The Palmyrene banqueting tesserae, clay entrance tickets to religious banquets, have been revisited over and over again since the publication of the RTP in 1955. These small but often elaborate objects have been used as lenses into Palmyra’s religious life and the general organization of social, cultural and religious life in the city. However, only in recent years have they become the object of new detailed studies, which aim to systematically examine this unique group of objects within their local context. In this contribution, the focus is on disentangling the tesserae as physical objects to be used, touched and looked at; in particular it seeks to understand a facet of their rich iconographic repertoire, which in so many ways stands in contrast to the otherwise allegedly streamlined visual art repertoire found at Palmyra, namely that of the signet seal impressions. These signet seal impressions were impressed on many of the tesserae, most likely by the sponsor of the banquet, who left his personal mark on the tickets. The seal impressions give us insight into the images circulating in Palmyra in the Roman period in a material group, which today is almost lost to us, namely the glyptic art.

This chapter focuses on Palmyra’s choices in weaving a wider network of social ties to both the Mediterranean and eastern world in order to enjoy the recognizable success that lasted several centuries. It gleans evidence of the presence of Palmyrenes in the Mediterranean, Egypt, the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, before discussing the observable strategies in terms of strengthening commercial ties or choices in items of trade based on their high commercial value and lightness in terms of transport, such as silk or pearls.

Origen’s surprising presence within David F. Strauss’s genealogy of the critical examination of the life of Jesus ought to stir contemporary readers from slipping into their own forms of presumption regarding when, exactly, reading of the Gospels first became critical or what the term “critical” even means. Strauss’s presentation also underscores the difficulty of fashioning a portrait adequate to such a unique figure and introduces the need to retrieve Origen’s own first principles of Gospel reading. Here, I lay the requisite groundwork for addressing Part I’s overarching question (“What is a Gospel?”) by showing that, for Origen, the term “Gospel,” strictly speaking, does not designate just any discourse bearing the early Christian proclamation, but rather one that does so under the form of narratives of the life of Jesus. The stage is thus set for the more pivotal – and tortuous – question: What kind of narratives are they?

This chapter explores the sacral aspects of Achaemenid Persian kingship. It attempts to precisely illuminate the ruler’s relationship with the divine and to demonstrate that the assumption of priestly prerogatives was an important aspect of his office. To better appreciate the political function of religion, this study provides cultural and historical contexts for the royal appropriation of sacral attributes. It further contributes to the recent field of study regarding a possible soteriological dimension to Achaemenid ideology by assessing and synthesising new and previously cited evidence for the existence of such an element, as well as its possible applications.

Little is known about the Jewish presence Roman time Palmyra: the remains of a synagogue and other archaeological and epigraphic data indicate that Jews lived in Palmyra. Their presence is confirmed by onomastics. About twenty biblical names are preserved in inscriptions from Palmyra. Others are found in epitaphs from Beth She‘arim catacombs. However, Palmyrene Jews also bore Palmyrene names, and therefore it is not always easy to reconstruct identity and religious affiliation. Therefore the epigraphic data indicate only a small portion of what must have been the Jewish population of Palmyra. Examples of the mobility of Palmyrene Jews are illustrated by their presence in the Roman army, by first century BC–first century AD ossuaries from Palestine with Palmyrene epitaphs and by Palmyrene onomastics in Aramaic and Greek epitaphs. Westward mobility of Palmyrenes is displayed in an Aramaic Bar Kokhba letter mentioning an individual of Palmyrene origin. Finally, fourth to seventh centuries AD documents from Israel and Jordan written in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek show the persistence and fortune, within Jewish and proto-Christian communities, of the name Zenobios and Zenobia, an onomastic choice inspired by the foremost protagonist of the last phase of Palmyrene history.

