Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East

Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East PDF Author: John J. Collins
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004330186
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
This collection of essays contains a state of the field discussion about the nature of revolt and resistance in the ancient world. While it does not cover the entire ancient world, it does focus in on the key revolts of the pre-Roman imperial world. Regardless of the exact sequence, it was an undeniable fact that the area we now call the Middle East witnessed a sequence of extensive empires in the second half of the last millennium BCE. At first, these spread from East to West (Assyria, Babylon, Persia). Then after the campaigns of Alexander, the direction of conquest was reversed. Despite the sense of inevitability, or of divinely ordained destiny, that one might get from the passages that speak of a sequence of world-empires, imperial rule was always contested. The essays in this volume consider some of the ways in which imperial rule was resisted and challenged, in the Assyrian, Persian, and Hellenistic (Seleucid and Ptolemaic) empires. Not every uprising considered in this volume would qualify as a revolution by this definition. Revolution indeed was on the far end of a spectrum of social responses to empire building, from resistance to unrest, to grain riots and peasant rebellions. The editors offer the volume as a means of furthering discussions on the nature and the drivers of resistance and revolution, the motivations for them as well as a summary of the events that have left their mark on our historical sources long after the dust had settled.

Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East

Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East PDF Author: John J. Collins
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004330186
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
This collection of essays contains a state of the field discussion about the nature of revolt and resistance in the ancient world. While it does not cover the entire ancient world, it does focus in on the key revolts of the pre-Roman imperial world. Regardless of the exact sequence, it was an undeniable fact that the area we now call the Middle East witnessed a sequence of extensive empires in the second half of the last millennium BCE. At first, these spread from East to West (Assyria, Babylon, Persia). Then after the campaigns of Alexander, the direction of conquest was reversed. Despite the sense of inevitability, or of divinely ordained destiny, that one might get from the passages that speak of a sequence of world-empires, imperial rule was always contested. The essays in this volume consider some of the ways in which imperial rule was resisted and challenged, in the Assyrian, Persian, and Hellenistic (Seleucid and Ptolemaic) empires. Not every uprising considered in this volume would qualify as a revolution by this definition. Revolution indeed was on the far end of a spectrum of social responses to empire building, from resistance to unrest, to grain riots and peasant rebellions. The editors offer the volume as a means of furthering discussions on the nature and the drivers of resistance and revolution, the motivations for them as well as a summary of the events that have left their mark on our historical sources long after the dust had settled.

Cultures of Resistance in the Hellenistic East

Cultures of Resistance in the Hellenistic East PDF Author: Paul J. Kosmin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192678272
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This collaborative volume examines revolts and resistance to the successor states, formed after Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian empire, as a transregional phenomenon. The editors have assembled an array of specialists in the study of the various regions and cultures of the Hellenistic world - Judea, Egypt, Babylonia, Central Asia, and Asia Minor - in an effort to trace comparisons and connections between episodes and modes of resistance. The volume seeks to unite the currently dominant social-scientific orientation to ancient resistance and revolt with perspectives, often coming from religious studies, that are more attentive to local cultural, religious, and moral frameworks. In re-assessing these frameworks, contributors move beyond Greek/non-Greek binaries to examine resistance as complex and entangled: acts and articulations of resistance are not purely nativistic or 'nationalist', but conditioned by local traditions of government, historical memories of prior periods, as well as emergent transregional Hellenistic political and cultural idioms. Cultures of Resistance in the Hellenistic East is organized into three parts. The first part investigates the Great Theban Revolt and the Maccabean Revolt, the central cases for large, organized, and prolonged military uprisings against the Hellenistic kingdoms. The second part examines the full gamut of indigenous self-assertion and resistant action, including theologies of monarchic inadequacy, patterns of historical periodization and textual interpretation, and claims to sites of authority. The volume's final part turns to the more ambiguous assertions of local autonomy and identity that emerge in the frontier regions that slipped in and out of the grasp of the great Hellenistic powers.

