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

Musical Evidence For Low Boundary Tones In Ancient Greek, Dieter Gunkel

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

Several scholars have suggested that in ancient Greek there was a low boundary tone at the end of a relatively small prosodic constituent such as a clitic group or maximal prosodic word. The boundary tone may phonologically motivate some puzzling pitch-accentual phenomena in the language. One is the diachronic pitch-peak retraction that led to the circumflex pitch accent (HL) on penultimate syllables (the “sōtêra rule”). Another is the intonational phrase-internal downstepping or deletion of a word-final acute accent (H); that conversion of an acute to a grave accent is known as “lulling” or “koímēsis”. If such a low …

Empire On Trial: The Rise And Fall Of Republican Resistance In Early Augustan Rome, Spencer Yacos

Honors Theses

The ancient historian Cassius Dio recounts that in the year 23 BC, an unprecedented trial occurred within the ancient Roman State. On the defendant’s stand was Marcus Primus, facing the charge of treason against Rome. Primus, during a previous tenure as governor of Macedonia, waged a war on Odryssian Thrace without the order of the Senate. Primus’s defense counsel, Licinius Varro Murena, gives a shocking argument: Augustus Caesar, the leading political figure of Rome, had ordered the war, despite lacking the constitutional authority to do so. Proceedings transpired in such a way that Augustus himself would personally attend the trial. …

[Preface To] The Origins Of Roman Christian Diplomacy: Constantius Ii And John Chrysostom As Innovators, Walter Stevenson

Bookshelf

This book illuminates the origins of Roman Christian diplomacy through two case studies: Constantius II’s imperial strategy in the Red Sea; and John Chrysostom's ecclesiastical strategy in Gothia and Sasanian Persia.

Both men have enjoyed a strong narrative tradition: Constantius as a persecuting, theological fanatic, and Chrysostom as a stubborn, naïve reformer. Yet this tradition has often masked their remarkable innovations. As part of his strategy for conquest, Constantius was forced to focus on Alexandria, demonstrating a carefully orchestrated campaign along the principal eastern trade route. Meanwhile, whilst John Chrysostom' s preaching and social reform have garnered extensive discussion, his …

Regio I - Latium Et Campania: Fascicolo Iii - Pompeii Et Herculaneum: Graffiti, Rebecca R. Benefiel, Holly Sypniewski, Kyle Helms, Erika Zimmerman Damer

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Burial Klinai And Totenmahl?, Elizabeth P. Baughan

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

How can burial furnishings help to clarify the meanings of banqueting imagery in funerary art and the place of banqueting in funerary ideologies? Should tombs furnished with klinai or replicas of banquet couches be understood as representations of banqueting, meant to equip the dead for an eternal ‘Totenmahl’? Or do funeral couches mark their occupants as members of the elite class that enjoyed banqueting and/or luxury furniture while alive? These questions are not so easily answered, because klinai in the ancient Greek world were multifunctional furnishings, used for sleeping and resting as well as for dining and revelry, …

The Identity Of Late Barbarians: Goths And Wine, Walter Stevenson

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

Wine, symbol of civilization in the Mediterranean for millennia and still a profound cultural marker in Europe today, is not often associated with the Goths.¹ But there is evidence allowing us to add this Northern European barbarian people to the tapestry of ancient wine production² at the same time that they were beginning to cultivate the first European barbarian literature with the translation of the Bible into the Gothic language.

Sculpted Symposiasts Of Ionia, Elizabeth P. Baughan

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

Statues and statuettes of reclining banqueters were dedicated at several Ionian sanctuaries during the sixth century B.C.E., beginning with the Geneleos Group at the Samian Heraion. Though common for small bronze and terracotta sculpture, this figure type is not otherwise attested in monumental dedicatory sculpture and is rare as architectural decoration elsewhere in archaic Greece. This article explores the social implications of this Ionian sculptural tradition, which paired the luxury of the reclining banquet with bodily corpulence, in light of archaic poetry and Samian history. The short-lived trend of reclining banqueter dedications may be understood as a locally specific type …

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. …

Fergus Millar: Rome, The Greek World, And The East. Volume 2. Government, Society And Culture In The Roman Empire (Book Review), Walter Stevenson

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

In Fergus Millar's discussion of his teacher, Ronald Syme, he states, "we can afford to take his stature as a historian as a presupposition and should not shirk the duty of asking what his work has been, what we have learnt from it" (p. 399). Likewise, now that Millar's papers have been intelligently collected into two volumes, the second of which roughly covers the first four centuries of our era, we attempt to ascertain the significance of one of the most influential ancient historians of the last forty years.

Rüdiger Kinsky (Ed.), Diorthoseis. Beiträge Zur Geschichte Des Hellenismus Und Zum Nachleben Alexanders Des Grossen. Bza, 183 (Book Review), Walter Stevenson

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

This volume presents five elaborations on lectures given at a seminar for Gerhard Wirth's 75th birthday (December, 2001). Kinsky explains in his terse introduction that the papers are dedicated to revising standard views of Alexander's reception and the history of Hellenism. In this spirit, the title "Diorthoseis" refers to a continuous process of reconstructing ancient history and periodically revising these reconstructions by reassessing all evidence. The breadth of this description fits the essays, but whatever is lost in focus is made up for in clearly formulated issues and engaging syntheses.

Sozomen, Barbarians, And Early Byzantine Historiography, Walter Stevenson

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

Sozomen, writing in mid-fifth century Constantinople, stands out as an exception proving the rule in Byzantine historiography. He is the first and last Christian Byzantine historian to make a serious effort at ethnography.⁵ When we consider how quickly Christianity was spreading outside the boundaries of the eastern Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries it is striking how little mention barbarians and their evangelization earn in the early ecclesiastical histories.⁶ To illustrate this point I will begin by showing that Sozomen’s predecessors, Eusebius, Rufinus, and Socrates, de-emphasized the natural interest that the historical genre had expressed in ethnography, …

Minotaur Or The King’S Bull. By Jonathon Ward. Urban Youth Theater, Henry Street Settlement Abrons Arts Center, New York. 23 July 1999 (Performance Review), Patricia Herrera

Theatre and Dance Faculty Publications

The production of Minotaur was not only a reinterpretation of an ancient Greek myth, but an opportunity for Latino hip-hop artists to pass down a cultural tradition to the next generation. Latino artists situated hip-hop as a social movement, and the teen performers physically embodied this in the songs and dance. In this way, the Athenian rebellion became the breaking of stereotypes often associated with urban youths. The performers beautifully portrayed this act of resistance when Theseus took Minos’ golden crown, wore it, and passed it down for all the Athenians to wear.

Lex Romana Familiae, Patsy Lewis Barr

Master's Theses

Marriage among the Romans could occur at quite an early age, according to modern standards. Bethrothal might be arranged at any age above seven.1 The custom of early bethrothal and marriage certainly tended to discourage any romantic inclinations. If one did marry for love, generally it was with a widow or divorcee. The possibility of sentimental attachment among the very young was slight, but marriage to the Romans was not for love, but for duty to the state. Often the Romans had to rely on a post-marital propinquity for the development of love which normally precedes marriage.