by Paulo Barata
and Byzantine Empire.
Though declining slowly by the years, Syracuse maintained the status of capital of the Roman government of Sicily and seat of the praetor. It remained an important port for trade between the Eastern and the Western parts of the Empire.
Christianity spread in the city through the efforts of Paul of Tarsus and Saint Marziano, the first bishop of the city, who made it one of the main centres of proselytism in the West. In the age of persecutions massive catacombs were carved, whose size is second only to those of Rome.
Tiber
River in Italy, crosses Rome
The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing 406 kilometers (252 mi) through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. The river has achieved lasting fame as the main watercourse of the city of Rome, founded on its eastern banks.
The river rises at Mount Fumaiolo in central Italy and flows in a generally southerly direction past Perugia and Rome to meet the sea at Ostia. Popularly called flavus ("the blond"), in reference to the yellowish color of its water, the Tiber has heavily advanced at the mouth by about 3 km since Roman times, leaving the ancient port of Ostia Antica 6 km inland.
Tiberias
City in Galilee
Tiberias is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Tiberias was founded sometime around 20 CE in Herodian Tetrarchy of Galilee and Peraea by the Roman Jewish client king Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great.
Herod Antipas made it the capital of his realm in the Galilee. Tiberias had a Jewish majority, living alongside a heterogeneous population. It was named in honor of the Roman Emperor Tiberius.
In the days of Antipas, the more religious (as opposed to Hellenized) Jews refused to settle there; the presence of a cemetery rendered the site ritually unclean. Antipas settled many non-Jews there from rural Galilee and other parts of his domains in order to populate his new capital, and built a palace on the acropolis. The prestige of Tiberias was so great that the sea of Galilee soon came to be named the sea of Tiberias; however, what would now be called Jewish zealots continued to call it 'Yam Ha-Kinerett', its traditional name. The city was governed by a city council of 600 with a committee of 10 until 44 CE when a Roman Procurator was set over the city after the death of Agrippa I.
In 61 CE Agrippa II annexed the city to his kingdom whose capital was Caesarea Phillippi. During the First Jewish-Roman War Josephus Flavius took control of the city and destroyed Herod's palace, but was able to stop the city from being pillaged by his Jewish army. Where most other cities in the Province of Judaea were razed, Tiberias was spared because its inhabitants remained loyal to Rome.
It became a mixed city after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE; with Judaea subdued, the southern Jewish population migrated to Galilee.
Thrace
Region between the Danube and the Black Sea
The Odrysian kingdom of Thrace became a Roman client kingdom c. 20 BC, while the Greek city-states on the Black Sea coast came under Roman control, first as civitates foederatae ("allied" cities with internal autonomy). After the death of the Thracian king Rhoemetalces III in 46 AD and an unsuccessful anti-Roman revolt, the kingdom was annexed as the Roman province of Thracia.
The new province encompassed not only the lands of the former Odrysian realm, but also the north-eastern portion of the province of Macedonia as well as the islands of Thasos, Samothrace and Imbros in the Aegean Sea. To the north, Thracia bordered the province of Moesia Inferior; initially, the provincial boundary ran at a line north of the Haeumus Mountains, including the cities of Nicopolis ad Istrum and Marcianopolis in Thracia.
Troy
Mythical city-state in Asia Minor
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, south of the southwest end of the Dardanelles / Hellespont and northwest of Mount Ida.
It is best known for being the setting of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer.
A new city called Ilium was founded on the site in the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the establishment of Constantinople and declined gradually during the Byzantine era.
Tyre
City in Roman Syria
Tyre juts out from the coast of the Mediterranean and is located about 80 km (50 mi) south of Beirut. The name of the city means "rock" after the rocky formation on which the town was originally built.
The commerce of the ancient world was gathered into the warehouses of Tyre. The city was particularly known for the production of a rare and extraordinarily expensive sort of purple dye, produced from the murex shellfish, known as Tyrian purple. This color was, in many cultures of ancient times, reserved for the use of royalty, or at least nobility.