Collective Violence and Memory in the Ancient Mediterranean

Collective Violence and Memory in the Ancient Mediterranean PDF Author: Sonja Ammann
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004683186
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
This book reveals how violent pasts were constructed by ancient Mediterranean societies, the ideologies they served, and the socio-political processes and institutions they facilitated. Combining case studies from Anatolia, Egypt, Greece, Israel/Judah, and Rome, it moves beyond essentialist dichotomies such as “victors” and “vanquished” to offer a new paradigm for studying representations of past violence across diverse media, from funerary texts to literary works, chronicles, monumental reliefs, and other material artefacts such as ruins. It thus paves the way for a new comparative approach to the study of collective violence in the ancient world.

Creating an Empire of Informers

Creating an Empire of Informers PDF Author: Poppy Tushingham
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111323439
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Throughout history, many states have attempted to harness the attention of their populations for their own ends. This study argues that the Assyrian Empire in the year 672 BC is such a case. In 672 BC, Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, imposed a succession covenant (adê) on his subjects, the inhabitants of the Assyrian Empire. This covenant required the empire's population to monitor one another, and themselves, for signs of disloyalty to the monarch and his chosen successor, Ashurbanipal. This study examines the aims and outcomes, desired and undesired, of imposing this duty of vigilance across the Assyrian Empire. To consider the presentation and implementation of this duty of vigilance, the study draws largely on evidence supplied by the covenant and other royally-commissioned texts. To examine the outcomes of the covenant's enactment, meanwhile, it explores cuneiform sources, such as letters to the crown, private legal documents, and literary compositions, as well as the Aramaic Story of Ahiqar and the biblical Book of Deuteronomy. By providing a sustained analysis of the real-world implications and outcomes of the covenant, this book sheds new light on a text that fundamentally altered the political makeup of the Assyrian Empire.

Much Ado about Marduk

Much Ado about Marduk PDF Author: Jennifer Finn
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501504983
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Scholars often assume that the nature of Mesopotamian kingship was such that questioning royal authority was impossible. This volume challenges that general assumption, by presenting an analysis of the motivations,methods, and motifs behind a scholarly discourse about kingship that arose in the final stages of the last Mesopotamian empires. The focus of the volume is the proliferation of a literature that problematizes authority in the Neo-Assyrian period, when texts first begin to specifically explore various modalities for critique of royalty. This development is symptomatic of a larger discourse about the limits of power that emerges after the repatriation of Marduk's statue to Babylon during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I in the 12th century BCE. From this point onwards, public attitudes toward Marduk provide a framework for the definition of proper royal behavior, and become a point of contention between Assyria and Babylonia. It is in this historical and political context that several important Akkadian compositions are placed. The texts are analyzed from a new perspective that sheds light on their original milieux and intended functions.

Greek Culture in Hellenistic Egypt

Greek Culture in Hellenistic Egypt PDF Author: Lucio del Corso
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111334643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
This book investigates some aspects of the cultural consequences of the settlement of Greeks in Egypt during the Hellenistic period, through a discussion of papyrological material, archaeological evidence, and literary sources. It is divided into three sections. The first, Space and Images, reflects on the evolutions and changes in iconography, spatial organization, and landscape. The second, Ethnic Interactions, offers new hints on the long debated topic of ethnicity, relying on a wide range of Greek and Demotic sources. The third, The Literary Experience, shifts the attention from documents to literature, examining the circulation of Greek texts and books in Egypt from different perspectives. Mixing case studies and overviews, the volume offers an updated, multifaceted representation of complex phaenomena which can be understood only going beyond disciplinary boundaries.

The Evolution of Social Institutions

The Evolution of Social Institutions PDF Author: Dmitri M. Bondarenko
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030514374
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 662

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Book Description
This book presents a novel and innovative approach to the study of social evolution using case studies from the Old and the New World, from prehistory to the present. This approach is based on examining social evolution through the evolution of social institutions. Evolution is defined as the process of structural change. Within this framework the society, or culture, is seen as a system composed of a vast number of social institutions that are constantly interacting and changing. As a result, the structure of society as a whole is also evolving and changing. The authors posit that the combination of evolving social institutions explains the non-linear character of social evolution and that every society develops along its own pathway and pace. Within this framework, society should be seen as the result of the compound effect of the interactions of social institutions specific to it. Further, the transformation of social institutions and relations between them is taking place not only within individual societies but also globally, as institutions may be trans-societal, and even institutions that operate in one society can arise as a reaction to trans-societal trends and demands. The book argues that it may be more productive to look at institutions even within a given society as being parts of trans-societal systems of institutions since, despite their interconnectedness, societies still have boundaries, which their members usually know and respect. Accordingly, the book is a must-read for researchers and scholars in various disciplines who are interested in a better understanding of the origins, history, successes and failures of social institutions.

