Food,Purity and Pollution: Zoroastrian Views on the Eating Habits of Others

This article discusses the use of food as a mode of differentiation and identification according to Zoroastrian Middle Persian and Persian texts of the late antique period. In these texts, the list of foods consumed by Arabs and Indians are juxtaposed with that of the Iranian diet, and each group is given anthropological treatment. The article contends that the Zoroastrian dietary law, based on the Middle Persian texts, provides a mode of purity and impurity vis-à-vis others. Finally, the article touches upon the idea of moderation and the consumption of wine as dealt with in some Middle Persian sources.     

The martyr, the matrona and the bishop: the matron Lucina and the politics of martyr cult in fifth- and sixth-century Rome

The present study attempts to build on the achievement of Pietri and Llewellyn in assessing the peculiarities and limitations of the gesta martyrum as a source for late ancient and early medieval Rome, while shifting interpretative stress away from the lay—clerical binary which has dominated recent treatments of the cult of the saints, and toward an emphasis on factional conflict among lay—clerical coalitions. Central is an analysis of the literary motif, which recurs across the gesta of Lucina, the aristocratic matrona or widow who sees to the burial of the martyr on her own lands. Though the stereotypical figure of Lucina warns us of the limitations of the gesta as a source for the patronage activity of the lay aristocracy, it is argued, her appearance in crucial texts such as the Passio Sebastiani can nonetheless help us to trace the role which the memory of the martyrs played in texts such as the gesta martyrum, the Symmachan Forgeries, or the Liber Pontificalis, as well as the role which martyr shrines such as the Vatican basilica and the memoria apostolorum on the Via Appia played in the contestation and consolidation of Roman episcopal authority.     

Fronto, the bishops, and the crowd: Episcopal justice and communal violence in fifth-century Tarraconensis

Augustine's Epistula 11* was addressed to the bishop of Hippo by an aristocratic laymen called Consentius. The letter recounts, ostensibly verbatim, the tribulations of the Spanish monk Fronto in his efforts to prosecute what he regards as a heretical conspiracy amongst the clergy of Hispania Tarraconensis. Fronto's narrative is a rare first-person account of the late antique judicial process, in all its complexity of overlapping imperial and ecclesiastical jurisdictions. The present article examines the letter's evidence for judicial strategies and rhetoric, as well as the role of status, power and violence in influencing legal outcomes.     

Monks and children: corporal punishment in Late Antiquity1*

This article examines the place of corporal punishment in early monastic discipline. By comparing the role assigned to corporal punishment in a variety of monastic rules from across the late antique Mediterranean, from the Rules ascribed to Pachomius (d. 348), to the Rule of Benedict from the mid-sixth century, it demonstrates that late antique monastic writers had a sophisticated and ordered approach to this type of penalty. This approach drew both on the concept of the absolute authority of the punishing father in Scripture, and on the limitations of Roman social expectations and ancient educational values to such absolute authority. As a result corporal punishment was seen either as a last resort when all other disciplinary measures had failed to bring about a reasonable response, or the appropriate punishment for an offence that originated from irrational conduct. Contrary to ancient household practices, however, which seem to have reserved corporal punishment for small children and slaves – conventionally perceived to lack ability to reason – late antique monastic rules invoked corporal punishment as a possibility for every member in the community who demonstrated irrational behaviour. In this way they blurred traditional boundaries between children, slaves and adults.     

Overlooked Husbands: The Paradox of Unfree Marriage in the Carolingian World

Unfree people in the Roman world could not legally marry, while they could in the Middle Ages. This paper explores the marriage of the unfree in the Carolingian empire (750–900 CE), a society with an intense moral concern about marriage. Carolingian churchmen wrote extensively about marriage, using a strongly gendered discourse focusing on how men should approach marriage and behave as husbands. However, these moral and legal texts rarely discussed unfree marriage, even though the practice was common. It is argued that this silence reflects the persistence of late antique class-based gender models, in which masculinity was reserved for married property holders. Although legal prohibitions on unfree marriages had ended, Carolingian moralists continued to be influenced by patristic assumptions that these were not valid relationships. These assumptions, combined with Frankish social practices that largely excluded unfree men from other key male roles, such as arms-bearing, meant that unfree husbands were not conceptualised as sufficiently ‘manly’ to have their marriages discussed. It is only from the tenth century onwards, when images of masculinity began to fragment more along lines of social status, that authors began explicitly to state that the Christian ideas of marriage applied to all, free and unfree.     

