Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius

Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius

Author: Alan Cameron

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2024-07-26

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 0520377192

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The chaotic events of A.D. 395–400 marked a momentous turning point for the Roman Empire and its relationship to the barbarian peoples under and beyond its command. In this masterly study, Alan Cameron and Jacqueline Long propose a complete rewriting of received wisdom concerning the social and political history of these years. Our knowledge of the period comes to us in part through Synesius of Cyrene, who recorded his view of events in his De regno and De providentia. By redating these works, Cameron and Long offer a vital new interpretation of the interactions of pagans and Christians, Goths and Romans. In 394/95, during the last four months of his life, the emperor Theodosius I ruled as sole Augustus over a united Roman Empire that had been divided between at least two emperors for most of the preceding one hundred years. Not only did the death of Theodosius set off a struggle between Roman officeholders of the two empires, but it also set off renewed efforts by the barbarian Goths to seize both territory and office. Theodosius had encouraged high-ranking Goths to enter Roman military service; thus well placed, their efforts would lead to Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410. Though the authors’ interest is in the particularities of events, Barbarians and Politics at the Court Of Arcadius conveys a wonderful sense of the general time and place. Cameron and Long’s rebuttal of modern scholarship, which pervades the narrative, enhances the reader’s engagement with the complexities of interpretation. The result is a sophisticated recounting of a period of crucial change in the Roman Empire’s relationship to the non-Roman world. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993.


Literature, Music and Cosmopolitanism

Literature, Music and Cosmopolitanism

Author: Robert Fraser

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-01-10

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 3319684809

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This book focuses on the twin arts of literature and music, supporting the notion that cosmopolitanism is the natural condition of all the arts, and that all culture - without exception - is migrant culture. It draws on examples ranging from the first to the twenty-first centuries AD, on locations as remote as Alexandria and Australia, on writers as different as Virgil and V.S.Naipaul, Arnold and Achebe, and on musicians as diverse as Bach and Bartok, Purcell and Steve Reich. Across thirteen chapters, the study explores the interpenetration of all forms of human expression, the fallacy of 'national' traditions and limiting conceptions of regional character. The result is an exploration of artistic and intellectual endeavour that is particularly welcome in the current political climate, encouraging us to view history in ways informed by our contemporary demographic and cultural concerns. Taken either as a series of interrelated case studies, or else as an evolving and sequential argument, this book is vital reading for scholars of music, literature, and cultural and social history.


Hypatia

Hypatia

Author: Silvia Ronchey

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-06-21

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 3110718456

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This study reconstructs Hypatia’s existential and intellectual life and her modern Nachleben through a reception-oriented and interdisciplinary approach. Unlike previous publications on the subject, Hypatia explores all available ancient and medieval sources as well as the history of the reception of the figure of Hypatia in later history, literature, and arts in order to illuminate the ideological transformations/deformations of her story throughout the centuries and recover “the true story”. The intentionally provocative title relates to the contemporary historiographical notion of “false” or “fake history”, as does the overall conceptual and methodological treatment. Through this reception-oriented approach, this study suggests a new reading of the ancient sources that demonstrates the intrinsically political nature of the murder of Hypatia, caused by the phtonos (violent envy) of the Christian bishop Cyril of Alexandria. This is the first comprehensive treatment of the figure of Hypatia addressed to both academic readers – in Classics, Religious Studies, and Reception Studies – and a learned, non-specialist readership.


Hypatia

Hypatia

Author: Edward J. Watts

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-02-14

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0190659149

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A philosopher, mathematician, and martyr, Hypatia is one of antiquity's best known female intellectuals. During the sixteen centuries following her murder, by a mob of Christians, Hypatia has been remembered in books, poems, plays, paintings, and films as a victim of religious intolerance whose death symbolized the end of the Classical world. But Hypatia was a person before she was a symbol. Her great skill in mathematics and philosophy redefined the intellectual life of her home city of Alexandria. Her talent as a teacher enabled her to assemble a circle of dedicated male students. Her devotion to public service made her a force for peace and good government in a city that struggled to maintain trust and cooperation between pagans and Christians. Despite these successes, Hypatia fought countless small battles to live the public and intellectual life that she wanted. This book rediscovers the life Hypatia led, the unique challenges she faced as a woman who succeeded spectacularly in a man's world, and the tragic story of the events that led to her tragic murder.


Neglected Classics of Philosophy, Volume 2

Neglected Classics of Philosophy, Volume 2

Author: Eric Schliesser

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0190097191

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"In this introduction I use Bertrand Russell's (1945) The History of Western Philosophy (hereafter: History), to introduce the meta-philosophical themes that recur throughout the chapters of this book. In particular, I focus on the way the distinction or opposition between rustic thought, which is supposed to characterize barbarous societies, and the urbane thought that is purported to characterize civilized society can help explain some entrenched patterns of exclusion visible in contemporary philosophy. I embed these remarks in a larger, speculative historiography of the very idea of 'western philosophy.' Along the way, I provide an overview of the chapters of this volume"--


Alexandria Stories

Alexandria Stories

Author: Nagui Achamallah

Publisher: Nagui Achamallah

Published: 2023-05-11

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13:

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On a trip from California to his native city of Alexandria, Dr. Sami Boutros, a retired psychiatrist, meets a man who calls himself Senuhi. He presumes that the man seeks his medical opinion, but he discovers that Senuhi is his guide on a mysterious journey through the memory of the city. Sami's life merges with that of generations of Alexandria's lovers who cross his path and become his travel companions. Together they relive the city's battle with the sea of time and watch her fortunes ebb and flow with the waves of the Mediterranean. They witness her greatest monuments crumble and feed the flames of her destruction. And they learn that the essence of Alexandria was never the sum of her monuments, but the private vision created in the minds of those who love her.