Late antique origins of the ‘Imperial Feminine’:

Author(s): Judith Herrin / Language(s): English Issue: 1-2/2016

This short analysis of the origins of late antique empresses aims to identify specifi c features of imperial power exercised by women. Many wives of emperors found themselves widowed and thus in a position to infl uence the education of their young sons, the ‘child emperors’ of the fi fth century. Contrasting the eastern and western courts at Constantinople and Ravenna, it’s possible to trace patterns of preparation for imperial rule, how daughters of rulers were trained, later celebrated as augoustai, commemorated in statues and on coins. After comparing Pulcheria and Galla Placidia, the surprising career of Verina is contrasted with that of Ariadne, linking all four in the emerging phenomenon of the ‘imperial feminine’.

Typisch Mann, typisch Frau: Beschreibungen von Kaiserinnen in der byzantinischen Historiographie

Author(s): Michael Grünbart / Language(s): German Issue: 1-2/2016

Reading Byzantine historiography certain patterns of human behaviour, social interactions and even their perversion emerge. This article deals with female habits focusing on the imperial sphere. Using Eirene Doukaina’s excursion with her husband Alexios Komnenos (recorded by Anna Komnena) as an example of female appearance in public four chapters deal with women’s spaces (in a military context), female attire (and its improper usage), acoustic presence of women (in a male ambience) and informality (imperial women backing their husbands). Sometimes female / womanish behaviour is attributed to men in order to disparage them. Such cases shed light on the understanding of the relation between sexes in Byzantium

Byzantine Empresses on Coins in the Early Byzantine Period (565– 610):

Author(s): Pavla Gkantzios Drápelová / Language(s): English Issue: 1-2/2016

The focus of this article is the possible interpretations and problems related to the study of empresses’ fi gures on some Byzantine coins struck in the period between 565 and 610. This paper partly aims to address the use of coins as a visual medium for promoting specifi c messages. The paper will examine the empresses on coins struck in the period between the beginning of the Justin II’s reign (565) up to the reign of Phocas (602 – 610), surveying the various problems and hypotheses related to the identifi cation. Consorts of all the emperors from the period under study appeared on coins, but each case represents specifi c problems, to which various approaches can be applied for interpretation. Τhere are many contradictory opinions and hypotheses that make it diffi cult to express a consensus regarding the “phenomenon” of female fi gures’ depictions on 6th century coins.

Multiple hierarchies: servants and masters, monastic officers, ordained monks, and wearers of the Great and the Small habit at the Stoudios Monastery (10th – 11th Centuries)

Author(s): Dirk Krausmüller / Language(s): English Issue: 1-2/2016

This article analyses the Stoudios Typikon, a monastic rule from the late tenth century. The original is lost but the rule can be reconstructed through comparison of later adaptations. Analysis of the text shows there were three hierarchies within the community of Stoudios: the monastic offi cials responsible for the administration of the monastery under the oikonomos, the priests and deacons under the protopresbyteros, and the wearers of the great and small habit. The three hierarchies were distinct, but eff orts were made to harmonise them to minimise confl ict. Most of the monastic offi cials seem to have been deacons, and no monk could be ordained priest or deacon if he had not previously been clad in the great habit. The Stoudios Typikon emphasises the role of ordained monks. Only priests were allowed to give blessings. Even the oikonomos had to rely on their services if he was a layman. Moreover, in the church, and possibly also in the refectory, the order of precedence followed the ecclesiastical hierarchy and not the hierarchy of the monastic offi ces, with the sole exception of the oikonomos. Other Stoudite sources suggest that the stipulations of the Stoudios Typikon were never fully implemented. However, there can be little doubt that these stipulations refl ected the views of the ordained members of the community. The latter are also the most likely authors of the text.

