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The author describes construction, architecture, sculpture, painting, mosaics, and applied art of Rome, presenting the main examples of artistic achievements of the Empire period against a precisely defined historical and cultural background.
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The book contains systematic critique of the traditionalist model’s historiographical assumptions concerning the Spartan alliances in the VI and V century BCE. First chapter is devoted to the critique of the sources. In the second chapter we look at three areas where the original impulse for the creation of a coherent, uniform alliance around Sparta has been sought: Sparta’s helot problem, relations with Argos and finally the alleged Spartan “crusade” against Greek tyrants. In the third chapter the supposed constitution of the Peloponnesian League is tackled. The assumption is that it was shaped in the 450s in reaction to the emergence of the Athenian empire which provoked strong fear. In the fourth chapter the author attempts to buttress this theory by an analysis of a problem that has to date nearly evaded scholarly attention but which is central to any attempt at understanding the Spartan symmachy, namely the history of the term “the Peloponnesians” and its use. The author traces the development of an originally purely geographic designation into a slogan used from the mid-fifth century onwards as propaganda for the Peloponnesian unity against Athenian aggression while cementing the anti-Athenian alliance around Sparta. The history of the word constitutes a crucial argument in the discussion on the time, place and character of the formation of the Peloponnesian League.
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The last volume documenting scientific research on the 15th- and 16th-century collections of the Early Printed Books Department at the University of Warsaw Library containing a detailed, integrated provenance index of printed books from that period. The publication enables searching for data about owners and users of particular books in seven volumes of the Catalogue published earlier by Warsaw University Publishing House. It is a complete source database, numbering about 9,500 entries, which can be very helpful for further historical, bibliological and cultural research.
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The author presents a new approach to the history of Israel. He distinguishes the history of the Hebrews, which can be reconstructed on the basis of biblical and non-biblical sources, from the mythical history created by the biblical writers, which he analyzes in terms of the role they played in the formation of the religious and national community of Jews in the ancient times.
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The first volume of The Symmachia of the Roman Empire with the God of Christians (4th – 6th Century), titled An Extraordinary Change: The Birth of a New Era, was devoted to reflections on the genesis of the alliance of the Roman Empire with the God of Christians as such and to the significant transformations that marked this breakthrough. In the second part, which is the present volume, the author deals with ecclesial institutions on the one hand and, on the other, rulers' efforts to maintain an alliance with God, which had been threatened, as they firmly believed, by various church splits epitomized by the great theological disputes like the Arian, Nestorian or Monophysite controversies. Professor Sławomir Bralewski’s work is undeniably important. This is a well-thought-out study, supported by the author's research in the field conducted over many years. It is therefore the fruit of his scientific maturity. The book is a concise, logical whole that offers a fair account, both substantive and bibliographic, of Polish and foreign achievements regarding the history of early Byzantium. On the one hand, the author's theses have the hallmarks of innovation, on the other, they are based on time-tested research methodology. They can therefore constitute an important and deep source of inspiration for further research. dr hab. Piotr Kochanek, prof. KUL The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
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This book is dedicated to ancient DNA (aDNA) – genetic material of organisms that perished hundreds to many thousands years ago. Only recently a subject of science fiction fantasies, now aDNA brings us vast amounts of invaluable, otherwise inaccessible, knowledge about the extinct species as well as about the past of the extant ones, including our own. The author in a reader-friendly way presents the methods of obtaining and analyzing aDNA and the application of aDNA research in a range of fields, from evolutionary biology through biodiversity conservation to archaeology. Numerous accompanying illustrations guide the reader throughout the text.
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In the presented book we find an outline of the policy characteristics, including the results of research and publications of the Copenhagen Polis Center. The author analyzes the main features of the polis, which are the foundation of the entire Greek civilization. It places the Greek polis in the broad context of the "City-State Cultures" known from other eras and from other parts of the world; looks for differences and similarities; various components that may facilitate a full understanding of the Greek phenomenon. Hansen discusses the concepts of a city, state, city-state, and city-state cultures, and characterizes the cultures of city-states from different eras, for example, the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, Hazor in Palestine, Etruscan cities, Milan, Florence, and Venice in the Middle Ages.
