The Battle of Nicopolis in the work of Constantine the Philosopher (original) (raw)
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The article deals with a noticeably short account about an alleged war waged by the Egyptian king-conqueror of the remote past Sesostris as narrated by Megasthenes in his list of rulers that failed to conquer India before Alexander. The account is quoted at greater length by Strabo (XV. 1.6, p. 686-687) and considerably shorter by Arrian (Ind. 5. 4-6). The king Sesostris approached European Scythia via Caucasian Iberia from Pontus and Thrace but failed to subjugate it and was repulsed by the Scythian king Idanthyrsos as far as Egypt’s eastern frontier. The prototype of the story cannot be precisely identified (the author argued previously that it might be the world history by Theopompus) but is evidently alternative to the account of the wars of the Egyptian king Sesoosis by Hecataeus of Abdera (Diod. I. 55). Taking that Hecataeus wrote as early as 310s B.C. and Megasthenes not before the early 3rd century B.C. one can derive that the latter was reluctant to admit the invasion of Hecataeus’ Sesoosis in India earlier than Alexander, as devaluing his deeds. Besides there is a possibility that Megasthenes was influenced by an Egyptian anti-Ptolemaic scheme: the preponderance of Egypt had once been overthrown in Sesostris’ lifetime but in due course it was restored and so it might happen after the downfall of the Macedonian rule in Egypt. The anti-Ptolemaic trend in Megasthenes’ narrative is easily explained with the contradictions between the Seleucid and the Ptolemaic empire that started in the early 3rd century B.C.
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2020
The coins of the ancient cities are authentic historical sources for their history, economy, culture, religion and politics. The Greek colonies were the earliest cultural and economic centers with urban institutions on the territory of today's Bulgaria. In them, the coinage rejoices in centuries-old traditions. Of the four Hellenic politeie of Apollonia, Messambria, Odessos, and Dionysopolis, which issued their own coins during the late Classical and Hellenistic Ages, the one of Messambria , Dionysopolis , and Apollonia has so far been thoroughly studied. Until recently, the Bulgarian and foreign academic literature lacked a comprehensive and in-depth study of the coinage of Dionysopolis. Until 2014, there were only publications that focused on the certain periods of the urban coinage lasting more than six centuries, or on single specimens of Dionysopolis coins that were available to the authors. An in-depth review of the numismatic literature so far shows fragmentary, anachronistic and difficult to access publications by foreign (mainly Romanian) authors, which creates significant difficulties in working on the problem. The lack of a thorough and comprehensive research (before 2014) on the coinage of Dionysopolis had given the wrong impression of a relatively late as a beginning and modest coinage compared to that of the neighboring Western Pontic towns. The second thesis, to which both foreign and Bulgarian authors adhere, is that after the campaign of the Proconsul of Macedonia Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus in Thrace (72 - 71 BC), during which all the Western Pontic towns were conquered, Dionysopolis ceased its autonomous Hellenistic coinage and after a long hiatus, in 138 AD began its provincial Roman coinage. Over the years, there are many other inaccuracies as well as omissions in the publication of Dionysopolis coins. The incorrect dates of coin issues and misidentification of deities and their attributes depicted on coins are the most common among them. The limited numismatic material available to the authors is the reason for the inaccurate chronological systematization of Dionysopolis coins known to them, as well as for an imprecise analysis of the origin and duration of the Dionysopolis coinage. With the present (second edition) of our research we hope that we have corrected the mentioned inaccuracies and filled in the gaps on the selected problems. The work here presented is a comprehensive study covering all major aspects of coinage of the Western Pontic Dionysopolis. It contains, analyzes and systematizes all hitherto known coin types with their variants, issued during the autonomous and provincial period of the polis. On the grounds of detailed iconographic, stylistic, paleographic and metrological analyses, the relative chronology of coin issues was determined, fully supported by the analysis of the countermarked and overstruck coins of Dionysopolis, as well as by consideration of data from epigraphic texts found in Balchik and its surroundings. The number of coin denominations issued during the pre-Roman and Roman periods of the polis has been established. A lot of obverse and reverse representations and legends have been re-identified and reinterpreted. The periods of activity and hiatus in the activity of the Dionysopolis mint have been re-dated. Many of the hypotheses of earlier researchers working on the problem have been corrected. Dozens of new types, variants and dies have been discovered and released with the present work. A meticulous study of the circulation and distribution of Dionysopolis coins during the considered periods is presented. A detailed catalogue is also included containing the complete metric data, the links between the obverse and reverse dies, the deviation from the blank, the storage of each illustrated specimen and the publication in which the coin type has been initially mentioned. Furthermore, the