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Gierycz argues provocatively in his paper that the identity of the European Union as reflected in its motto, "United in Diversity," has been "derived" from the model offered by the Roman Catholic Church. His argument, however, is flawed in a number of key respects. Among other things, he ignores entirely the fact that the Catholic Church did not invent the wheel in this respect but modeled itself in turn on the earlier example of the Roman Empire. The impression he leaves of the ways in which the Church went about imposing its version of "unity in diversity" on the local cultures over which it came to exercise dominion, moreover, is highly misleading. A third problem is that he treats the terms "Catholic Church" and "Christian thought" as if they were interchangeable when their references are obviously not necessarily identical. There are also deep problems with Gierycz's attempt to establish that Church-based moral norms are superior to those reflected in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights because, as he seeks to convince us, the former are grounded on the "rock" of "absolute" values while the latter are built upon the "sand" of shifting sociological opinion. These flaws diminish the value of what could have been an important contribution to our understanding of the extent to which the European Union should look to the experience of the Church in seeking to establish its own identity as a supranational institution "united in diversity." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a key passage in the Palestinian Talmud (the Yerushalmi), on mGit 4.8, that presents a salient discussion about the halakhic meaning of gentile ownership of lands in the land of Israel. Two theoretical moves are evident within the amoraic effort to define it. The first is an innovative turn, achieved through a creative reading of Leviticus 25, that interprets Jubilee law as a model by which gentile possession of the Land is portrayed as a lamentable yet temporary form of partial ownership, similar to enslaved Jews in gentile hands, until returning to Jewish control.The second is a conceptual deliberation on select legal categories of ownership, most notably the concept of ususfructus , which may be seen in light of their centrality in Roman property law, especially given the key role that such designations hold in Roman construction of hierarchies and space. I suggest viewing the rabbinic use of these categories as a subversive strategy, either as an adaptation to the Roman definition of Italic land or in opposition to Roman perceptions of provincial lands, that is, in dialogue with the very Roman notions of space and control over subordinate populations that the rabbis themselves were confronting in the land of Israel.This sugya thus provides a unique view of how these Palestinian rabbis perceived the Roman presence in their land and their mindset as a conquered community and, in a broader sense, a valuable source for better understanding provincial perspectives under the Roman Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Acta Universitatis Lodziensis: Folia Archaeologica is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Information about employment and occupations in the Roman Empire can be obtained only partially, due to the limited focus of sources on this subject. Literary sources rarely mention physical work and those who performed it. The paper introduces the type of source that covers this topic best – funerary inscriptions. Epitaphs serve as an irreplaceable, and in many cases the only, source of information about the various occupations held by representatives of the middle and lower classes in the Roman Empire. Many tombstones of citizens, slaves, and freed slaves – men, women and children – have been preserved. The aim of this paper is to present specifically the occupations of women preserved on funerary inscriptions from the city of Rome and to introduce concrete, otherwise nameless persons never mentioned in other sources. The analysis is based on inscriptions from the city of Rome, set in the time of the late Republic and the early Roman Principate (1st century BC – 2nd century AD). The paper addresses concrete inscriptions dedicated to working women, or inscriptions that the employed women made, together with their analysis and translation. The paper can also be used as a source book on the topic of women’s professions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an intellectual history of the idea that the later Roman empire and, subsequently, the whole of Byzantium were less 'free' in comparison to the Roman Republic. Anxiety over diminished freedom recurred throughout Roman history, but only a few specific expressions of it were enshrined in modern thought as the basis on which to divide history into periods. The theorists of the Enlightenment, moreover, invented an unfree Byzantium for their own political purposes and not by examining the facts about its political culture. The second part of the paper proposes that the Byzantines valorized a model of positive freedom as legal-institutional protection against arbitrary oppressive power, including against both barbarian domination and domestic abuses. In contrast to modern thought, which tends to see the imperial position as the chief threat to liberty, the Byzantines viewed it as its bulwark. Yet they too had remedies for oppressive emperors, suggesting that the otherwise well-attested invocations of freedom were not a mere rhetorical trope for them but an actionable cultural norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous isotopic studies of Roman diet for individuals buried at Isola Sacra (first-fourth centuries C.E.; Italy) have