Download or read book The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity written by Mark J. Johnson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive study of the mausolea of the later Roman emperors. Constructed between ca. AD 244 and 450 and bridging the transition from paganism to Christianity within the empire, these important buildings shared a common design, that of domed rotunda. Mark Johnson examines the symbolism and function of the mausolea, demonstrating for the first time that these monuments served as temples and shrines to the divinized emperors. Through an examination of literary sources and the archaeological record, he identifies which buildings were built as imperial tombs. Each building is examined to determine its place in the development of the type as well as for its unique features within the group. Recognizing the strong relationship between the mausolea built for pagan and Christian emperors, Johnson also analyzes their important differences.

Download or read book Burial and Memorial in Late Antiquity written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-11-20 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Burial and Memorial explores funerary and commemorative archaeology A.D. 284-650, across the late antique world. This second volume includes papers exploring all aspects of funerary archaeology, from scientific samples in graves, to grave goods and tomb robbing and a bibliographic essay. It brings into focus neglected regions not usually considered by funerary archaeologists in NW Europe, such as the Levant, where burial archaeology is rich in grave good, to Sicily and Sardinia, where post-mortem offerings and burial manipulations are well-attested. We also hear from excavations in Britain, from Canterbury and London, and see astonishing fruits from the application of science to graves recently excavated in Trier.

Download or read book The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity written by Oliver Nicholson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 1743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity is the first comprehensive reference book covering every aspect of history, culture, religion, and life in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East (including the Persian Empire and Central Asia) between the mid-3rd and the mid-8th centuries AD, the era now generally known as Late Antiquity. This period saw the re-establishment of the Roman Empire, its conversion to Christianity and its replacement in the West by Germanic kingdoms, the continuing Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Persian Sassanian Empire, and the rise of Islam. Consisting of over 1.5 million words in more than 5,000 A-Z entries, and written by more than 400 contributors, it is the long-awaited middle volume of a series, bridging a significant period of history between those covered by the acclaimed Oxford Classical Dictionary and The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. The scope of the Dictionary is broad and multi-disciplinary; across the wide geographical span covered (from Western Europe and the Mediterranean as far as the Near East and Central Asia), it provides succinct and pertinent information on political history, law, and administration; military history; religion and philosophy; education; social and economic history; material culture; art and architecture; science; literature; and many other areas. Drawing on the latest scholarship, and with a formidable international team of advisers and contributors, The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity aims to establish itself as the essential reference companion to a period that is attracting increasing attention from scholars and students worldwide.

Download or read book The Archaeology of Late Antique Paganism written by Luke Lavan and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-06-22 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Papers from the conference "The Archaeology of Late Antique Paganism" held in 2005 in Leuven.

Download or read book Old Saint Peter s Rome written by Rosamond McKitterick and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides the first full study of the predecessor church of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, from late antique construction to Renaissance destruction.

Download or read book Death and Burial in the Roman World written by J. M. C. Toynbee and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1996-10-31 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most comprehensive book on Roman burial practices—now available in paperback Never before available in paperback, J. M. C. Toynbee's study is the most comprehensive book on Roman burial practices. Ranging throughout the Roman world from Rome to Pompeii, Britain to Jerusalem—Toynbee's book examines funeral practices from a wide variety of perspectives. First, Toynbee examines Roman beliefs about death and the afterlife, revealing that few Romans believed in the Elysian Fields of poetic invention. She then describes the rituals associated with burial and mourning: commemorative meals at the gravesite were common, with some tombs having built-in kitchens and rooms where family could stay overnight. Toynbee also includes descriptions of the layout and finances of cemeteries, the tomb types of both the rich and poor, and the types of grave markers and monuments as well as tomb furnishings.

Download or read book The Popes and the Church of Rome in Late Antiquity written by John Moorhead and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the past few decades there has been an explosion of interest in the period of late antiquity. Rather than being viewed within a paradigm of the fall of the Roman Empire, these centuries have come to be seen as a time of immense creativity and significance in western history. Popes and the Church of Rome in Late Antiquity places the history of the papacy in a broader context, by comparing Rome with other major sees to show how it differed from these, evaluating developments beyond Rome which created openings for the extension of papal authority. Closer to home, the book considers the ability of the Roman church to gain access to wealth, retain it in difficult times, and disburse it in ways that enhanced its authority. Author John Moorhead evaluates patterns in the recruitment of popes and what these suggest about the background of those who came to papal office. Structured around a narrative of the papacy’s history from the accession of Leo the Great to the death of Zacharias II, the book does more than tell what happened between these years, applying new approaches in intellectual, cultural, and social history to provide a uniquely deep and holistic study of the period.

