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Emperors and Gladiators
Of all aspects of Roman culture, the gladiatorial contests for which the Romans built their amphitheatres are at once the most fascinating and the most difficult for us to come to terms with. They have been seen variously as sacrifices to the gods or, at funerals, to the souls of the deceased; as a mechanism for introducing young Romans to the horrors of fighting; and as a direct substitute for warfare after the imposition of peace. In this original and authoritative study, Thomas Wiedemann argues that gladiators were part of the mythical struggle of order and civilisation against the forces of nature, barbarism and law breaking, representing the possibility of a return to new life from the point of death; that Christian Romans rejected gladiatorial games not on humanitarian grounds, but because they were a rival representation of a possible resurrection.
Paths to Freedom
An international comparative study of a mode of emancipation that worked to reinforce the institution of slavery Manumission—the act of freeing a slave while the institution of slavery continues—has received relatively little scholarly attention as compared to other aspects of slavery and emancipation. To address this gap, editors Rosemary Brana-Shute and Randy J. Sparks present a volume of essays that comprise the first-ever comparative study of manumission as it affected slave systems on both sides of the Atlantic. In this landmark volume, an international group of scholars consider the history and implications of manumission from the medieval period to the late nineteenth century as t...
Greek and Roman Slavery
Greek and Roman Slavery brings together fresh English translations of 243 texts and inscriptions on slavery from fifth and fourth century Greece and Rome. The material is arranged thematically, offering the reader a comprehensive review of the idea and practice of slavery in ancient civilization. In addition, a thorough bibliography for each chapter, as well as an extensive index, make this a valuable source for scholars and students.
Whose Love of Which Country?
Contributors to this volume seek to reconsider the heritage of discourses of patriotism and national allegiance in East Central Europe between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. It results from an international research project, “The Intellectual History of Patriotism and the Legacy of Composite States in East Central Europe,” which brought together scholars to discuss the problem of patriotism in the light of the many levels of ethnic, cultural and political allegiances characterizing East Central Europe in early modern times. The authors analyze the complex process of the formation, reception and transmission of early modern discourses of collective identity in a regional context. Along these lines, the contributors also seek to reconfigure the geographical focus of scholarship on this topic and integrate the Eastern European contexts into the broader European discussion.
Tod und Ritual in den christlichen Gemeinden der Antike
The development of Early Christian rituals in connection with death and burial has so far not sufficiently been explored. Volp’s study focuses on the surviving literary sources—both pagan and Christian—, together with inscriptions and other archaeological remains while taking into account recent results from science and humanities. A summary of death and ritual in the ancient Mediterranean religions is followed by detailed analyses of the Christian sources from the 2nd to the 5th century. Thus, basic developments are being discovered which led to and accompanied the forming of Christian rituals, such as ritual purity or the social structure of family and society. Being the first such interdisciplinary approach, it also represents the first monographic work on the topic since 1941.
Execution and Invention
Beth Berkowitz explores modern scholarship on the ancient Rabbinic death penalty and offers a fresh perspective using the approaches of ritual studies, cultural criticism and Talmudic source criticism. She argues that the death penalty was used by the early Rabbis in an attempt to assert their authority.
The Position of Roman Slaves
Slaves were property of their dominus, objects rather than persons, without rights: These are some components of our basic knowledge about Roman slavery. But Roman slavery was more diverse than we might assume from the standard wording about servile legal status. Numerous inscriptions as well as literary and legal sources reveal clear differences in the social structure of Roman slavery. There were numerous groups and professions who shared the status of being unfree while inhabiting very different worlds. The papers in this volume pose the question of whether and how legal texts reflected such social differences within the Roman servile community. Did the legal system reinscribe social diff...
Invisible Romans
What survives from the Roman Empire is largely the words and lives of the rich and powerful: emperors, philosophers, senators. Yet the privilege and decadence often associated with the Roman elite was underpinned by the toils and tribulations of the common citizens. Here, the eminent historian Robert Knapp brings those invisible inhabitants of Rome and its vast empire to light. He seeks out the ordinary folk—laboring men, housewives, prostitutes, freedmen, slaves, soldiers, and gladiators—who formed the backbone of the ancient Roman world, and the outlaws and pirates who lay beyond it. He finds their traces in the nooks and crannies of the histories, treatises, plays, and poetry created ...
Senses of Touch: Human Dignity and Deformity from Michelangelo to Calvin
Senses of Touch anatomizes the uniquely human hand as a rhetorical figure for dignity and deformity in early modern culture. It concerns a valuational shift from the contemplative ideal, as signified by the sense of sight, to an active reality, as signified by the sense of touch. From posture to piety, from manicure to magic, the book discovers touch in a critical period of its historical development, in anatomy and society. It features new interpretations of two landmarks of western civilization: Michelangelo's fresco of the Creation of Adam and Calvin's doctrine of election. It also accords special attention to the typing of women as sensual creatures by using their hands as a heuristic. Its alternative interpretations explore in theory and in practice the sensuality, the creativity, and the plain utility of hands, thus integrating biology and culture.
