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Ancient Divination and Experience

Lindsay G. Driediger-Murphy and Esther Eidinow (eds)

The introduction to this volume describes the contribution that it makes to scholarship on ancient divinatory practices. It analyses previous and current research, arguing that while this ... More

The introduction to this volume describes the contribution that it makes to scholarship on ancient divinatory practices. It analyses previous and current research, arguing that while this predominantly functionalist work reveals important socio-political dimensions of divination, it also runs the risk of obscuring from view the very people, ideologies, and experiences that scholars seek to understand. It explains that the essays in this volume focus on re-examining what ancient people—primarily those in ancient Greek and Roman communities, but also Mesopotamian and Chinese cultures—thought they were doing through divination. The Introduction provides an overview of the content of each chapter and identifies key themes and questions shared across chapters. The volume explores the types of relationships that divination created between mortals and gods, and what this can tell us about the religions and cultures in which divination was practised.Less

Ancient Supplication

F. S. Naiden

This is the first book-length treatment of supplication, an important social practice in ancient Mediterranean civilizations. Despite the importance of supplication, it has received little attention, ... More

This is the first book-length treatment of supplication, an important social practice in ancient Mediterranean civilizations. Despite the importance of supplication, it has received little attention, and no previous study has explored so many aspects of the practice. This book investigates the varied gestures made by the suppliants, the types of requests they make, the arguments used in defense of their requests, and the role of the supplicandus, who evaluates and decides whether to fulfill the requests. Varied and abundant sources invite comparison between the societies of Greece, especially Athens, and the Roman Republic and Principate and also among literary genres such as epic and tragedy. Additionally, this book formulates an analysis of the ritual in its legal and political contexts.Less

The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science

Kevin Van Bladel

Before the more famous Renaissance European reception of the ancient Greek Hermetica, the Arabic tradition about Hermes and the works under his name had been developing and flourishing for 700 years. ... More

Before the more famous Renaissance European reception of the ancient Greek Hermetica, the Arabic tradition about Hermes and the works under his name had been developing and flourishing for 700 years. The legendary Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus was renowned in Roman antiquity as an ancient sage whose teachings were represented in books of philosophy and occult science. The works in his name, written in Greek by Egyptians living under Roman rule, subsequently circulated in many languages and regions of the Roman and Sasanian Persian empires. After the rise of Arabic as a prestigious language of scholarship in the 8th century, accounts of Hermes’ identity and Hermetic texts were translated into Arabic along with the hundreds of other works translated from Greek, Middle Persian, and other literary languages of antiquity. Hermetica were in fact among the earliest translations into Arabic, appearing already in the 8th century. This book explains the origins of the Arabic myth of Hermes Trismegistus, its sources, the reasons for its peculiar character, and its varied significance for the traditions of Hermetica in Asia and northern Africa as well as Europe. It shows who pre-modern Arabic scholars thought Hermes was and how they came to that view.Less

Athenian Myths and Festivals: Aglauros, Erechtheus, Plynteria, Panathenaia, Dionysia

Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood

Robert Parker (ed.)

Moving out from a particular problem about a particular Athenian festival, this book investigates central questions concerning Athenian festivals and the myths that underlay them. It examines the ... More

Moving out from a particular problem about a particular Athenian festival, this book investigates central questions concerning Athenian festivals and the myths that underlay them. It examines the role played at festivals by hereditary religious associations, showing how simple actions of undressing, veiling, bathing, and re-dressing a statue created a symbolic drama of abnormality, reversion to primeval time, and renewal for the Athenians. The book also offers a reading of the ever controversial Parthenon frieze. This book, displays attention to detail and a concern for methodological rigour.Less

Citizen Bacchae: Women's Ritual Practice in Ancient Greece

Barbara Goff

Terence Taylor (ed.)