Download or read book Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome written by Carlos Machado and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 270 and 535 AD the city of Rome experienced dramatic changes. The once glorious imperial capital was transformed into the much humbler centre of western Christendom in a process that redefined its political importance, size, and identity. Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome examines these transformations by focusing on the city's powerful elite, the senatorial aristocracy, and exploring their involvement in a process of urban change that would mark the end of the ancient world and the birth of the Middle Ages in the eyes of contemporaries and modern scholars. It argues that the late antique history of Rome cannot be described as merely a product of decline; instead, it was a product of the dynamic social and cultural forces that made the city relevant at a time of unprecedented historical changes. Combining the city's unique literary, epigraphic, and archaeological record, the volume offers a detailed examination of aspects of city life as diverse as its administration, public building, rituals, housing, and religious life to show how the late Roman aristocracy gave a new shape and meaning to urban space, identifying itself with the largest city in the Mediterranean world to an extent unparalleled since the end of the Republican period.

Download or read book Cities and the Meanings of Late Antiquity written by Mark Humphries and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-11-04 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last half century has seen an explosion in the study of late antiquity, which has characterised the period between the third and seventh centuries not as one of catastrophic collapse and ‘decline and fall’, but rather as one of dynamic and positive transformation. Yet research on cities in this period has provoked challenges to this positive picture of late antiquity. This study surveys the nature of this debate, examining problems associated with the sources historians use to examine late antique urbanism, and the discourses and methodological approaches they have constructed from them. It aims to set out the difficulties and opportunities presented by the study of cities in late antiquity in terms of transformations of politics, the economy, and religion, and to show that this period witnessed very real upheaval and dislocation alongside continuity and innovation in cities around the Mediterranean.

Download or read book Ostia in Late Antiquity written by Douglas Boin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-22 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Ostia in Late Antiquity' narrates the life of Ostia Antica, Rome's ancient harbor, during the later empire.

Download or read book The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity written by Caillan Davenport and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-23 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity examines the Roman imperial court as a social and political institution in both the Principate and Late Antiquity. By analysing these two periods, which are usually treated separately in studies of the Roman court, it considers continuities, changes, and connections in the six hundred years between the reigns of Augustus and Justinian. Thirteen case studies are presented. Some take a thematic approach, analysing specific aspects such as the appointment of jurists, the role of guard units, or stories told about the court, over several centuries. Others concentrate on specific periods, individuals, or office holders, like the role of women and generals in the fifth century AD, while paying attention to their wider historical significance. The volume concludes with a chapter placing the evolution of the Roman imperial court in comparative perspective using insights from scholarship on other Eurasian monarchical courts. It shows that the long-term transformation of the Roman imperial court did not follow a straightforward and linear course, but came about as the result of negotiation, experimentation, and adaptation.

Download or read book Galla Placidia written by Hagith Sivan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The astonishing career of Galla Placidia (c. 390-450) provides valuable reflections on the state of the Roman empire in the fifth century CE. In an age when emperors, like Galla's two brothers, Arcadius (395-408) and Honorius (395-423), and nephew, Theodosius II (408-450), hardly ever ventured beyond the fortified enclosure of their palaces, Galla spent years wandering across Italy, Gaul and Spain first as hostage in the camp of Alaric the Goth, and then as wife of Alaric's successor. In exile at the court of her nephew in Constantinople Galla observed how princesses wield power while vaunting piety. Restored to Italy on the swords of the eastern Roman army, Galla watched the coronation of her son, age six, as the emperor of the western Roman provinces. For a dozen years (425-437) she acted as regent, treading uneasily between rival senatorial factions, ambitious church prelates, and charismatic military leaders. This new biography of Galla is organized according to her changing roles as bride, widow, bereaved mother, queen and empress. It examines her relations with men in power, her achievements as a politician, her skills at establishing power bases and political alliances, and her efficiency at accomplishing her desired goals. Using all the available sources, documents, epigraphy, coinage and the visual arts, and Galla's own letters, Hagith Sivan reconstructs the turning points and highlights of Galla's odd progression from a bloodthirsty princess at Rome to a bride of a barbarian in Gaul, from a manipulative sister and wife of emperors at the imperial court at Ravenna to a beggar at the court of her relatives in Constantinople, and from a devious regent of the western Roman empire to a collaborator of popes in Rome.

