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Within modern frameworks of knowledge and representation, Dionysos often appears to be atypical for ancient culture, an exception within the context of ancient polytheism, or even an instance of a difference that anticipates modernism. How can recent research contribute to a more precise understanding of the diverse transformations of the ancient god, from Greek antiquity to the Roman Empire? In this volume, which is the result of an international conference held in March 2009 at the Pergamon Museum Berlin, scholars from all branches of classical studies, including history of scholarship, consider this question. Consequently, this leads to a new look on vase paintings, sanctuaries, rituals and religious-political institutions like theatre, and includes new readings of the texts of ancient poets, historians and philosophers, as well as of papyri and inscriptions. It is the diversity of sources or methods and the challenge of former views that is the strength of this volume, providing a comprehensive, innovative and richly faceted account of the “different” god in an unprecedented way.
This book studies one of the few novels from the Roman Empire, Apuleius' Metamorphoses or Golden Ass. Harrison shows that this work is one of remarkable literary complexity. The volume traces some of the history of the novel's criticism and offers a detailed analysis of its key sections and issues.
This volume will concentrate its search for religious individuality on texts and practices related to texts from Classical Greece to Late Antiquity. Texts offer opportunities to express one’s own religious experience and shape one’s own religious personality within the boundaries of what is acceptable. Inscriptions in public or at least easily accessible spaces might substantially differ in there range of expressions and topics from letters within a sectarian religious group (which, at the same time, might put enormous pressure on conformity among its members, regarded as deviant by a majority of contemporaries). Furthermore, texts might offer and advocate new practices in reading, medit...
"Divine interiors" is een onderzoek naar de aankleding van Griekse en Romeinse heiligdommen met wandschilderingen. Machtige marmeren façades, beeldhouwwerken en schilderingen speelden een belangrijke rol in het aanzien van deze monumenten. Terwijl de officiële tempels, die met de steden of de staat waren verbonden, meestal een plechtige maar sobere uitstraling hadden, waren de gebouwen die gericht waren op meer volkse uitingen van religiositeit juist bont beschilderd. Scènes uit het leven van de vereerde godheid, aanhangers en beoefenaren van de cultus, planten en dieren konden de bezoekers van deze heiligdommen in hogere sferen brengen. Het valt op dat er in de uitgestrekte Grieks-Romeinse wereld veel overeenkomsten te vinden zijn tussen vaak ver van elkaar gelegen tempels. De muurschilderkunst kende net als andere kunstvormen stijl- en smaakveranderingen, maar die hadden wel overal dezelfde uitstraling.
In order to reconstruct ancient rituals we must rely on ancient texts. That is the premise of these eight papers which are taken from a conference held at Stanford University in 2002 which brought together scholars of Roman religion and scholars of Roman literature to debate the `textuality of ritual'. The papers are followed by six brief essays which discuss the themes of the and consider the problems of retrieving ritual from texts written by such complex authors as Virgil, Ovid and Livy. The essays themselves focus on: the theme of sacrificial ritual in Roman poetry; religious communication in Rome; professional poets and the 2nd-century BC temple of Hercules of the muses; Livy; the Aeneid ; Ovid's use of hymns in the Metamorphoses ; Ovid's depiction of a triumph in Tristia ; the secret name of Rome. The numerous extracts are presented in Latin verse and English prose translation.
"Egypt in the Roman world" --- Studies on the meaning of Aegyptiaca Romana and the understanding of the cults of Isis in their local context.
The present volume comprises the papers delivered at RICAN 6, which was held in Rethymnon, Crete, on May 30-31, 2011. The focus is placed on male and female characters in the ancient novel and related texts, both pagan and Christian; these characters are presented either as holy or as charlatans but in several cases the two categories cannot be easily distinguished from each other. The papers offer a wide and rich range of perspectives.
This volume presents a refreshing and comprehensive study of the history of the Jews living in Rome and in Roman Italy, focusing on a diachronic study of Jewish society and its interaction with its immediate social and cultural surroundings.
This study sheds new light on identity formation and maintenance in the world of the early Christians by drawing on neglected archaeological and epigraphic evidence concerning associations and immigrant groups and by incorporating insights from the social sciences. The study's unique contribution relates, in part, to its interdisciplinary character, standing at the intersection of Christian Origins, Jewish Studies, Classical Studies, and the Social Sciences. It also breaks new ground in its thoroughly comparative framework, giving the Greek and Roman evidence its due, not as mere background but as an integral factor in understanding dynamics of identity among early Christians. This makes the...
This study examines educational motifs in 1 Corinthians 1-4 in order to answer a question fundamental to the interpretation of 1 Corinthians: Do the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians contain a Pauline apology or a Pauline censure? The author argues that Paul characterizes the Corinthian community as an ancient school, a characterization Paul exploits both to defend himself as a good teacher and to censure the Corinthians as poor students.