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23069 results in Ancient history

Page 1068 of 1154

  • 1 - The Sources for Early Roman History

  • Edited by F. W. Walbank, University of Liverpool, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Assisted by A. Drummond
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 March 1990, pp 1-29

  • Summary

    This chapter first deals with the main literary and archaeological sources for early Roman history. Then, it considers the type of material which was at the disposal of the historians of Rome for the regal period and the fifth century and how they used it. Roman historiography began at the end of the third century BC, but the earliest historical work was almost certainly the epic poem on the First Punic War written in the later third century by one of the combatants, Cn. Naevius. Iunius Gracchanus and Sempronius Tuditanus, Cincius, Q. Cornificius, Nigidius Figulus, Cornelius Nepos and Atticus, who made the first serious attempts to utilize the principles set by Eratosthenes to establish Roman chronology. At all events the surviving inscriptions earlier than the tombs of the Scipios in the third century are meagre and highly controversial, adding knowledge of early Roman history. Roman historical information comes mainly from the annalists particularly Livy and Timaeus.

  • Appendix

  • Edited by F. W. Walbank, University of Liverpool, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Assisted by A. Drummond
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 March 1990, pp 625-644

  • Summary

    EARLY ROMAN CHRONOLOGY

    The so-called Varronian system of chronology used in this volume effectively placed the foundation of Rome in 753 B.C., the first consuls in 509 and the Gallic Sack of Rome in 390, and was largely followed by the Capitoline Fasti (p. 347). It was, however, a creation of the mid-first century B.C. (perhaps of Atticus rather than Varro) and incorporated the dictator–years, which appear to be a late invention (p. 348); it is not, therefore, representative of the chronologies employed by the Roman historians, to whom the dictator-years were foreign. Those chronologies, however, are imperfectly known since few relevant data are preserved from the lost early chroniclers of Rome and not all the surviving authorities are systematic, accurate or even internally consistent in their chronologies. Thus Livy (probably following the pattern of his Latin predecessors) is generally content to chart the passage of the years merely by recording the successive consular colleges and only occasionally employs dates ‘from the foundation of the city’ (ab urbe condita). As a result, it is very doubtful whether he worked with a clearly defined overall chronological system, particularly since his own narrative omits certain consular years (490–489 and 376 on the Varronian scheme) which his dates ‘from the foundation of the city’ seem to include and some of these latter dates themselves appear to be mutually incompatible. The most satisfactory explanation of these last inconsistencies is that Livy's dates ‘from the foundation of the city’ derive from two different schemes (presumably to be found ultimately in different sources), which placed the foundation of Rome in 751 or 750 respectively, the establishment of the Republic in 507 or 506 and the Gallic Sack in 386; but even this remains hypothetical.

  • 6 - Rome and Latium to 390 B.C.

  • Edited by F. W. Walbank, University of Liverpool, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Assisted by A. Drummond
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 March 1990, pp 243-308

  • Summary

    Rome was a powerful city-state with a relatively extensive territory, a developed urban centre, an advanced institutional structure and a strong army. Under the kings, armed conflicts with neighbouring communities did take place. There is very little known about the settlements of Latium Vetus during the archaic age.The proliferation of common cults at different sites in Latium does not at first sight seem compatible with the idea of a united Latin League. Intermittent wars between Rome and Veii must have occurred under the monarchy. A number of successful campaigns against the Sabines are recorded. The part played by Camillus in the Gallic saga is demonstrably a late and artificial accretion. In the last years of the fifth century there are clear signs of a more aggressive policy, not only against Veii and its satellites, but also in southern Latium.

  • 12 - Religion in Republican Rome

  • Edited by F. W. Walbank, University of Liverpool, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Assisted by A. Drummond
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 March 1990, pp 573-624

  • Summary

    Religion in Rome in the republican period was integrated into the political and social structure, in such a way that every group or activity had its religious aspect. The first characteristic of Roman gods and goddesses to strike the observer must be the wide range of different types, all accepted and worshipped as di deaeque. In many ways the categories and vocabulary to be met with in the religion of Rome seem comfortably similar to those familiar from religions current today: prayer, sacrifice, vows, sacred books, even divination. The event which radically changed the nature of the city's religious and political life was the overthrow of the monarchy in the late sixth century. There was a continuing tradition of change and innovation during the period of the early to middle Republic. There were many changes and innovations: new temples and cults, new or revised ceremonies, changes of procedure or of the rules of membership in the priestly colleges.

