Aesthetic Maintenance of Civic Space

Aesthetic Maintenance of Civic Space
Author: Ine Jacobs
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Aesthetics, Roman
ISBN: 9789042923027

During the Roman period the construction and maintenance of civic infrastructure and monuments, such as bath buildings, theatres, fountains, arches, statues and so on were regarded as the normal duty of well-off citizens, who constituted the local government. For the subsequent period, encompassing the 4th to the 7th century AD, it has long been assumed that changing social and political conditions within the Roman Empire resulted in a severe reduction of expenditure and concurrent loss of sentimental and aesthetic attitudes towards public space. This book challenges this assumption. It assesses the care still given to monuments and public space in the cities in the Eastern Mediterranean, reconstructs how the city represented itself, and focuses on the protagonists in this field. First, it evaluates the diverse initiators of interventions and their motivation. Second, the skills of the actual constructors are looked into in order to judge their identity and number. Third, the priorities of the viewers and use of public space.

The Byzantine Neighbourhood

The Byzantine Neighbourhood
Author: Fotini Kondyli
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2021-10-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429764987

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.

Polis

Polis
Author: John Ma
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 736
Release: 2024-06-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691155380

"The polis, the dominant political form around which ancient Greeks structured their lives and activities, is perhaps their most fundamental creation and enduring legacy. It was a highly successful form of social organization in which Greek culture thrived, including architecture, literature, and philosophy. In this book, ancient historian John Ma offers a new history of the polis from its origins in the Early Iron Age through its eclipse in Late Antiquity. He aims to answer a few big questions about it-Why did it emerge? What needs did it fulfill? How did it work? In addition, it is often assumed that the polis, along with the concomitant values of democracy and freedom, came to an end with the Classical period. Taking a contrary view, Ma explores how it endured under imperial control (the Persian Achaimenids, the Hellenistic kings, the Roman Empire), as well as why and how it eventually ended. In addressing these questions, Ma examines not only the most well-known ancient city-states like Sparta and Athens but also many lesser-known ones. He shows how complex the relations of power, access, and membership between the city, the territory, and the members of the polis were. Ma also examines the polis's significance as a social form and looks to the people who constitute the polis, from free adult men-stakeholders in institutional power, slaveowners, or heads of households-and elites to women, foreigners, and enslaved peoples, however disempowered. He draws on recent work on gender and slavery to evaluate the place of domination and violence in the polis. In doing so, Ma shows how the composition of the citizen body is both a political and social issue. The powerful combination of central political ideas and conflict around the issues of autonomy and social power led, Ma argues, to a "great convergence" of polis forms, producing a relatively uniform, stable organism, centred on communitarian, democratic forms and bargains between the community and its elites. This convergence led to the diffusion and harmonization of polis forms, both within and beyond the Aegean, and which allowed them to endure for almost a thousand years with an even longer legacy"--

The End of Greek Athletics in Late Antiquity

The End of Greek Athletics in Late Antiquity
Author: Sofie Remijsen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2015-05-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1316299066

This book presents the first comprehensive study of how and why athletic contests, a characteristic aspect of Greek culture for over a millennium, disappeared in late antiquity. In contrast to previous discussions, which focus on the ancient Olympics, the end of the most famous games is analyzed here in the context of the collapse of the entire international agonistic circuit, which encompassed several hundred contests. The first part of the book describes this collapse by means of a detailed analysis of the fourth- and fifth-century history of the athletic games in each region of the Mediterranean: Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Italy, Gaul and northern Africa. The second half continues by explaining these developments, challenging traditional theories (especially the ban by the Christian emperor Theodosius I) and discussing in detail both the late antique socio-economic context and the late antique perceptions of athletics.

The Afterlife of the Roman City

The Afterlife of the Roman City
Author: Hendrik W. Dey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2014-11-17
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1316214044

This book offers a new and surprising perspective on the evolution of cities across the Roman Empire in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages (third to ninth centuries AD). It suggests that the tenacious persistence of leading cities across most of the Roman world is due, far more than previously thought, to the persistent inclination of kings, emperors, caliphs, bishops, and their leading subordinates to manifest the glory of their offices on an urban stage, before crowds of city dwellers. Long after the dissolution of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, these communal leaders continued to maintain and embellish monumental architectural corridors established in late antiquity, the narrow but grandiose urban itineraries, essentially processional ways, in which their parades and solemn public appearances consistently unfolded. Hendrik W. Dey's approach selectively integrates urban topography with the actors who unceasingly strove to animate it for many centuries.

Asia Minor in the Long Sixth Century

Asia Minor in the Long Sixth Century
Author: Ine Jacobs
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2018-10-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789250080

Asia Minor is considered to have been a fairly prosperous region in Late Antiquity. It was rarely disturbed by external invasions and remained largely untouched by the continuous Roman-Persian conflict until very late in the period, was apparently well connected to the flourishing Mediterranean economy and, as the region closest to Constantinople, is assumed to have played an important part in the provisioning of the imperial capital and the imperial armies. When exactly this prosperity came to an end – the late sixth century, the early, middle or even later seventh century – remains a matter of debate. Likewise, the impact of factors such as the dust veil event of 536, the impact of the bubonic plague that made its first appearance in AD 541/542, the costs and consequences of Justinian’s wars, the Persian attacks of the early seventh century and, eventually the Arab incursions of around the middle of the seventh century, remains controversial. The more general living conditions in both cities and countryside have long been neglected. The majority of the population, however, did not live in urban but in rural contexts. Yet the countryside only found its proper place in regional overviews in the last two decades, thanks to an increasing number of regional surveys in combination with a more refined pottery chronology. Our growing understanding of networks of villages and hamlets is very likely to influence the appreciation of the last decades of Late Antiquity drastically. Indeed, it would seem that the sixth century in particular is characterized not only by a ruralization of cities, but also by the extension and flourishing of villages in Asia Minor, the Roman Near East, and Egypt. This volume's series of themes include the physical development of large and small settlements, their financial situation, and the proportion of public and private investment. Imperial, provincial, and local initiatives in city and countryside are compared and the main motivations examined, including civic or personal pride, military incentives, and religious stimuli. The evidence presented will be used to form opinions on the impact of the plague on living circumstances in the sixth century and to evaluate the significance of the Justinianic period.

