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This volume challenges the orthodox view that fishing and fish played only a marginal role in the economy of the ancient world. In fact, there is archaeological evidence for ancient fish processing on a commercial scale not only in the Mediterranean itself, but also on the Atlantic coast and in the Black Sea region, especially the Crimea. Our literary sources testify to the widespread culinary and medicinal use of salted fish and fermented fish sauces in antiquity, and especially in the first centuries AD. In this book, the authors assess the present state of research on ancient fishing and discuss its implications for the history of the Black Sea region, especially the period of Greek colon...
The earliest roads in Cyprus go back to the Bronze Age, and by the end of the Hellenistic period the road network encircled the entire island. More roads were added and older roads rebuilt during the Roman period to serve the needs of the provincial administration as well as of the individual cities. This book, the first on its subject, traces the development of the Cypriot road network over a period of a thousand years, drawing on a combination of archaeological, epigraphic and literary sources. Separate chapters deal with travellers and life on the road, transport technology and the legal and administrative context of road building. It is often assumed that the primary purpose of Roman road building was military domination, but, as this study demonstrates, road development in Cyprus is best understood in terms of communication between cities and their territories and the day-to-day exchanges between town and countryside.
In 89 BC, Roman legionaries intervened in the Black Sea region to curb the ambitions of Mithridates VI of Pontos. Over the next two centuries, the Roman presence on the Black Sea coast was slowly, but steadily increased. This volume deals with the Roman impact on the indigenous population in the Black Sea region and touches on the theme of romanisation of that area. Nine different contributors discuss several aspects of Roman identity and the cultural interaction - one article even compares the situation to the American presence in Iraq - though at the same time, it also looks at the resistance to the Roman Empire and the Roman problems of creating peace in the region after the colonisation....
Until now, most studies of Roman Anatolia have been focused on the strongly Hellenised and urbanised regions of western and southern Asia Minor. In this volume, the first on its subject, thirteen contributors from nine different countries address the question of how local identities were created and maintained in northern Anatolia from the fall of Mithradates VI to the middle Byzantine period. In a region that did not possess a Hellenistic polis-tradition, the fledgling inland cities founded by Pompey the Great struggled to develop an urban identity of their own, while the old-established Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast had to come to terms with the reality of Roman domination without abandoning their Hellenic identity. Drawing on the evidence of archaeology, art, epigraphy and numismatics, the authors trace the diverse ways in which provincial cities - that is to say, provincial urban elites - attempted to construct local identities for themselves, and how mythology, religion, language and tradition were all employed to define and project a specific identity for each city and its territory - transforming geographical "space" into mentally and culturally defined "place".
Most studies of Roman local administration focus on the formal structures of power: imperial laws, urban institutions and magistracies. This book explores the interplay of formal power with informal factors such as social prejudice, parochialism and personal rivalries in the cities of northwestern Asia Minor from the first to the fifth centuries AD. Through a detailed analysis of the municipal speeches and career of the philosopher-politician Dion Chrysostomos, we gain new in-depth insight into the petty conflicts and lofty ambitions of an ancient provincial small-town politician and those around him. The author concludes that Roman local politics were rarely concerned with political issues but more often with social status and the desire for recognition within an agonistic society.
The fishing technology of the Classical world has so far received little systematic attention, neither from historians nor from archaeologists. In this volume, the reader will find a series of studies offering a wide range of approaches to the topic of ancient fishing technology, based on detailed studies of the available literary, archaeological, pictorial and icthyological evidence as well as on diachronic comparisons with fishing techniques of the Early Medieval and Modern periods. The articles included in the present volume are based on the authors' presentations at an international, interdisciplinary workshop in Cadiz, covering the history of fishing from Pre-history to the present day, with a special emphasis on the Roman period.
The site of medieval Euchaïta, on the northern edge of the central Anatolian plateau, was the centre of the cult of St Theodore Tiro ('the Recruit'). Unlike most excavated or surveyed urban centres of the Byzantine period, Euchaïta was never a major metropolis, cultural centre or extensive urban site, although it had a military function from the seventh to ninth centuries. Its significance lies precisely in the fact that as a small provincial town, something of a backwater, it was probably more typical of the 'average' provincial Anatolian urban settlement, yet almost nothing is known about such sites. This volume represents the results of a collaborative project that integrates archaeological survey work with other disciplines in a unified approach to the region both to enhance understanding of the history of Byzantine provincial society and to illustrate the application of innovative approaches to field survey.
The last dedicated book on ancient geography was published more than sixty years ago. Since then new texts have appeared (such as the Artemidoros palimpsest), and new editions of existing texts (by geographical authorities who include Agatharchides, Eratosthenes, Pseudo-Skylax and Strabo) have been produced. There has been much archaeological research, especially at the perimeters of the Greek world, and a more accurate understanding of ancient geography and geographers has emerged. The topic is therefore overdue a fresh and sustained treatment. In offering precisely that, Duane Roller explores important topics like knowledge of the world in the Bronze Age and Archaic periods; Greek expansion into the Black Sea and the West; the Pythagorean concept of the earth as a globe; the invention of geography as a discipline by Eratosthenes; Polybios the explorer; Strabo's famous Geographica; the travels of Alexander the Great; Roman geography; Ptolemy and late antiquity; and the cultural reawakening of antique geographical knowledge in the Renaissance, including Columbus' use of ancient sources.
This volume challenges the orthodox view that fishing and fish played only a marginal role in the economy of the ancient world. In fact, there is archaeological evidence for ancient fish processing on a commercial scale not only in the Mediterranean itself, but also on the Atlantic coast and in the Black Sea region, especially the Crimea. Our literary sources testify to the widespread culinary and medicinal use of salted fish and fermented fish sauces in antiquity, and especially in the first centuries AD. In this book, the authors assess the present state of research on ancient fishing and discuss its implications for the history of the Black Sea region, especially the period of Greek colon...
Classica et Mediaevalia is an international periodical, published annually, with articles written by Danish and International scholars. The articles are mainly written in English, but also in French and German. The periodical deals from a philological point of view with Classical Antiquity in general and topics such as history of law and philosophy and the medieval ecclesiastic history. It covers the period from the Greco-Roman Antiquity until the Late Middle Ages.