Political ‘expedience’ and peripheral saints: assimilating St. Asteios of Dyrrachion in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition

Abstract

Nearly twenty years after Antony Bryer raised St. Asteios of Dyrrachion from obscurity this article aspires to shed more light on the significance of this little-known saint. Despite the paucity of archaeological evidence, hagiographic texts help reconstruct and contextualize the steps in the institutionalization of a local martyr that appear to reflect the strategic importance of the city. The limited imagery of St. Asteios, including his unexplored portrait from the church of the Saviour at Rubik in modern Albania, are also used to substantiate his emblematic function as the local model of a Christian martyr-hero and, more importantly, his visual ‘identification’ with the city of Dyrrachion.     

Housing in Late Antique Augusta Emerita: The End of The Peristyle House

This article presents the archaeological evidence for a comprehensive change in the residential pattern of late antique Mérida, Spain (Augusta Emerita) in the second half of the fifth century AD. By the fourth century AD, the peristyle house had become the fundamental unit of aristocratic late Roman housing, offering the ideal setting for high‐status interactions, aristocratic ceremony, and even private and public business. The peristyle house was gradually replaced by subdivision housing in the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, in a trend seen throughout the late Roman world. In Emerita, however, the transition was quite sudden. Here, a destructive event in the middle of the fifth century paved the way for the rapid introduction of subdivision housing, over just a few decades. While this new style of housing was typical of the late antique world, the evidence from Emerita highlights the role that a local catalyst might play in the adoption of new cultural forms.     

The temptations of cult: Roman martyr piety in the age of Gregory the Great

Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) was arguably the most important Roman writer and civic leader of the early middle ages; the Roman martyrs were certainly the most important cult figures of the city. However modern scholarship on the relationship between Gregory and the Roman martyrs remains curiously underdeveloped, and has been principally devoted to comparison of the gesta martyrum with the stories of Italian holy men and women (in particular St Benedict) told by Gregory in his Dialogues; in the past generation the Dialogues have come to be understood as a polemic against the model of sanctity proposed by the Roman martyr narratives. This paper explores Gregory's role in the development of Roman martyr cult in the context of the immediate social world of Roman clerical politics of the sixth and seventh centuries. Gregory's authority as bishop of Rome was extremely precarious: the Roman clerical hierarchy with its well-developed protocols did not take kindly to the appearance of Gregory and his ascetic companions. In the conflict between Gregory and his followers, and their opponents, both sides used patronage of martyr cult to advance their cause. In spite of the political necessity of engaging in such 'competitive generosity', Gregory was also concerned to channel martyr devotion, urging contemplation on the moral achievements of the martyrs – which could be imitated in the present – as opposed to an aggressive and unrestrained piety focused on their death. Gregory's complex attitude to martyr cult needs to be differentiated from that which was developed over a century later, north of the Alps, by Carolingian readers and copyists of gesta martyrum and pilgrim guides, whose approach to the Roman martyrs was informed by Gregory's own posthumous reputation.     

Troubling Confessions: Roman Catholicism and ‘The Homosexual Question’

Abstract

Current scholarship on human rights and torture largely ignores places and scenes where extra-judicial violence is routinely practiced. That is, framed within a secular discourse, the agency of religious bodies in the systemic infringement of ‘rights’ is never considered. This paper explores one question with two parts: What are the conditions in church governance (Christian) in which systematic violation of human ‘rights’ is the norm, and in which the production of behaviors very much like torture is made possible, even necessary? Why do such behaviors go unnoticed, or, when they are observed, are they discounted? Using the crisis of homosexual presence within contemporary Roman Catholicism I shall argue that pressure for ‘confessional’ purity produces behaviors and activities within lines of authority that mimic torture. The essay examines documented policies, ecclesiastical directives and procedures concerning the management and treatment of persons (mostly homosexuals and women) during the second half of the papacy of John Paul II (1986-2001).     

