Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons^™

Allegory And Ascent In Neoplatonism, Peter T. Struck

Departmental Papers (Classical Studies)

In Late Antiquity a series of ideas emerges that adds a kind of buoyancy to allegorism. Readers' impulses toward other regions of knowledge begin to flow more consistently upward, drawn by various metaphysical currents that guide and support them. A whole manner of Platonist-inspired architectures structure the cosmos in the early centuries of the Common Era, among thinkers as diverse as the well-known Origen and the mysterious Numenius. Plato's understanding of appearances had always insisted on some higher, unfallen level of reality, in which the forms dwell, and to which we have no access through our senses. This other level …

Philosophy Of Intellect And Vision In The De Anima And De Intellectu Of Alexander Of Aphrodisias, John S. Hendrix

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. 198–209) was born somewhere around 150, in Aphrodisia on the Aegean Sea. He began his career in Alexandria during the reign of Septimius Severus, was appointed to the peripatetic chair at the Lyceum in Athens in 198, a post established by Marcus Aurelius, wrote a commentary on the De anima of Aristotle, and died in 211. According to Porphyry, Alexander was an authority read in the seminars of Plotinus in Rome. He is the earliest philosopher who saw the active intellect implied in Book III of the De anima of Aristotle as transcendent in relation …

Neoplatonism In The Liber Naturalis And Shifā: De Anima Or Metaphysica Of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā), John S. Hendrix

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

Avicenna or Ibn Sīnā was born circa 980 in Afshna, near Bukhara, in Persia. He worked briefly for the Samanid administration, but left Bukhara, and lived in the area of Tehran and Isfahan, where he completed the Shifā (Healing [from error]) under the patronage of the Daylamite ruler, ‘Ala’-al Dawla, and wrote his most important Persian work, the Dānish-nāma, which contains works on logic, metaphysics, physics, and mathematics.

Turning The Cup: Thematic Balance In The Greek Symposium, Matthew Naglak

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

The concept of “nothing in excess” was an important one in ancient Greek life. The guiding principle of moderation and/or balance appears in poetry from the 7th to the 5th centuries BCE and has been extensively explored by scholars. My research project adds to this scholarly work by considering for the first time the relationship between moderation and the visual. That is, I explore whether and how this key Greek notion was expressed in the images that appear on pottery of the time period. More specifically, I focus on pottery used in thesymposium, a politically-charged aristocratic male drinking party, and …

Representing The Rhinoceros: The Royal Society Between Art And Science In The Eighteenth Century, Craig A, Hanson

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Discrepancies between the empirical evidence of single-horned rhinoceroses witnessed by Europeans and references from antiquity regarding double-horned rhinos puzzled members of the Royal Society for decades, particularly the circle of physicians around Drs Richard Mead and Hans Sloane. Three articles published in the Philosophical Transactions proposing solutions to the two-horned dilemma and the kinds of evidence onwhich they depended raised crucial issues for the Royal Society during the period - antiquarian concerns tied to philology, numismatics, textual emendation and collecting as well as the conceptual overlap between medical theory and the knowledge of the ancient world generally.

The Nature Of Command In The Macedonian Sarissa Phalanx, Graham Wrightson

School of American and Global Studies Faculty Publications with a Focus on History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religion

In his essay, ―Hellenistic military leadership,‖ P. Beston reviews the successes of Hellenistic kings and generals who commanded their armies from the front, inspiring by example.1 In all but one of his examples the individual in question commanded a cavalry squadron. This is hardly surprising. Horses by nature follow each other and so to direct an attack to where it is required the commander would be better served by leading from the front. The relative lack of structure in a cavalry squadron compared with an infantry battalion requires that the commander fight in the front rank. The speed of a …

Summary Report For The 2010 Season, Mark Schuler

Excavation Reports

In 2010, excavation work concentrated on the area east of the domus of the North-East Church between Cardo 3 North and Cardo 4 North. This area may be the remains of a palatial home of a prominent citizen of the city. If our hypothesis holds true, the house would be some 375 m2 plus a garden to the north.1 In addition to the architecture revealed in 2010, small finds raise interesting questions about the use of the area and about the religious life of the community in the Byzantine period. This report will detail work done in three areas and …

