Revolt and resistance in the ancient Classical world and the Near East : in the crucible of empire /
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This collection of essays contains a state of the field discussion about the nature of revolt and resistance in the ancient world. While it does not cover the entire ancient world, it does focus in on the key revolts of the pre-Roman imperial world. Regardless of the exact sequence, it was an undeniable fact that the area we now call the Middle East witnessed a sequence of extensive empires in the second half of the last millennium BCE. At first, these spread from East to West (Assyria, Babylon, Persia). Then after the campaigns of Alexander, the direction of conquest was reversed. Despite the sense of inevitability, or of divinely ordained destiny, that one might get from the passages that speak of a sequence of world-empires, imperial rule was always contested. The essays in this volume consider some of the ways in which imperial rule was resisted and challenged, in the Assyrian, Persian, and Hellenistic (Seleucid and Ptolemaic) empires. Not every uprising considered in this volume would qualify as a revolution by this definition. Revolution indeed was on the far end of a spectrum of social responses to empire building, from resistance to unrest, to grain riots and peasant rebellions. The editors offer the volume as a means of furthering discussions on the nature and the drivers of resistance and revolution, the motivations for them as well as a summary of the events that have left their mark on our historical sources long after the dust had settled.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004330184 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Aspects of ancient institutions and geography : studies in honor of Richard J.A. Talbert /
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In Aspects of Ancient Institutions and Geography colleagues and students honor Richard J.A. Talbert for his numerous contributions and influence on the fields of ancient history, political and social science, as well as cartography and geography. This collection of original and useful examinations is focused around the core theme of Talbert's work - how ancient individuals and groups organized their world, through their institutions and geography. The first half of the book considers institutional history in chapters on such diverse topics as the Roman Senate, Roman provincial politics and administration, healing springs, gladiators, and soldiers. Chapters on the geography of Thucydides and Alexander III, imperial geography, tracking letters and using sundials round out the second half of the book.
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1 online resource (xvi, 354 pages) : illustrations, maps. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004283725 :
1572-0500 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Brill's companion to ancient Macedon : studies in the archaeology and history of Macedon, 650 BC-300 AD /
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In the past 35 years our archaeological and epigraphic evidence for the history and culture of ancient Macedon has been transformed. This book brings together the leading Greek archaeologists and historians of the area in a major collaborative survey of the finds and their interpretation, many of them unpublished outside Greece. The recent, immensely significant excavations of the palace of King Philip II are published here for the first time. Major new chapters on the Macedonians' Greek language, civic life, fourth and third century BC kings and court accompany specialist surveys of the region's art and coinage and the royal palace centres of Pella and Vergina, presented here with much new evidence. This book is the essential companion to Macedon, packed with new information and bibliography which no student of the Greek world can now afford to neglect.
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1 online resource (xiii, 642 pages, [72] pages of plates) : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004209237 :
1872-3357 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Greek Identity in the Western Mediterranean : Papers in Honour of Brian Shefton /
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The Greek colonies of the Western Mediterranean were central to the evolution of many aspects of Greek culture and in many cases developed an identity which was significantly different from that of mainland Greece and the Aegean. This volume seeks to explore aspects of the cultural identity of these colonies and how it evolved. It covers the colonial foundations in Italy, Sicily, Southern France, Spain and North Africa, and ranges from the 8th century BC to the early Roman empire. Topics covered include the ethnic identity of the earliest colonial foundations, the evolution of Greek states in the West, the Greeks' perceptions of their own identity and ways of representing it, and the role of the indigenous populations in the evolution of Western Greek culture.
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1 online resource (xxii, 504 pages) : illustrations, maps. :
List of Brian Shefton's works (p. xviii-xix).