  • 5 - Rome in the fifth century II: the citizen community

  • Edited by F. W. Walbank, University of Liverpool, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Assisted by A. Drummond
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 March 1990, pp 172-242

  • Summary

    The ancient chronology for the establishment of the Republic provides the most satisfactory context for the political developments of the early fifth century, the emergence of the plebeian movement which sought to assert and defend the rights of some or all nonpatricians. The concept of the citizen community was central and found expression in a variety of forms: in the particular character assumed by social relationships between men of different status. The origin and development of plebeian rights may have been the subject of a comparatively strong oral tradition, but one continuously modified and elaborated to suit later political or historiographical preoccupations. Two fifth-century episodes occupy a key role in the assertion of plebeian prerogatives: the First Secession saw the emergence of the plebs as a political force, and the Second Secession, which secured the restoration of the tribunate with enhanced powers.

  • 4 - Rome in the fifth century I: the social and economic framework

  • Edited by F. W. Walbank, University of Liverpool, A. E. Astin, M. W. Frederiksen, R. M. Ogilvie
  • Assisted by A. Drummond
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 March 1990, pp 113-171

  • Summary

    There is one reputedly fifth-century document of which numerous fragments survive and which purports to offer important contemporary evidence for Roman social and economic structures in this period. This is the Twelve Tables, the law-code assigned to circa 450 BC. The compilation of the Tables is attributed to two ten-man commissions (decemviri legibus scribundis) which replaced the consulship as the chief magistracy in 451 and 450 BC. To the limited extent that later writers concerned themselves with economic matters they saw early republican Rome as essentially a farming community. Early Rome practised settled agriculture based on a prevalence of comparatively small-scale, privately owned farms which provided the fundamental resource of the great majority of the citizen body. Hence not only does the primacy of the family unit reflect this pattern of economic activity but the entire structure of kin-group classification and the regulation of kin prerogatives show a pre-eminent concern with the transmission of property.

  • 8 - Antiochus IV

  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 March 1990, pp 278-291

  • Summary

    For about twenty years the Jews of Palestine lived peacefully under the system of government established by Antiochus III after his conquest of the country in 200 b.c.e. (see above, chapter 2). Some of the leading families may for personal or traditional reasons have preferred the Ptolemaic rule, but to the majority it made no difference whether they were governed from Alexandria or Antioch. The son and successor of the conqueror, Seleucus IV (187–175 b.c.e.), continued, during the first part of his reign, his father's wise and tolerant policy and made contributions to the sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem. When troubles arose towards the end of Seleucus IV's reign, their causes must be sought in internal tension and strife between various factions or groups within the Jewish community. Already in the third century b.c.e. the antagonism between the rich and influential Tobiads and the Oniads, who held the office of high priest, had disclosed a serious disagreement within the leading Jewish circles as to the attitude towards the problems of coexistence with the surrounding peoples and a certain assimilation of the dominant Greek–Hellenistic culture (see chapter 2).

    The first incident in this new series of quarrels among the Jews was the clash between the high priest, Onias III, and the epistatēs or financial administrator of the Temple, a certain Simon. As the latter was unable to secure the post of agoranomos or overseer of the market for himself on account of the high priest's opposition, he turned to the Seleucid governor of the province of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, Apollonius, son of Menestheus, and revealed to him the existence of large funds in the Temple treasury, suggesting that the money might be appropriated by the Syrian king.

  • 17 - The Samaritans

  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 March 1990, pp 591-613

  • Summary

    THE SAMARITAN HERESY

    Jewish and Christian writings of the Roman period bear witness to the existence of a sizeable non-Jewish yet allegedly Israelite sect in the territory of Samaria. The centre of the religious life of this community was Mount Gerizim and the cities and villages adjacent to it, although its constituents were also to be found elsewhere in Palestine and in a diaspora in the Mediterranean world which extended as far as Rome. These ‘Samaritans’ claimed to be the descendants of the old Israelite tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Levi, and contended that they had faithfully worshipped the ancestral Hebrew God in their spiritual centre at Gerizim from the time of the Israelite conquest of Canaan to that very day. Their community had had, or so they claimed, a continuous and unbroken history throughout this long period. They further maintained that the true centre of Israelite worship had always been, and always should be, at Mount Gerizim. They thus viewed the religion of the descendants of the tribe of Judah, which had Jerusalem as its spiritual centre, as an aberration of the classical Yahwistic faith. Essentially, what the Samaritan community claimed for itself was what the Jewish community claimed for itself: that it was the Israel of God constituted by the Mosaic legislation and sustained by obedience to its precepts. Ultimately, the issue which separated Samaritans and Jews was the question of the true holy place, Jerusalem or Shechem. Neither community was inclined to grant to the other any consideration which might represent acquiescence in the contention between these mutally antithetical positions.

  • 6 - The men of the Great Synagogue (circa 400–170 .b.c.e.)

  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 March 1990, pp 229-244

  • Summary

    The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the high probability of the following propositions:

  • That the Men of the Great Synagogue (Hebrew, ‘anše keneset hagedolah) constituted a tribunal, which was the supreme judicial authority of the Pharisees in its time.