focused on variation in adult diet or the critical stages of breastfeeding and weaning during infancy and childhood; however, little is known about the characteristics of diet when a child transitioned through adolescence to adulthood. This paper uses dietary stable isotope analysis of incremental tooth dentin from nine individuals (15 teeth, 52 incremental dentin sections) to investigate the transition between childhood and adult diet, and sex-specific dietary patterns for people buried in the necropolis of Isola Sacra in the early Roman Empire. The incremental dentin isotope data demonstrate that males and females consumed different diets as early as 4.5 years of age. Females exhibit a positive correlation between d 15N and age (rs = .41, p = .026), suggesting the greater inclusion of higher trophic level foods as they aged. However, no discernable pattern of dietary change is identified for males, suggesting sex-based dietary variation. For males, isotopic evidence of protein insufficiency around 15 years of age for two individuals raises questions about the effects of pubertal development on protein requirements, as well as changing social roles for young men during adulescentia. This research highlights the importance of considering diet in a longitudinal fashion and working to understand the biological and social changes occurring during adolescence in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that one of the central theses of the counter-imperial reading of Paul has been more asserted than proved – namely, the thesis that Paul disguised anti-imperial sentiments in his letters specifically because speaking out against imperial authorities was too dangerous. This claim is the basic assumption behind the search in Paul's letters for 'hidden' or 'coded' transcripts. Such an approach can be found in the works of Warren Carter, N. T. Wright, and Richard Horsley, among others. But how likely is it that Paul would have felt the need to encode his anti-imperial sentiments? Was there really a risk that Roman soldiers would have intercepted Paul's mail or prosecuted him for its contents? Is the 'hidden transcript' idea an anachronistic concept based on modern surveillance states and transposed into the ancient world? This paper questions how likely it is that Rome's provincial governments would have had the inclination or ability to police private correspondence for seditious sentiments. From there, we can determine whether Paul is speaking as openly as he wants or is in fact protecting himself using 'hidden transcripts'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Theological Journal / Usuteaduslik Ajakiri is the property of Akadeemiline Teoloogia Selts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Espacio, Tiempo y Forma: Serie I, Prehistoria y Arqueología is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Apocalypse of John is filled with monsters who threaten both spatial and cultural boundaries. They are generally understood as ciphers for the Roman Empire and its -rulers. Rather than seeking the ancient Near Eastern origins of the monstrous imagery, the intent of this paper is to use monster theory to better understand why John employs monsters throughout the apocalypse. I argue that the author's portrayal of the threat and punishment of hybrid monsters reveals his own insecurities and fears concerning his communities' assimilation with Roman culture. John uses monsters specifically to target rival prophets in his communities that espouse a different vision of living under Rome rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal polychromy has been widely used for decorating metallic artworks from ancient antiquity. In Hellenistic and Roman periods, the famous Corinthian bronzes (Corinthium aes) are a typical example of the skill of metallurgical craftsmen striving to obtain various coloured surfaces on copper based alloys; but the existing investigations are devoted mainly to the 'black bronzes' obtained by oxidation in a wet medium of copper–gold alloys. The present study is part of a general programme devoted to research into different kinds of special surface oxidation treatments on copper alloys and their environmental behaviour. For archaeological objects, such treatments are difficult to observe, as a consequence of corrosion degradation. The examination and analysis of objects kept in the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities of the Louvre Museum have evidenced the occurrence on one of them, a strigil dated from the first century AD, of a new type of decoration. The strigil is made of copper–zinc alloy, and its decoration exhibits orange-red coloured motifs visibly obtained by chemical oxidation. The present paper describes analyses performed using different techniques: microscopy, particle induced X-ray emission, X-ray diffraction, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, micro-Raman spectroscopy, spectrophotocolorimetry and optical profilometry. The steps of the decoration process are detailed: the motifs were coloured together with the neighbouring surface. This neighbouring surface was further cleaned by a mechanical process to make the motif coloration appear. The present paper attempts to describe how the Roman craftsman obtained the decorated appearance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to dispel several myths prevalent in the scholarship on Roman sexuality: that a freed slave was still obligated to serve his former master's sexual demands (I.A.), that the cinaedus cannot be the same as the modern male homosexual because the cinaedus was thought capable of performing cunnilinctus (I.B.), that exoleti were male prostitutes (I.C.), that the Romans were implacably hostile to lesbianism and that they “constructed” the lesbian as a phallic monstrosity (II.). It also draws attention to some neglected, unfamiliar, or misinterpreted evidence--anomalous on the current understanding of Roman sexuality, where women, boys, and lower-class men are supposed to have equal standing as potential passive sexual partners for adult men--for adult men whose sexual partners are exclusively male, and either active or passive: exoleti as active partners (I.C.), a puer delicatus who is prized for a masculine appearance rather than a feminine one (I.D.), and the Warren Cup, which glorifies a world of exclusively male-male sexuality (I.E.