What activities did the women of ancient Greece perform in the sphere of ritual, and what were the meanings of such activities for them and their culture? By offering answers to these questions, this ... More

What activities did the women of ancient Greece perform in the sphere of ritual, and what were the meanings of such activities for them and their culture? By offering answers to these questions, this study aims to recover and reconstruct an important dimension of the lived experience of ancient Greek women. A comprehensive investigation of the ritual roles of women in ancient Greece, it draws on a wide range of evidence from across the Greek world–including literary and historical texts, inscriptions, and vase paintings–to assemble a portrait of women as religious and cultural agents, despite the ideals of seclusion within the home and exclusion from public arenas that we know restricted their lives. As the author builds a picture of the extent and diversity of women's ritual activity, she shows that women were entrusted with some of the most important processes by which the community guaranteed its welfare. She examines the ways in which women's ritual activity addressed issues of sexuality and civic participation, showing that ritual could offer women genuinely alternative roles and identities, even while it worked to produce wives and mothers who functioned well in this male-dominated society. Moving to more speculative analysis, the author discusses the possibility of a women's subculture focused on ritual, and investigates the significance of ritual in women's poetry and in vase paintings that depict women. She also includes a substantial exploration of the representation of women as ritual agents in fifth-century Athenian drama.Less

Death in Late Bronze Age Greece: Variations on a Theme

Joanne M. A. Murphy (ed.)

Late Bronze Age tombs in Greece and their attendant mortuary practices have been a topic of scholarly debate for over a century, dominated by the idea of a monolithic culture with the same ... More

Late Bronze Age tombs in Greece and their attendant mortuary practices have been a topic of scholarly debate for over a century, dominated by the idea of a monolithic culture with the same developmental trajectories throughout the region. This book contributes to that body of scholarship by exploring both the level of variety and of similarity in the practices at each site and thereby highlights the differences between communities that otherwise look very similar. Bringing together an international group of scholars working on tombs and cemeteries on mainland Greece, Crete, and in the Dodecanese, the volume affords a unique view of the development and diversity of these communities. The chapters provide a penetrative analysis of the related issues by discussing tombs connected with sites ranging in size from palaces to towns to villages and in date from the start to the end of the Late Bronze Age. This book contextualizes the mortuary studies in recent debates on diversity at the main palatial and secondary sites and between the economic and political strategies and practices throughout Greece. The chapters in the volume illustrate the pervasive connection between the mortuary sphere and society through the creation and expression of cultural narratives, and draw attention to the social tensions played out in the mortuary arena.Less

Debating the Saints’ Cult in the Age of Gregory the Great

Matthew Dal Santo (ed.)

This book argues that the Dialogues on the Miracles of the Italian Fathers, Pope Gregory the Great's (590–604) most controversial work, should be considered from the perspective of a wide-ranging ... More

This book argues that the Dialogues on the Miracles of the Italian Fathers, Pope Gregory the Great's (590–604) most controversial work, should be considered from the perspective of a wide-ranging debate about the saints which took place in early Byzantine society. Like other contemporary works in Greek and Syriac, Gregory's Latin text debated the nature and plausibility of the saints' miracles and the propriety of the saints' cult. Rather than viewing the early Byzantine world as overwhelmingly pious or credulous, the book argues that many contemporaries questioned and challenged the claims of hagiographers and other promoters of the saints' miracles. From Italy to the heart of the Persian Empire at Ctesiphon, a healthy, sceptical, rationalism remained alive and well. The book's conclusion argues that doubt towards the saints reflected a current of political dissent in the East Roman or early Byzantine Empire, where patronage of Christian saints' shrines was used to sanction imperial autocracy. These far-reaching debates about religion and authority also help re-contextualize the emergence of Islam in the late ancient Near East.Less

Disciplining Christians: Correction and Community in Augustine’s Letters

Jennifer V. Ebbeler

This book reconsiders several of Augustine's most well-known letter exchanges, including his famously controversial correspondence with Jerome and his efforts to engage his Donatist rivals in a ... More

