Synagogue

Relevance. The relevance of this study is determined by its examination of the dramatic poem «Orgy» through a historical-receptive lens. This approach allows for the identification of the mechanisms behind the author’s interpretation of the historical period and the tracing of the specifics of the reception of Antiquity within the text. Aim. The aim of the article is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the dramatic poem «Orgy» by the Ukrainian writer and poet Lesia Ukrainka, utilizing the methodological framework of classical reception studies. It also seeks to identify the mechanisms and reveal the role of these historical borrowings in the context of the author’s vision of Antiquity as a whole, and specifically the Greco-Roman relations from the military conquest of Hellas to the era of the Second Sophistic (2nd century BC – 2nd century AD). Methodology. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity, characterized by an interdisciplinary approach. The theoretical and methodological framework relies on the principles of receptive aesthetics and the concepts of classical reception studies. The study also employs analytical, hermeneutic, and comparative-historical methods. Results. The study establishes that the specificity of the author’s interpretation of historical events, against which the main plot unfolds, lies in chronological hybridization – combining two temporal spaces to provide a deeper elucidation of Greco-Roman relations. It was found that the historical narrative in the work functions as a «safe distance» for constructing analogies between the past and the present. The history and specifics of the perception of Greek culture in the ancient world (from the 2nd century BC to the Second Sophistic period in the 2nd century AD) are examined. It is revealed that the reception of Greek culture by ancient Rome, as described in the text, is based on the principles of selectivity and pragmatism, utilized for cultural appropriation to achieve the political self-determination of the Roman elite and the legitimization of power by the Antonine dynasty emperors. The evolution of the concept of «orgy» in a historical context is analyzed: from a sacred ritual associated with the cult of Dionysus to its interpretation by the recipient – ancient Rome. It is established that throughout the plotline, there is a shift in semantic accents regarding the primary definition of the concept of «orgy», which indicates the conflict of Greek and Roman identities depicted in the work. Conclusions. The obtained results indicate that applying the methodology of classical reception allowed for a holistic disclosure of the mechanisms of assimilation and interpretation of ancient history in Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic poem «Orgy». The study emphasizes that the author appeals to universal problems, actualizing the issue of Greco-Roman relations during Antiquity (2nd century BC – 2nd century AD) as a model of interaction between dominant and subjugated nations. The semantic transformation of the concept of «orgy» serves as a key marker demonstrating the specifics of the Roman reception of Greek culture. The proposed approach opens prospects for further studies of Antiquity in the context of classical reception within the writer’s creative heritage.

Founded and ruled by the Arsacid royal family, the Parthian empire (c. 250 bce–227 ce) was the native Iranian empire that filled the power vacuum in the Middle East in the midst of Seleucid decline. Arsacid interaction with the Roman empire began in the mid-90s bce, eventually established the Euphrates river as a shared border, and was peaceful in nature till 54 bce. In that year, the first of four cycles of Parthian-Roman wars began. Since the Romans carried out the initial large-scale mobilization of troops that introduced most of these wars, it is appropriate to associate these four cycles with the various Romans who coordinated the Roman military efforts: (a) Crassus to Antony (54–30 bce); (b) Nero (57–63 ce); (c) Trajan (114–117 ce); and (d) Lucius Verus to Macrinus (161–217 ce). The fundamental causes for these conflicts were Roman imperialism, which was well ingrained by the 1st century bce, and Parthian imperialism, which accelerated in the 2nd century bce, probably accompanied by the Arsacids’ attempts to present themselves as successors to the Achaemenid dynasty. These traditions led the Romans and Parthians to expand their spheres of power such that they came to meet in Armenia and Mesopotamia, over which regions they fought at different points for the three-century period of their empires’ coexistence. Even so, Rome and Parthia enjoyed lengthy periods of peace. Conflict was neither inevitable nor constant. In many cases (particularly in the late 1st century bce and 1st century ce), Romans and Parthians alike preferred peace and succeeded in maintaining it; but they presented diplomatic negotiations and limited military actions in ways that proclaimed hostility and martial victory (real and imagined). In this way, however, the persistent image of conflict conditioned the Roman people, especially, to accept and even expect such war. This aggressive anti-Parthian rhetoric, for example, enabled Emperor Trajan to break with years of peace and invade Mesopotamia (114–117 ce). In this way, the image of Parthian-Roman war was made a reality.

The work presents the results of the anthropological and paleopathological analysis carried out on human skeletal remains of an individual (T-173) found in a burial from the necropolis “sector 96”, Messina, Sicily, dating back to the Roman Empire (1st century BCE – 1st century CE). The study aimed to acquire the information necessary for the reconstruction of the biological profile. In fact, T173 is an adult male which is particularly interesting from a paleopathological point of view, showing skeletal anomalies from the cranial to the post-cranial skeleton probably caused by variations of genetic, neoplastic, articular and dental nature. Furthermore, the analyses have highlighted the possible cause of death, related to two perimortem traumatic lesions on parietal bones.