John Chrysostom, Maruthas And Christian Evangelism In Sasanian Iran, Walter Stevenson

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

Neither John Chrysostom’s efforts to evangelize in Sasanid Persia nor the conflict fought between Rome and Persia in 421 have drawn a great deal of attention.¹ So this paper will attempt to navigate the 20 years from John’s initial efforts up to the outbreak of the war without much modern support. Beginning from a series of clues in ancient sources I will try to gather apparently unrelated narratives into a story of how John inadvertently contributed to the even that Kenneth Holum called ‘Pulcheria’s Crusade’. Not that this war earned any of the historical significance of the later crusades. …

Saving The Life Of A Foolish Poet: Tacitus On Marcus Lepidus, Thrasea Paetus, And Political Action Under The Principate, Thomas E. Strunk

Faculty Scholarship

This paper explores Tacitus' representation of Thrasea Paetus. Preliminary to analyzing this portrayal, I discuss two passages often cited when exploring Tacitus' political thought, Agricola 42.4 and Annales 4.20. I reject the former's validity with regard to Thrasea and accept the latter as a starting point for comparing Tacitus' depictions of Marcus Lepidus and Thrasea. Tacitus' characterizations of Thrasea and Lepidus share the greatest resemblance in the trials of Antistius Sosianus and Clutorius Priscus, both of whom wrote verses offensive to the regime. Thrasea and Lepidus both came to the defense of their respective poet in an attempt to spare …

Τρυφη And Υβρισ In The Περι Βιων Of Clearchus, Vanessa B. Gorman, Robert J. Gorman

Faculty Publications, Department of History

Recent discussions of the fragments of the Περι Βίων have seen the concept of pernicious luxury as a key to understanding aspects of this work of Clearchus. In particular, it is thought that Clearchus reflects a moralizing historiographical schema according to which wealth leads to an effeminate luxury (τρυφή), eventually producing satiety (κόρος), which in turn provokes the afflicted to violence (υβρις), ultimately bringing the subject’s destruction. We maintain, in contrast, that it is anachronistic to attribute this pattern of thought to Clearchus, and further, that the state of the evidence does not permit …

The Gift Outright: Land Use And Resource Acquisition At Late Bronze Age Mycenae, Lynne. Kvapil

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Abstract of paper presentation from: Annual Meeting of CAMWS, Oklahoma City, OK, March 2010.

A Philology Of Liberation: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As A Reader Of The Classics, Thomas E. Strunk

Faculty Scholarship

This paper explores the intellectual relationship between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the classics, particularly the works of Plato, Sophocles, and Aeschylus. Recognizing Dr. King as a reader of the classics is significant for two reasons: the classics played a formative role in Dr. King's development into a political activist and an intellectual of the first order; moreover, Dr. King shows us the way to read the classics. Dr. King did not read the classics in a pedantic or even academic manner, but for the purpose of liberation. Dr. King's legacy, thus, is not merely his political accomplishments but …

Baciccio's Beata Ludovica Albertoni Distributing Alms, Karen J. Lloyd

Art Faculty Articles and Research

This article focuses on the artistic relationship between Baciccio and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Entries On "Priam And Hecuba", "Tiresias", And "Theseus", Carolin Hahnemann

Carolin Hahnemann

Review Of Robert Garland, Hannibal, Fred Drogula

Fred K. Drogula

Confucian Moral Cultivation, Longevity, And Public Policy, Chenyang Li

Chenyang Li

No abstract provided.

Revealing Iberian Woodcraft: Conserved Wooden Artefacts From South-East Spain, Pablo Rosser

pablo rosser

Yolanda Carrion & Pablo Rosser Six wells at Tossal de les Basses in Spain captured a large assemblage of Iberian woodworking debris. The authors’ analysis distinguishes a wide variety of boxes, handles, staves, pegs and joinery made in different and appropriate types of wood, some – like cypress – imported from some distance away. We have here a glimpse of a sophisticated and little known industry of the fourth century BC.