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047402664 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Anthologies of historiographical speeches from antiquity to early modern times : rearranging the tesserae /
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Anthologies of speeches excerpted from history books constitute a relatively little-known rhetorical and bibliographic genre. From ancient times to the present day, the practice of culling characters' orations from one or more works and publishing them independently of their original source has produced new and different ways of reading and using history. Anthologies of Historiographical Speeches offers an introduction to the very diverse questions that arise from the study of the genre through a variety of approaches and methodological tools. Lying at the point where rhetoric and historiography intersect, the essays included in this volume focus on the rhetorical aspects of the collections, as well as on their production, transmission, and reception from antiquity to the early modern period.
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1 online resource (xi, 546 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004341869 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Greek sacred law : a collection of new documents (NGSL) /
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This work contains two parts. Part I constitutes a guide to the corpus of Greek sacred law and its contents. A discussion of the history of the corpus and the principles governing its composition is followed by a detailed review of its contents, in which the evidence is classified according to subject matter. Part II contains inscriptions published since the late 1960s from all around the Greek world excluding Cos and Asia Minor (checklists for these are appended). The text of each inscription is presented alongside restorations, epigraphical commentary, translation, and a comprehensive running commentary. Most of the inscriptions are illustrated. The volume should prove useful to scholars of Greek religion, historians, and epigraphists.
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1 online resource (xx, 516 pages, [31] pages of plates) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 423-433) and indexes. :
9789047426646 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Greek sacred law : a collection of new documents (NGSL) /
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This work contains two parts. Part I constitutes a guide to the corpus of Greek sacred law and its contents. A discussion of the history of the corpus and the principles governing its composition is followed by a detailed review of its contents, in which the evidence is classified according to subject matter. Part II contains inscriptions published since the late 1960s from all around the Greek world excluding Cos and Asia Minor (checklists for these are appended). The text of each inscription is presented alongside restorations, epigraphical commentary, translation, and a comprehensive running commentary. Most of the inscriptions are illustrated. The volume should prove useful to scholars of Greek religion, historians, and epigraphists.
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1 online resource (xx, 499 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 423-433) and indexes. :
9789047405801 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in the cult of Yahweh.
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These two volumes collect some of the most influential and important scholarly essays by the late Morton Smith (1915-1991), for many years Professor of Ancient History at Columbia University in New York City. Smith was admired and feared for his extraordinary ability to look at familiar texts in unfamiliar ways, to re-open old questions, to pose new questions, and to demolish received truths. He practiced the \'hermeneutics of suspicion\' to devastating effect. His answers are not always convincing but his questions cannot be ignored. The essays of Volume I center on the Hebrew Bible (\'Old Testament\'), Ancient Israel and Ancient Judaism, of Volume II on the Christian Bible (\'New Testament\'), Early Christianity and Ancient Magic. Volume II also contains an assessment of Smith's scholarly achievement and a complete list of his publications.
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1 online resource (viii, 334 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004295872 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The supreme gods of the Bosporan Kingdom : Celestial Aphrodite and the Most High God /
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This is the first systematic study of the cults of the Bosporan Kingdom, which existed in South Russia in the first centuries AD. The research is based on a variety of sources: archaeological evidence and inscriptions, largely unknown to the non-Russian readers, as well as historical and literary texts. The religion of the Bosporus is viewed in this monograph as a blend of Greek and indigenous Iranian traditions. Its first part is dedicated to the cult of Celestial Aphrodite. The second part examines the controversial cult of the Most High God and its alledged Jewish affinities. The book, illustrated with thirty figures, is an important contribution to the understanding of the religious life in Greek colonies, and the history of Eastern Mediterranean in Late Antiquity.
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1 online resource (x, 371 pages) : illustrations, maps. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-321) and index. :
9789004295902 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Religious practices and Christianization of the late antique city (4th-7th century) /
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In Religious Practices and Christianization of the Late Antique City , historians, archaeologists and historians of religion provide studies of the phenomenon of the Christianization of the Roman Empire within the context of the transformations and eventual decline of the Greco-Roman city. The eleven papers brought together here aim to describe the possible links between religious, but also political, economic and social mutations engendered by Christianity and the evolution of the antique city. Combining a multiplicity of sources and analytical approaches, this book seeks to measure the impact on the city of the progressive abandonment of traditional cults to the advantage of new Christian religious practices.