Захват Франками Галлии: Византийский взгляд

Author(s): Dimitri Starostin / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1-2/2016

The article addresses the coming to power in the Frankish kingdom of Clovis and investigates the diff erences in the description of this period between Gregory of Tours and the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesareia. It focuses on a long-time controversy rooted in the profoundly diff erent interpretations of the establishment of the Frankish power in Gaul captured in the works of these above historians. The author addresses this problem by trying to investigate in detail the context in which these descriptions of the early Frankish kingdom were written and suggests that the main diff erence comes in the historians’ attitude to the relationship between the Frankish kingdom and the Mediterranean. While Procopius sought to emphasize the integration of the Franks into the latter, Gregory of Tours, on the other hand relying on the “universal ecclesiastical history” genre, that had become common in Late Antiquity, attempted to emphasize the uniqueness of the Frankish Kingdom and its origin in the forceful capture of northern Gaul by the fi rst Merovingian kings.

Contribuția lui Vasile Pârvan privind localizarea davelor de pe Siret

Author(s): Viorel Căpitanu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XVII/1985

Vasile Pârvan's contribution regarding the location of the Siret davae

Rânduiala lumii (ante 1023)

Author(s): Archbishop of York Wulfstan / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 09/2021

The article presents the oldest treatise on political theology written in England and – a rare fact – in the vernacular. Written a few decades before the Great Schism and the Norman conquest of England, the text is an attempt by the most important clergyman of the time, Archbishop Wulfstan of York, to establish codes and standards of moral and spiritual conduct for the Church, royalty and his people.

Intertextuális utalások II-III. századi phrygiai sírfeliratokon

Author(s): Tibor Grüll / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2021

Phrygia in Central Anatolia was an area with a rich historical heritage, its own language, and particular culture within the Roman Empire, where literacy and literary education was highly valued. All this is witnessed by hundreds of Greek epitaphs that have come down to us from the period between the second and fourth centuries A.D. A strikingly large number of these funerary monuments depict writing tablets, styluses, pen cases and papyrus scrolls; and nowhere else have so many metrical epitaphs been preserved in the territory of the whole Empire, filled with Homeric reminiscences and classical mythological references. Besides, this is equally typical of the inhabitants of urban and rural areas – simple farmers and stockbreeders – as well. Poetic epitaphs in an epic language were popular among both the devotees of the Greco-Roman religion and Christians. And naturally, the latter expanded their literary repertoire with Biblical quotations and allusions as early as 150 years prior to the religious peace of Constantine’s reign.

Megjegyzések a bécsi papiruszgyűjtemény P.Vindob. G 40159 papiruszához

Author(s): Ábel Csigó,Viktor Rinkács,Keve Szász,Ábel Török / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2021

The tradition of facet-cut bowls from Pannonia – New fragments from Brigetio

Author(s): Kata Dévai / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

The method of facet-cutting was invented in the 1st century AD. The glass cutters began to create zoned facet-cut decoration to arrange the facets in horizontal zones divided by linear grooves mostly in Isings 96 bowl in the second half of 2nd century and first half of 3rd century AD. A look at the distribution and the major concentrations of sites reveals that they had been manufactured in four main regions: the Rhine region (perhaps at Cologne), Pannonia, Syria (possibly at Dura Europos) and the Pontic, at Tanais. Its popularity is best indicated by the fact that this elegant ornamental technique began to be applied on silverware which clearly imitated the glass bowls, as shown by the adoption of the Isings 96 hemispherical bowl form that was lacking from among silver vessels.

Correlation between military and domestic architecture: A tribune's house in Aquincum and its place in Roman architecture

Author(s): Lőrinc Timár / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

The House of the Tribunus Laticlavius, a large building in the legionary fortress of Aquincum, has only been partially excavated, and this was in the 1970s. This short paper makes an attempt to understand its function and find its place in Roman architecture through a reconstruction of its floor plan and comparison with other prominent residential buildings of the period which share similar features. It appears very likely that the house is based on a loose adaptation of a Hellenistic model, tailored to the needs of high-ranking officers of the Roman army.

