Deformations and Crises of Ancient Civil Communities

Valerij Gouschin, Peter John Rhodes

• Publisher: Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9783515111638
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This volume results from a conference of Russian and British scholars of ancient history. It studies crises of various kinds in the history of civil communities in the Graeco-Roman world.

Some chapters concern the main lines of Greek and Roman political development: instability in the Greek cities, the adaptation of aristocrats to the democracy of Athens, empire and crisis in fourth-century Greece; in the Roman Republic the dictatorship, the tribunate, changes in institutional arrangements which had far-reaching but unforeseen consequences; also in Rome the transition from the Middle to the Late Empire.

Others focus on particular episodes where new interpretations are possible: a 'crisis of the pyramid-builders' in Egypt which Herodotus misdated by more than a millennium; two problematic episodes in the hellenistic world, concerning Caunus, and Cius and Myrlea; in the Roman world, in connection with the transition from the Republic to the Principate an examination (particularly suitable for a Russian conference) of the interpretations of Russian scholars a century ago, and, finally, the survival of Neoplatonic communities in the Late Empire.

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• FIGURES
• PREFACE
• REFERENCES
• CONTRIBUTORS
• THE ‘CRISIS OF THE PYRAMID-BUILDERS’ IN HERODOTUS BOOK 2 AND DIODORUS BOOK 1, AND THE EPOCHS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY
• INSTABILITY IN THE GREEK CITIES
• ARISTOCRACY IN DEMOCRATIC ATHENS: DEFORMATION AND/OR ADAPTATION
• EMPIRE AND CRISIS IN FOURTH-CENTURY GREECE
• THE ANTIGONIDS, CAUNUS AND THE SO-CALLED ‘ERA OF MONOPHTHALMUS’: SOME OBSERVATIONS PROMPTED BY A NEW INSCRIPTION
• ‘A TALE OF TWO CITIES’: SOME PARTICULARS OF THE CONQUEST OF CIUS AND MYRLEA BY THE KINGDOM OF BITHYNIA
• CRISIS AND DEFORMATION IN THE ROMAN REPUBLIC: THE EXAMPLE OF THE DICTATORSHIP
• THE TRIBUNATE OF THE PLEBS AS A MAGISTRACY OF CRISIS
• THE ROMAN POLITICAL YEAR AND THE END OF THE REPUBLIC
• THE ‘CULTURAL CRISIS’ IN ROME ON THE CUSP OF THE REPUBLIC AND PRINCIPATE AS SEEN IN RUSSIAN RESEARCH IN THE LATE 19TH – EARLY 20TH CENTURIES
• IMPERIAL POWER IN THE THIRD AND FOURTH CENTURIES: DEFORMATION OR EVOLUTION?
• THE DIALECTIC OF THE OTHER: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE IN THE LATE NEOPLATONIST COMMUNITIES
• INDEX