Ea’s Duplicity in the Gilgamesh Flood Story

Ea’s Duplicity in the Gilgamesh Flood Story PDF Author: Martin Worthington
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429754507
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
This volume opens up new perspectives on Babylonian and Assyrian literature, through the lens of a pivotal passage in the Gilgamesh Flood story. It shows how, using a nine-line message where not all was as it seemed, the god Ea inveigled humans into building the Ark. The volume argues that Ea used a ‘bitextual’ message: one which can be understood in different ways that sound the same. His message thus emerges as an ambivalent oracle in the tradition of ‘folktale prophecy’. The argument is supported by interlocking investigations of lexicography, divination, diet, figurines, social history, and religion. There are also extended discussions of Babylonian word play and ancient literary interpretation. Besides arguing for Ea’s duplicity, the book explores its implications – for narrative sophistication in Gilgamesh, for audiences and performance of the poem, and for the relation of the Gilgamesh Flood story to the versions in Atra-hasīs, the Hellenistic historian Berossos, and the Biblical Book of Genesis. Ea’s Duplicity in the Gilgamesh Flood Story will interest Assyriologists, Hebrew Bible scholars and Classicists, but also students and researchers in all areas concerned with Gilgamesh, word-play, oracles, and traditions about the Flood.

Notions of Time in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature

Notions of Time in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature PDF Author: Stefan Beyerle
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110705451
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
Seit 2004 gibt der Verlag De Gruyter in Zusammenarbeit mit der International Society for the Study of Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature das Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature · Yearbook (DCLY) heraus. Die Gesellschaft widmet sich dem Studium der Bücher der griechischen Bibel (Septuaginta), die nicht in der hebräischen Bibel enthalten sind, und der späteren jüdischen Literatur, also etwa aus der Zeit vom 3. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis zum 1. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Die Jahrbücher publizieren die Referate und Ergebnisse der internationalen Konferenzen der Gesellschaft. Die Ausgaben 2005 bis 2011 sind weiterhin online erhältlich. – Prayer from Tobit to Qumran, ed. by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley (2004) – The Book of Wisdom in Modern Research, ed. by Angelo Passaro, Giuseppe Bellia, John J. Collins (2005) – History and Identity, ed. by Núria Calduch-Benages and Jan Liesen (2006) – Angels, ed. by Friedrich Reiterer, Tobias Nicklas and Karin Schöpflin (2007) – Biblical Figures in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, ed. by Hermann Lichtenberger and Ulrike Mittmann-Richert (2008) – The Human Body in Death and Resurrection, ed. by Tobias Nicklas, Friedrich Reiterer, Joseph Verheyden (2009)

Mortal Republic

Mortal Republic PDF Author: Edward J. Watts
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465093825
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
Learn why the Roman Republic collapsed -- and how it could have continued to thrive -- with this insightful history from an award-winning author. In Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy. For centuries, even as Rome grew into the Mediterranean's premier military and political power, its governing institutions, parliamentary rules, and political customs successfully fostered negotiation and compromise. By the 130s BC, however, Rome's leaders increasingly used these same tools to cynically pursue individual gain and obstruct their opponents. As the center decayed and dysfunction grew, arguments between politicians gave way to political violence in the streets. The stage was set for destructive civil wars -- and ultimately the imperial reign of Augustus. The death of Rome's Republic was not inevitable. In Mortal Republic, Watts shows it died because it was allowed to, from thousands of small wounds inflicted by Romans who assumed that it would last forever.