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Terms such as "handicap/disability" are absent from ancient thinking, and disabled people are not at all a focus of interest for the ancient authors. The attitude of an individual and of a society towards deformity is a cultural product informed by a particular value system (Garland 1992), and this is especially true for the perception and treatment of children born with malformations. The rejection of "defective" infants after birth was a practice thought morally acceptable in the Greek and Roman world. Conversely, Christian authors appear to have sided with their Jewish counterparts in challenging the morality of abortion, exposure, and infanticide under any circumstances. The late imperial laws partly transposed this new orientation. This paper will try to understand the Greek, Roman and Christian discourse on physical malformation and its actual impact on the daily life of adults and children. Above all, it will focus on the changes that have occurred in the different cultural passages, but nonetheless on the aspects that have remained constant over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a reading of the parable of the Dishonest Steward from the perspective of Greco-Roman status concern. It observes that the parable has a long and complicated history of interpretation. The different approaches in the reading of the parable reveal the unresolved quest in scholarship to establish a reading of the parable that takes into account both the steward's act of generosity towards his master's debtors and the praise that follows this action. This article proposes the Greco-Roman status concern as a framework for understanding the meaning of the parable in its original context. Status concern was the spirit of tenacity in maintaining one's status and honour against all odds characteristic of Greco-Roman honour and shame culture. The article argues that when the parable is read within its literary context, it reveals that at the heart of Jesus' message in the parable is the theme of persistence as an attribute of authentic discipleship. This understanding of the parable resonates with the entrenched Greco-Roman spirit of status concern. The interpretation would also have been relevant to Luke's Greco-Roman auditors living on the periphery of the Greco-Roman culture with the constant pressures to conform to the ethos of the larger social context. The steward's resolve to maintain his status even in the most difficult circumstances provided a paradigm for those Christ-followers to remain steadfast in the faith against all odds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents how abortion was received in the ancient world. As can be deduced from the title itself, this “crime”, as perceived by Christianity, was accepted, if we refer to the Greco-Roman world, including philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, as it was the state’s interest that should be put above the life value or the Stoics, who did not attribute any rights to the embryo, considering it a component part of the mother. Despite these views, there were others who opposed abortion, including among the great physicians of antiquity, among Roman poets or jurists, but even in this case it was not the life of the foetus that was defended, but, in general, the rights of the pater familias. An attitude of condemnation of abortion, from the same perspective, we notice in the Holy Scripture, in which only a single text explicitly refers to abortion (Ex 21, 22-25). However, as St. John Paul II states, the condemnation of abortion is implicitly included in the commandment “Do not kill”. In addition, there are numerous biblical texts that emphasize the value of the unborn life as a work of God. Also, there are provided attitudes towards abortion in the extra-biblical Judaism, apocryphal writings, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and other laws of Ancient Orient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the reception of Gellner’s historical sociology among students of pre-modern societies and the Greco-Roman world in particular and asks how his thought is still relevant to the field. This involves discussion of recent trends in world history as well as new comparative work on ancient state and elite formation. A main contention of the paper is that Gellner’s sociological reading of Plato and his politics may be one of the most interesting modern interpretations of the ancient Greek thinker on offer and one which can serve as a fruitful framework for the comparative study of complex, pre-industrial societies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The image of the classical Mediterranean environment of the Greeks and Romans had a formative influence on the art, literature, and historical perception of modern Europe and America. How closely does is this image congruent with the ancient environment as it in reality existed? In particular, how forested was the ancient Mediterranean world, was there deforestation, and if so, what were its effects? The consensus of historians, geographers, and other scholars from the mid-nineteenth century through the first three quarters of the twentieth century was that human activities had depleted the forests to a major extent and caused severe erosion. My research confirmed this general picture. Since then, revisionist historians have questioned these conclusions, maintaining instead that little environmental damage was done to forests and soils in ancient Greco-Roman times. In a reconsideration of the question, this paper looks at recent scientific work providing proxy evidence for the condition of forests at various times in ancient history. I look at three scientific methodologies, namely anthracology, palynology, and computer modeling. Each of these avenues of research offers support for the concept of forest change, both in abundance and species composition, and episodes of deforestation and erosion, and confirms my earlier work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dreams are often used to promote religion, or to propagate an interpretation of religion, or to bring political ideas to the fore. A dream can be used as an indication of divine help and thus it is a perfect tool for promoting ideas. Dreams figure in religious propaganda in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions (e.g., in Osama bin Laden's tapes). In classical literature, we find many kings, emperors, or generals who had visions or dreams, especially in association with their accession to power. It is the thesis of this article that in the encounter between Jewish (-Christian) cultures and the Hellenistic world dreams were shared as possible means of divine communication. An important example is the dream in Acts 16,9-10, the most Hellenistic dream of the New Testament. This dream is part of a larger unit, Paul's new move from Asia to Europe. I will try to show that the author of Acts combines here the story of Aeneas (e.g., as told by Virgil) and the story of Jesus, an interesting merging of two cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Émile Durkheim, a student of classical education, studied altruistic suicide through an exploration of ancient culture. He associated the concept to civilizations in which people have not reached a sufficient degree of individuation and held that the Greek and Roman civilizations had already developed and were not strongly integrated, a precondition for frequent altruistic suicide. Yet, studies of Greeks and Romans show ample examples. Loyalty and devotion appear to be especially powerful motives. It is concluded that altruistic suicide had its place inside the Greco-Roman world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]