This book reconsiders several of Augustine's most well-known letter exchanges, including his famously controversial correspondence with Jerome and his efforts to engage his Donatist rivals in a letter exchange. It reads these letters with close attention to conventional epistolary norms and practices, in an effort to identify innovative features of Augustine's epistolary practice. In particular, it notes and analyzes Augustine's adaptation of the traditionally friendly letter exchange to the correction of perceived error in the Christian community. In transforming the practice of letter exchange into a tool of correction, Augustine draws on both the classical philosophical tradition and also scripture. His particular innovation is his insistence that this process of correction can—and often must—be done in the potentially public form of a letter exchange rather than in the privacy of a face-to-face conversation. This is particularly true when the perceived error is one that has the potential to jeopardize the salvation of the entire Christian community. In offering epistolary correction, and requesting reciprocal correction from his correspondents, Augustine treats his practice of letter exchange as a performance of Christian caritas. Indeed, in his view, the friendliest correspondence was that which was concerned solely with preserving the salvation of the participants. In recognizing Augustine's commitment to the corrective correspondence and thus reading his letters with attention to their corrective function, we gain new insights into the complicated dynamics of Augustine's relationships with Jerome, Paulinus of Nola, the Donatists, and Pelagius.Less

The End of the Pagan City: Religion, Economy, and Urbanism in Late Antique North Africa

Anna Leone

This book focuses primarily on the end of the pagan religious tradition and the dismantling of its material form in North Africa (modern Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) from the fourth to the sixth ... More

This book focuses primarily on the end of the pagan religious tradition and the dismantling of its material form in North Africa (modern Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) from the fourth to the sixth centuries ad. It considers how urban communities changed, why some traditions were lost and some others continued, and whether these carried the same value and meaning upon doing so. Addressing two main issues, mainly from an archaeological perspective, the volume explores the change in religious habits and practices, and the consequent recycling and reuse of pagan monuments and materials, and investigates to what extent these physical processes were driven by religious motivations and contrasts, or were merely stimulated by economic issues. In fact, other elements probably contributed to urban changes and to the practice of recycling that became common in Late Antiquity, such as the economy, trade (i.e., availability of statuary and building material), and a substantially poorer quality of life (i.e., lower budgets to be spent on monuments and statuary) from the fourth century onward. The transition from Paganism to Christianity also through time determined change in function of temples and the end of the Pagan priesthoods.Less

English Mythography in its European Context, 1500-1650

Anna-Maria Hartmann

Greco-Roman mythology and its reception are at the heart of the European Renaissance, and mythographies—texts that collected and explained ancient myths—were considered indispensable companions to ... More

Greco-Roman mythology and its reception are at the heart of the European Renaissance, and mythographies—texts that collected and explained ancient myths—were considered indispensable companions to any reader of literature. Despite the importance of this genre, English mythographies have not gained sustained critical attention, because they have been wrongly considered mere copies of their European counterparts. This monograph studies the English mythographies written between 1577 and 1647 by Stephen Batman, Abraham Fraunce, Francis Bacon, Henry Reynolds, and Alexander Ross. By placing their texts into a wider, European context, it reveals the unique English take on the genre. The book unfolds the role myth played in the wider English Renaissance culture (religious conflicts, literary life, natural philosophy, poetics, and Civil War politics) and shows, for the first time, the considerable explanatory value it holds for the study of English Renaissance literature. Finally, this book is a contribution to the history of myth philosophy. It reveals how early modern England answered a question we still find fascinating today: what is myth?Less

Fortuna: Deity and Concept in Archaic and Republican Italy

Daniele Miano

This book focuses on the Latin goddess Fortuna, one of the better known deities in ancient Italy. The earliest forms of her worship can be traced back to archaic Latium, and she was still a widely ... More

