Paul Mckechnie – författare

During the fourth century BC the number of Greeks who did not live as citizens in the city-states of southern mainland Greece increased considerably: mercenaries, pirates, itinerant artisans and traders, their origins differed widely. It has been argued that this increase was caused by the destruction of many Greek cities in the wars of the fourth century, accompanied by the large programme of settlement begun by Alexander in the East and Timoleon in the West. Although this was an important factor, argues Dr McKechnie, more crucial was an ideological deterioration of loyalties to the city: the polis was no longer absolutely normative in the fourth century and Hellenistic periods.With so many outsiders with specialist skills, Alexander and his successors were able to recruit the armies and colonists needed to conquer and maintain empires many times larger than any single polis had ever controlled.

During the fourth century BC the number of Greeks who did not live as citizens in the city-states of southern mainland Greece increased considerably: mercenaries, pirates, itinerant artisans and traders, their origins differed widely. It has been argued that this increase was caused by the destruction of many Greek cities in the wars of the fourth century, accompanied by the large programme of settlement begun by Alexander in the East and Timoleon in the West. Although this was an important factor, argues Dr McKechnie, more crucial was an ideological deterioration of loyalties to the city: the polis was no longer absolutely normative in the fourth century and Hellenistic periods.With so many outsiders with specialist skills, Alexander and his successors were able to recruit the armies and colonists needed to conquer and maintain empires many times larger than any single polis had ever controlled.

Formed in 1964, the year of independence, the University of Malawi promised more than the distant University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland—founded 1952—ever could. A decade and a half later, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, by then Life President of the Republic of Malawi, let it be known to the University that a Department of Classics was to be established—teaching the history and languages of the ancient Mediterranean world at Zomba, on the edge of the African Rift Valley.A Monument More Lasting than Bronze analyzes President Banda’s motives for this surreal intervention and the political goals it served, and also sketches out the shape the enterprise he called into being has taken—all in the context of worldwide transformations of Classics. A balanced team of authors, some Malawian, some foreign with Malawian connections, brings varied perspectives to this reflection.

Paul McKechnie explores how Christianity grew and expanded in Roman Asia over the first three centuries of the religion. Focusing on key individuals, such as Aberkios (Avircius Marcellus) of Hierapolis, he assesses the pivotal role played by Early Christian preachers who, in imitation of Paul of Tarsus, attracted converts through charismatic preaching. By the early fourth century, they had brought many cities and rural communities to a tipping point at which they were ready to move under a 'Christian canopy' and push polytheistic Greco-Roman religion to the margins. This volume brings new clarity of our understanding of how the Christian church grew and thrived in Asia Minor, simultaneously changing Roman society and being changed by it. Combining patristic evidence with the archaeological and epigraphic record, McKechnie's study creates a strong factual and chronological framework to the study of Christianization, while bringing Church History and Roman history more closely together.