The development of amphora production in Colchis is examined, from its beginnings in the mid-4th cent. BC under the influence of vessels from Sinope. The emergence of amphora production should be seen as the result of Hellenic influence upon the economy and upon craftsmen of the E littoral of the Black Sea. Throughout the Classical period one type of Colchian amphora existed, which underwent drastic change in the course of time. Three successive variants may be discerned. The earliest, from the mid-4th to 3rd cent. BC, retains similarities with the Sinopean prototypes. In the late 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, substantial changes in morphology and dimensions take place. In the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD the third variant, with a rib under the rim, appears. Petrographic analysis shows that the vessels were made within one extensive region, Colchis, but at a variety of centres. They were produced in state-owned and private workshops, employing both Greek and local craftsmen. The Greek workshops (or those which had links with Greek potters) were the main exporters of amphorae to the northern Black Sea coastal region from the 4th cent, BC to 1st cent. AD.

We shall discuss here the bronze cauldron discovered in 1932 in the perimeter of the Daco-Getae settlement of Piatra Șoimului (Calu). The vessel was dated by R. Vulpe to the 3rd century AD and the 1st century BC by Gh. Bichir. According to its features, the Piatra Șoimului (Calu) cauldron belongs to type VI, variation 1, subvariation A in S. I. Demidenko’s typology. Although the earliest cauldrons of type VI.1.A come from a series of features of the second half of the 2nd century – end of the 1st century BC, they are mainly specific to the mid Sarmatian period, the majority originating in graves dated to the second half of the 1st century – early 2nd century AD. The Piatra Șoimului (Calu) cauldron is the single vessel of the type from the space between the Dnieper and the Carpathians, while the closest parallel is the vessel of Boguslav, a place located to the left of the Dnieper. The remaining cauldrons in type VI (over 60 specimens), come from territories in the Don river basin, the Kuban region and the area of the lower Volga river course. Upon the analysis of the Sarmatian date cauldron finds from Ukraine and the R. of Moldova, the author notes their small number and the fact they belong to types specific to the mid Sarmatian period, representing, together with other item classes, one of the innovations of this period (1st century – mid 2nd century AD). Furthermore, it is mentioned that most come from features and contexts with a marked eastern nature of the period between the second half of the 1st century – first half of the 2nd century AD. Considering that most cauldrons in type Demidenko VI were discovered in territories inhabited by the Alani Aorsi and Siraces and based on the dating of features containing identical cauldrons and the Sarmatians’ entry and settlement of the north and north-west Pontic area, the author concludes that the Piatra Şoimului (Calu) vessel, beside the other cauldrons specific to the mid Sarmatian period from the north and north-west of the Black Sea, reached the east Carpathian area sometime in the second half of the 1st century AD and by no means later than the events by early 2nd century AD.

Analgesia and anesthesia: etymology and literary history of related Greek words.

P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236/5-183 BC) is best known for his extensive role in Roman expansion throughout the Mediterranean in the late 3rd and early 2nd Centuries BC. His contribution to the Second Punic War, most famously his defeat of Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202, and to the Roman-Seleucid War with Antiochus III has naturally resulted in ancient and modern fascination with his military campaigns, strategies, and achievements. Similarly, the development of the ‘Scipionic Legend’ and his reception within Greek and Latin literary traditions has received comprehensive analysis. Yet questions remain to be asked about Scipio’s image and identity, and how they were promoted and received by both Scipio and contemporary audiences in Rome and the Hellenistic world. Existing treatments of his career, such as those of Liddell-Hart (1927), Haywood (1933), Scullard (1970), and Gabriel (2008), have approached him almost exclusively as a military and political figure. In this thesis, however, Scipio will be examined as a figure shaped by Rome’s and his own immersion in the culture of the Hellenistic world during the 3rd and 2nd Centuries BC. It will be argued that the honours and presentation techniques associated with Scipio are by and large products of his own age and that there has been too much emphasis on parallels with figures such as Julius Caesar and on the consequent theory that Scipio’s honours are the product of hindsight. At each stage of Scipio’s public career, he used a combination of Roman and Hellenistic promotional techniques to great effect, engaging with leadership ideals and methods from both cultures to appeal to varying audiences. From his early roles in Rome and Spain, he presented himself in terms of Roman virtues, embodying filial pietas in battle and display, while exploring Hellenistic conceptions of the gods through his personal relationships with Jupiter and Neptune. In Sicily and Africa at the end of the Second Punic War, he further engaged with Greek culture in his manner and dress and established a diplomatic relationship with the Numidian prince, Masinissa, and later with Philip V and Antiochus, that transcended Roman convention. On his travels through Greece and Asia Minor during the war with Antiochus in 190-189, he presented himself as a magnanimous benefactor to local communities and leaders, who responded with honours suitable for a Hellenistic king. His immersion in foreign contexts certainly enhanced opportunities for exploration of Hellenistic technique, but it was equally present in his presentation at Rome. His triumphal procession, his erection of the ‘Arch of Scipio’, and his cultivation of a popular image seem to have drawn on precedents within both Rome and the Hellenistic world. Rome, as part of a broader Mediterranean cultural koine, engaged with and was receptive to Hellenistic culture to a much greater extent than is often acknowledged, and his contemporaries responded to his Hellenistic display with honours and veneration appropriate for a Hellenistic leader, benefactor, or saviour figure. Ultimately, this exploration of Scipio Africanus through a Hellenistic and cultural lens sheds light on the development of Roman elite identity and its engagement with Hellenistic culture during the 3rd and 2nd Centuries BC.