This book focuses on the Latin goddess Fortuna, one of the better known deities in ancient Italy. The earliest forms of her worship can be traced back to archaic Latium, and she was still a widely recognized allegorical figure during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The main reason for her longevity is that she was a conceptual deity, and had strong associations with chance and good fortune. When they were interacting with the goddess, communities, individuals, and gender and age groups were inevitably also interacting with the concept. These relations were not neutral: they allowed people to renegotiate the concept, enriching it with new meanings and challenging established ones. The geographical and chronological scope of this book is Italy from the archaic age to the late Republic. In this period Italy was a fragmented, multicultural and multilinguistic environment, characterized by a wide circulation of people, customs, and ideas, in which Rome played an increasingly dominant role. All available sources on Fortuna have been used: literary, epigraphic, and archaeological. The study of the goddess based on conceptual analysis will serve to construct a radically new picture of the historical development of this deity in the context of the cultural interactions taking place in ancient Italy. The book also aims at experimenting with a new approach to polytheism, based on the connection between gods and goddesses and concepts.Less

From Jupiter to Christ: On the History of Religion in the Roman Imperial Period

Jörg Rüpke

A history of the religion of the Roman imperial period is of fundamental importance for understanding the history of religion in Europe. It is also of great value for any history of religion. The ... More

A history of the religion of the Roman imperial period is of fundamental importance for understanding the history of religion in Europe. It is also of great value for any history of religion. The Roman Empire offered a space for Christianity which enabled the quick diffusion of media and ideas. It is this space and period which enabled the diffusion of Christianity and made way for an esthetizied paganism prepared for many later renaissances. This book argues that the decisive change within this period was not the growing number of ‘religions’ or changes in their ranking and success, but a modification of the idea of ‘religion’ and a change of the social place of religious practices and beliefs. A medium serving the individual necessities the dealing with human contingencies like sickness, insecurity, and death and a medium serving the public formation of political identity is shown to be transformed into an encompassing system of ways of life, group identities, and political legitimation.Less

The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations

Jan Bremmer and Andrew Erskine (eds)

This book explores the Greek gods from Homer to Late Antiquity. The Greek gods are still very much present in modern consciousness. Yet even though Apollo and Dionysos, Artemis and Aphrodite, Zeus ... More

This book explores the Greek gods from Homer to Late Antiquity. The Greek gods are still very much present in modern consciousness. Yet even though Apollo and Dionysos, Artemis and Aphrodite, Zeus and Hermes are household names, it is much less clear what these divinities stood for in Ancient Greece. In fact they have been rather neglected in modern scholarship which has tended to focus on other aspects of Greek religion such as ritual and myth. The book brings together a term of international scholars with the aim of remedying the situation and generating new approaches to the study of the nature and development of the Greek gods. It looks at the individual gods but it also asks to what extent cult, myth and literary genre determine the nature of a divinity. How do the Greek gods function in a polytheistic pantheon and what is their connection to heroes? What is the influence of philosophy? What does archaeology tell us about the gods? In what ways do the gods of late antiquity differ from those of classical Greece? The aim of this book is to present a comprehensive view of the gods as they functioned in Greek culture until the triumph of Christianity.Less

Greek and Roman Festivals: Content, Meaning, and Practice

J. Rasmus Brandt and Jon W. Iddeng (eds)

Festivals were the heartbeat of Greek and Roman society, its social and political organization, and its institutions. They set the rhythm of the year, as laid down in a calendar, and through them ... More

Festivals were the heartbeat of Greek and Roman society, its social and political organization, and its institutions. They set the rhythm of the year, as laid down in a calendar, and through them divine protection of the public and private spheres was ensured and the populace was joined together in common acts centred on common symbols. The present book contains twelve chapters on Greek and Roman festivals from an interdisciplinary field of Classical scholarship: archaeology, history, history of religions, and philology. The book addresses the key question of what a Greco-Roman festival was, and show that the answer is many-faceted and complex. The very concept of ‘festival’ is examined; the origin, content, practice of different festivals, with their implicit features and historical significance, are discussed. The social, political, and ritual function of ancient festivals is illuminated by examples and theoretical reflections. The book accordingly contributes to a more nuanced and finely delineated picture of the close connections between festivals as religious and social phenomena and processes, and the historical dynamics that shaped them in the times of the Greeks and Romans.Less