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the consumption of animals and their products in the northwestern provinces of the Roman Empire. A regional approach was used, comparing two research areas: the northern part of modern Switzerland and the central part of the modern Netherlands. These two regions have different histories, backgrounds and landscapes. Our aim was to find out whether these different histories and backgrounds led to different consumption patterns and to what extent they correspond to Roman-style nutrition. Furthermore, we looked for developments over time in consumption of meat and exploitation of livestock. A data set consisting of over 282,000 fragments of cattle, sheep/goat and pig from 188 samples from military sites, urban centres and vici was collected. Our study identified both differences and similarities in consumption and exploitation patterns. Differences can be explained by the regional character of each research area, while similarities suggest wider economic developments in the Empire and general supply strategies of the Roman army. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes select examples of waste management from the Roman Empire (27 BCE to 365 CE). Classical written sources and anthropological and archeological literature were studied. The central theme of this paper is ancient man's relationship with waste and his responses to pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The size, body conformation and skull shape of Roman dogs from the 'Vila de Madrid necropolis' site, where 1480 dog remains were recovered, are described in this paper to provide evidence of the morphometric variability of Roman dogs in Hispania Tarraconensis. The individualized and detailed morphometric analysis of 10 individuals shows that the proliferation and explosion of the morphological variability already documented in different regions of the Roman Empire (Italia, Gallia, Britannia, Pannonia) are also noted here. The presence of very different individuals in terms of their shape and size, similar to the differences that can at present be noted between Pekingese and Doberman dogs, has been documented at the site. The reasons for the appearance of this morphological variability within those territories that were part of the Roman Empire are also discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a methodology to analyze the Greek amphora epigraphy produced during the Roman Empire in its eastern part. The detailed information that appears as an abbreviated form in thousands of inscriptions distributed throughout the Roman territory is an essential element to under- stand the imperial socio-economic dynamics. Here we present a guide to using the Roman Open Data exploratory interface in its Greek text search section, and how, based on cases, we can determine for the first time the possible existence of a complex system of productions whose contracts would even be monthly. The relational search system makes this interface the only one that allows the user to singularize their searches, granulating them based on their experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decade ago, the Syracuse Charter was promoted to suggest guidelines for the conservation, fruition, and management of the ancient theatrical architecture built during the Greek and Roman periods. Among other aspects, this charter outlined the role of the acoustics in the restoration of ancient theatres. However, it is often common to modify the acoustics of historical theaters according to the needs of modern performances. This paper focuses on the little theater of Pompeii, in the South of Italy, also known as “theatrum tectum” or “Odeon”. Pompeii, which became a Roman colony after being a Samnite city, underwent significant social and economic changes, including the construction of several performing spaces. The city was destroyed by the Vesuvius eructation in 79 A.D. This paper first describes the genesis of the “theatrum tectum” of Pompeii which had a truss wood roof. The results of acoustic measurements in the current state of the theater are used to create a virtual model of the building. Then, using archeological studies about the original architectural design of this theater, this paper presents a virtual reconstruction of the original acoustics during the Roman period. The aim of the present study is to compare the different acoustical characteristics that the “theatrum tectum” of Pompeii has had in its over 2000 year history and to discuss the most adequate performances in the actual theater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The factors that make a society sustainable, or vulnerable to collapse, can rarely be discerned within a human lifetime. Sustainability challenges develop over periods of decades, generations, or centuries. Sustainability must therefore be a historical science. A major challenge of the IHOPE program is how to draw valid comparisons among different kinds of societies, existing at different times, that can clarify our contemporary problems of sustainability. This paper develops and illustrates a theory for