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A great introduction to reading the Iliad and the Odyssey. The author introduces her readers to the basic issues discussed and pointed out by Homerian critics: the problem of the poems' authorship, their special place in the history of Greek literature on the verge of oral and literal culture, the relationship between the heroic epic and historical realities. The author writes gracefully and knowledgeably within the spheres of critical-literary, religious-historical, and archaeological issues.
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The post-conference publication, which comprises articles on different aspects of state and society in Babylonia, Persia, Archaic and Classical Greece, Roman Republic and Roman Empire, Byzantium. The authors – historians, philologists and archaeologists – demonstrate the current state of knowledge and new perspectives in their fields of research by confronting various methods and research approaches.
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A textbook on the history of ancient Greece from the start of the reign of Alexander the Great up to the times of the Roman conquests and the beginning of a new order. The authors discuss the relations between Greeks and the peoples of the East and their civilizations, as well as subsequent conflicts with the Roman republic. They portray the richness of the forms of social and economic life, the political system, the material and spiritual culture. The authors discuss in detail the sources that are most important and most often used in research, including literary texts, inscriptions, papyruses, archaeological monuments, coins. The textbook features maps and illustrations.
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The pottery workshop in the town of Porphyreon on the Phoenician coast (modern Jiyeh in Lebanon), a site midway between Beirut and Sidon (modern Saida), operated on a local scale, producing mainly amphorae and kitchen vessels. It was an important cog in the wheels of the region’s economy from the middle of the 2nd century BC to the 7th century AD. A Polish–Lebanese rescue project in 2004 probed a Hellenistic and Roman pottery production zone in the town. The assemblage of ceramic vessels and wasters that was recorded supported an extensive study of the local repertory of vessels produced, as well as the clay of which the were made. Porphyreon, thus, became the second, after Berytus, Hellenistic and Roman pottery production site to be excavated on the Lebanese coast, whereas laboratory analyses of the chemical composition of the clay have supplied a key criterion for distinguishing locally made vessels from other ceramic production in Phoenicia. The study presents the ceramic assemblage from Jiyeh, including a typological and chronological classification of the vessels, and discusses the finds in relation to trends and phenomena typical of Phoenician pottery production in the periods in question. The overall picture of local workshop output contributes important insights into the history of ancient trade and craftsmanship in central Phoenicia. A formal examination of the ceramic material, combined with a review of ancient sources, written and other, sheds light on the administrative status of the settlement in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, placing it convincingly in the hinterland of Sidon rather than Berytus. Moreover, it has added a unique small-town perspective to the study of the economy of ancient Phoenicia, based so far chiefly on data from the large urban centres like Sidon, Tyre and Berytus.
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The book concerns multiple pregnancy and multiple births in Antiquity. The analysis of written sources from the Middle East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia) as well as from Greece and Rome allows looking at the subject from several perspectives: the author investigated myths about semi-divine twins and numerous multiple births, medical and astrological concepts of multiple pregnancies and the consequences of multiple births in the Roman law.
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The book offers a critical study of Herulian history. This is the first modern monograph to present a comprehensive analysis of literary and epigraphic sources for the relatively short history of this Scandinavian people. The author eliminated the pseudo-history of the Herules and concentrating on the well-established events from the organized social life of the Herules, he reduced their share in the history of ancient and early medieval Europe, which had been uncritically expanded by some scholars in the past. Prosopography, produced for the first time, will guide the reader in the personal history of the Herules. The geographic extent of the tribe’s wanderings, invasions and campaigns (Scandinavia, Ukraine, Greece, Austria, Germany, France, Spain, Bohemia, the Balkans, Italy, Asia and Africa), and their direct participation in the overthrow of the Western Roman Empire in ad 476, make their past extremely fascinating.
