The Kibyra-Olbasa region, in the uplands of south-west Anatolia, was home to a mixture of people - Kabalians, Milyans, Pisidians and others - while the city of Kibyra spoke four languages: Lydian, Solymian, Pisidian and Greek. This volume presents (with text, translations and brief commentary) some 160 ancient stones and inscriptions recorded by the late Alan Hall in 1984 and 1985 which attest to the influence of the Hellenistic and Roman kingdoms. Over one hundred are previously unpublished, others fully revised. A companion volume is being prepared by G H R Horsley and R A Kearsley.

A complete geographical and thematic overview of the village in an antiquity and its role in the rise of Christianity. The volume begins with a “state-of-question” introduction by Thomas Robinson, assessing the interrelation of the village and city with the rise of early Christianity. Alan Cadwallader then articulates a methodology for future New Testament studies on this topic, employing a series of case studies to illustrate the methodological issues raised. From there contributors explore three areas of village life in different geographical areas, by means of a series of studies, written by experts in each discipline. They discuss the ancient near east (Egypt and Israel), mainland and Isthmian Greece, Asia Minor, and the Italian Peninsula. This geographic focus sheds light upon the villages associated with the biblical cities (Israel; Corinth; Galatia; Ephesus; Philippi; Thessalonica; Rome), including potential insights into the rural nature of the churches located there. A final section of thematic studies explores central issues of local village life (indigenous and imperial cults, funerary culture, and agricultural and economic life).

In Persecution in 1 Peter, Travis B. Williams offers a comprehensive and detailed socio-historical investigation into the nature of persecution in 1 Peter, situating the epistle against the backdrop of conflict management in first-century CE Asia Minor.

This work is the first complete corpus of Greek inscriptions issued by city institutions in honour of their female citizens and foreigners, with the exclusion of Hellenistic queens and women belonging to families of the Roman magistrates. The corpus lists 1131 women fulfilling such criteria. The Greek texts are accompanied by lemmata, English translations and relevant commentaries. Based on the collected evidence, the authors analyse the phenomenon of honorific inscriptions for women as an important symptom of change of citizen mentality. Pointing to the political context in which such honours were bestowed, the phrasing of the texts, character of praiseworthy actions, and the fact that these honours were carved in stone and set up in conspicuous places in cities all reflect what the male part of the city populace thought about women in general and their presence in public spaces in particular. The book is a helpful resource for all those interested in ancient history, social history, and gender studies.

The Roman Empire was based on law, and it was vital for rulers and ruled that laws should be understood. They were often given permanent form in stone or bronze. This book transcribes, translates, and fully illustrates with photographs, the inscription (more than 155 lines, in its damaged state) that carries the regulations drawn up over nearly two centuries for the customs dues of the rich province of Asia (western Turkey). The regulations, taken from Roman archives, were set up in Greek in Ephesus, and the book provides a rendering of the text back into Latin. The damaged text is hard to restore and to interpret. Six scholars offer line-by-line commentary, and five essays bring out its significance, from the Gracchi to Nero, for Rome's government and changing attitudes towards provincial subjects, for the historical geography of the Empire, for its economic history, and for the social life of Roman officials.

The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity is the first comprehensive reference book covering every aspect of history, culture, religion, and life in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East (including the Persian Empire and Central Asia) between the mid-3rd and the mid-8th centuries AD, the era now generally known as Late Antiquity. This period saw the re-establishment of the Roman Empire, its conversion to Christianity and its replacement in the West by Germanic kingdoms, the continuing Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Persian Sassanian Empire, and the rise of Islam. Consisting of over 1.5 million words in more than 5,000 A-Z entries, and written by more than 400 contributors, it is the long-awaited middle volume of a series, bridging a significant period of history between those covered by the acclaimed Oxford Classical Dictionary and The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. The scope of the Dictionary is broad and multi-disciplinary; across the wide geographical span covered (from Western Europe and the Mediterranean as far as the Near East and Central Asia), it provides succinct and pertinent information on political history, law, and administration; military history; religion and philosophy; education; social and economic history; material culture; art and architecture; science; literature; and many other areas. Drawing on the latest scholarship, and with a formidable international team of advisers and contributors, The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity aims to establish itself as the essential reference companion to a period that is attracting increasing attention from scholars and students worldwide.

A study of public benefactions by elite individuals to their communities in Roman Asia Minor.

The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas is the first modern collection of studies on the most important aspects of the Acts of Thomas, an early Christian kind of novel, which was originally written either in Greek or Syriac. The volume starts with the memoirs of the Altmeister Fre Klijn regarding his own role in the study of the Acts. He is followed by an analysis of the elusive phenomenon of Thomas Christianity. The major part of the book studies various aspects and passages of the Acts: narrative strategies, the heavenly palace, factors of plot, the famous Hymn of the Pearl, the serpent, women, and the much-debated connection of Thomas with India. As a kind of summary of the results of some of our previous investigations, the penultimate chapter takes a fresh look at the authors, place, time and readership of the major Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. As has become customary, the volume is rounded off by a bibliography and a detailed index.

Historians have long wondered at the improbable rise of the Attalids of Pergamon after 188 BCE. The Roman-brokered Settlement of Apameia offered a new map – a brittle framework for sovereignty in Anatolia and the eastern Aegean. What allowed the Attalids to make this map a reality? This uniquely comprehensive study of the political economy of the kingdom rethinks the impact of Attalid imperialism on the Greek polis and the multicultural character of the dynasty's notorious propaganda. By synthesizing new findings in epigraphy, archaeology, and numismatics, it shows the kingdom for the first time from the inside. The Pergamene way of ruling was a distinctively non-coercive and efficient means of taxing and winning loyalty. Royal tax collectors collaborated with city and village officials on budgets and minting, while the kings utterly transformed the civic space of the gymnasium. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The Tower of Babel: The Cultural History of Our Ancestors reveals our shared ancestry as never before! Many are familiar with the Biblical account of Babel, but after the dispersal, there was a void beyond Biblical history until empires like Rome and Greece arose. Now, discover the truth of these people groups and their civilizations that spread across the earth and trace their roots back to Babel as well as to the sons and grandsons of Noah. Many of today’s scholars write off what occurred at the Tower of Babel as mythology and deny that it was a historical event. Beginning with the Biblical accounts, author Bodie Hodge researched ancient texts, critical clues, and rare historic records to help solve the mystery of what became of the failed builders of Babel. For the purpose of defending the Bible, Hodge presents these and other vital historical facts surrounding this much-debated event. Teens and older can use this layman’s reference for Biblical classes, ancient history, apologetics training, and to realize their own cultural connection to the Bible.