understanding sustainability and collapse that has cross-cultural applicability. Illustrating the theory by the collapse of the Western Roman Empire yields new insights into what it means to be a sustainable society. Comparison to the Maya reveals that, despite many differences, the Roman Empire and Maya polities underwent similar patterns of cultural evolution, and developed similar vulnerabilities. Comparison of both historical cases to the sustainability challenges of today demonstrates that contemporary industrial societies face evolutionary processes similar to those experienced by the Romans and the Maya. This analysis yields several points that are worthwhile for policy makers to understand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sassanian Persians used elephants on various occasions against the armies of the Later Roman Empire. This article considers when elephants were first incorporated into the Sassanian army, why they were thought necessary, their deployment and equipment during the period in question, and the degree to which the Sassanian way of elephant warfare differed from that of neighbouring peoples. In addition, the paper proposes a close association between the use of elephants and Persian notions of kingship. Much emphasis is placed on the martial activities of Shapur II and the testimony of the Greek soldier-historian Ammianus Marcellinus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luke constructs the world through a geographic description and invites his audience into a spatial image through the textual world. Here hyperbole plays an important role as an impressionistic way of projecting such an image of the world in the minds of his audience. Through hyperbole, Luke conveys his own image of the world, that is, a mental picture of the world as he wants it to be—a world reigned over by God. In this way, Lukan hyperbole functions as an important literary device through which we can discover his theological preoccupations and emphases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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When considering the South Asian diaspora in Britain, attention is more often than not drawn to migration and settlement patterns in the country from the mid-twentieth century. A more extended scope has been provided in terms of considering movements between the two regions in the colonial period, particularly from the nineteenth century with a couple of studies focusing on the period since the 1600s. This article considers a frame further back in time when European cities like London first became a site of ‘ancient cosmopolitanism’ open to migration from regions including South Asia during the period of the Roman Empire. The approach adopted in this article is critical of colonial, regional and nationalist blinkers on the tracts of history, and enables a means of considering ancient connections between Europe and South Asia as well as other modes of interpretation of the cultural and material legacy of the Roman era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 'principate', the system of government created by Augustus for imperial Rome, has puzzled ancient historians since the days of Theodor Mommsen. Mommsen, whose ancient history classes Max Weber attended, modelled the principate as a political system sui generis, which was, constitutionally, the continuation of the Roman Republic, but in which the ruler was, essentially, an illegitimate military dictator. Instead of applying the doctrines of classical legitimacy, this paper proposes that Weber's three types of legitimate authority better explain the complexities of the Roman Empire from Augustus to the 3rd century ad. While there were numerous elements of 'traditional' and 'legal' authority built into the principate, the individual rulers' legitimacy largely rested on 'charisma'. Individual 'charisma' could become hereditary: whole dynasties relied on 'charismatic' founding fathers, such as the Julio-Claudian (Augustus) and the Flavian (Vespasian) houses. With its intrinsic contradictions and the analytical difficulties it poses, the Roman principate is the ultimate testing ground for Weber's ideal types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Egyptian experience of monetization—especially during the Roman period—subverts colonializing historiographies in which the adoption of (Western) coinage autonomously subdued passive and 'primitive' reciprocity and redistribution-based economies at the periphery. Many scholars now argue that cultural, religious and economic contexts directed exchange practices in Roman Egypt. This article argues that these embedding elements were themselves cultivated in a meta-context of place —namely, the fluvial geography and ecology of the Nile Valley, Delta and Fayyum Oasis. The rhythmic inundations of the Nile and Egypt's related agricultural cycle shaped the meanings inhabitants attached to instruments of exchange, including the invading coins of Greek and Roman polities. Coinage thoroughly permeated Egyptian institutions, and yet ecologically-determined rituals, customs and traditions preserved aspects of indigenous exchange culture. Ecological forces nurtured and strengthened the cultural, economic and political forces that constrained Roman monetary imperialism. The monetization of Roman Egypt is, therefore, a critical historical case-study of broader geographic, temporal and thematic interest—one which enables scholars to better understand how ecology intersects with cultural, economic and political embeddedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite his long dismissal in Classical scholarship as an unoriginal historian, Appian of Alexandria wrote a panoramic history of the Roman Empire according to