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1 online resource (vii, 243 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004299047 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in the cult of Yahweh.
:
These two volumes collect some of the most influential and important scholarly essays by the late Morton Smith (1915-1991), for many years Professor of Ancient History at Columbia University in New York City. Smith was admired and feared for his extraordinary ability to look at familiar texts in unfamiliar ways, to re-open old questions, to pose new questions, and to demolish received truths. He practiced the \'hermeneutics of suspicion\' to devastating effect. His answers are not always convincing but his questions cannot be ignored. The essays of Volume I center on the Hebrew Bible (\'Old Testament\'), Ancient Israel and Ancient Judaism, of Volume II on the Christian Bible (\'New Testament\'), Early Christianity and Ancient Magic. Volume II also contains an assessment of Smith's scholarly achievement and a complete list of his publications.
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1 online resource (viii, 292 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004301443 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Priests, tongues, and rites : the London-Leiden magical manuscripts and translation in Egyptian ritual (100-300 CE) /
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This book is an investigation into the sphere of production and use of two related bilingual magical handbooks found as part of a larger collection of magical and alchemical manuscripts around 1828 in the hills surrounding Luxor, Egypt. Both handbooks, dating to the Roman period, contain an assortment of recipes for magical rites in the Demotic and Greek language. The library which comprises these two handbooks is nowadays better known as the Theban Magical Library. The book traces the social and cultural milieu of the composers, compilers and users of the extant spells through a combination of philology, sociolinguistics and cultural analysis. To anybody working on Greco-Roman Egypt, ancient magic, and bilingualism this study is of significant importance.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral--Leiden University, 2003). :
1 online resource (xiv, 342 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 317-328) and indexes. :
9789047406747 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Sabbath and synagogue : the question of Sabbbath worship in ancient Judaism /
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Sabbath worship as a communal event does not feature in the Hebrew Bible. In the context of the first century CE, according to Philo and Josephus, the sabbath gatherings took place only for the purpose of studying the law, and not for the liturgical recital of psalms or prayer. Classical authors depict Jews spending the sabbath at home. Jewish inscriptions provide no evidence of sabbath-worship in prayer-houses ( proseuchai ), while the Mishnah prescribes no special communal sabbath activities. The usual picture of Jews going on the sabbath to the synagogue to worship thus appears to be without foundation. It is even doubtful that there were synagogue buildings, for 'synagogue' normally meant 'community'. The conclusion of this study, that there is no evidence that the sabbath was a day of communal Jewish worship before 200 CE, has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of early Jewish-Christian relationships. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource (xi, 279 pages) :
9789004295834 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Die politische Rolle der stadtrömischen Plebs in der Kaiserzeit /
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Die politische Rolle der stadtrömischen Plebs in der Kaiserzeit engages with the topical question of the political role of the Roman plebs in the imperial period and seeks to reconstruct how it may have looked in practice and how it can be defined. Detailed source criticism of Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio Cassius, and others demonstrates that the passages thematizing citizens are primarily narrative in function. This approach further sharpens our understanding of the plebs' actual historical actions both regarding their causes, forms, and extent, as well as their attitude towards the emperors. This reappraisal allows for new insights and corrects numerous prior assessments, especially with regard to the function assigned the plebs as part of the so-called 'system of acceptance'. Die politische Rolle der stadtrömischen Plebs in der Kaiserzeit befasst sich mit der vieldiskutierten Frage, wie die politische Rolle der stadtrömischen Plebs in der Kaiserzeit ausgesehen haben mag und wie sie definiert werden kann. Die Autorin kann anhand intensiver Quellenkritik, insbesondere der Werke des Tacitus, Sueton und Cassius Dio, einerseits zeigen, dass die Passagen zum Volk in erster Linie eine narrative Funktion erfüllen. Andererseits ermöglicht genau dieser Zugang, die Kenntnisse über die historischen Aktivitäten zu schärfen: etwa hinsichtlich Auslösern, Formen oder Umfang, aber auch der Haltung der Plebs gegenüber den Principes. Dadurch werden neue Einblicke gewährt und etliche Positionen der bisherigen Forschung korrigiert. Als unhaltbar erweist sich insbesondere die Rolle, die der Plebs im sogenannten ,Akzeptanzsystem' zugesprochen wird.
