Severan Culture

by Edited by Simon Swain , Stephen Harrison , JaÅ› Elsner

• ISBN13: 9780521859820
• ISBN10: 0521859824
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-10-22
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Roman Empire during the reigns of Septimius Severus and his successors (AD 193–225) enjoyed a remarkably rich and dynamic cultural life. It saw the consolidation of the movement known as the second sophistic, which had flourished during the second century and promoted the investigation and reassessment of classical Greek culture. It also witnessed the emergence of Christianity on its own terms, in Greek and in Latin, as a major force extending its influence across literature, philosophy, theology, art and even architecture. This volume offers the first wide-ranging and authoritative survey of the culture of this fascinating period when the background of Rome's rulers was for the first time non-Italian. Leading scholars discuss general trends and specific instances, together producing a vibrant picture of an extraordinary period of cultural innovation rooted in ancient tradition.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. viii
List of contributors	p. xvii
Letter of Philostratus to Longinus	p. xix
Preface and Bibliography of Ewen Bowie	p. xxi
Introduction	p. 1
Literature and Culture
Prose literature and the Severan dynasty	p. 29
Severan historiography: evidence, patterns, and arguments	p. 52
The worlds of Nestor the poet	p. 83
Sex lives of the sophists: epigrams by Philostratus and Fronto	p. 114
The Cynegetica attributed to Oppian	p. 125
Greek athletics in the Severan period: literary views	p. 135
Heracles, Prometheus, and the play of genres in [Lucian]'s Amores	p. 146
Allegory and narrative in Heliodorus	p. 160
Polyphony or Babel? Hosidius Geta's Medea and the poetics of the cento	p. 168
Unfair to Caecilius? Ciceronian dialogue techniques in Minucius Felix	p. 177
Cyprian's Ad Donatum	p. 190
Art and Architecture
Art at the crossroads? Themes and styles in Severan art	p. 201
Landscape, transformation, and divine epiphany	p. 250
Urban development in the Severan empire	p. 290
Metaphor and identity in Severan architecture: the Septizodium at Rome between 'reality' and 'fantasy'	p. 327
Visibility and viewing on the Severan Marble Plan	p. 368
Septimius Severus: the Augustan emperor	p. 385
Religion and Philosophy
Severan Christianity	p. 401
Almsgiving for the pure of heart: continuity and change in early Christian teaching	p. 419
Tertullian on flesh, spirit, and wives	p. 430
Sophists and Rabbis: Jews and their past in the Severan age	p. 440
Trouble in Snake-Town: interpreting an oracle from Hierapolis-Pamukkale	p. 449
Magic in the Severan period	p. 458
Philosophy, scholarship, and the world of learning in the Severan period	p. 470
Human autonomy and divine revelation in Origen	p. 489
Socrates under the Severans	p. 500
Bibliography	p. 512
Index	p. 561
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