an original conception and methodology. His work is far more than its former classification as a hunting-ground for lost sources. Two aspects of originality and independent thought are examined here. First, his innovative organization of a huge amount of material according to ethnic divisions, as a method to explain Rome's historical achievement. Second, his choice of the murder of Tiberius Gracchus as the first incident in the Roman civil war, revealing his conception of the last century of the Roman Republic as a single prolonged, episodic event, a conception influenced by Thucydides' model of stasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between Roman citizenship and the maintenance of civic life as an essential factor for the continuity of urban centres in the eastern Mediterranean between the imperial period and Late Antiquity. Augustus had already specified that Roman citizens from Cyrenaica had to provide local contributions (λειτουργεῖν) in their cities of origin as Greeks. Marcus Aurelius and Commodus later remarked in the Tabula Banasitana that those enfranchised were not granted a reduction in the taxes paid to the Roman people and fiscus because "the laws of the community remained intact" (salvo iure gentis). I argue that an analogous clause is conceivable in the Constitutio Antoniniana of Caracalla in AD 212. Taking Asia Minor as a case study and focusing on the cities of Termessos and Aphrodisias, I seek to assess the role of these new Roman citizens in the preservation of their places of origin during the third century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discovery of two lamps at the Roman fort of Apsaros (Gonio, Georgia) offers further insights concerning adaptation of the pelta motif on Roman lamps. Inquiry into the nature of the ornaments on the base - previously unknown in Colchis - leads to conclusions about the possible influx of goods to the fort located on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Científica General José María Córdova is the property of Escuela Militar de Cadetes General Jose Maria Cordova and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Was the Euro‐Mediterranean region at the time of the Roman Empire and its Western successor states more unequal than the European Union today? We use some scant evidence on personal income distribution within the Empire and differences in average regional incomes to conclude that the Empire was more homogeneous, in terms of regional incomes, than today's EU, and inter‐personal inequality was low. Moreover, income inequality was likely less around year 700 than in Augustus's time. The latter finding contrasts with a view of rising inequality as the Western Roman Empire dissolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Roman Imperial period huge quantities of black pepper arrived into the Empire from southern India and were employed in a range of contexts, from the culinary and medicinal, to the religious. This article seeks to examine the popularity of black pepper in the Roman Empire and test the theory that its consumption was not simply restricted to elite circles, but reached a wider spectrum of the population. In particular, price and wage data from the Edict of Maximum Prices is examined to see how feasible it was for those lower down the socio-economic spectrum to make such purchases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Romanitas: Revista de Estudos Greco-Latinas is the property of Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Imperial Rome with its >50% assassination rate of emperors, many of whom are depicted in history as 'deranged', initially appears a chaotic period of history beyond the purview of science. But time series analysis indicates this violence occurred non-randomly: reign length was autocorrelated and demonstrated 'memory persistence,' and short reigns occurred in clusters. Additionally, deviations from average reign-length occurred in patterns matching the Empire's rise and decline. A model is proposed for how army-backed usurpation and post-coup instability likely generated the observed cycles. The five-century span of Imperial Rome likely makes it the longest-lived regime with fair documentation, and potentially provides a 'laboratory' with ongoing relevance for studying transmission of violence and instability. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 613-622, 2016 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Dante's Monarchia has proven to be an enigmatic contribution to the corpus of medieval political theory. Although typically held up as the quintessential statement of the principles of universal imperial authority, the tract does not conform to many of the standard conventions of medieval Latin defences of the supremacy of the Roman Empire, eschewing, for instance, the theme of translatio imperii. In this article, I examine Dante's critique of the Donation of Constantine and related topics in order to argue that, by his own logic, the legitimacy of a universal Roman Empire resides not with the German Holy Roman Emperor in the West but instead with the Byzantine Emperor. By conceiving of the Roman Empire in a way that undermines the possibility of its 'translation', and by rejecting the alienability of imperial authority at the heart of the Donation, Dante leads a careful reader to conclude that the true Empire has its home in Constantinople, not in Germany or elsewhere in Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By considering monetization across the Iron Age and Roman periods and across the whole of Temperate Europe some major developments become apparent. The spread of coinage in the Iron Age bears some relationship to the eventual extent of the Roman Empire. Coins stand in the archaeological record for systems of doing things, for ways people relate to each other and to things, and for ways of conceptualizing the world. They provide a useful way to approach the meeting of the worlds of the Iron Age and of Rome. Material forms of being Roman became increasingly important as a dimension of Roman identity. The commercialization implicit in Rome's ‘Cultural Revolution’ was underpinned by the extension of Roman-style monetization. In this light the monetization of Temperate Europe emerges as a process of considerable importance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

