scholarly journals Greek Migrant Literature in the Early Roman Empire

Mnemosyne ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-36
Author(s):  
Casper C. de Jonge
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
World Order ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Migrant Literature ◽  
Dionysius Of Halicarnassus ◽  
Nicolaus Of Damascus ◽  
Different Origins

Abstract This article argues that the concept of migrant literature, developed in postcolonial studies, is a useful tool for analysing Greek literature of the Early Roman Empire (27 BC-AD 68). The city of Rome attracted huge numbers of migrants from across the Mediterranean. Among them were many writers from Hellenized provinces like Egypt, Syria and Asia, who wrote in Greek. Leaving their native regions and travelling to Rome, they moved between cultures, responding in Greek to the new world order. Early imperial Greek writers include Strabo of Amasia, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Nicolaus of Damascus, Timagenes of Alexandria, Crinagoras of Mytilene, Philo of Alexandria and Paul of Tarsus. What connects these authors of very different origins, styles, beliefs, and literary genres is migrancy. They are migrant writers whose works are characterized by in-betweenness, ambivalence and polyphony.

Imperialism, Power, and Identity

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Mattingly
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Human Resources ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Sexual Relations ◽  
Roman Imperialism ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Archaeological Work ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

Despite what history has taught us about imperialism's destructive effects on colonial societies, many classicists continue to emphasize disproportionately the civilizing and assimilative nature of the Roman Empire and to hold a generally favorable view of Rome's impact on its subject peoples. This book boldly challenges this view using insights from postcolonial studies of modern empires to offer a more nuanced understanding of Roman imperialism. Rejecting outdated notions about Romanization, the book focuses instead on the concept of identity to reveal a Roman society made up of far-flung populations whose experience of empire varied enormously. It examines the nature of power in Rome and the means by which the Roman state exploited the natural, mercantile, and human resources within its frontiers. The book draws on the author's own archaeological work in Britain, Jordan, and North Africa and covers a broad range of topics, including sexual relations and violence; census-taking and taxation; mining and pollution; land and labor; and art and iconography. The book shows how the lives of those under Rome's dominion were challenged, enhanced, or destroyed by the empire's power, and in doing so he redefines the meaning and significance of Rome in today's debates about globalization, power, and empire. This book advances a new agenda for classical studies, one that views Roman rule from the perspective of the ruled and not just the rulers. A new preface reflects on some of the reactions prompted by the initial publication of the book.

Getting Over Athens

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Wiater
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
New Model ◽  
Dionysius Of Halicarnassus ◽  
The One

This chapter examines the ambivalent image of Classical Athens in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities. This image reflects a deep-seated ambiguity of Dionysius’ Classicist ideology: on the one hand, there is no question for Dionysius that Athenocentric Hellenicity failed, and that the Roman empire has superseded Athens’ role once and for all as the political and cultural centre of the oikoumene. On the other, Dionysius accepted Rome’s supremacy as legitimate partly because he believed (and wanted his readers to believe) her to be the legitimate heir of Classical Athens and Classical Athenian civic ideology. As a result, Dionysius develops a new model of Hellenicity for Roman Greeks loyal to the new political and cultural centre of Rome. This new model of Greek identity incorporates and builds on Classical Athenian ideals, institutions, and culture, but also supersedes them.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Otto
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Text Production ◽  
Church Father ◽  
Intellectual Formation ◽  
The Relationship

Between the second and the sixteenth centuries CE, references to the Jewish exegete Philo of Alexandria occur exclusively in texts written by Christians. David T. Runia has described this phenomenon as the adoption of Philo by Christians as an “honorary Church Father.” Drawing on the work of Jonathan Z. Smith and recent investigations of the “Parting of the Ways” of early Christianity and Judaism, this study argues that early Christian invocations of Philo reveal ongoing efforts to define the relationship between Jewishness and Christianness, their areas of overlap and points of divergence. The introduction situates invocations of Philo within the wider context of early Christian writing about Jews and Jewishness. It considers how Philo and his early Christian readers participated in the larger world of Greco-Roman philosophical schools, text production, and the ethical and intellectual formation (paideia) of elite young men in the Roman Empire.

Plutarch's Rhythmic Prose

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. O. Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Prose Rhythm ◽  
First Time

Greek literature is divided, like many literatures, into poetry and prose; but in the earlier Roman Empire, 31 BC to AD 300, much Greek (and Latin) prose was written in one organized rhythmic system. Whether most, or hardly any, Greek prose adopted this patterning has been entirely unclear; this book for the first time adequately establishes an answer. It then seeks to get deeper into the nature of prose-rhythm through one of the greatest Imperial works, Plutarch’s Lives. All its phrases, almost 100,000, have been scanned rhythmically. Prose-rhythm is revealed as a means of expression, which draws attention to words and word-groups. (Online readings are offered too.) Some passages in the Lives pack rhythms together more closely than others; the book looks especially at rhythmically dense passages. These do not occur randomly; they attract attention to themselves, and are marked out as climactic in the narrative, or as in other ways of highlighted significance. Comparison emerges as crucial to the Lives on many levels. Much of the book closely discusses particular dense moments, in commentary form, to show how much rhythm contributes to understanding, and is to be integrated with other sorts of criticism. These remarkable passages make apparent the greatness of Plutarch as a prose-writer: a side not greatly considered amid the huge resurgence of work on him. The book also analyses closely rhythmic and unrhythmic passages from three Greek novelists. Rhythm illuminates both a supreme Greek writer, Plutarch, and three prolific centuries of Greek literary history.