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1 online resource (xv, 366 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004339743 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Philippi : Stadt und Christengemeinde zur Zeit des Paulus /
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The Roman colony of Philippi is the site upon which Paul founded his first European congregation. There, he encountered a political entity which bore the stamp of Roman culture through and through. Part I describes Philippi's political and religious situation based on numismatic, epigraphical, archaeological and literary sources. Part II reconstructs the relationship between Paul, the congregation, and the city of Philippi, and demonstrates the influence which the Roman environment exerted on the church's organization and preaching. The work reaches the conclusion that the Philippean community assumed an active and self-confident role in implementing its mission. In so doing, it clashed with the Roman authorities and their insistence upon a religious praxis that did not call into question the principles or existence of the Roman State. The book contributes to the interpretation of the Epistle to the Philippians as well as to the history of early Christianity and the history of Religions during the first century.
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Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral), Frankfurt am Main, 1993. :
1 online resource (ix, 248 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-237) and index. :
9789004267244 :
0167-9732 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Jewish dialogue with Greece and Rome : studies in cultural and social interaction /
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Twenty-seven interdisciplinary essays on aspects of Judaism in the Greco-Roman world, exemplifying a wide range of techniques, by a well-known scholar. Three are previously unpublished, including a reappraisal of the Judaism and Hellenism debate and a study of the Sardis synagogue. The book's overall coherence derives from the author's long-standing interests in the analysis of texts as documents of cultural and religious interaction, and in how Jewish communities were woven into the social fabric of Greek cities in the Hellenistic and Roman East. The four sections are: Greeks and Jews, Josephus, The Jewish Diaspora and Epigraphy, and finally Beyond the Greeks and Romans, essays which extend into Christian literature and on to the nineteenth century reception of the Judaism/Hellenism dichotomy. Scholars and students from a wide variety of backgrounds will benefit. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
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1 online resource (xix, 579 pages cm) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047400196 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Christianity and imperial culture : Chinese Christian apologetics in the seventeenth century and their Latin patristic equivalent /
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This book is a study of the writings of a group of Chinese Christian apologists in the seventeenth century, focussing on Xu Guangqi. Eleven of his shorter writings are included in Chinese and in translation. The first part of the book is devoted to a study of Latin Christian apologists within the Roman Empire to provide a comparison for the analysis of Xu Guangqi's work. Minucius Felix, Tertullian and Lactantius are shown to have faced, in regard to imperial power and Graeco-Roman culture, a situation comparable to that of Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao and Yang Tinqyun in regard to imperial power and culture in the late Ming period. The final chapters of the book reconsider general issues of confrontation and adaptation in the inculturation of Christianity.
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1 online resource (xvii, 259 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-259) and index. :
9789004320000 :
0924-9389 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The league of the Aitolians /
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The Aitolians have had a bad press, regarded as pirates and brigands, and their state as a pirate state built on terrorist tactics. This book treats them as what they really were, a normal Hellenistic state. They constructed an original and successful polity which provided peace and prosperity for its inhabitants, and played a major part in Greek history for a century and a half. The approach is chronological, beginning with the origin and formation of the league and its early expansion, and then dealing with its long duel with Macedon, and concluding with its destruction by Rome. This is the first full account of the history of the league which approaches it as an independent state rather than as the enemy of other states and peoples. It complements the standard histories of the other Hellenistic states.
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1 online resource (xvii, 585 pages) : maps. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 563-568) and index. :
9789004351219 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.