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Non-invasive surveys carried out at Ptolemais are implementation of the concept adopted by Professor Tomasz Mikocki, who in the introduction to the published in 2006 Archaeological Tourist Guide wrote: "Having been offered a wonderful opportunity to conduct research on one of the most important archaeological sites in the word we have decided to carry out mainly non-invasive works (rather than traditional excavations) in order not to degrade the integrity of the ruined Ptolemais". With this in mind, Prof. Mikocki has set an ambitious program of non-invasive investigations being aware of the fact that the research carried out over a wide area require non-standard measures and prepare a new methodology for this type of work. His idea could be realized thanks to a grant program of the Polish National Center for Science, as an interdisciplinary project "Noninvasive mapping of the ancient remains of the city of Ptolemais in Libyan Cyrenaica." The project, whose results are presented here as a successive volume of the Ptolemais in Cyrenaica series, is one of the largest such projects in the Mediterranean basin. More than 150 hectares of land was surveyed via non-invasive prospecting methods. On the basis of satellite images and aerial photography performed for the project, ortophotomaps were prepared for an area of 180 hectares. The maps were georeferenced and fed into the spatial information system for the site. Archival maps fed into the system were also georeferenced (including maps and topographical sketches made by nineteenth-century travellers), as was documentation produced in the course of twentiethcentury excavations by various expeditions researching the site. The resulting digital database allows for a more detailed documentation of archaeological remains visible on the surface. The basic methods of field measurements were magnetic measurements performed with a proton precession magnetometer and a caesium vapour magnetometer, as well as gradiometric readings using transductors. The geophysical maps illustrating the measurements were developed to offer a uniform graphic representation of the data from different measuring devices. Filters and transformations used in commercial software for graphic presentation of geophysical measurement results were used in addition to algorithms developed specifically to allow for a filtering out of defects resulting from the varied topography. This proved particularly difficult in the case of Ptolemais – a site spread out on terraces over a large area and with mutable lay of the land, as well as varied geological composition, with rock straight under the surface in the south of the city and numerous layers of relics of ancient architecture in the central part. An important methodological achievement was to develop the rules of integrating the data gained not just through geophysical measurements, but also photogrammetric documentation, aerial photography and satellite images, topographic measurements (including three-dimensional profiling of the surface areas surveyed). In addition to these, significant progress was also made in studying history of the city at different stages of its development, as well as the role of North Africa against the background of the other centres of ancient civilisation. This allowed for a verification of the existing hypotheses about the history of Ptolemais and setting new directions for future research on this important centre – one of the capital cities of the ancient world.
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The dictatorship of General Franco in Spain resorted to two characters of ancient Iberian history to promote Franco’s authoritarianism: Viriathus and Trajan. In the early years of the regime, Viriathus was often called “caudillo de los españoles”. The anachronic distinction was obviously meant to mirror Franco’s own title as Caudillo de España. Trajan, on the other hand, appeared as an Iberian conqueror and excellent, military, ruler, thus serving as a predecessor to another Iberian army general in power: Franco himself. These lines analyse how Trajan and Viriathus appeared, in Francoist propaganda and education, as two complementing precedents (internal and external, local and universal) of the greatest and final Caudillo de España, Franco.
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In collective memory, the image of Sparta is that of a military encampment. In a world where the citizens devoted their lives to war and other needs of the state, there was no place for leisure. The author calls into question this mythologised perception, adopting a new perspective: instead of focusing, following the ancient authors, on the state and its needs, he pays special attention to the private sphere, which is more befitting for a reflection on the titular schole. He demonstrates that the life of Spartans might have resembled life in a military camp only during the period of the famed state education. Once the education was complete, the citizens had abundant leisure time to engage in various activities, including: family life, extramarital unions, pederasty, entertainment during feasts, sport, hunting, and horse and hound breeding.
