Antiquitopia

Yesterday I was teaching on Gladiators in my Religion and Sports class.  I had two good questions that generated a lot of discussion in both sections of my class and I thought I would share them here.  The first is in the context of the traditional origins of gladiatorial combat in funeral games: "Why honor the dead with more death?" The second question is more about the general Roman psyche: "Why did they enjoy this so much?" The discussion following both questions, by the way, at some point touched upon gladiatorial combat as a form of human sacrifice. So, how would you answer these questions?

The question isn't why did the Roman rise or why did it fall.  The question is, why did it last so long?  At least, that is what this sprawling review of Greg Woolf's newest book, Rome:  An Empire's Story , asks.  (I realize the review came out over a month ago, but I just noticed it).

From BBC News: Art restorers in Italy have discovered what are believed to be the oldest paintings of some of Jesus Christ's apostles. The faces of Apostles Andrew, John, Peter and Paul were uncovered using new laser technology in a catacomb in Rome. The paintings date from the second half of the 4th Century or the early 5th Century, the restorers and Vatican officials believe. The images may have influenced later depictions of Christ's early followers.

The London Times reports that archaeologists have unearthed a private amphitheater for the emperor at Portus, a site near Rome's Fiumicino airport. This is the first time that a large-scale dig has taken place at the site, known as Portus, which was discovered in the 16th century and excavated in the 1860s. Now two miles inland, it would have been twice the size of the port of Southampton and an important gateway between Rome and the Mediterranean. It is possible that it was frequented by 2nd-century emperors. British excavators, including staff from the University of Cambridge and the British School at Rome, said that the amphitheatre was likely to have been built for the private entertainment of a senior statesman or emperor and could have held up to 2,000 spectators. Professor Simon Keay, the project director, said: “[The amphitheatre’s] design, using luxurious materials and substantial colonnades, suggests it was used by a high-status official, possibly even the emperor himself...

According to NYTimes , the current economic crisis is having its effect on tourism in Rome and in Italy more broadly. There is a traditional stereotype, which is not really entirely wrong, that Germans travel more than any other national group but are stingy, whereas Americans rarely travel internationally (per capita, that is), but when they do, they spend big. This, however, is no longer proving true. In the current economic environment, those Americans who do make it to Rome spent all the money on the plane and hotel, and, therefore, are not spending on frills. Romans are saying that the only big spenders left are the Russians, Arabs, and Japanese. Overall, while numbers of tourists are down a bit, how much those tourists are spending is decreasing far more rapidly. They are coming, but they aren't spending! The article blames the strength of the Euro for non-Europeans traveling (or failure to do so): The strong euro and worsening economic crisis have taken their toll on t...

It isn't often that you find a newspaper article written in Latin, but Maureen Dowd, with the help of Gary Farney, associate professor at Rutgers, has written about the issues of the current state of the U.S., particularly the campaigning, in LATIN!!! I am going to quote in full for all to see, but here is the link anyway. October 12, 2008 Op-Ed Columnist Are We Rome? Tu Betchus! By MAUREEN DOWD With modernity crumbling, our thoughts turn to antiquity. The decline and fall of the American Empire echoes the experience of the Romans, who also tumbled into the trap of becoming overleveraged empire hussies. As our sand-castle economy washes away under the tide of bad gambles and debts, this most self-indulgent society lurches toward stoicism (even bankrupt Iceland gives us the cold shoulder and turns to a solvent superpower). It’s going to require more than giving up constant infusions of stocks, Starbucks and Botox. As Seneca, the Roman Stoic who advised treating the body “somewhat st...

It has been a long time since I have posted, so I thought I would show another picture from Italy. This is an aqueduct just outside of Rome. It reminds me of a scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian in which one of John Cleese's characters, the one who leads the Judaean People's Front (or is it the People's Front of Judaea?), asks, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" And a guy in the back lifts up his hand and says, "The aqueducts."

Justin Dombrowski, a friend of mine in Columbia's history department, is putting on a Conference on Sunday, Sept 30, called, "Rome in Extremis: Outsiders and Incendiaries in the Greco-Roman World." This is a joint venture between ancient history and classics at Columbia, and it includes speakers from the religion department, JTS, and others throughout North America. It looks like a very interesting conference, and I would encourage anyone who happens to be in NYC that weekend to attend. For more information, see Justin's blog, " Ad Fontes ." Here's the schedule: 8:30 a.m.
Breakfast 9-10:20 a.m. Simon Ford (Oxford): “Quiet Riot, Imperial Responses to the ‘Religious’ Riots following the Council of Chalcedon” Stephanie Bolz (Michigan): “The Christianization of Magic in the Legal Discourse of the Theodosian Code” Break 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Joshua Ezra Burns (Yale): “Jewish Ethnicity, Christian Belief, and the Negotiation of Roman Civic Identity in the P...

Once again, I have been a bit derelict in posting as of late due to my many projects, the most important of which is my dissertation prospectus (of which some of you may have a copy and are proofreading at this very moment). Instead of posting something substantive or related to recent developments in the study of religion or antiquity, however, I here present one of the most famous sculptures from ancient Rome, which, like many ancient Roman pieces of art, is actually a copy of a Greek original. It is the famous "Dying Gaul." It is an amazing piece of work, in which the vanquished foe is depicted with startling sympathy (one might compare, in stark contrast, the representation of vanquished nations at ancient Aphrodisias). I basically went to this particular museum in Rome just to see this statue.

The New York Times has an article today that discusses the similarities, both flattering and not so flattering, between the U.S. Republic/Empire and the Roman Republic/Empire. These are comparisons that have been kicked around for years (centuries, actually). The original founders often compared the burgeoning government with the Roman Republic and Empire, focusing on the positive aspects and warning of the negative aspects (note, though, that some of what they viewed as positive, we would view in a more negative light, and so on and so forth). For the nineteenth-century interest, just look at the architecture in D.C.!!! Today this comparison abounds in politics, popular media, scholarship, and on the street. For example, if you ever stop and listen in the halls of Union Theological Seminary, it seems that this is almost all you hear with the important and clearly overblown and exaggerated caveat that Jesus and Paul were obviously ANTI-empire (the NT evidence is a bit more complex wit...

I have spent the past few weeks in the gastronomic paradise of Italia. I do not want to eat any more pasta for the next six months--enough is enough. But I do not think I could ever tire of gelato. I think my favorite combination (b/c I always ate gelato with at least two flavors) was chocolate and raspberry, which, incidentally, was the very first combination I tried. Perhaps some of the best food was in Bologna, the least touristy place I went and the city that boasts the first university in Europe (a close second goes to the University of Paris). The lasagna here was absolutely fantastic. Throughout Italy, there always seemed to be plenty of artichokes and zucchine, which, for me, was heaven since I love both. And, I have to say, the award for best olives in Italy has to go to the South (the area around Naples, the originator of pizza), but I must note that no place even approximated the olives I had in Greece. And, of course, I had the pizza. Whenever you travel in space, y...