Ezekiel states that God caused Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Tyre because its residents gloated over the fall of Jerusalem. The Tyrians held off Nebuchadnezzar's siege for thirteen years, resupplying the walled island city through its two harbors. In 332 BC, the city was conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months in which he built the causeway from the mainland to within a hundred meters of the island, where the sea floor sloped abruptly downwards. The presence of the causeway affected local sea currents causing sediment accumulation, which made the land connection permanent to this day and transformed the erstwhile Tyre island into a peninsula.
In 126 BC, Tyre regained its independence (from the Seleucids) and was allowed to keep much of its independence when the area became a Roman province in 64 BC.
Tyre continued to maintain much of its commercial importance until the Christian era.
Via Maris
Trade route linking Egypt to Syria and Babylon
Via Maris ("the Way of the Sea") is the modern name for an ancient trade route, dating from the early Bronze Age, linking Egypt with the northern empires of Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia - modern day Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria.
Its earlier name was "Way of the Philistines", a reference to a passageway through the Philistine Plain (which today consists of Israel's southern coastal plain and the Gaza Strip). From the Philistine Plain, the Way continues north through the Sharon. At Dor (near modern Hadera) the Way branches into two Ways - one running along the Mediterranean coast, and the other following an inland route through Megiddo, the Jezreel Valley, the Sea of Galilee and Dan.
Together with the King's Highway, the Via Maris was one of the major trade routes connecting Egypt and the Levant with Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The Via Maris was crossed by other trading routes, so that one could travel from Africa to Europe or from Asia to Africa.
Via Ostiense
Road that linked Ostia to Rome
The Via Ostiensis was an important road in ancient Rome. It ran west 30 km from the city of Rome to its important sea port of Ostia Antica, from which it took its name.
The road began near the Forum Boarium, ran between the Aventine and the Tiber River along its left (eastern) bank, and left the city's Servian Walls through the Porta Trigemina.
In the late Roman Empire, trade suffered under an economic crisis, and Ostia declined as an important port. With the accompanying growth of importance of the Via Portuensis from the time of Constantine onwards, that of the Via Ostiensis correspondingly decreased.
Zion
Mount in Jerusalem
Zion is a place name often used as a synonym for Jerusalem. It commonly referred to a specific mountain near Jerusalem (Mount Zion), on which stood a Jebusite fortress of the same name that was conquered by David and was named the City of David. The term Tzion came to designate the area of Jerusalem where the fortress stood, and later became a metonym for Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem and generally, the World to Come.
Units of Measurement
Aureus
Monetary unit, of Roman origin, eqv. 25 denarii
The aureus ("golden") was a gold coin of ancient Rom
e valued at 25 silver denarii.
The aureus was regularly issued from the 1st century BC to the beginning of the 4th century AD, when it was replaced by the solidus. The aureus is about the same size as the denarius, but is heavier due to the higher density of gold.
Denarius
Monetary unit, of Roman origin, eqv. 4 sestertii
In the Roman currency system, the denarius was a small silver coin first minted in 211 BC.
It was the most common coin produced for circulation but was slowly debased until its replacement by the antoninianus. The word denarius is derived from the Latin denare "containing ten", as its value was 10 asses.
Drachma
Monetary unit, of Greek origin
Drachma, was an ancient Greek currency unit found in many Greek city states from Classical times on, as well as in many of Alexander's successor states and South-West Asian kingdoms during the Hellenistic era.
After Alexander the Great's conquests, the name drachma was used in many of the Hellenistic kingdoms in the Middle East, including the Ptolemaic kingdom in Alexandria.