Mi köze van Sardurinak Ištarhoz? Asszír logogrammák urartui szolgálatban

Author(s): Attila Buhály / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2020

According to Dan Sperber, thoughts spread from person to person like infections: they appear primarily as sets of concepts that have been received from somewhere else, or at least their certain specific elements come from outside sources. This holds true for the establishment of the state in Urartu at the end of the ninth century BC, when a number of cultural and technical elements of culture and power appeared in Eastern Anatolia, which were previously typical in the Assyrian Empire: the use of literacy, including taking over various expressions of domination, titles with purposes of legitimacy and the use of symbols. The starting point of the paper is a rather specific written representation of the name of the first known King of Urartu, Sarduri I: the name of the king resembles the Assyrian phrase "Ištar is my strength". The fact that the creator of (or who ordered) the first inscriptions in Urartu took advantage of the possibilities resulting from this acoustic similarity, at least in Assyrian texts, shows that the evolving Urartu State consciously started using the various power-ideology and legitimacy elements of Mesopotamian origin.

A Római Birodalom jellemzése II. Agrippa beszédében. Flavius Iosephus: A zsidó háború II. 16.4. (345–401)

Author(s): Tibor Grüll / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2020

Flavius Iosephus inserted an advisory speech into the second book of his Jewish War. The long suasoria was harangued by Marcus Julius Agrippa II, the client king of Judea, who pretended to dissuade his fellow-countrymen from launching a war against the occupying Roman forces. He tried to convince the Jews that a mutiny against Rome is absolutely hopeless and impossible. The major part of his argumentation is an overview of the Roman Empire in AD 66: he takes into account the nine macro-regions of the imperium Romanum from East to West (Asia Minor, Anatolia, Bosporus; Thrace; Dalmatia; Gaul; Spain; Germany; Britain; Africa; Egypt) from different point of views: e.g. size of population, economic strength, natural protection etc. Josephus/Agrippa aimed to demonstrate that Rome is invincible, she practically rules the whole world, and the nations subjugated to her power, willingly obey. This rose-tinted view, of course, was deliberately distorted and far from truth. Nevertheless, in Agrippa’s speech we do not find the usual topics of laus imperii, therefore this picture of the Roman Empire can be certainly described as more ‘realistic’ than ‘optimistic’. For example, Iosephus/Agrippa openly says that the nations conquered by the Romans commuted their former freedom to slavery. Thus, he does not deny that Rome enslaves the nations, all he wants is to persuade the Jews that this is not only a ‘historical necessity’, but it is in accordance with the plan of God.

DO WE REALLY HAVE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR JEWISH GLADIATORS?

Author(s): Haggai Olshanetsky / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

In the past, it has been suggested that Jews were both participants and spectators in the gladiatorial games. Yet, all the materials presented to prove the existence of Jewish gladiators seem to be less conclusive than what the authors deem them to be. The present article wishes to re-examine all the archaeological evidence which was considered as proof for the existence of Jewish gladiators. The evidence will be re-examined individually, as well as the ensemble in its entirety, in order to show that such evidence cannot be used as a means to support the claim of the existence of such a phenomenon.

Miroslava Mirković (1933-2020)

Author(s): Olga Pelcer-Vujačić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 3-4/2021

Hypereidés Démosthenés ellen című beszédének töredékei

Author(s): László Horváth / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2022

This paper reviews the textual tradition of Hyperides’ speech Against Demosthenes by presenting fragment groups of the Harris-Arden papyrus scroll. It complements Gianfranco Bartolini’s comprehensive analysis published half a century ago with data acquired since 1972. It constitutes an extended chapter of the preface to the forthcoming Hyperides edition (Bibliotheca Teubneriana).

