What did people in the early Christian period think about the pagan inscriptions filling their late antique cities? Like public advertisements lining our streets today, these inscriptions were everywhere and communicated specific messages to literate late Roman viewers, often providing a very different view of the classical past than that being preached from early Christian church pulpits. In Pagan Inscriptions, Christian Viewers, Anna M. Sitz provides a fresh perspective on the Christianization of the Roman empire from the fourth to the seventh century CE by analyzing a previously overlooked body of evidence: the many ancient, pagan inscriptions, written in Greek or other languages, which were reused, preserved, or even partially erased in this period.
This volume brings together for the first time the literary and archaeological evidence for attitudes towards these ancient inscriptions in the eastern Mediterranean, from Greece to Asia Minor, Syria to Egypt. Pagan Inscriptions, Christian Viewers illustrates how early Christians, late pagans, and Jews in the eastern Mediterranean interpreted older inscriptions in Greek and other languages through their own worldviews in order to build the late antique present.
Author(s): Anna M. Sitz
Series: Cultures of Reading in the Ancient Mediterranean
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 349
City: Oxford
Cover
Half-Title
Series Page
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviated Epigraphic Corpora
1. Introduction: Afterlives of Inscriptions
Epigraphic Reincarnation at Megara
Manufactured Violence
Inscribed Sanctuaries
Literacy in Late Antiquity
Chapter Outline
The Fine Print
2. The Use of Real or Imagined Inscriptions in Late Antique Literature
The “Arch of Alexander” and the Ends of the Earth
Writing the Past from Inscriptions
Agathias and the Remarkable Afterlife of Chairemon
Kosmas Indikopleustes: Hellenistic History in Late Antique Ethiopia
Prokopios’ Inscribed Ships
Prophesying from Stone: Invented Oracles
Epigraphic Omens at Chalcedon, Alexandria, and Carthage
The Tübingen Theosophy: Converting Temples
Plagiarizing for the Saints: The Life of Abercius
Conclusion: The Literary Afterlives of Ancient Inscriptions
3. Preservation: Tolerating Temples and Their Texts
Touring Temples
Inscribed Text and Figural Imagery at Unconverted Temples
Ephesos: Embodying Emperors on the Embolos
Museumification at Priene’s Temple of Athena?
Performative Bureaucracy at the Temple of Augustus and Roma at Mylasa
A Fallen God at Magnesia on the Maeander
Congregated Graffiti at Delphi
Secular or Sacred? Imperial Documents on Temples of Uncertain Use
The Res Gestae divi Augusti in Late Antique Ankara
A Tale of Two Temples at Aizanoi: Zeus at Church
Tolerance at Palmyra
Priests, Talking Columns, and Unreadable Texts at Christianized Temples
Diokaisareia-Olba: A Careful Conversion
“Archaeophilia” at Sardis’s Artemision
Lagina: Early Christian Economics
Everyday Hieroglyphs at Medinet Habu
Reading Nonsense at Didyma
Conclusion: Kings of the Past on Display
4. Spoliation: Integrating and Scrambling tions-Inscrip
(T)reading the Past: Epigraphic Spolia Underfoot
Constructing Churches with Inscribed Text
The Korykian Cave: Building with Inscriptions
Scrambling Apollo Klarios at Sagalassos
Gods and Angels in the Temple-Church at Aphrodisias
Uncertain Reuse at Baalbek
Klaros: Exporting Spolia
Epigraphic Spolia Elsewhere
Not Only Christians: The Synagogue at Sardis
The Temple of Zeus at Labraunda: Spolia in medias res
Conclusion: Mixed Re-Views of Old Texts in New Buildings
5. Erasure: [[Damnatio Memoriae]] or Conscious Uncoupling?
Unnaming the Gods
Violence against Statues
Heads or Tails?
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Ambiguous Afterlives
Violence against Inscriptions
Damnatio Memoriae
Beyond Damnatio Memoriae
Selective Erasures
Identity Crisis at Aphrodisias
Labraunda: A Rasura Out of Place
A Tale of Two Temples at Aizanoi: Artemis in Absentia
Roll of the Dice at Antioch ad Cragum
Indiscriminate Erasure and Destruction
Reverse Graffiti at the Korykian Cave Clifftop Temple
Breaking the Past at Pisidian Antioch?
Conclusion: Epigraphic Unnamings and a Fresh Start
6. Conclusion: Unepigraphic Readings
Reading at the Temple of Augustus at Ankara Once More
An Archaeology of Reading
Spolia: Breaking the Monolith
Word and Image: Inscriptions and Statues
Land, Men, and Gods
Epigraphy: A New Direction
Bibliography
Index