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Chapter 15 - Poisons, Poisoners, and Poisoning in Ancient Rome

Unfortified settlement near the Jaskavičy village, Salihorsk District, Minsk Region is located on the northern margin of Pripyat Polesia. The settlement was discovered in 2017 by H. M. Byalickaya, researcher from the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. In 2018, archaeological investigation of the settlement was continued by an expedition of Belarusian State University and an area of 364 m2 was excavated there. Two dwelling structures (a log hut and a hut with post walls) and household structure, and several other features were excavated during field seasons of 2017 and 2018. This article deals with the major part of obtained materials that belong to the Roman period. Preliminary, this horizon on the settlement can be synchronized with phases B2/C1–C1a – C2–C3 according to the Central European relative chronology and roughly can be dated to the period from the second part of the 2nd century or the boundary of the 2nd and 3rd centuries till the beginning or the middle of 4th century AD. Analysis of pottery, most prevalent tools – clay spindle whorls as well as adornments and pieces of clothing allows to attribute the settlement to the Kyiv cultural circle. Based on the finds from the dwelling structures and their surroundings, it can be assumed that the residents of the settlement were specialized in working with non-ferrous metals and, probably, in iron production. Imports from the Wielbark culture are registered among metal items and, occasionally, fragments of pottery. These imports are the evidences of contacts between community of Jaskavičy-1 settlement and foreign population – the Goths who had started to penetrate territories in the middle flow of the Pripyat river from the end of the 2nd century AD. The Jaskavičy-1 settlement, most actively occupied in the Late Roman period (3rd – middle 4th century AD), can become the reference site of the Kyiv cultural circle for the territory of the Central Polesia. Even preliminary results of archaeological investigations there allow to state that the chronological lacuna between Polesian settlements of post-Zarubintsy period (middle 1st–2nd century AD) and the earliest (of phase «0») settlements of the Prague culture form the Migration Period (which is associated with Slavs people) is being filled. Hence, at the Jaskavičy-1 settlement we have got a new argument supporting the theory about the beginning of formation of culture of the early Slavs in the territory of Pripyat Polesia.

In order to identify new crops in the 1st millennium ce in northern Italy, a complex and diversified territory, archaeobotanical macroremains from 155 sites dating between the 2nd century bce and 12th century ce were analysed. In more than half of the sites, taxa were encountered that had never previously been recorded from the area. The new crops are about 30, mainly (~ 70%) fruit plants in the broad sense, which have a clear peak in this time period. Based on the available data, the most prominent time for the introduction of new food plants (both imports and cultivars) seems to have been the Roman Imperial period (1st–2nd century ce), but also later, in Late Antiquity (3rd–6th century ce) and the Middle Ages (7th–12 century ce), there was no lack of new arrivals. Some fruit trees, such as Prunus persica (peach) and Pinus pinea (stone pine) immediately played an important role, and have continued to do so over time, as these are still grown in the area now.

The dislocation of the crystalline lens or couching technique was the predominant procedure to surgically remove cataracts until the 18th century A.D. However, in the Middle Ages, some Arab physicians tried to aspirate the opaque lens by means of a glass tube following a paracentesis. Some literary sources attributed the origins of this technique to Antyllus of Alexandria, a Greek surgeon who lived in the 2nd century A.D. in the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, this statement remains unclear and is probably the consequence of posterior interpretations or incorrect translations of the manuscripts. In recent years, the discovery of the hollow needles from Montbellet (France) and Viladamat (Spain), in archaeological settlements dated between the 1st century and 3rd century A.D., has reopened the possibility of cataract extraction as an option in the surgical management of soft cataracts in the antiquity. In any case, these findings are exceptional, and thus, probably this technique was not widely practised and very likely disparaged by the medical community.

