by a succession of emperors, and from Hispania to Pergamon to Qasr Ibrim. Applying a range of theoretical perspectives on cultural appropriation, contributors probe the violent interactions and chance contingencies that sent cargo of all sorts into circulation around the Roman Mediterranean, causing recurrent distortions in their individual and aggregate meanings. The result is an innovative and nuanced investigation of Roman cultural appropriation and imperial power.

The Busy Periphery: Urban Systems of the Balkan and Danube Provinces (2nd - 3rd c. AD) considers the reconstruction of the urban geography of the Balkan and Danube provinces at the time of the Severan dynasty. Four basic parameters governed the focus of research: the origin and socio-economic character of the settlements, their size, micro-location, and the size of their administrative territories. The principal goal was to map the variable developments of the urban network, both between and within the sub-regions that constituted this part of the Roman Empire. This line of inquiry helped in bridging the gap between the regional and the general. In the process of explaining the apparent gaps in the urban map of the study-region or the differential growth of the individual towns and settlements, we were inevitably faced with the question of the role of towns in Roman provincial society and in the economy in general, and with the interpretation of the basic prerequisites for their emergence and prosperity.

In this book, Catherine E. Pratt explores how oil and wine became increasingly entangled in Greek culture, from the Late Bronze Age to the Archaic period. Using ceramic, architectural, and archaeobotanical data, she argues that Bronze Age exchange practices initiated a strong network of dependency between oil and wine production, and the people who produced, exchanged, and used them. After the palatial collapse, these prehistoric connections intensified during the Iron Age and evolved into the large-scale industries of the Classical period. Pratt argues that oil and wine in pre-Classical Greece should be considered 'cultural commodities', products that become indispensable for proper social and economic exchanges well beyond economic advantage. Offering a detailed diachronic account of the changing roles of surplus oil and wine in the economies of pre-classical Greek societies, her book contributes to a broader understanding of the complex interconnections between agriculture, commerce, and culture in the ancient Mediterranean.

Along with Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant, Minoan Crete was one of the primary cultures of the prehistoric Mediterranean world. In this book, L. Vance Watrous offers an up-to-date overview of this important ancient society. Using archaeological evidence from palaces, houses, surveys, caves, and mountain shrines, he describes and traces the development of Minoan Crete from the Neolithic era through the Late Bronze Age. Watrous also presents and interprets Minoan art works in a range of media, including fresco paintings, pottery, and seals, and explains how Minoan Crete affected the culture of classical Greece. Aimed at undergraduate and graduate students, this book can be used in courses on the ancient Mediterranean world and classical archaeology.

Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans examines the life, work, and influence of this controversial figure, who remains the most highly visible of the Roman client kings under Augustus. Herod's rule shaped the world in which Christianity arose and his influence can still be seen today. In this expanded second edition, additions to the original text include discussion of the archaeological evidence of Herod's activity, his building program, numismatic evidence, and consideration of the roles and activities of other client kings in relation to Herod. This volume includes new maps and numerous photographs, and these coupled with the new additions to the text make this a valuable tool for those interested in the wider Roman world of the late first century BCE at both under- and postgraduate levels. Herod remains the definitive study of the life and activities of the king known traditionally as Herod the Great.

For the Greeks, the sharing of cooked meats was the fundamental communal act, so that to become vegetarian was a way of refusing society. It follows that the roasting or cooking of meat was a political act, as the division of portions asserted a social order. And the only proper manner of preparing meat for consumption, according to the Greeks, was blood sacrifice. The fundamental myth is that of Prometheus, who introduced sacrifice and, in the process, both joined us to and separated us from the gods--and ambiguous relation that recurs in marriage and in the growing of grain. Thus we can understand why the ascetic man refuses both women and meat, and why Greek women celebrated the festival of grain-giving Demeter with instruments of butchery. The ambiguity coded in the consumption of meat generated a mythology of the other--werewolves, Scythians, Ethiopians, and other monsters. The study of the sacrificial consumption of meat thus leads into exotic territory and to unexpected findings. In The Cuisine of Sacrifice, the contributors--all scholars affiliated with the Center for Comparative Studies of Ancient Societies in Paris--apply methods from structural anthropology, comparative religion, and philology to a diversity of topics: the relation of political power to sacrificial practice; the Promethean myth as the foundation story of sacrificial practice; representations of sacrifice found on Greek vases; the technique and anatomy of sacrifice; the interaction of image, language, and ritual; the position of women in sacrificial custom and the female ritual of the Thesmophoria; the mythical status of wolves in Greece and their relation to the sacrifice of domesticated animals; the role and significance of food-related ritual in Homer and Hesiod; ancient Greek perceptions of Scythian sacrificial rites; and remnants of sacrificial ritual in modern Greek practices.

Named for a goddess, epicenter of the first democracy, birthplace of tragic and comic theatre, locus of the major philosophical schools, artistically in the vanguard for centuries, ancient Athens looms large in contemporary study of the ancient world. This Companion is a comprehensive introduction the city, its topography and monuments, inhabitants and cultural institutions, religious rituals and politics. Chapters link the religious, cultural, and political institutions of Athens to the physical locales in which they took place. Discussion of the urban plan, with its streets, gates, walls, and public and private buildings, provides readers with a thorough understanding of how the city operated and what people saw, heard, smelled, and tasted as they flowed through it. Drawing on the latest scholarship, as well as excavation discoveries at the Agora, sanctuaries, and cemeteries, the Companion explores how the city was planned, how it functioned, and how it was transformed from a democratic polis into a Roman city.