Gold/Silver Talent
Monetary unit, eqv. a 58,9 kg of gold/silver
League
Unit of distance, eqv. 2,22 km
Mina
Monetary unit, of Greek origin, eqv. a 50 shekels
Sestertius
Monetary unit, of Roman origin
Shekel
Monetary unit, of Babylonian origin
Shekel, is any of several ancient units of weight or of currency. The earliest shekels were a unit of weight, used as other units such as grams and troy ounces for trading before the advent of coins. Coins were invented by the early Anatolian traders who stamped their marks to avoid weighing each time used. Early coins were money stamped with an official seal to certify their weight.
The shekel was common among western Semitic peoples. Moabites, Edomites and Phoenicians used the shekel, the latter as coins and weights. Punic coinage was based on the shekel, a heritage from Canaanite ancestors.
Silver Tyrian shekels were the medium of payment for the Temple tax in Jerusalem, and have been suggested as a possible coin used as the "30 pieces of silver" in the New Testament.
Stadium
Unit of distance, eqv. 185 m
Talent
Unit of mass, eqv. weight of water in an amphora
Tyrian Shekel
Monetary unit, only coinage accept in the Temple
Judaean Nomenclature
Ben
Son
Essenes
Religious group
The Essenes were a sect of Second Temple Judaism that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE which some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests. Being much fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees (the other two major sects at the time), the Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to asceticism, voluntary poverty, daily immersion, and abstinence from worldly pleasures, including (for some groups) celibacy. Many separate but related religious groups of that era shared similar mystic, eschatological, messianic, and ascetic beliefs. These groups are collectively referred to by various scholars as the "Essenes." Josephus records that Essenes existed in large numbers, and thousands lived throughout Roman Judæa.
Dybbuk
Possessing spirit
Hasmonean
Dynasty of Judaea, suppressed by the romans
Kashrut
Dietary laws
Kohanim
Priests
Kohen is the Hebrew word for priest. Jewish Kohanim are traditionally believed and halachically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the Biblical Aaron.
During the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, Kohanim performed the daily and holiday (Yom Tov) duties of sacrificial offerings.
Korban
Temple treasure
The term offering as found in the Hebrew Bible in relation to the worship of Ancient Israel, whether for an animal or other offering.
Other terms include animal sacrifice (zevah) traditionally peace offering and olah, traditionally "burnt offering."
Mosaic Law
Set of rules and commands written by Moses
The Mosaic Covenant or Sinaitic Covenant refers to the biblical covenant between God and the Children of Israel and their proselytes. The establishment and stipulations of the Mosaic Covenant are recorded in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, which are collectively called the Torah and sometimes referred to as the Law of Moses or Mosaic Law.
Messianics
Religious group, followers of Jesus Christ
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament. "Christian" derives from the Koine Greek word Christ, a translation of the Biblical Hebrew term Messiah.
Central to the Christian faith is the gospel, the teaching that humans have hope for salvation through the message and work of Jesus, and particularly, his atoning death on the cross and resurrection. Christians also believe Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Bible.
Most Christians believe in the doctrine of the Trinity ("tri-unity"), a description of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This includes the vast majority of churches in Christianity.
Nasi
President of the Sanhedrin
A Hebrew title meaning prince in Biblical Hebrew, Prince (of the Sanhedrin) in Mishnaic Hebrew, or president in Modern Hebrew.
During the Second Commonwealth (c. 530 BCE - 70 CE), the nasi was the highest-ranking member and president of the Sanhedrin or Assembly, including when it sat as a criminal court. The position was created in c. 191 BCE when the Sanhedrin lost confidence in the ability of the High Priest to serve as its head. The Romans recognized the nasi as Patriarch of the Jews, and required all Jews to pay him a tax for the upkeep of that office, which ranked highly in the Roman official hierarchy.
Nazarene
Denomination for Christians or Essenes
In Acts, Paul of Tarsus is called, "a ringleader of the sect of the Nazoreans," thus identifying Nazorean with Christian. Although both "Christianios" (by Gentiles) and "Nazarenes" (by Jews) appear to have been current in the 1st century, and both are recorded in the New Testament, the Gentile name "Christian" appears to have won out against "Nazarene" in usage among Christians themselves after the 1st century.