Marx,Engels, and the Ethics of Violence in Revolt

Marx and Engels's thought—combined with the way in which it has been interpreted—has tended to militate against discussion of an ethics of violence in revolt. Along with Sorel and Fanon, their attitude towards violence is often seen simply as one where the ends justify the means and where violence in pursuit of a just society is necessarily defensible. However, we can (and should) look to certain sources within Marx and Engels for inspiration for an ethics of violence in revolt, which places emphasis on the humanizing aspects of their work, on the core ideas of freedom, moving beyond dehumanization and moving beyond violence. I argue that this approach suggests an abhorrence of any violence and can thus be combined with a pacifist-influenced approach to the ethics of violence in revolt. This is compatible with Ernst Bloch's interpretation of Marxism, which he describes as “concrete utopianism.” Classical Marxism can, then, offer fruitful pointers to an ethics of violence in political change, although Marx and Engels's texts must be used with considerable care and must be combined with the work of other thinkers, in particular those who display more explicit moral objection to violence of any kind.     

The early Byzantine economy in context: aristocratic property and economic growth reconsidered

This article responds to recent primitivist claims with respect to the late antique economy of the early Byzantine period. It examines the archaeological and documentary evidence for economic sophistication in early Byzantine Egypt, and addresses the issue of economic growth in late antiquity as a whole by placing the evidence for early Byzantine economic expansion in a broader medieval context. In particular, the epiphenomena of economic growth in late antiquity are compared to the epiphenomena of statistically demonstrable economic growth in Anglo‐Norman England.     

Charlemagne's silver tables: the ideology of an imperial capital

Charlemagne's last will and testament says that a silver table with a picture of Constantinople was to be sent to St Peter's at Rome, and a table with a picture of Rome was to be sent to the bishopric of Ravenna. The imagery on these tables seems to reflect a late antique tradition of depicting pairs of cities; the pairings Rome–Constantinople and Rome–Ravenna offer insights into the importance of Ravenna for Charlemagne's imperial ideology, and specifically how Ravenna functioned as a model for Charle-magne's imperial capital at Aachen.     

The shifting evocations of squadrismo: remembering the massacre of Palazzo d’Accursio in Fascist Bologna

The massacre of Palazzo d’Accursio is considered one of the first events in the rise of the Fascist squads. This article analyzes the ways in which the event was described in Bologna during the twenty years that followed it. It is believed that in the first few years, commemorations that emphasized the role of the Fascist squads were not very common. Instead, they concentrated on the life of Giulio Giordani, a murdered lawyer and opposition councilor, who became a martyr. Members of the city’s ruling class, especially lawyers, developed their own rituals of commemoration, but the establishment of the regime led to the acquisition of the commemorations of Giordani by Fascism, reflecting the shift of the local elites towards Fascism. In the 1930s, the massacre began to be described with detailed reference to the violence carried out by the Fascists. This process coincided with a much more incisive occupation of the area of commemoration.     

The principles of demonstration and tekmeriodic proofs in the late-antique commentary tradition

I argue that Aristotle’s late-antique commentators read into his theory of demonstration the notion of tekmeriodic proofs in attempt to integrate into the theory of demonstration the assumption that the principles of demonstration should be evident. In so doing, I trace the late antique commentators’ view to Alexander of Aphrodisias’ discussion of the principles of demonstration, showing how his assumption that the principles of demonstration should be evident underlies their notions of tekmeriodic proofs.     

No pain,no gain? Torture and ethics in the war on terror

Is the use of torture ever justified? This article argues that torture cannot be justified, even in so called ticking bomb cases, but that in such extreme situations it may be necessary. In those situations, judgements about whether the use of torture is legitimate must balance the imminence and gravity of the threat with the need to prevent future occurrences of torture and maintain a normative environment that is hostile to its use. The article begins by observing that the use of torture and/or cruel and degrading treatment has become a core component of the global war on terror. It tests the claim that the use of coercive interrogation techniques does not constitute torture, showing that similar arguments were levelled by both the British and French governments in relation to Northern Ireland and Algeria respectively and found wanting. It then evaluates and rejects Dershowitz's claim for the legalization of torture and the more limited claim that torture may be permissible in ticking bomb scenarios. In the final section, the article questions how we might maintain the prohibition on torture while acknowledging that it may be necessary in some hypothetical cases.