In terms of design, scale, and blending of ecologicical and aesthetic function, Amsterdam's seventeenth-century Canal District is a European marvel. Its survival for four centuries is a testament to its ingenuity, reflected in its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010. The Canal District today is an extraordinary example of resilient historic design and cultural heritage in a living city, but it is not without present-day challenges: in recent years, its urban ecology has become subject to severe pressures of global tourism and supergentrification. This edited volume brings together seventeen reputable scholars to debate questions about the origins, evolution, and future of the Canal District. With these differing approaches and perspectives on the Canal District the contributions render a collection where the whole is much more than the sum of the parts. The book breaks new ground in our understanding of the District's historic design, its evolution over four hundred years, and the fundamental issues in future-facing strategies and policies. While the main focus is clearly on Amsterdam, the discussions in this collection have an important bearing on broader questions of urban historic preservation elsewhere, and on questions about enduring urban design.

There has long been controversy about the nature and pace of the transformation from Roman Britain to Saxon England. Some scholars argue that there were few instances of major conflict and that the transition took place relatively peacefully over a long period of time. Others argue that the Romano-Britains and the early Anglo-Saxon invaders lived side by side for a century or more with little contact.

This book, based largely on archaeological evidence, presents an interpretive history of the transition period and demonstrates how Roman Britain evolved into Anglo-Saxon England over the fourth and fifth centuries. The emphasis is on the archaeological evidence because this is the physical and material legacy of man s activities and, unlike the scanty written sources, is not a reflection of political events. The author argues that much of the past uncertainty about this crucial period stems from the sharply conflicting interpretations of the chronicles."

What buried secret lies beneath the stones of one of England's greatest former churches and shrines, the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds? The search for the final resting place of King Edmund has led to this site, beneath which Francis Young argues the lost king's remains are waiting to be found. Edmund: In Search of England's Lost King explores the history of the martyred monarch of East Anglia and England's first patron saint, showing how he became a pivotal figure around whom Saxons, Danes and Normans all rallied. Young also examines Edmund's legacy in the centuries since his death at the hands of marauding Vikings in the 9th century. In doing so, this fascinating book points to the imminent rediscovery of the ruler who created England.

Coinage played a central role in the history of the Athenian naval empire of the fifth century BC. It made possible the rise of the empire itself, which was financed through tribute in coinage collected annually from the empire's approximately 200 cities. The empire's downfall was brought about by the wealth in Persian coinage that financed its enemies. This book surveys and illustrates, with nearly 200 examples, the extraordinary variety of silver and gold coinages that were employed in the history of the period, minted by cities within the empire and by those cities and rulers that came into contact with it. It also examines how coins supplement the literary sources and even attest to developments in the monetary history of the period that would otherwise be unknown. This is an accessible introduction to both the history of the Athenian empire and to the use of coins as evidence.

This book investigates the working mechanisms of public opinion in Late Republican Rome as a part of informal politics. It explores the political interaction (and sometimes opposition) between the elite and the people through various means, such as rumours, gossip, political literature, popular verses and graffiti. It also proposes the existence of a public sphere in Late Republican Rome and analyses public opinion in that time as a system of control. By applying the spatial turn to politics, it becomes possible to study sociability and informal meetings where public opinion circulated. What emerges is a wider concept of the political participation of the people, not just restricted to voting or participating in the assemblies.

Tenderness is not a notion commonly associated with the Romans, whose mythical origin was attributed to brutal rape. Yet, as Herica Valladares argues in this ground-breaking study, in the second half of the first century BCE Roman poets, artists, and their audience became increasingly interested in describing, depicting, and visualizing the more sentimental aspects of amatory experience. During this period, we see two important and simultaneous developments: Latin love elegy crystallizes as a poetic genre, while a new style in Roman wall painting emerges. Valladares' book is the first to correlate these two phenomena properly, showing that they are deeply intertwined. Rather than postulating a direct correspondence between images and texts, she offers a series of mutually reinforcing readings of painting and poetry that ultimately locate the invention of a new romantic ideal within early imperial debates about domesticity and the role of citizens in Roman society.

In this book, Efrosyni Boutsikas examines ancient Greek religious performances, intricately orchestrated displays comprising topography, architecture, space, cult, and myth. These various elements were unified in a way that integrated the body within cosmic space and made the sacred extraordinary. Boutsikas also explores how natural light or the night-sky may have assisted in intensifying the experience of these rituals, and how they may have determined ancient perceptions of the cosmos. The author's digital and virtual reconstructions of ancient skyscapes and religious structures during such occurrences unveil a deeper understanding of the importance of time and place in religious experience. Boutsikas shows how they shaped emotions, cosmological beliefs, and ritual memory of the participants. Her study revolutionises our understanding on ancient emotionality and cognitive experience, demonstrating how Greek religious spaces were vibrant arenas of a shared experience of the cosmos.

In this book, an international team of experts draws upon a rich range of Latin and Greek texts to explore the roles played by individuals at ports in activities and institutions that were central to the maritime commerce of the Roman Mediterranean. In particular, they focus upon some of the interpretative issues that arise in dealing with this kind of epigraphic evidence, the archaeological contexts of the texts, social institutions and social groups in ports, legal issues relating to harbours, case studies relating to specific ports, and mercantile connections and shippers. While much attention is inevitably focused upon the richer epigraphic collections of Ostia and Ephesos, the papers draw upon inscriptions from a very wide range of ports across the Mediterranean. The volume will be invaluable for all scholars and students of Roman history.