The originals of great classical Greek statuary—cult idols (agalmata) raised in the cella of a temple, or ex-voto (anathemata, offerings) dedicated in a sanctuary, or even, more rarely, political dedications erected in public places, were not destined to be copied and only the pure chance of history, from the fall of Greece to Rome and the emergence of a taste for these works of art, gave rise to a process of copying that would snowball. The Urbild of (...) a Roman imperial effigy was never to remain unique. Quite the contrary, it was, by its very nature, destined to be multiplied from the moment of its completion, for the sake of propaganda and thorough distribution of the emperor's image. At first, we cannot imagine a situation more different. However, today, the historical value of these copies is the same, the original having disappeared in one case as in the other. This is not the only paradox. (shrink)

This anthology of philosophical texts by Greek and Roman authors brings together works from the late fifth century BC to the sixth century AD that comment on major aesthetic issues such as the perception of beauty and harmony in music and the visual arts, structure and style in literature, and aesthetic judgement. It includes important texts by Plato and Aristotle on the status and the role of the arts in society and in education, and Longinus' reflections on the (...) sublime in literature, in addition to less well-known writings by Philodemus, Cicero, Seneca, Plotinus, Augustine and Proclus. Most of the texts have been newly translated for this volume, and some are available in English for the first time. A detailed introduction traces the development of classical aesthetics from its roots in Platonism and Aristotelianism to its ultimate form in late Antiquity. (shrink)

The originals of great classical Greek statuary—cult idols (agalmata) raised in the cella of a temple, or ex-voto (anathemata, offerings) dedicated in a sanctuary, or even, more rarely, political dedications erected in public places, were not destined to be copied and only the pure chance of history, from the fall of Greece to Rome and the emergence of a taste for these works of art, gave rise to a process of copying that would snowball. The Urbild of (...) a Roman imperial effigy was never to remain unique. Quite the contrary, it was, by its very nature, destined to be multiplied from the moment of its completion, for the sake of propaganda and thorough distribution of the emperor's image. At first, we cannot imagine a situation more different. However, today, the historical value of these copies is the same, the original having disappeared in one case as in the other. This is not the only paradox. (shrink)

The originals of great classical Greek statuary—cult idols (agalmata) raised in the cella of a temple, or ex-voto (anathemata, offerings) dedicated in a sanctuary, or even, more rarely, political dedications erected in public places, were not destined to be copied and only the pure chance of history, from the fall of Greece to Rome and the emergence of a taste for these works of art, gave rise to a process of copying that would snowball. The Urbild of (...) a Roman imperial effigy was never to remain unique. Quite the contrary, it was, by its very nature, destined to be multiplied from the moment of its completion, for the sake of propaganda and thorough distribution of the emperor's image. At first, we cannot imagine a situation more different. However, today, the historical value of these copies is the same, the original having disappeared in one case as in the other. This is not the only paradox. (shrink)

It has been much disputed to what extent thinkers in Greek and Roman antiquity adhered to ideas of evolution and progress in human affairs. Did they lack any conception of process in time, or did they anticipate Darwinian and Lamarckian hypotheses? The Origins of Civilization in Greek and Roman Thought, first published in1986, comprehensively examines this issue. Beginning with creation myths – Mother Earth and Pandora, the anti-progressive ideas of the Golden Age, and the cyclical theories (...) of Orphism – Professor Blundell goes on to explore the origins of scientific speculation among the Pre-Socratics, its development into the teleological science of Aristotle, and the advent of the progressivist views of the Stoics. Attention is also given to the ‘primitivist’ debate, involving ideas about the noble savage and reflections of such speculation in poetry, and finally the relationship between nature and culture in ancient thought is investigated. (shrink)

Anthropologists have defined iconatrophy as a process by which oral traditions originate as explanations for objects that, through the passage of time, have ceased to make sense to their viewers. One form of iconatrophy involves the misinterpretation of statues' identities, iconography, or locations. Stories that ultimately derive from such misunderstandings of statues are Monument-Novellen, a term coined by Herodotean studies. Applying the concept of iconatrophy to Greek sculpture of the Archaic and Classical periods yields three possible examples in (...) which statues standing in Greek sanctuaries may have inspired stories cited by authors of the Roman imperial period as explanations for the statues' identities, attributes, poses, or locations. The statues in question are the portrait of the athletic victor Milo of Croton at Olympia, a bronze lioness on the Athenian Acropolis identified as a memorial to the Athenian prostitute Leaina , and the Athena Hygieia near the Propylaia of Mnesikles. Inscriptions on the bases of Archaic and Classical statues in Greek sanctuaries typically named the dedicator, the recipient deity, and the sculptor, but did not include the subject represented or the historical occasion behind the dedication. These “gaps” left by votive inscriptions would only have encouraged the formation of iconatrophic oral traditions such as the examples examined in this article. (shrink)