Around 331 Eusebius records that from the name Nazareth, Christ was called a Nazoraean, and that in earlier centuries Christians, were once called Nazarenes.
Nisan
Month of April
Pesach
Religious festival (Passover)
Passover is a Jewish festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt. Passover begins on the 15th day of the month of Nisan in the Jewish calendar, which is in spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and is celebrated for seven or eight days. It is one of the most widely observed Jewish holidays.
Pharisees
Religious group
The Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty (140 - 37 BCE).
Conflicts between the Pharisees and the Sadducees took place in the context of much broader and longstanding social and religious conflicts among Jews dating back to the Babylonian captivity and exacerbated by the Roman conquest. One conflict was class, between the wealthy and the poor, as the Sadducees included mainly the priestly and aristocratic families. Another conflict was cultural, between those who favored Hellenization and those who resisted it. A third was juridico-religious, between those who emphasized the importance of the Second Temple with its cultic rites and services, and those who emphasized the importance of other Mosaic laws and prophetic values. A fourth point o
f conflict, specifically religious, involved different interpretations of the Torah and how to apply it to current Jewish life, with the Sadducees recognizing only the Written Torah and rejecting doctrines such as the Oral Torah and the Resurrection of the Dead.
Josephus, himself a Pharisee, claimed that the Pharisees received the backing and goodwill of the common people, apparently in contrast to the more elite Sadducees. Pharisees claimed prophetic or Mosaic authority for their interpretation of Jewish laws, while the Sadducees represented the authority of the priestly privileges and prerogatives established since the days of Solomon
Rabban
Doctor of the Mosaic Law, sage
Jewish title awarded to the most learned doctors of the Mosaic Law, meaning "Our Master".
Saducees
Religious group
The Sadducees were a sect or group of Jews that were active in Judea during the Second Temple period, starting from the second century BCE through the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.
The sect was identified by Josephus with the upper social and economic echelon of Judean society. As a whole, the sect fulfilled various political, social, and religious roles, including maintaining the Temple. The sect is believed to have become extinct sometime after the destruction of Herod's Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, but it has been speculated that the later Karaites may have had some roots or connections with old Sadducee views.
Sanhedrin
Supreme Council
The Great Sanhedrin was made up of a Chief/Prince/Leader called Nasi (at some times this position may have been held by the High Priest), a vice chief justice (Av Beit Din), and sixty-nine general members.
In the Second Temple period, the Great Sanhedrin met in the Hall of Hewn Stones in the Temple in Jerusalem. The court convened every day except festivals and Shabbat.
Seder
Ritual feast
The Passover Seder, is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover/Pesach. It is conducted on the evenings of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar. This corresponds to late March or April in the Gregorian calendar.
The Seder is a ritual performed by a community or by multiple generations of a family, involving a retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt.
Shabbat
Day of rest
Shabbat is the Jewish day of rest and seventh day of the week, on which they remember the traditional creation of the heavens and the earth in six days and the Exodus of the Hebrews, and look forward to a future Messianic Age.
Shabbat observance entails refraining from work activities, often with great rigor, and engaging in restful activities to honor the day. The longstanding traditional Jewish position is that unbroken seventh-day Shabbat originated among the Jewish people, as their first and most sacred institution, though some suggest an obscure later, naturalistic origin.
According to halakha, Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night.
Sheol
The land of the dead, the land of nothingness
She'ol, translated as "grave", "pit", or "abode of the dead", is the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible's underworld, a place of darkness to which all the dead go, both the righteous and the unrighteous, regardless of the moral choices made in life, a place of stillness and darkness cut off from God.
Sicarii
Radical group, sect of assassins
Sicarii is a term applied, in the decades immediately preceding the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, (probably) to an extremist splinter group of the Jewish Zealots, who attempted to expel the Romans and their partisans from Judaea.
