Article
Alexander the Great, reception of
Diana Spencer
Article
Arbela
John MacGinnis and David Michelmore
Article
Aretas
J. F. Healey
Aretas, the name of several kings of the *Nabataeans (Nabataean Aramaic form ḥrtt).
reigned in the early 2nd cent.
(c.120–96
‘Philhellen’ (c.84-60/59
Article
Belus/Marduk
Mary Frazer
Article
Carthage, history
William Nassau Weech, Brian Herbert Warmington, and R. J. A. Wilson
Article
Chaeremon (2), of Alexandria (1), Greek author, 1st cent. CE
Christopher Pelling
Chaeremon of *Alexandria (1), where he held a priesthood: Greek writer on Egypt. He taught the young *Nero. His writings treated Egyptian history, religion, customs, astrology, and hieroglyphic writings. A Stoic viewpoint is visible.
Article
Cleopatra VII, 69–30 BCE
Christelle Fischer-Bovet
Article
Cos
William Allison Laidlaw and Susan Mary Sherwin-White
Article
inequality
John Weisweiler
The just distribution of social goods was fiercely debated in the ancient Mediterranean and the ideologies of egalitarianism and inegalitarianism developed in Rome and Athens shaped Euro-American political thought from the Enlightenment onward. By contrast, the study of actual income and wealth distributions in ancient societies is a more recent development. Only in the early 21st century have scholars begun to make systematic attempts to quantify levels of inequality in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Since we lack the documentary sources on which the study of inequality in contemporary economies is based, most of these reconstructions rely on a combination of modelling and the interpretation of isolated figures found in literary texts. This fragmentary evidence suggests that in the best-attested regions of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East inequality was considerable. In particular, the formation of large territorial states—most notably the empires of Babylon, Persia, and Rome—facilitated the concentration of wealth into fewer hands. But it is unclear whether inequality increased over time. At least, there is no unambiguous evidence that wealth and income were more unequally distributed in late antiquity than in earlier periods of Roman history.
Article
Iulius Philippus, Marcus
John Frederick Drinkwater
Iulius Philippus, Marcus, Roman emperor 244–9
Stories that Philippus engineered the death of Gordian III, and was a Christian (see