  • That the members of this tribunal and their followers considered it the body to which Deuteronomy 17:8ff referred in its command that a local judge or other authority in doubt as to the interpretation or application of the law should resort for guidance.

  • That this tribunal was called into being by Ezra and Nehemiah, in an effort to offset the authority of the court consisting of the Temple priests and the lay aristocracy, which gave Nehemiah so much trouble.

  • That the Great Synagogue claimed that its traditions derived from the prophets, and through them for Moses, having been revealed to him on Mount Sinai.

  • That another theory regarding the Great Synagogue ultimately developed, denying that it alone possessed such traditions, but ascribing to it supreme judicial authority, as the legitimate heir to the pre-exilic tribunal of Jerusalem, established by the kings of the Davidic dynasty.

  • That the rabbinic tradition, ascribing to this body the authority of Mishnah Sanhedrin 10.1, and the formulation of the central prayer of the Synagogue, as well as the most important home prayer, namely the Grace after the Meal, is authentic.

    • According to the prevailing rabbinic view, based on Mishnah Aboth 1.1, the Men of the Great Synagogue flourished between the time of the prophets and that of Simeon the Just, the high priest, who was a contemporary of Antiochus III of Syria.

The Cambridge History of Judaism
  • Volume 2, The Hellenistic Age
  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 March 1990
  • This is the second of four volumes covering the history of Judaism from the Persian period, roughly 539–322 BCE, to the Tannaitic period, which culminated in the codification of the Mishnah around 250 CE. It deals with the encounter of Judaism with the Hellenistic culture spread throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond by Alexander the Great and his successors. The volume describes both the rejection and adoption of Hellenism by Judaism. Religiously the rejection provoked new developments and politically the Maccabaean Revolt, which resulted in the creation of the independent Hasmonean state, 142–63 BCE. Culturally, the adoption of Hellenistic forms by Judaism led to a significant Jewish-Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic literature. At the same time, the tensions in the religious, intellectual, social and political life of Jews spawned apocalyptic thought and literature. In the light of the interpenetration of Judaism and Hellenism in this period the volume questions some established dichotomies.

  • 10 - Jewish literature in Hebrew and Aramaic in the Greek era

  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 March 1990, pp 352-384

  • Summary

    The Hellenistic period begins in Palestine with the arrival of Alexander the Great in 332 b.c.e. The appearance of the Macedonian conqueror did not, however, change things overnight, and certainly not in the sphere of Jewish literature. Such literature continued to be written in Hebrew or Aramaic, though Greek influence may be detected in it here and there. The Greek language gained ground only slowly in Palestine. Palestine came to be encircled by a ring of Greek cities, for it was mainly on the edges of Jewish territory, on the coast and to the east of Jordan, that the conquering Greeks established, one by one, their settlements. Gaza, which was devastated during Alexander's conquest, must have been one of the first cities to be rebuilt on the pattern of a Hellenistic town. At Samaria, which now became Sebaste, a Macedonian garrison was established on the orders of Alexander himself. Perdiccas was the founder of the Greek city of Gerasa in the Trans Jordan. He was undoubtedly one of the first of Alexander's followers to settle a Macedonian population in Palestine. Dion and Pella were presumably founded at this same period. The object of implanting these Macedonian colonies was partly to ensure the loyalty of the local inhabitants and partly to reward the soldiers with grants of land.

    But it was mainly during the century from 300–200 b.c.e., when the country was under the control of the Ptolemies, that Greek cities came to flourish in Palestine. In this period there originated Ptolemais (Akko), Philoteria on the shore of lake Tiberias, Scythopolis (Beth Shean) and Philadelphia (Amman) to name only a few.

  • 4 - The Diaspora in the Hellenistic age

    • By Harald Hegermann, Institut für Neutestamentliche Theologie, Universität München
  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 March 1990, pp 115-166

  • Summary

    POLITICAL HISTORY

    The beginnings: Alexander the Great

    Alexander's breath-takingly rapid campaign of conquest, which in the space of a few years made him master of all the most important territories of the huge Persian empire, is commonly held to have ushered in a new historical era, the Hellenistic age. Though this accepted view has recently been hotly disputed, it is still in fact correct. In this particular instance, what we see is not just the replacement of one ancient empire by another, but the introduction of something substantially new and different. Even though to begin with this transformation remained more of a vision than a reality and had not developed beyond the initial stages, the phenomenon is clearly recognizable: a community of nations inwardly united by the intellectual power of a transnational culture, the dawn of the Hellenistic era.

