medieval worlds. Uses of the Past in Times of Transition: Forgetting, Using and Discrediting the Past & Approaches to Global Epigraphy. Volume 10 (2019).
CONTENTS INCLUDE
Creating an »Orthodox« Past: Georgian Hagiography and the Construction of a Denominational Identity
Emma Loosley Leeming
In the early Middle Ages, Georgia consisted of two kingdoms. The western part was called Egrisi by the local inhabitants, and Lazica by the Byzantines and to the east of the Likhi range of mountains was Kartli, known as Iberia to outsiders. Egrisi was ruled from Constantinople for much of this period with vassal overlords, but Kartli was harder to control and its leaders often played the Byzantine and Persian Empires off against each other in order to maintain some autonomy over their territories. Until the early seventh century Kartli was under the religious jurisdiction of the Armenian Catholicos and officially non-Chalcedonian (miaphysite), but at the Council of Dvin in 610 the Kartvelians rejected Armenian ecclesiastical authority and declared an autocephalous Georgian Church. This new Church joined the Chalcedonian fold and accepted the authority of the patriarch of Constantinople.One of the defining events of Georgian ecclesiastical history is the arrival of the Thirteen (As)Syrian Fathers in Kartli in the sixth century. The vitae of these shadowy figures and their origins and doctrinal beliefs are still rigorously disputed today. The information given (or deliberately obscured) in eighth and ninth century accounts of the (As)Syrian Fathers is crucial for our understanding of how Kartvelian confessional identity evolved and was conflated with ideas of Kartvelian nationhood. This paper will explore the construction of Kartvelian national identity through the lens of ecclesiastical history and examine how past events, in particular the narrative of the (As)Syrian Fathers, were deliberately obfuscated in the quest to create an »Orthodox‹ past.
Negotiating the Roman Past in Later Tenth-century Armenia
Tim Greenwood
The Byzantine expansion eastwards into historic regions of Armenia in the second half of the tenth century and the Armenian responses to that expansion both receive modest coverage in Armenian historical narratives. Yet several works of Armenian historical literature were composed during this period which do not comment directly upon present circumstances but which, nevertheless, can be examined for what they reveal about the attitudes of their compilers. This study examines how historic Roman-Armenian encounters were represented in three such works. Despite their proximate dating, they attest a range of perspectives. The anonymous author of the History of Tarōn reimagined the conversion of Armenia at the start of the fourth century by Saint Gregory the Illuminator, highlighting the contribution of the metropolitan of Caesarea in the establishment of sees, monasteries and martyria across the region. A similar process was underway at the time following the Byzantine annexation of Tarōn and the attendant reconfiguration of the ecclesiological landscape. The History of Uxtanēs bishop of Sebasteia was completed between 980 and 989 CE by an Armenian orthodox bishop and projects historic antagonism between Romans and Armenians. Uxtanēs sharpened the negative presentation of several Roman emperors from Antiquity by applying derogatory epithets usually reserved in Armenian literature for oppressive Persian Šahanšahs. At the same time, Armenian leaders were projected as compromising their autonomy. Uxtanēs also incorporated much-altered traditions about Saint Theodore Tiron and the Forty Martyrs of Sebasteia, implying that they were Armenian Christians persecuted for their faith. Finally, while the Universal History of Step‘anos Tarōnec‘i offers an ambiguous portrait of the current Byzantine emperor, Basil II, the writer’s antipathy is revealed through his hostile depiction of Constans II whose engagement with Armenia in the middle of the seventh century prefigured that of Basil II in several respects. In all three compositions, the Roman past was used as a mirror to comment upon the Byzantine present.
Archaeological Contexts of Inscriptions in the Private Sphere: The Mosaic Inscriptions of a villa rustica in Skala/Cephalonia
Elisabeth Rathmayr and Veronika Scheibelreiter-Gail
The article deals with inscriptions on the floor mosaics of a residence in Skala on the island of Cephalonia. The archaeological context of the inscriptions, their representation and legibility as well as their contents will be addressed. In at least two rooms, inscriptions have been combined with depictions that give insights into the beliefs of the residents. One shows the personification of Envy, depicted as a damnatus ad bestias, which was common in amphitheatrical scenes on mosaics in imperial times, another a sacrifice of three animals (trittoia), which is only seldom depicted and also rarely documented in epigraphy and literature; to date, the picture in the villa of Skala together with a mention in a play by Aristophanes are the only sources for this sacrifice in the private realm of a house. Moreover, the depiction probably refers to a real sacrifice made on the outskirts of the villa. The commissioner of the inscribed mosaics was certainly the homeowner, who is recorded by his name Krateros in two mosaic inscriptions in the house. He was probably identical with Lucius Pompeius Krateros Cassianus, a member of a third-century-AD elite family from Elis known from inscriptions found in Olympia. Although both the figurative representations on the mosaic floors and the length of the inscriptions are unusual, they have received too little attention so far. The nearest parallels are to be found in the mosaic art of Patras, only a short distance away across the sea, where a whole series of comparable mosaics came to light, especially during emergency excavations. The mixture of »Greek« and »Roman« in the depictions of the mosaics in the villa in Skala could be explained by a mosaicists’ workshop from Patras, a Roman colony founded by Augustus, where such depictions might have developed.