Focusing on red and black engobes in Roman pottery from Cumae (southern Italy): Pompeian Red Ware and Graue Platten ceramic productions

Fear of heights (acrophobia) is defined as a subtype of specific phobias by the DSM-IV TR [1] criteria based on the diagnostic features of panic attacks. It has a lifetime prevalence of 3.1–5.3 % [2]. There is, however, a continuum extending from acrophobia to stimulus-dependent visual height intolerance, which does not fulfill the diagnostic criteria of a specific phobia. The frequency of visual height intolerance (height vertigo) is much higher. A recent epidemiological study based on a representative survey revealed that visual height intolerance has a prevalence of 28 % [3]. Thus, height vertigo is a well-known condition that manifests either as a specific phobia or, if less severe, as visual height intolerance. In their historical review, Balaban and Jacob [4] convincingly describe the comorbidity of vertigo and anxiety as an integral component of the medical literature since antiquity. We found a vivid description of symptoms typical for fear of heights in the Greek Corpus Hippocraticum, 5th century BC [5]: ‘‘When Demokles was with him, he said that he felt his eyesight had worsened, and the muscles in his entire body had slackened. He was, he said, not able to walk along the edge of a precipice or cross over a bridge. He would not dare walk over a ditch, regardless how shallow, for he would be afraid to fall into it. However, he would dare to walk in the ditch itself’’. This raised the question as to whether comparable descriptions can be found in other cultures from nearly the same time period but with a completely different concept of bodily function and disorders, namely in the Chinese medical classics. The 80th chapter (‘Discourse on great confusion’) of the book Huangdi Neijing Lingshu, whose content dates back to between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD [6– 8], provides a lively description of height vertigo. The book is part of the Huangdi Neijing (The internal classic of the Yellow Thearch), the theoretical foundation of Chinese medicine. The Yellow Thearch, Huang Di, is considered the cultural hero who bestowed the gift of medicine on the Chinese people. The chapters of the book are mostly written as interviews between Huang Di and his physicians. In the text, Huang Di asks Qi Bo: ‘‘Often when I climb onto a clear, cold observation platform, after I have gone up half of the steps, look around, and crawl further forward; there is a confusion’’. (Fig. 1) (Clarification: a later commentary refers to the height of the platform as an explanation for this description: ‘‘[its] Qi is cold, it is therefore called ‘a clear, cold platform’.)’’. He continues: ‘‘I feel unusual and inwardly strange, I close my eyes, and then I open them. I calm my mind and steady my breath. A longer time passes, but the confusion does not resolve. Everything spins around and I feel dizzy. I loosen my hair and kneel on the ground, I bow my head, and look down. This [strange feeling] doesn’t stop for a long time. What kind of Qi causes this?’’ Qi Bo replies: ‘‘The essence of the Qi of the five depot-organs and of the six palace-organs all flow upwards to the eyes and give them clarity.(...) The eyelids envelop the essence of the sinews, the bones, the blood and the Qi and together with the vessels they form a connection. At the top it connects to the brain, at the back it comes out in the middle of the neck. If the evil strikes M. Bauer Horst-Gortz-Institute for Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences, Chariteplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany

There is considerable literary evidence that gives us some insight into the Jewish culture in the city of Rome from different perspectives after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Yet, there are few primary accounts of Jews in the city of Rome during the 1st century BCE. In this article it is argued that there was already a significant Jewish population in Rome during the middle of the 1st century BCE and it already had a noted influence on daily life in the capital city. In the wake of the Roman Republic’s imperialistic successes, the city saw an influx of foreign peoples and cultures, including Jews, and they were mentioned in the literature of the time. The little that was written about Jews during this time pertain to those aspects of their culture and religion that appeared peculiar to the Romans, especially in the so-called higher genres of philosophical treatises or history. Yet, we also have texts describing everyday live in Republican Rome – lyric and elegiac poetry. These, too, feature references to Jewish culture. Although Roman poetry is never explicitly interested in Jews or Jewish people, it did paint a picture of Rome at street-level, so to speak, through the eyes of a literate citizen and this picture sometimes included Jews. In this article this type of evidence available to us will be reconsidered to fill in the gap in our historical knowledge.Contribution: This article presents an interpretation of Jews and Jewish practices mentioned during the 1st century BCE in Roman poetry. The poetry of Tibullus, Horace and Ovid, written from a Roman perspective, have been contextualised in their literary traditions and informed by the established philosophical opinions of the time from Cicero, Varro and Lucretius. The result is a useful discussion of how extensive and how reliable these sources are for the understanding of Jewish culture in Rome during the 1st century BCE.