My aim in this article is to investigate the relationships between time-experience and imperialism in the Roman world. The archaeological exploration of past time-concepts has developed significantly over the last two or three decades, moving us beyond the old dichotomy of linear/abstract and cyclical/substantial times. However, there is much still to do, especially to link ideas about temporality with issues of agency and power. The Roman empire is a fruitful context in which to explore this connection, as there is sufficient evidence from a range of sources to illuminate the ways in which some time-experiences changed with Roman conquest of a region, while others persisted. Using insights derived from the work of pragmatist philosopher G.H. Mead, I argue that there is a fundamental linkage between temporality and agency, which takes on a particular significance in culture-contact situations, and I illustrate this with a detailed case study of the changing rhythms of rural life in Roman Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Philo's perception of Rome is less positive than has generally been argued. Although Philo appreciated the pax romana and the religious freedom generally enjoyed by Jews in the Roman Empire, he was nevertheless critical of Rome. In particular, he rejected the idea that the Roman empire was the outcome of divine providence and would last forever. He opposed the spiritual kingship of Israel to the worldly and transitory dominion of Rome. Moreover, he expected Roman rule to fade away in the end, and Israel to blossom as no other nation ever had in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract A unique feature of the rhetoric of the Gospel of John is its imagination of space, both in terms of its narration of spatialised events, as well as its reconceptualisation of itself as a narrativised sacred space. Taking as starting point the conventional view of an Ephesian origins for the (final version of the) narrative, it can be shown how the Gospel of John plots the Ephesian temple-city space onto a Jerusalem/Judaean narrative space, and vice versa. Plotting the representation of Jesus onto such represented and reimagined sacred space, John reconfigures the narrative itself as sacred space. In this, it stands in a line with other similar reimagined conceptualisations of sacred space such as incipient Jewish mysticism - the Testament of Abraham for instance, as well as such representations of sacred space as the synagogue mosaics of Beth Alpha and others. Characteristic of these representations, graphic or narrative, is the imagining of the representation itself becoming the replacement of the represented space. In the case of the Gospel of John the narrative not only places the bulk of its narration in relation to the narrated temple in Jerusalem, but by portraying Jesus of Nazareth literally as replacement of the temple, the gospel narrative itself becomes the temple as dwelling-place of the presence of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of the relationship of the Roman Imperial Cult and Revelation has occupied the attention of scholars throughout the past one hundred years. During this time, major shifts have taken place both in the assessment of the Roman Imperial Cult in the context of the Roman Empire and in the interpretation of its role with respect to the book of Revelation. This article surveys and assesses these trends. It begins with a discussion of studies on the Roman Imperial Cult from the standpoint of classical studies. Next, texts within Revelation typically cited as indicating a response to emperor worship are introduced. The third and final section focuses upon studies on Revelation, with particular focus given to interpretive approaches, Christology, and the question of persecution under Domitian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rev 11.1-2 refers to the destruction of the temple in 70 CE. The measuring of the temple area does not signify that it will be protected, as is commonly thought, but symbolises that it falls under God's judgment. The underlying idea is that the destruction of the temple at the hands of the Gentiles has been possible only because it was preceded by God's judgment, a notion also found in contemporary apocalyptic literature. John argues that God has given the Gentiles the authority to `trample the holy city', including the temple, for a limited period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For investigating the formation of frontier zones, study of changes in small communities that constituted the majority of earlier populations provides a different perspective from a focus on major centers. A network model applied to settlement and cemetery sites on Rome’s Danube River frontier in Bavaria, Germany, shows that many communities, through participation in regional and long-distance circulation systems, played significant roles in creating the dynamic and culturally heterogeneous character of that landscape. This approach offers a model applicable to analysis of the formation and functioning of frontier regions in all cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]