Early Christianity in Asia Minor and Cyprus

Early Christianity in Asia Minor and Cyprus
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2019-09-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004410805

This volume is part of the Berlin Topoi project re-examing the early Christian history of Asia Minor, Greece and the South Balkans, and is concerned with the emergence of Christianity in Asia Minor and in Cyprus. Five essays focus on the east Anatolian provinces, including a comprehensive evaluation of early Christianity in Cappadocia, a comparative study of the Christian poetry of Gregory of Nazianzus and his anonymous epigraphic contemporaries and three essays which pay special attention to the hagiography of Cappadocia and Armenia Minor. The remaining essays include a new analysis of the role of Constantinople in episcopal elections across Asia Minor, a detailed appraisal of the archaeological evidence from Sagalassus in Pisidia, a discussion of the significance of inscriptions in Carian sanctuaries through late antiquity, and a survey of Christian inscriptions from Cyprus.

Church Architecture of Late Antique Northern Mesopotamia

Church Architecture of Late Antique Northern Mesopotamia
Author: Elif Keser Kayaalp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2021
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0198864930

Church Architecture of Late Antique Northern Mesopotamia examines the church architecture of Northern Mesopotamia between the fourth and eighth centuries. Keser Kayaalp draws attention to several aspects ranging from the small scale to the large, focusing on settlements, the variety of plantypes, the remarkable continuity of the classical tradition in the architectural decoration, the heterogeneity of the building techniques, patrons, imperial motivations, and stories that claim and make spaces. Employing archaeological and epigraphical material and hagiographical and historicalsources, a holistic picture of the church architecture of this frontier region emerges, encompassing the cities of Nisibis (Nusaybin), Edessa (Sanliurfa), Amida (Diyarbakir), Anastasiopolis (Dara/ Oguz), Martyropolis (Silvan), Constantia (Viransehir), and the rural Tur 'Abdin region. The periodcovered spans the last centuries of Byzantine and the first century and a half of Arab rule, when the region was, on the one hand, a stage of war and riven by religious controversies, and on the other, a dynamic space of cultural interaction. Keser Kayaalp provides a regional contribution to thestudy of the transformation that the Byzantine civilisation underwent in the late antique period, and assesses the continuities and changes after the Arab conquest in pursuit of discovering whether one can talk about a church architecture in this period that is specific to the SyrianOrthodox.

The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity

The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity
Author: Oliver Nicholson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1743
Release: 2018-04-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0192562460

The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity is the first comprehensive reference book covering every aspect of history, culture, religion, and life in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East (including the Persian Empire and Central Asia) between the mid-3rd and the mid-8th centuries AD, the era now generally known as Late Antiquity. This period saw the re-establishment of the Roman Empire, its conversion to Christianity and its replacement in the West by Germanic kingdoms, the continuing Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Persian Sassanian Empire, and the rise of Islam. Consisting of over 1.5 million words in more than 5,000 A-Z entries, and written by more than 400 contributors, it is the long-awaited middle volume of a series, bridging a significant period of history between those covered by the acclaimed Oxford Classical Dictionary and The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. The scope of the Dictionary is broad and multi-disciplinary; across the wide geographical span covered (from Western Europe and the Mediterranean as far as the Near East and Central Asia), it provides succinct and pertinent information on political history, law, and administration; military history; religion and philosophy; education; social and economic history; material culture; art and architecture; science; literature; and many other areas. Drawing on the latest scholarship, and with a formidable international team of advisers and contributors, The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity aims to establish itself as the essential reference companion to a period that is attracting increasing attention from scholars and students worldwide.

The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City

The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City
Author: Nikolas Bakirtzis
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 719
Release: 2024-01-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429515758

The Byzantine world contained many important cities throughout its empire. Although it was not ‘urban’ in the sense of the word today, its cities played a far more fundamental role than those of its European neighbors. This book, through a collection of twenty-four chapters, discusses aspects of, and different approaches to, Byzantine urbanism from the early to late Byzantine periods. It provides both a chronological and thematic perspective to the study of Byzantine cities, bringing together literary, documentary, and archival sources with archaeological results, material culture, art, and architecture, resulting in a rich synthesis of the variety of regional and sub-regional transformations of Byzantine urban landscapes. Organized into four sections, this book covers: Theory and Historiography, Geography and Economy, Architecture and the Built Environment, and Daily Life and Material Culture. It includes more specialized accounts that address the centripetal role of Constantinople and its broader influence across the empire. Such new perspectives help to challenge the historiographical balance between ‘margins and metropolis,’ and also to include geographical areas often regarded as peripheral, like the coastal urban centers of the Byzantine Mediterranean as well as cities on islands, such as Crete, Cyprus, and Sicily which have more recently yielded well-excavated and stratigraphically sound urban sites. The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City provides both an overview and detailed study of the Byzantine city to specialist scholars, students, and enthusiasts alike and, therefore, will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine urbanism and society, as well as those studying medieval society in general.