No XXI/2 (December 2015)

The art of the British Celts. A critical review

The article discusses Celtic art in pre-Roman Britain. The author of the article disagrees with the opinion expressed by R.G. Collingwood and certain other scholars that the art of British Celts, being fragile, linear and abstract, having shallow social foundations (since it was the art of the nobility), was doomed to decline and extinction, even if the Roman conquest of Britain had not taken place. The sources referred to in the article demonstrate that Celtic art, whose intrinsic feature was that bent for poetic abstraction which was typical of Celtic mentality in general, had great potential for growth that lay dormant during the Roman period. The view that the artistic style of British Celts possessed creative capacity which remained hidden under Roman reign is confirmed by the Celtic art’s revival in medieval Britain during the Anglo-Saxon domination.

Gaias Rechtsstreit und Caracallas Alexandria-Aufenthalt. Zum Kontext des Privatbriefs P.Oxy. 43/3094

The article offers a detailed interpretation of the private letter P.Oxy. 43/3094. This letter deals with a lawsuit which was carried on before three governors (M. Aurelius Septimius Heraclitus, L. Valerius Datu and Iulius Basilianus). A chronological reconciliation with the events and implications of Caracalla’s journey to Alexandria in the winter of 215/16 AD enables a detailed reconstruction of the course of the lawsuit, which lasted approximately three years. Furthermore the paper discusses the meaning of ὑπόμνημα in a juridical and administrative context.

Terminology of salt in Ancient Greek

This study addresses for the first time in the dedicated literature, the lexical reflexes of salt in ancient Greek, as part of an extended research project. An inventory was realized as comprehensively as possible on grammatical categories (nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs), derived from nominal compound ἁλ (ἅλς, ἁλὁς) in the initial and secondary position, emphasizing a majority of adjectives and a wide semantic spectrum (e.g. physical world, exploitation, food consumption and conservation, social and economic contexts, symbolic uses). This lexical variety indicates the crucial role of salt and sea in the development of Greek civilization.

Dall’“Epiclassico” di Franz Wieacker al’“Esplosione di Tardoantico” di Andrea Giardina

The late antiquity in modern historiography has generated two schools of thought: one side is seen as a time of slow transition to the Middle Ages, the other is regarded as a time of crisis and decline. Franz Wieacker spoke of period “epiclassic“ and Andrea Giardina has commented the explosive and sudden interest of researchers in the last thirty years.