Greek Gods Abroad: Names, Natures, and Transformations

Robert Parker

This is a book about interaction between Greek religion and the religious cultures of the many regions of the eastern Mediterranean and beyond with which it came into contact during the long period ... More

This is a book about interaction between Greek religion and the religious cultures of the many regions of the eastern Mediterranean and beyond with which it came into contact during the long period when Greek was the lingua franca of the ancient world. It studies the practice of identifying Greek gods with those of other countries, and its limits. It shows how Greek gods were named and referred to within Greece, and how these ways of naming were adopted, extended and adapted in new cultural contexts. It argues, following Hermann Usener’s Götternamen, that such naming practices provide essential insight into religious psychology and values.Less

The Greek Gods in Modern Scholarship: Interpretation and Belief in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Germany and Britain

Michael D. Konaris

This book examines major theories of interpretation of the Greek gods in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German and British scholarship, and their implications and influence with a primary, ... More

This book examines major theories of interpretation of the Greek gods in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German and British scholarship, and their implications and influence with a primary, though not exclusive, focus on Apollo. German and British scholars of the time drew on philology, archaeology, comparative mythology, anthropology, or sociology to advance radically different theories on the Greek gods. The book focuses on the theory of the Greek gods as gods of natural elements; its principal rival, the theory of K.O. Müller and his followers that the Greek gods had originally been tribal and universal gods; H. Usener’s theory of Sondergötter, as well as theories inspired by anthropology and sociology (Lang, Farnell, Harrison). The book situates the rival theories in their intellectual and cultural context, and explores their underlying assumptions and agendas. It lays particular stress on how the interpretation of the Greek gods was informed by confessional and national rivalries and on how it was implicated in broader contemporary debates in Germany and Britain—such as over the origins and nature of religion, or the relation between Western culture and the ‘Orient’. In addition, the book looks at the impact of these theories on the study of Greek religion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and draws implications about current debates and approaches.Less

Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition

Claudia Rapp

Between the years 300 and 600, Christianity experienced a momentous change from persecuted cult to state religion. One of the consequences of this shift was the evolution of the role of the bishop—as ... More

Between the years 300 and 600, Christianity experienced a momentous change from persecuted cult to state religion. One of the consequences of this shift was the evolution of the role of the bishop—as the highest Church official in his city—from model Christian to model citizen. This work traces this transition with a twofold aim: to deemphasize the reign of the emperor Constantine, which has traditionally been regarded as a watershed in the development of the Church as an institution, and to bring to the fore the continued importance of the religious underpinnings of the bishop's role as civic leader. The book rejects Max Weber's categories of “charismatic” versus “institutional” authority that have traditionally been used to distinguish the nature of episcopal authority from that of the ascetic and holy man. Instead it proposes a model of spiritual authority, ascetic authority and pragmatic authority, in which a bishop's visible asceticism is taken as evidence of his spiritual powers and at the same time provides the justification for his public role. The book provides an analysis of the changing dynamics of social mobility as played out in episcopal appointments.Less

The Individual in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean

Jörg Rüpke (ed.)

Ancient religions are usually treated as collective and political phenomena. Apart from a few towering figures, the individual religious agent has fallen out of view. This volume addresses this gap ... More

Ancient religions are usually treated as collective and political phenomena. Apart from a few towering figures, the individual religious agent has fallen out of view. This volume addresses this gap by focusing on the individual and individuality in ancient Mediterranean religion. To an astonishing degree even in antiquity individual religious action is not determined by traditional norms handed down by family and the larger social context. Options open up, choices are made. On the part of the individual, this development is reflected in changes in “individuation”, the parallel process of a gradual full integration into society and the development of self-reflection and of a notion of individual identity. The volume, however, does not search for isolated actors. Socialization, that is the biographical process of being integrated into ever larger social contexts as well as the individual's appropriation of religious roles and traditions, and the development of individual identity go hand in hand. Such processes are analyzed for the Hellenistic and Imperial periods down to Christian-dominated late antiquity, for pagan polytheistic as well as Jewish monotheistic settings. Individuation is looked for in everyday religious practice in Phoenicia, Greek cities and Rome. It is identified in institutional developments, and philosophical reflections on the self as exemplified by the Stoic Seneca. The broad range of phenomena is focussed by looking for individual agency, the social context of individual action, by analysing concepts of mind and body, by asking for experience and discipleship.Less