Досељавање Словена на Балкан и њихови односи са Византијом: паралелна анализа грчких и српских школских уџбеника

Author(s): Vuk R. Samčević / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 1/2022

History textbooks are always of great importance for every nation state. Both Serbia and Greece, nowadays as well as in the past, have shown great effort in making history text¬books policies fit for their needs. Greece is a state that emphasises greatly on its instruction of humanities and has a strict and uniformed school program, while Serbia has more than one state approved textbook unlike Greece. That being said, the early Middle Ages are a period of European history that is essential for the foundation of contemporary nations, and the immigration of Slavs to the Byzantine Balkans and their principal affairs bring up many questions that have been concerning the two since the XIX century. How Slav the Greeks became and how much do the Balkan Slavs owe to the Byzantine Civilisation? In an attempt to answer that question through the perspective of present-day history textbooks in Greece and Serbia (used in elementary, middle and high school), the article deals with the narratives of the textbooks in regard to how they depict Byzantium and Slavs, their first encounters, the settlement of Slavs in the Balkans and their integration with the Byzantines, as well as the first few centuries of common history during which the Slavs were baptised and founded their own states, up until the XI century when Byzantium took possession almost of the whole peninsula. The research showed that even though the content of the textbooks is similar, some themes are treated differently. Firstly, both acknowledge the Greek aspect of Byzantium and view it as predominantly Greek, although the Greek textbooks take monopoly on the Greek element of Byzantium, neglecting other ethnicities or communities that had lived there as well, which is mentioned greatly in the Serbian ones. Serbian textbooks depict Slavs in a finer manner than the Greek ones do, even though they often both use the same Byzantine sources. Their focus is different, whereas Serbian textbooks focus on the beginning of Serbian history, the Greek textbooks cover the complex process of assimilation of Slavs in continental Greece. Even though both sides claim great importance to the mission of Cyril and Methodius, the Greek books insist on its Byzantine role and portray the result being strong ties between Greeks and Slavs, where the Serbian ones see it as a more inner Slavic matter. In Serbian textbooks Serbian and Byzantine history is very important, but there is no place for Bulgarian history of the same period in such an extent, which is what we see in Greek textbooks at the expense of Serbian history being almost absent. The nature of the Bulgarian empires and the affairs of the Orthodox Church are of a great significance for the Greek textbooks, and for that reason they are omitting some problematic parts of the past in their common history, unlike Serbian ones that have no problem in mentioning dark anecdotes and times of unrest between two peoples. In the end, while we may see some biased language and even negative attitudes towards the other side, the relations between the Slavs and the Byzantines are permanently described as vivid and the Orthodox Slavs are seen as a part of the Byzantine world.

Siracusani ad Anfipoli. Considerazioni su un dimenticato evento storico e sul suo possibile impatto nella vita culturale, letteraria e figurativa di Anfipoli

Author(s): Antonio Corso / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2022

The aim of this note is to review the passage of Polyaenus, Stratagemata 5. 2. 12. The seizure of Amphipolis by the Syracusans, narrated by Polyaenus, may have taken place in 388, when Dionysius I sent a war fleet to the northern Aegean Sea. The presence of Syracusans in the city on river Strymon may have had an impact on the cultural, religious and artistic life of Amphipolis. In particular, the kidnapping of Kore by Hades on a carriage driven by only two horses in the mosaic of tumulus Kasta near Amphipolis may be due to this western influence.

Valerianus Bassianensis – A Pannonian bishop at the Council of Chalcedon?

Author(s): Péter Kovács / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

In his paper the author deals with the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon where a certain Valerian, the bishop of a settlement called Bassiana emerged several times. As he attended the synod of 448 at Constantinople as well, he lived in Constantinople most probably as refugee. Following E. Schwartz's correction, the author also comes to the conclusion that Valerian was mistakenly identified as the African bishop in the original Greek list and he was rather the bishop of the Pannonian Bassianae. He had to flee from his hometown to Constantinople because of the Hun occupation in 441 as his province already belonged to East Rome.

Once again about Constantius heros – In response to J.P.W. Wijnendaele

Author(s): Péter Kovács / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

In his paper the author re-examines the lost funerary inscription of Constantius ‘dux’ following his earlier study and the subsequent study written by J.W.P. Wijnendaele and M. Hanaghan. In their study, the authors used the results of Kovács's earlier paper but several times they misinterpreted the author's conclusions. According to the author, their work was unnecessary and there is no need to re-evaluate the suggested date (420s) and identification given by him.