artists of Dionysus
Ostia Reference library
The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture
... were involved with a guild. They had handsome premises for meetings, dinners and religious ceremonies, such as the headquarters of the builders’ guild, on the south side of the decumanus just east of the forum (fig. 2x). Its rooms opened on to a porticoed courtyard and included a chapel, five rooms equipped with permanent dining couches, a kitchen and a latrine. The most striking illustration of the guilds in Ostia is the 2nd-century ad Piazzale delle Corporazioni (Square of the Guilds; fig. 2y), a double colonnade behind the theatre, off which opened 61...
tragedy, Greek Reference library
Richard A. S. Seaford, Patricia E. Easterling, Fiona Macintosh, and Fiona Macintosh
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
...some of the most vibrant intercultural performances in world theatre. Fiona Macintosh I. 1–3: A. W. Pickard-Cambridge , DTC 2 (1962), and DFA 3 (1968/88 ); E. Csapo and W. J. Slater , The Context of Ancient Drama (1995); W. Burkert , GRBS 1966, 87–121; A. Lesky , Die tragische Dichtung der Hellenen 3 (1972); H. J. Mette , Urkunden dramatischer Aufführungen in Griechenland (1977); B. Snell and R. Kannicht , TrGF , 1 2 (1986); E. Csapo and M. Miller , The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond (2007); O. Taplin and R....
Police and Fire Services Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome
...individuals. Some suspicion, indeed, attached to locally maintained standing police or fire services. Trajan advised Pliny the Younger to equip the ordinary citizens of Nicomedia in Bithynia-Pontus with the necessary equipment rather than allow a municipal collegium fabrorum (guild of firefighters) to be established. The paramilitary character of such forces caused the emperor to fear their potential for political sedition ( Pliny the Younger Epistulae 10.33–34). In this way the cities of the Roman Empire largely lacked standing police and fire services....
Palmyra Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome
...with Seleucia on the Tigris from 19 ce ( Inventaire des inscriptions de Palmyre 9.6a). After the end of the Nabataean kingdom in 106 , Palmyra became Rome's most important resupply base for the Eastern trade with Parthia and India. Palmyrene merchants, who were organized in guilds, traveled under the protection of synodiarchai (caravan leaders) from Mesopotamia to Palmyra and back (thirty-four caravan inscriptions have been found, dated from 19 to 264 ce ). The Palmyrenes owned caravan stations in the important trade centers of Mesopotamia, in Spasinu...
Carthage Reference library
The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture
...seems from an inscription to have been financed by the guilds of cloth merchants, goldsmiths and other trades. By the 3rd century bc Carthage had a regular street grid and large peristyle houses, like contemporary Greek cities. Carthage 1. Carthage plan showing main sites and buildings, c. 8th century bc –2nd century ad : (a) Byrsa hill; (b) Circular Harbour; (c) Rectangular Harbour; (d) tophet of Tanit; (e) forum; (f) governor’s palace; (g) Antonine Baths; (h) circus; (i) amphitheatre; (j) theatre; (k) odeion; (l) cisterns Dictionary of Art In the 5th...
Tragedy, Greek Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome
...in Asia Minor and the Alcmaeon of Astydamas. Poets such as Ion of Chios and Achaeus also developed considerable reputations for their tragedies. At the same time, other Greek cities built theaters and staged tragedy in a range of festivals that were not always devoted to Dionysus. Increasingly professionalized actors—and from the third century onward, actors’ guilds—developed traveling repertoires; the painted pottery of South Italy and Sicily offer clear evidence for the popularity of tragic performance there. The satyr plays that were originally...
tragedy, Greek Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World
...of becoming well known in the Greek cities; as star performers they could command large fees for performances, and it was evidently they who took the initiative in putting on revivals. The organization of actors from the 3rd cent. onwards into powerful regionally defined guilds ( see dionysus, artists of ) gave them protection, immunities, and privileges as well as better access to the patronage of rulers and cities. This is the decisive development for the history of performance in Hellenistic and Roman times, and it linked tragic performers with...
polis Reference library
Oswyn Murray
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
...kinship groups, and religion were subordinate to the main focus of the polis , which was broadly political; and its development may be seen largely in terms of the adaptation of these forces to a political end. Originating as an aristocratic system, the polis became a ‘guild of warriors’, in which the military power of the community ( hoplites , and later at Athens the ‘naval mob’; see thētes ) controlled the political and institutional life. Women were therefore never admitted to political rights and were effectively excluded from public life. In...
polis Reference library
Oswyn Murray
The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization (2 ed.)
...kinship groups, and religion were subordinate to the main focus of the polis , which was broadly political; and its development may be seen largely in terms of the adaptation of these forces to a political end. Originating as an aristocratic system, the polis became a ‘guild of warriors’, in which the military power of the community (hoplites or heavy infantrymen, and later at Athens the ‘naval mob’) controlled the political and institutional life. Women were therefore never admitted to political rights and were effectively excluded from public life....
Delos Reference library
Richard William Vyvyan Catling
The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization (2 ed.)