The Sicarii carried sicae, or small daggers, concealed in their cloaks, hence their name. At public gatherings, they pulled out these daggers to attack Romans or Roman sympathizers, Herodians and wealthy Jews comfortable with Roman rule, lamenting ostentatiously after the deed to blend into the crowd to escape detection. Literally, Sicarii meant "dagger-men".
Victims of the Sicarii included Jonathan the High Priest, though it is possible that his murder was orchestrated by the Roman governor Felix.
At the beginning of the Jewish Revolt of 66 CE, the Sicarii gained access to Jerusalem and committed a series of atrocities, in order to force the population to war. In one account, given in the Talmud, they destroyed the city's food supply so that the people would be forced to fight against the Roman siege instead of negotiating peace.
After the fall of the Temple in 70 CE, the sicarii became the dominant revolutionary Jewish party, scattered abroad. Josephus particularly associates them with the mass suicide at Masada.
Torah
The five books of Moses, sacred book
Torah ("Instruction", "Teaching") is a central concept in the Jewish tradition. It has a range of meanings: it can most specifically mean the first five books of the Tanakh, it can mean this, plus the rabbinic commentaries on it, it can mean the continued narrative from Genesis to the end of the Tanakh, it can even mean the totality of Jewish teaching and practice.
Common to all these meanings, Torah consists of the foundational narrative of the Jewish people: their call into being by their God, their trials and tribulations, and their covenant with their God which involves following a way of life (halakha) embodied in a set of religious
obligations and civil laws.
In its most specific meaning, it consists of the first five books of the Tanakh written in Biblical Hebrew.
Zealots
Religious radical group
Zealotry was originally a political movement in 1st century Second Temple Judaism which sought to incite the people of Judaea Province to rebel against the Roman Empire and expel it from the Holy Land by force of arms, most notably during the Great Jewish Revolt (66-70).
Josephus states that there were three main Jewish sects at this time, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. The Zealots were a "fourth sect", founded by Judas of Galilee (also called Judas of Gamala) and Zadok the Pharisee in the year 6 against Quirinius' tax reform.
The Zealots had the leading role in the Jewish Revolt of 66. They succeeded in taking over Jerusalem, and held it until 70, when the son of Roman Emperor Vespasian, Titus, retook the city and destroyed Herod's Temple during the destruction of Jerusalem.
Zealots who engaged in violence against other Jews were called the Sicarii They raided Jewish habitations and killed Jews they considered apostate and collaborators, while also urging Jews to fight Romans and other Jews for the cause. Josephus paints a very bleak picture of their activities as they instituted what he characterized as a murderous "reign of terror" prior to the Jewish Temple's destruction.
Greco-Roman Nomenclature
Acropolis
Highest point in predominantly Greek cities
An acropolis is a settlement, especially a citadel, built upon an area of elevated ground‚ frequently a hill with precipitous sides, chosen for purposes of defense. In many parts of the world, acropoleis became the nuclei of large cities of classical antiquity, such as ancient Rome, which in more recent times grew up on the surrounding lower ground, such as modern Rome.
The word acropolis literally in Greek means "city on the extremity" and though associated primarily with the Greek cities Athens, Argos, Thebes, and Corinth (with its Acrocorinth), may be applied generically to all such citadels, including Rome, Jerusalem, Celtic Bratislava, many in Asia Minor, or even Castle Rock in Edinburgh.
The most famous example is the Acropolis of Athens, which, by reason of its historical associations and the several famous buildings erected upon it (most notably the Parthenon), is known without qualification as the Acropolis. Although originating in the mainland of Greece, use of the acropolis model quickly spread to Greek colonies such as the Dorian Lato on Crete during the Archaic Period.
Addenda
Plural of Annex
Agora
&nbs
p; Public square in predominantly Greek cities
The agora was a central spot in ancient Greek city-states. The literal meaning of the word is "gathering place" or "assembly".