The Roman city in late antiquity underwent dramatic changes in urban identity, economic activity, and socio-religious functions. Ancient city centres lost much of their dominance to the necropolis around the saint’s tomb that developed into a centre of pilgrimage and religious settlements. While the cult of the saints transformed urban geography, it also redefined the identity of citizens. In…
It has been a recurrent shortcoming in the historiography of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages to dismiss the importance of citizenship after Caracalla’s edict, but especially after the fall of Rome. This tendency comes from the implicit assumption that citizenship in this period referred either to the vestiges of an outdated Roman citizenship or to a Christian spiritual model of civic…
Germany is considered a lauded land of music: outstanding composers, celebrated performers and famous orchestras exert great international appeal. Since the 19th century, the foundation of this reputation has been the broad mass of musicians who sat in orchestra pits, played in ensembles for dances or provided the musical background in silent movie theatres. Martin Rempe traces their lives and …
Empire’ has become an apt label to name the present horizon of global life and is associated with logic and practices which threaten human life in myriad ways. These reflections not only expose the true nature of empire, but suggest an alternative vision of flourishing wrought by God’s kingdom
This open access book considers science and empire, and the stories we tell ourselves about them. Using British Nobel laureate Ronald Ross (1857-1932) and his colleagues as access points to a wider professional culture,Empire Under the Microscopeexplores the cultural history of parasitology and its relationships with the literary and historical imagination between 1885 and 1935. Emilie Taylor-P…
Empires of the Sea brings together studies of maritime empires from the Bronze Age to the Eighteenth Century. The volume aims to establish maritime empires as a category for the (comparative) study of premodern empires, and from a partly ‘non-western’ perspective. The book includes contributions on Mycenaean sea power, Classical Athens, the ancient Thebans, Ptolemaic Egypt, The Genoese Empi…
East and West in the Roman Empire of the Fourth Century examines the (dis)unity of the Roman Empire in the fourth century from different angles, in order to offer a broad perspective on the topic and avoid an overvaluation of the political division of the empire in 395. After a methodological key-paper on the concepts of unity, the other contributors elaborate on these notions from various geo…
In Early Christians Adapting to the Roman Empire: Mutual Recognition Niko Huttunen challenges the interpretation of early Christian texts as anti-imperial documents. He presents examples of the positive relationship between early Christians and the Roman society. With the concept of “recognition” Huttunen describes a situation in which the parties can come to terms with each other without f…
This volume presents the proceedings of the seventh workshop of the international thematic network 'Impact of Empire', which concentrates on the history of the Roman Empire and brings together ancient historians, archaeologists, classicists and specialists on Roman law from some 30 European and North American universities. The seventh volume focuses on the impact that crises had on the developm…
This volume presents the proceedings of the seventh workshop of the international thematic network 'Impact of Empire', which concentrates on the history of the Roman Empire and brings together ancient historians, archaeologists, classicists and specialists on Roman law from some 30 European and North American universities. The seventh volume focuses on the impact that crises had on the developm…