This book examines the conceptual and temporal frames through which modern Western historiography has linked itself to classical antiquity. In doing so, it articulates a genealogical problematic of what history is and a more strictly focused reappraisal of Greek and Roman historical thought. Ancient ideas of history have played a key role in modern debates about history writing, from Kant through Hegel to Nietzsche and Heidegger, and from Friedrich Creuzer through George Grote and Theodor Mommsen to Momigliano (...) and Moses Finley; yet scholarship has paid little attention to the theoretical implications of the reception of these ideas. The essays in this collection cover a wide range of relevant topics and approaches and boast distinguished authors from across Europe in the fields of classics, ancient and modern history and the theory of historiography. (shrink)

The article deals that biblical theology of Еmerging church focused primarily on the issues of the role of the community in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, the characteristics of the Biblical narrative and comparison of the Bible and the Word of God. According the theology of community sources for the development of theology found in Holy Scripture, tradition and culture, through which God speaks. Therefore Holy Scripture is not the monopoly authority in matters of faith and theology. To explain Holy (...) Scripture can only staying in the church community where truly knowable Christian truth. According B.McLaren the Bible should never be studied and analyzed. The Bible should be seen as a work of art and to read like a story based on the fact that most of the text of Holy Scripture is precisely the narrative. The cause of erroneous traditional reading of the biblical narrative is that it was generated by the synthesis of the Greek philosophical tradition with the political, economic and military dominants of Roman Empire. B.McLaren considers the correct way of understanding the Bible attitude to it as a library of specific community, which traces its history to the biblical patriarchs. The task of the modern reader of the Bible - put yourself in text, in conversation, in history, in a community of people who seek God. (shrink)

Examines how the educations of America's first four presidents, and in particular their scholarly devotion to ancient Greek and Roman classics, informed the beliefs and ideals that shaped the nation's constitution and government.

Summary Although ancient Idumea was certainly a marginal object of interest for classical writers, we do possess as many as thirteen extant classical non-Jewish authors who explicitly refer to Idumea or the Idumeans. For classical writers, Idumea was an inland territory between the coastal cities of Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia that straddled important trade routes. Idumea is also frequently associated in ancient literature with palm trees, which grew in Palestine and were exported throughout the Mediterranean. In the (...) eyes of classical authors, the Idumeans were a distinctive ethnos living in the melting pot of southern Palestine. Ancient writers emphasized the Idumeans’ ethnic and cultural connections with the Nabateans, the Phoenicians and Syrians, and, finally, the Judeans, and also indicated that a great deal of Hellenization occurred in western Idumea in an urban context. (shrink)

This volume uses the art of Rome to help us understand the radical historical break between the fundamental ancient pre-supposition that there is a natural world or cosmos situating human life, and the equally fundamental modern emphasis on human imagination and its creative power. Rome's unique art history reveals a different side of the battle between ancients and moderns than that usually raised as an issue in the history of science and philosophy. The book traces the idea of a cosmos (...) in pre-modern art in Rome, from the reception of Greek art in the Roman republic to the construction of the Pantheon, to early Christian art and architecture. It then sketches the disappearance of the presupposition of a cosmos in the High Renaissance and Baroque periods, as creativity became a new ideal. Through discussions of the art and architecture that defines proto-modern Rome- from Michelangelo's terribilita' in the Sistine Chapel, Caravaggio's realism, Baroque illusionism, the infinities of Borromini's architecture, to the Grand Tour's representations of ruins- through an interpretation of such major issues and works, this book shows how modern art liberates us while leaving us feeling estranged from our grounding in the natural world. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, architectural history, classics, philosophy, and early modern history and culture. (shrink)

This article argues that the purpose of ravaging in Greek warfare was not to goad the enemy into fighting or to cause systematic economic harm but to facilitate plundering. The cereal harvest was commonly chosen as a time for invasion, because it maximized the amount of plunder an invading force could expect to find in the enemy countryside. While ravagers were unlikely to cause permanent economic harm to a community as a whole, they could imperil the livelihoods of individual (...) farmers, both directly through theft and destruction and indirectly by preventing farmers from processing the harvest in a timely fashion. This explains the consistent fear of plundering and ravaging present in our sources. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Esthetic Basis of Greek Art of the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B. C The bibliography of my subject is very nearly negligible. One debt (outside of Greek archaeology altogether) is, however, a heavy one; and I wish to acknowledge great obligation to the keen and serious dialectic which distinguishes Geoffrey Scott's of Humanism. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction (...) of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)