Download or read book The Religious World of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus written by Jill Mitchell and published by Trivent Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-31 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Religious World of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus examines the religious life of one of the last pagan senators of Rome, dates c. 340-402, who lived in a tumultuous time during the Late Antique period of the Roman Empire, dying just a few years before the Western Empire began to break up. Symmachus could not have imagined the political reality developing so soon after his death, so he is important as a late example of the old Roman Western aristocracy, as well as one of the last pagans of Rome. He was regarded as the foremost orator of his time and was a prolific letter-writer who had correspondents in high places and throughout the Empire. He also filled the posts of Urban Prefect of Rome and Consul - and was the opponent of Bishop Ambrose of Milan during the so-called 384 CE "Altar of Victory Dispute," which was one episode of many leading to the " triumph" of Christianity over traditional Roman polytheism. Symmachus' cache of 900 private letters and his official despatches while Urban Prefect have provided the raw material for this book.

Download or read book The Framing of Sacred Space written by Jelena Bogdanović and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As architectonic objects of basic structural and design integrity, canopies provide means for an innovative understanding of the materialization of the idea of the Byzantine-rite church. The Framing of Sacred Space considers both the material and conceptual framing of sacred space and explains how the canopy bridges the physical and transcendental realms.

Download or read book Imperial Tragedy written by Michael Kulikowski and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, Rome was one of the world's largest imperial powers, its influence spread across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle-East, its military force successfully fighting off attacks by the Parthians, Germans, Persians and Goths. Then came the definitive split, the Vandal sack of Rome, and the crumbling of the West from Empire into kingdoms first nominally under Imperial rule and then, one by one, beyond it. Imperial Tragedy tells the story of Rome's gradual collapse. Full of palace intrigue, religious conflicts and military history, as well as details of the shifts in social, religious and political structures, Imperial Tragedy contests the idea that Rome fell due to external invasions. Instead, it focuses on how the choices and conditions of those living within the empire led to its fall. For it was not a single catastrophic moment that broke the Empire but a creeping process; by the time people understood that Rome had fallen, the west of the Empire had long since broken the Imperial yoke.

Download or read book The Sons of Constantine AD 337 361 written by Nicholas Baker-Brian and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-05-30 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection focuses on the Roman empire during the period from AD 337 to 361. During this period the empire was ruled by three brothers: Constantine II (337-340), Constans I (337-350) and Constantius II (337-361). These emperors tend to be cast into shadow by their famous father Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor (306-337), and their famous cousin Julian, the last pagan Roman emperor (361-363). The traditional concentration on the historically renowned figures of Constantine and Julian is understandable but comes at a significant price: the neglect of the period between the death of Constantine and the reign of Julian and of the rulers who governed the empire in this period. The reigns of the sons of Constantine, especially that of the longest-lived Constantius II, mark a moment of great historical significance. As the heirs of Constantine they became the guardians of his legacy, and they oversaw the nature of the world in which Julian was to grow up. The thirteen contributors to this volume assess their influence on imperial, administrative, cultural, and religious facets of the empire in the fourth century.

Download or read book The Cult of Stephen in Jerusalem written by Hugo M'endez and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the site of only a small and obscure Christian population between 135 and 313 CE, Jerusalem witnessed few instances of anti-Christian persecution. This fact became a source of embarrassment to the city in late antiquity-a period when martyr traditions, relics, and shrines were closely intertwined with local prestige. At that time, the city had every incentive to stretch the fame of its few, apostolic martyrs as far as possible-especially the fame of the biblical St. Stephen, the figure traditionally regarded as the first Christian martyr (Acts 6-8). What the church lacked in the quantity of its martyrs, it believed it could compensate for in an exclusive, local claim to the figure widely hailed as the "Protomartyr", "firstborn of the martyrs", and "chief of confessors" in contemporary sources. This book traces the rise of the cult of Stephen in Jerusalem, exploring such historical episodes as the fabrication of his relics, the construction of a grand basilica in his honour, and the multiplication of the saint's feast days. It argues that local church authorities promoted devotion to Stephen in the fifth century in a conscious attempt to position him as a patron saint for Jerusalem-that is, a symbolic embodiment of the city's Christian identity and power.