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The Chronography of Theophanes is certainly one of the most important Byzantine sources containing information on the history of the beginnings of Muslim statehood, the Caliphate, in the Byzantine cultural sphere. The work contains many important passages concerning both the very person of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, the Muslims, and the individual representatives of the Caliphate, with its rulers at the forefront. In the context of the information provided by Theophanes about the Prophet, I have tried to confront it with contemporary research on the origins of Islam. In such a way, it is possible to look at this narrative from a somewhat broader perspective, without limiting oneself to merely listing the obvious accusations formulated against Muhammad by the Byzantine chronicler. In the second chapter, I also decided to discuss several themes in which the followers of Allah repeatedly served Theophanes as a reference point for describing the internal history of the Byzantine Empire: the issue of alleged Monophysite, Syriac or Coptic assistance to Muslims in the context of the first invasions, the issue of iconoclasm, the question of Muslim persecution of Christians. In the third chapter I have taken up the subject of Theophanes’ portrayal of individual Caliphs. I have divided the material according to the currently accepted chronology, however I have also noted elements noticeable in the Chronography, but not fitting in with this common scheme.
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Translatio, meaning 'moving the relics of saints to another place and cutting them up into pieces for the purpose of their cult' was first permitted by the Orthodox Church. The cult of relics came to be admitted by the Western Church only later. Following the Barbarian invasions, the monks and priests contributed to the cult and traded with relics. This is how the relics of Saint Anthony the Anchorite (251─356) were found and moved first to Alexandria (in 532), and later to Constantinople (in 635). Finally they arrived in France at the end of the 11th century. The translation of these relics is related in a series of narratives. The so-called mystical legends tell us about the miraculous force of these relics. At the same time, they keep alive the belief in their miraculous attributes. The single Hungarian translation of the legend can be found in the Érdy Codex. The exact place where the genuine relic was found cannot be determined.
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The book is dedicated to creating and evolution of the image of inhabitants of Arabia in ancient and early medieval sources. At the beginning the author attempts to answer the questions, which area in the discussed period was treated as Arabia, which ethnoi were considered Arab and what names were used to name them. The second part begins with the chapter devoted to the sources of knowledge of the Greeks and the Romans about Arabia and its inhabitants. The author then presents the lands and tribes considered “Arabic” (rightly or not) by ancient writers, as well as their opinion about the people of the Arabian Peninsula. She tries to explain with which tribal groups and in what circumstances the Greeks and the Romans maintained relations and how it influenced the perception of their Arab neighbours. The above findings have become the foundations for the third part, devoted to the image of the Arabs in late antique and early Byzantine sources. Having presented the fluctuations of geopolitical situation in the early years of current era, the author presents the process of forging a new network of alliances of the two powers: the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire and the Persian Empire with Arab tribes. Much attention has been paid to religious issues, pointing to the cohabitation of pagan beliefs, Judaism and different currents of Christianity in the Peninsula before Islam. The vast chapter discusses the image of the inhabitants in the texts written in a variety of languages by Byzantine authors. It points to the persistence of some, not infrequently stereotypical opinions, spread by the Byzantines, who thus followed the ancient writers, but also to different points of view on the Arab neighbours, resulting from the fact that many of them became Christians. The book is supplemented by the biographies of selected Arab leaders.
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Das Konzept des römischen „Kaisers“ war nicht statisch. Es ging aus den etablierten Institutionen der Republik hervor und verlor im 1. Jahrhundert endgültig seinen vorerst provisorischen Charakter. Auch die Stellung des Kaisers im religiösen Kontext wandelte sich. Dies gilt umso mehr für die „Kaiserin“, für die es in der Republik kein Muster gab. Sie war zunächst nichts weiter als die Ehefrau des amtierenden Kaisers ohne klar definierte Titel, Rechte und Pflichten, die über die Führung des Haushaltes ihres Mannes hinausgingen.
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