Colloquium Brunense-Oenipontanum

Julian Degen (Innsbruck): Alexander and the Ancient Near East: Dialogue and Transformation

With the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander III, also known as the Great, the Mediterranean worlds came in close contact with those of the Near East. Researchers still focus on the perception of cultural differences by the Macedonians and Greeks who joined his expedition. In doing so, they examine hierarchical frameworks of cultural contacts based on Greek and Latin historiography rather than extending their scope to ancient Near Eastern texts. Consequently, scholarship created an image of Alexander as opening the worlds of Asia to the Macedonians and Greeks, with the voices of cultures of the Near East remaining silent. This lecture will strive for a more balanced view by contextualizing the formation of Alexander's empire in a longue durée of ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean history.

Alexander Steiner (Innsbruck): Conceptual Metaphors of Space in Pre-Sargonic Sumerian

A lot has been said already about the Sumerian lexemes for the absolute directions tumumir ‘north’; tumusi-sa2 ‘north’; tumuu5 ‘south’ concerning their conceptual background and emergence. The questions raised by the equation with igi-nim ‘above, north’ and sig ‘below, south’ however has been set aside as a mere synonym. I will argue that these terms can be best explained as Metaphorical Concepts and that the semantic proximity of the terminology itself is a looking-glass at the spatial cognition of Sumerian speakers.

Florian Posselt (Innsbruck): Babylonians, Persians, Greeks: The Conception of the Outer Ocean

The lecture addresses a geographical phenomenon that is extant in Babylonian, Assyrian, Greek, Latin and Persian sources: the idea of an “Ocean-river” that encircles the or one of the several continents that make up the earth’s surface. The lecture tries to argue that this phenomenon that can be substantiated for all of these several different cultures, is not an Anthropologische Konstante – a supracultural phenomenon that developed independently –, but rather that it had its origin in Mesopotamia and was disseminated and transformed in the Assyrian, Greek, Latin and Persian successor cultures.

Matthias Scholler (Graz): Uranius Antoninus and the Subtle Art of Hedging

Towards the end of the reign of Trebonianus Gallus, an alleged usurper took the purple at the Syrian city of Emesa in response to the so-called second Agoge of Shapur I, who had recently taken Antioch. At about the same time, Ameilianus, another usurper, rose against Gallus at the Danube, which may explain Uranius' curious strategy of presenting himself as Αύτοκράτωρ, Καίσαρ and Σεβαστός in provincial currency, while omitting such language in his Latin currency. This paper explores Antoninus' idiosyncratic strategy as a response to not wanting to take a position in a civil war between the other two contenders, while at the same time wanting to be seen as emperor in the conflict with Shapur I.

Clemens Steinwender (Innsbruck): Between the Two Eyes of the World: A Look at the Arabian Peninsula in Late Antiquity

The Arabian Peninsula was an important region during Late Antiquity. Although from a Roman perspective, it was often viewed negatively or just as a source for mercenaries, the Sasanian approach was quite different, as it was an essential cornerstone for their empire. In this talk, the role of the Arabian Peninsula, its inhabitants and influence on the empires will be discussed as well as the transformative processes that shaped Arabia during Late Antiquity.