...became increasingly cosmopolitan, merchants and bankers from Italy and the Hellenized East forming distinct communities. Delos became the most important market for the slave trade ( see slavery ). Although Athenians filled the civic posts (chief magistrate, the epimelētēs ), guilds and associations of the foreign communities and trading groups administered their own affairs. Sacked in 88 bc by Archelaus , Mithradates VI ’s general, and again in 69 bc by pirates ( see piracy ), Delos never recovered its former greatness. By the end of the 1st...
polis Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World
... hero‐cult . Economy, kinship groups, and religion were subordinate to the main focus of the polis , which was broadly political; and its development may be seen as the adaptation of these forces to a political end. Originating as an aristocratic system, the polis became a ‘guild of warriors’. Women were never admitted to political rights. In origin all cities seem to have possessed similar institutions: magistrates ( see magistracy, greek ) elected annually, a council of elders ( gerousia ), and a warrior assembly; the common later contrast between ...
Crete Reference library
The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture
...temples, theatres, baths, fountains and aqueducts. Existing Hellenistic buildings were often reconstructed in the Roman period, as for example Gortyn’s Odeum and Temple of Isis and Serapis, Lebena’s Temple of Asklepios, and probably the pseudo-peripteral temple at the Dictynnaeum (on Cape Spada). Much information about destroyed Roman buildings comes from the writings ( c. 1417 ) of the Florentine monk Christopher Buonelmonte and drawings by a 16th-century Venetian physician and antiquary, Onorio Belli. The majority of the planned theatres were of a...
tragedy, Greek Reference library
Richard A. S. Seaford, Patricia E. Easterling, Fiona Macintosh, and Fiona Macintosh
The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization (2 ed.)
...the surviving plays are designed to give the leading actor a series of ‘big speeches’, in which to show off his talent as an interpreter of character and feeling. The physical circumstances of Greek theatres—open-air auditoria with a more or less central dancing-space for the chorus—had important consequences for acting style and dramatic design ( see theatres (greek and roman), structure ). The sense of the watching community must have been strong in open-air daylight performances in front of large crowds, and the constant presence of a choral group as...
Festivals, Roman Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome
...status of festivals; smaller communities of citizens, and sometimes noncitizens, observed certain feasts; and some public feriae had domestic elements or counterparts. Women in particular observed one or another of the sacred rites of 1 April , according to their class. The guild of merchants was responsible for celebrating Mercury's festival on 15 May . We know of feasts ascribed to some of the great Roman families— feriae Aemiliae , Claudiae , and Juliae . On the public feast day in honor of Liber, a god of agricultural fertility, sons coming of age...
Delos Reference library
Richard William Vyvyan Catling
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
...cosmopolitan, merchants and bankers from Italy and the Hellenized East forming distinct communities ( see negotiatores ). Delos became the most important market for the slave trade ( see slavery ). Although Athenians filled the civic posts (chief magistrate, the epimelētēs ), guilds and associations of the foreign communities and trading groups administered their own affairs. Sacked in 88 bc by Archelaus (3) , Mithradates VI 's general, and again in 69 bc by pirates ( see piracy ), Delos never recovered its former greatness. By the end of the 1st...
Aristophanes (c.450–c.388bce) Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome
... ( Lysitratē ), and Philonides for Wasps , Amphiaraus ( Amphiaraos ), and Wealth ( Ploutos ), though neither list is likely to be complete—which may have been unusual, at least in the mid-420s. His producer Philonides was a member of a small Cydathenaean thiasos (religious guild) of Heracles known to us from Inscriptiones Graecae , vol. 2 (2nd ed.), page 2343 , and that individuals named Amphitheos (cf. Acharnians 46–55, 129–133 ) and Simon (cf. Knights 242 ) also belonged to this group makes it tempting to identify it as the group of “wise...
Games Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome
...victors monetary rewards and honors. Along with material prizes in local games, this perhaps enabled less affluent citizens to compete, but the privileged classes had the advantage of family resources and leisure time for travel and training by coaches. Athletics as a career with guilds and pensions came later under Rome. Unlike Homer's competitors and non-Greeks (Thucydides 1.6.5), Classical Greek athletes (but not equestrians) trained and competed nude ( gymnos ). More symbolic than practical, the custom probably arose from the nude exercises and reviews of...
Social Organization, Roman Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome
...for political disturbances under the Republic and foci for imperial cult under Augustus ( r. 27 bce – 14 ce ). Private associations of fixed memberships and constitutions ( collegia ) afforded some measure of individual security and representation of private interests. Trade guilds and religious associations ( sodalitates ) provided social safety nets in times of misfortune, sickness, and death; and such collective enterprises eased burdens of funeral expenses. By modern standards, however, Roman social existence was precarious for the majority, and appeals...
Pompeii Reference library
The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture
...streets was found a cuirassed statue (? c. 1 bc ) identified by inscription as that of M. Holconius Rufus , one of the city’s most distinguished citizens, who was responsible for the rebuilding of the theatre. Hidden in a chapel behind the building she had given to the city was the statue of Eumachia ( 27 bc – ad 14 ), paid for by the fullers’ guild. A portrait herm of Norbanus Sorex , a famous mime of Augustus ’ time, stood in Eumachia’s building (amid a gallery of distinguished citizens); it does not survive, although another from the Temple of...
