Books in the Black Sea Studies series in order

Most studies of Roman local administration focus on the formal structures of power: provincial laws, imperial edicts, urban institutions and magistracies. This book explores the interplay of formal politics with informal factors such as social prejudice, parochialism and personal rivalries in the cities of northwestern Asia Minor from the first to the fifth centuries AD. Through a detailed analysis of the municipal speeches and career of the philosopher-politician Dion Chrysostomos, we gain new insights into the petty conflicts and lofty ambitions of an ancient provincial small-town politician and those around him.

Most studies of Roman local administration focus on the formal structures of power: provincial laws, imperial edicts, urban institutions and magistracies. This book explores the interplay of formal politics with informal factors such as social prejudice, parochialism and personal rivalries in the cities of northwestern Asia Minor from the first to the fifth centuries AD. Through a detailed analysis of the municipal speeches and career of the philosopher-politician Dion Chrysostomos, we gain new insights into the petty conflicts and lofty ambitions of an ancient provincial small-town politician and those around him.

Meetings of cultures arouse strong feelings. In this volume, nineteen scholars from Denmark, France, Georgia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Russia, and Ukraine present a profound discussion covering various topics from the physical arena of the colonial encounters, to the layout of land and protection of cities, to the dynamics of the cultural exchange, to the perception of how it was to be Greek in the Pontic realm, and finally, to be reciprocal strategies exerted by the Greeks and Scythians in the Olbia as described in Herodotos's Skythian Tale. Through the many-sided contributions it is revealed how the self and the other are two sides of the same coin - yeasterday, today, and tomorrow.

Mithridates VI Eupator, the last king of Pontos, was undoubtedly one of the most prominent figures in the late Hellenistic period. Throughout his long reign (120-63 BC), the political and cultural landscape of Asia Minor and the Black Sea area was reshaped along new lines. The authors present new archaeological research and new interpretations of various aspects of Pontic society, its contacts with the Greek world and its eastern neighbours and investigate the background for the expansion of the Pontic Kingdom that eventually led to the confrontation with Rome.

For 200 years, from the second half of the 6th century BC to the decades before 330 BC, the Persian dynasty of the Achaemenids ruled an enormous empire stretching from the Mediterranean to Afganistan and India. The Great Kings Dareios I and Xerxes I even tried to conquer Greece and the northern Black Sea, but failed. Why were they interested in the Pontic area? In contrast to rich satrapies, such as Egypt, Phoenicia, and Syria, the Black Sea had no prosperous cities to offer. After 479 BC, the Persians acknowledged that the coast and Caucasus formed the natural borders of the empire. Nevertheless, the satraps became involved in the affairs of the Black Sea region in order to safeguard the empire's frontiers. The local inhabitants of the region became bearers and transmitters of Persian culture.

In Antiquity the Black Sea region was a meeting point for several different population groups with diverse cultural backgrounds. The present monograph takes its point of departure in burial data from four coastal localities in the northern region of the Black Sea. The mortuary practices are decoded and interpreted within a framework mainly based on concepts of cultural interaction rather than cultural polarisation. Thus, the dogma of 'The Greeks and the Others' is challenged, and alternative perceptions of interactions between the people in the Black Sea region form the basis of the study. The burials are primarily analysed with emphasis on social strategies and cultural diversity. Furthermore, the Black Sea region is set into a comparative perspective through an outlook on burial customs and mortuary practices in the colonial milieus of contemporary Southern Italy.

In late Antiquity, archaeology demonstrates lively and far-flung exchange along the river Dniester, through current Poland to the Baltic. By the 11th century the former Barbaricum had been transformed into a string of Christian kingdoms and principalities, whose parallel histories are as conspicious as their differences. From the legendary (if possible real) migrations of the Goths in Antiquity to the Varangian guard at the imperial court of Byzantium in the late Viking Age, trans-cultural interaction complemented important historical development. This book is about aspects of the changing interactions from late Antiquity to the High Middle Ages, from Goths to Varangians, and from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The history and archaeology of these connections have been poorly exposed and investigated in modern times. The papers presented in this volume are a selection of those presented during a series of four meetings organised 2007-2009 by the "Varangian Network", an interdisciplinary network for archaeological and historical research on relations between the Baltic and the Black Sea from late Antiquity to the medieval period.

The late Hellenistic period, spanning the 2nd and early 1st centuries BC, was a time of great tumult and violence thanks to nearly incessant warfare. At the same time the period saw the greatest expansion of 'Hellenistic' Greek culture, including ceramics. Papers in this volume explore problems of ceramic chronology (often based on evidence dependent on the violent nature of the period), survey trends in both production and consumption of Hellenistic ceramics particularly in Asia Minor and the Pontic region, and assess the impact of Hellenistic ceramic culture across much of the eastern Mediterranean and into the Black Sea.