monograph contains a summary (40 pages) in English, in which all the main aspects of the six-century-long Dionysopolis coinage are presented in a synthesized form. The cumulate, analyzed and systematized numismatic material, introduced into scholarly circulation, can serve as a solid basis for future research. The realization of the present work became possible thanks to the responsiveness and help of many colleagues and friends who assisted me during all stages of the research. My cordial thanks to Prof. Dr. I. Karayotov for the help and trust, to Prof. Dr. I. Yordanov for the valuable advice, to I. Lazarenko from AM - Varna for the assistance. Sincere thanks to Dr. W. Peter from the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences for the photos from their collection of gypsum castings, to R. Encheva - Director of MH - Balchik, to D. Mircheva - Director of MH - Kavarna, to the colleague P. Vassilev from MH - Kavarna, to Dr. Z. Zhekova from RMH - Shumen, to the colleague V. Parushev from RMH - Dobrich for the responsiveness and to the whole Department of History and Archeology at Bishop Konstantin Preslavski Shumen University for the provided support. Y. Tachev July 16, 2020
Dionysopolis and the Scythian King Ateas
Bulletin of the National Institute of Archaeology XLVI, 2020. Carissimae Magistrate Grato Animo - In Memoriam Yordanka Youroukova, 2020
Dionysopolis and the Scythian King Ateas Dimitar Draganov (Summary) In 340 BC the city of Dionysopolis produced the coin type “head of Dionysus, ΔΙ/Scythian horseman (Ateas)” by overstriking bronze coins of Philip II (“head of Apollo/horseman”). The issue was not intended for regular commerse, but was struck in haste for political reasons, probably a visit of Ateas to Dionysopolis. After the death of Ateas, in the spring/summer of 339 BC, the issue was immediately recalled and simultaneously overstruck with a pair of countermarks (one for the obverse, one for the reverse), again for political reasons. It was a special one-time issue and cannot be considered the beginning of the regular autonomous coinage of Dionysopolis. The conclusions of this article can be summarized as follows: - There is no coin type “head of Ateas l./bunch of grapes, ΔΙ”. The proper attribution of this coin type of Dionysopolis is “head of Pan/bunch of grapes, ΔΙ”. - The type “head of Pan/bunch of grapes, ΔΙ” is a regular autonomous coin of Dionysopolis and is not related to either Saratokos or Ateas. - The type “kantharos/vine with a bunch on grapes” belongs to Corcyra, not to Dionysopolis. - The renaming of Krounoi into Dionysopolis happened before 340 BC, likely in the period from ca. 393 – 340 BC. It is amazing how these poorly preserved coins of the type of head of Dionysus, ΔΙ/Scythian horseman (Ateas) prove to be carriers of valuable numismatic and hence real historical information that cannot be obtained from any other sources.
De amicitia. Studia in honorem Professoris Ivani Todorov, 2024
In the present publication little-known details related to the identification of Nicopolis ad Istrum with the ruins at the village of Stari Nikyup are examined. For this purpose, the variants of the city's name presented in various types of ancient written sources, as well as cartographic and travelogue data from the 15th – 19th centuries were analyzed. It turns out that the mentions of the city's name in Antiquity texts had a serious impact on the work of cartographers and travelers of the 15th – 19th centuries, who were interested in where the City of Victory was located. Most of them did not personally know today's Northern Bulgaria and used mainly the ancient texts, and as a result of the Russo-Ottoman wars of the 16th – 19th centuries also information about some contemporary settlement names. It is for these reasons that only Nicopolis or Nicopolis ad Haemum, Nicopolis ad Iatrum and, more rarely, Nicopolis ad Istrum are found on maps from the 15th – 19th centuries, the latter oikonym rarely having a correct location and content (fig. 8). This changed in the first and the beginning of the second half of the 19th century, when the works of the Croatian scholar Matija Katančić (1750 – 1825) and the French traveler and geographer Guillaume Lejean (1828 – 1871) appeared (figs. 9 – 10). The latter (fig. 17) identified the ruins near the village of Stari Nikyup with Nicopolis ad Istrum fourteen years earlier (1857) than the generally accepted year 1871, when the Austro-Hungarian traveler Felix Kanitz (1829 – 1904) (fig. 18) rediscovered millennia later the inscription IGBulg II 618.
Christology in the works of Justin the Philosopher and the Martyr
Sabornost
Justin the Philosopher and the Martyr is an important figure in the history of the early Christian church. This paper will present Justin's thought, which is essentially Christocentric. The originality of Justin's Christology lies in revising the notion of the Logos and giving that notion a new meaning - the Christian meaning. The basic claim from which Justin starts is that the Logos is Christ who is God. The Logos, although God, differs from the Father only numerically, not by nature. That is why one of the main determinations of God the Father is the First God, while the Logos is the Second God. The conclusions that are imposed about the consequences of Justin's Christology directly affect the life of every Christian and they are multiple; namely, they concern man's salvation (soteriological consequences), ecclesiological consequences (liturgical life), but also eschatological consequences (hopes for the event of the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of...