Inner Purity and Pollution in Greek Religion: Volume I: Early Greek Religion

Andrej Petrovic and Ivana Petrovic

This book takes a radically new look at the ancient Greek notions of purity and pollution. Its main concern is the inner state of individual worshippers as they approach the gods and interact with ... More

This book takes a radically new look at the ancient Greek notions of purity and pollution. Its main concern is the inner state of individual worshippers as they approach the gods and interact with the divine realm in a ritual context. It is a book about Greek worshippers’ inner attitudes towards the gods and rituals, and about what kind of inner attitude the Greek gods were envisaged to expect from their worshippers. In the wider sense, it is a book about the role of belief in ancient Greek religion. By exploring the Greek notions of inner purity and pollution from Hesiod to Plato, we bring to the fore the significance of intrinsic, faith-based elements in Greek religious practices—thus providing the first history of the concepts of inner purity and pollution in early Greek religion. We show that, in the perception of ancient testimonies, the inner state of the ritual performer matters, and that it has implications for both the performers’ notion of piety, and their understanding of ritual efficacy. From Hesiod (seventh century bc) onwards, the Greek gods are thought to pay close attention to the inner disposition of the worshipper. The correct and incorrect religious dispositions are customarily embodied in the categories of inner purity and pollution, and these categories shape the relationship between worshippers and divinities. We demonstrate that the Greek concept of inner purity also possesses a moral dimension, and that inner purity represented an integral part of the purity doctrine.Less

The Last Pagans of Rome

Alan Cameron

Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (402/3 CE) gives a vivid account of the confrontation between the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius and the Western usurper Eugenius. To many, the defeat of Eugenius ... More

Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History (402/3 CE) gives a vivid account of the confrontation between the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius and the Western usurper Eugenius. To many, the defeat of Eugenius and his pagan followers along the Frigidus River in 394 was the last gasp of a vigorous pagan revolt in the late 4th century, one spearheaded by the Roman aristocracy. This elaborate campaign to derail Christianity, as the story goes, consisted of identifiable pagan literary circles, pagan patronage of the classics, and pagan propaganda in art and literature. Recently, however, scholars have shown this picture to be wanting in accuracy and nuance. This book replaces this view with a detailed portrait of pagan society during the pivotal 4th and early 5th centuries. The subject of the book is the duration, nature, and consequences of the survival of the last pagans. It is widely believed that pagan aristocrats remained in the majority till at least the 380s, and continued to be a powerful force well into the 5th century. On this basis the main focus of much modern scholarship has been on their supposed stubborn resistance to Christianity. Rather surprisingly, these aristocrats have been transformed from the arrogant, philistine land-grabbers most of them were into fearless champions of senatorial privilege, literature lovers, and aficionados of classical (especially Greek) culture. The dismantling of this romantic myth is one of the main goals of this book. If a pagan aristocracy did not mount a defiant political and cultural rearguard action, what did they do? If elite culture at this time was not starkly divided between pagan and Christian, what did it look like? By sifting through the abundant textual evidence the book concludes that the many activities and artifacts previously identified as hallmarks of a pagan revival were in fact just as important to the life of cultivated Christians. Far from being a subversive pagan activity designed to rally pagans, the promotion of classical literature, learning, and art—and its acceptance by many elite Christians—may actually have helped the last reluctant pagans to finally abandon the old cults and adopt Christianity.Less