    The origins of this development were not without paradox. To the Greeks proper, the Macedonians appeared a semibarbaric people, for all that the ruling dynasty was acknowledged to be of Greek blood. Only by force of arms did King Philip of Macedonia prevail upon the Greek city states to unite in the Corinthian League (in 338 b.c.e., after his victory over them at Chaeronea). Only with reluctance did they accept him as their commander-in-chief and support his plans for a war of revenge against the Persians, which he saw as a means of forging national unity. When Philip was suddenly assassinated in 336 b.c.e., this plan took on new dimensions. The place of the fiftyish Philip who had already attained the summit of his ambition, the unification of Greece, was taken by Alexander, thirty years his junior.

  • 1 - The archeology of Hellenistic Palestine

  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 March 1990, pp 1-34

  • Summary

    In Palestine, as in the whole Near East, it was not that the curtain rose abruptly on the new world of Hellenism at the time of Alexander's expedition. The Macedonian soldiers only overturned barriers which were already offering only feeble resistance to the interpenetration of the Greek and Jewish worlds. In some respects there was in the cultural life of Israel no break in continuity between the Persian period and the Hellenistic age. It was just that what previously was only an incipient influence was to become a major force.

    From this time on the new ways of life introduced by the Greeks broke upon the Orient. In Palestine, under the favourable auspices of the long period of peace – almost a whole century – which followed the advent of the Ptolemies, the new ways were to flourish. By means of all kinds of contacts, and particularly thanks to the development of commerce, Hellenism infiltrated on all sides in varying degrees.

    From an archeological point of view, the penetration of Hellenism was evident everywhere. First in military installations: the immense superiority of Greco-Macedonian martial techniques necessitated the perfecting and extension of the defensive system. Similarly in dwelling places: the settlement of Greek colonists, who brought with them their standards of comfort and the refined tastes of ruling classes who had known the ostentation of Alexandria and the oriental capitals, was at the root of the development of domestic architecture and of the expansion of decorative refinements. The latter used artistic themes of the Hellenistic koinē, like those to be found on funerary monuments.

  • 16 - The Targumim

  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 March 1990, pp 563-590

  • Summary

    In the Jewish world of the Diaspora (and also in Palestine), historical and linguistic conditions had, as early as the third century b.c.e., led to the translation of the Bible into Greek. Similar reasons explain the origin of Targums. The problems posed in this connection, however, are considerably greater and more complex than for the LXX.

    The word targum signifies ‘translation’ and derives from the verb tirgem meaning ‘to translate’, ‘to explain’, or ‘to read out’ (compare Ezra 4:7); it is a denominative of turgeman (= interpreter) to which an Akkadian origin is generally attributed. In rabbinic usage tirgem is employed to designate a version translated from the Hebrew into any language whatever (y. Kidd i.59a;y. Meg. 1.71c), but targum is used only for a translation of the Bible into Aramaic or for the Aramaic passages of the Old Testament (Yad. 4.5). The professional Synagogue translator was called turgeman or meturgeman (Meg. 4.4). As a literary genre Targum is distinct from Midrash in that it is primarily a translation and not a commentary and, in its strictest definition, a translation intended for the liturgy of the Synagogue.

    We now possess Targums of all the books of the Bible, with the exception of Ezra-Nehemiah and Daniel. Until recently the most commonly accepted opinion was that these were late productions, distributed between the fourth and fifth centuries c.e. and the Middle Ages. It was conceded that the institution of Targum itself was pre-Christian; but because of the prohibition upon putting into writing the oral tradition, the texts themselves could not have been anterior to the first writings of rabbinic Judaism (about 200 c.e.).

  • 18 - The growth of anti-Judaism or the Greek attitude towards the Jews

    • By Emilio Gabba, Università degli Studi, Instituto di Storia Antica, Pavia
  • Edited by W. D. Davies, Louis Finkelstein
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Judaism
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    22 March 1990, pp 614-656

  • Summary

    The first clear evidence of the Greeks beginning to notice the Jewish people, and the Jewish way of life, comes from the last two decades of the fourth century b.c.e. This new awareness was one of the direct results of the eastern world being thrown open to the enquiring spirit of the Greeks, in the wake of Alexander the Great's victorious expedition (Phoenicia and Syria were conquered in 332 b.c.e.). That huge expansion of human and geographical horizons prompted a new departure in Greek ethnographic studies, which had been enriched, since their first flowering in the period of colonial expansion, by developments in philosophical and theoretical thought. Cultural history, science and religion provided perspectives by which the endless mass of newly available fact could be accommodated in theories based on precise concepts, and judged by carefully formulated canons of interpretation. It is in this context that we should consider the awakening of interest in the Jews and their customs. To establish the chronological sequence in which the first Greek authors reflected and wrote about the Jews is difficult, if not impossible, not only because of our fragmentary knowledge of their works, and because our only clues come from brief excerpts, but also because it is difficult to date the works themselves with any precision. Besides, the need to establish such a chronological priority is obviated, or at any rate greatly diminished, when we consider that these first Greek authors wrote about the Jews quite independently of each other – a fact which seems fairly well established.

Page 1068 of 1154