This essay explores the evolution of the discourse of leadership in pre-imperial (pre-221 bc) China. I show how the formation of the ideology of monarchism during the formative age of traditional Chinese culture was accompanied by subtle bifurcation between the concept of the ruler and that of the leader. Chinese intellectuals of what is often dubbed the age of the Hundred Schools of Thought agreed that the monarch should possess absolute power, but they had carefully shaped the monarch’s image in the way that allowed much leverage to the members of their own stratum. A subtle and yet well-pronounced bifurcation between political leadership of the monarch and the moral and intellectual leadership of an outstanding minister or an aspiring minister remained one of the major features of Chinese political thought and political culture for millennia to come.

5.1 [338] The blessed David reveals that the inability to control one’s tongue is the most shameful of diseases. For example, he even used to offer prayers about it, saying: “Place a guard on my mouth, O Lord, and a gate of constraint about my lips. Do not turn my heart away to words of wickedness.”1 In fact, I would say that it is priceless to make the wise choice of keeping one’s mind focused upon the thoughts that are appropriate for truly sensible people and, indeed, to use irreproachable speech in this endeavor. For it has been written that, “If a person does not stumble in his speech, he is a perfect man, capable of reining in the rest of his body too.”2 On the other hand, how could anyone not find fault, and quite understandably so, with someone using a carefree and relaxed tongue that has free rein to proceed to each and every [339] reprehensible thing?

For Cicero, effective Republican leadership entailed both morality and agency. Morality meant actions that supported the Republic, while agency was required for such actions to be carried out. It is difficult to subsume any theory of leadership under a single word, but I argue that Cicero’s leadership theory can be signified by consilium. This term encapsulates the best mental and moral aspects of leadership as well as the actions and results of acting on behalf of the Republic. It is inherently tied to the practice of Republican politics, a practice that was fundamentally transactional. Cicero used this idea of consilium to support his acceptance of Octavian as an ally against Antony. According to his theory of consilium, Cicero acted correctly against Antony, but Octavian ultimately exposed the flaws in Cicero’s theory when he refused to participate in traditional Republican transactional politics.

2.1 [85] Because we considered it not at all unreasonable, or rather thought it useful and essential, to begin with the required account of who was chronologically born before whom and indeed also what sort of theological views each of them held, we have given the most precise explanation possible of these matters [in the previous book].

3.1 [163] Julian has, therefore, slandered all the habits, customs, and mysteries of Christians, and there is not one thing done well or even said correctly in the God-breathed scripture that he does not unabashedly surround with accusations for the purpose of debasing it. He exults only in those things that would naturally cause no small amount of distress to the truly intelligent and lead them to turn to a better course. And, just as unreservedly, he is in awe of Plato’s speech, which he has appropriated for himself in order to defame the divine and supernatural glory.

This concluding chapter highlights the important contributions that this volume makes in featuring the diversity of forms of leadership in the ancient world and in illustrating how ancient people were asking questions about leadership that we should be asking more often today. It further argues that future research on ancient leadership should help readers to draw connections among the different forms of leadership in the ancient world, especially those readers who are not expert in ancient studies, and also to draw lessons that can help us better lead and better select our leaders. Ancient leadership studies need to play a vital role in helping us understand contemporary leadership as a moral, creative and collaborative art that we can all learn from one another.

‘Mayors’ and village chiefs figure prominently in the iconographic and administrative record of ancient Egypt as key representatives of the pharaonic authority. Moreover, there also existed other local actors (wealthy peasants, ‘great ones’, etc.) whose occasional appearance in the written and archaeological record points to the existence of paths of accumulation of wealth and power that crystallised in the emergence of potential local leaders who owed little (or nothing) to the state in order to enhance their social role. The aim of this contribution is to explore how mayors and informal leaders ‘built’ their prominent local position in ancient Egypt, how it changed over time (especially in periods of political turmoil) and how they mobilised their contacts, family networks, wealth and official duties in order to consolidate and transmit their privileged position to the next generations. Inscriptions from Elkab, Akhmim and elsewhere, references in administrative texts and archaeological evidence (houses, etc.) related to a ‘middle class’ provide crucial clues about these themes.