Phoenician Literature

2019 ◽  
pp. 255-269
Author(s):  
Carolina López-Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Historical Records ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Great Loss ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
Travel Accounts

There was, without a doubt, a Phoenician and Punic literature. Very little of it is extant, but we have enough of it to gauge the great loss. Lacking the advantage of its own manuscript tradition and later cultures devoted to it, Phoenician literature was not systematically preserved, unlike that of the Greeks, Romans, and Israelites. What we have are small pieces that surface among the Classical literary corpus. Despite these unfavorable conditions, an impressive range of literary genres is attested, concentrated in particular genres. Some of this literature aligned with broader ancient Near Eastern tradition: cosmogony, foundation stories, historical records, and other areas that correspond with Phoenician expertise (travel accounts or itineraries, agricultural treatises). Other genres were likely adopted through Greek influence (narrative histories, philosophy). Moreover, from Hellenistic times onward, works by Phoenician authors had to be written and transmitted in Greek in order to survive. Nonetheless, the chapter cautions that we should not lightly categorize them as merely “Greek” literature, at least in the cases in which we know the authors are Phoenicians (including Carthaginians) writing about Phoenician matters.

Coda

2021 ◽  
pp. 226-232
Author(s):  
Ashley L. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
World Order ◽  
Global Space ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Transcontinental Railroad

This coda studies the Indies mentality's demise. When the organization of global space shifted once more under the leadership of a new geopolitical world order, the two Indies ceased to be a compelling framework for organizing knowledge of the world. The chapter locates the swansong of the Indies mentality in the 1870s, the onset of the US systemic cycle. To be sure, the Indies mentality was residual by this time; but it was also still powerful. American desires for geopolitical dominance took shape during Britain's systemic cycle, and they bear the cultural imprint of British hegemony. One of the events that sealed the United States's rise to hegemonic status was the completion of the first transcontinental railroad to the Pacific, which was widely hailed as an American “Passage to India.” The chapter then makes the case for the portability of this book's method, especially in the context of postcolonial studies, where it can be used to reconstruct and reinhabit non-European epistemologies.

Cassiodorus and the Rise of the Amals: Genealogy and the Goths under Hun Domination

1989 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 103-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Heather
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
World Order ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Formative Stage ◽  
River Danube ◽  
Historical Importance ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Creation

From the mid-third century, Gothic tribes inhabited lands north of the river Danube; they were destined, however, to play a major role in the destruction of the Roman Empire and the creation of the medieval world order. In the last quarter of the fourth century, in the face of Hun attacks, some Goths (those commonly known as Visigoths) fled into the Roman Empire, winning a famous victory at Hadrianople in 378 and sacking Rome in 410. They later moved further west to found a kingdom in southern Gaul and Spain. Of equal historical importance are those Goths (usually known as Ostrogoths) who remained north of the Danube under Hun domination from c. 375 to c. 450. They too then entered the Empire, and, under Theoderic the Great, established a kingdom in Italy which is known to us through Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Ennodius. Much less well known, however, is the formative stage of their history when the Ostrogoths endured Hun domination, and it is on our sources for this period that this study will concentrate.

Paul

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry L. Sumney
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Rhetorical Analysis ◽  
New Rhetoric ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Justification By Faith ◽  
Pauline Studies ◽  
Paul's Letters ◽  
The Church

Paul is one of the most important figures in the earliest church. Although he was not a follower during the ministry of Jesus, he came to be recognized as an apostle. Seemingly the most successful missionary of the church during its first few decades, his converts were mostly non-Jews. He was not the first to admit gentiles into the church, but his work among them and his understanding of how they participate as full members permanently shape the history of the church. Paul is also the author of the earliest extant writings from the church. He begins writing his letters to churches approximately twenty years before the earliest of the canonical Gospels was composed. He is, then, a valuable source of information about the situation and beliefs of the earliest churches. Pauline studies have experienced several important shifts since the middle of the 20th century, even as the work of F. C. Baur continues to exert extraordinary influence. The groundbreaking work of E. P. Sanders on 1st-century Judaism has affected nearly every aspect of Pauline studies. Sanders’s view of Judaism supported new discussions about Paul’s theology, particularly some growing doubts about identifying justification by faith as its center. J. C. Beker’s emphasis on the contextual nature of Paul’s theologizing and the importance of eschatology for Paul began a move to examine the theology of each letter individually before producing a theology of the whole corpus. Sanders’s work also made room for a reexamination of the relationship between Paul’s churches and the synagogue, with most scholars seeing a closer relationship than had been hypothesized previously. Other developments in Pauline studies include the recognition of a closer relationship between Paul’s theology and his ethical instructions. Studies of ancient letters discovered since the 1920s opened ways to analyze the structure and categorize Paul’s writings by comparing them with contemporaneous materials. New methodologies were also introduced, particularly in understanding the social and cultural context of the letters. Methods from anthropology and postcolonial studies have shifted understandings of Paul’s stance with respect to Greco-Roman culture and the Roman Empire, such that he is often seen to possess a more countercultural stance. The rise of narrative theology contributed to a new interest in investigating the way Paul uses Israel’s Scriptures in his argumentation. Finally, there has been a renewed interest in a rhetorical analysis of Paul’s letters, with some scholars using ancient rhetorical categories; others, the “new rhetoric”; and still others devising distinctive methodologies.

Greek

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Morales
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Prose Fiction ◽  
Romance Novels ◽  
Greek Poetry ◽  
The Third ◽  
Critical Issues

This article offers an overview of Greek literature of the Roman Empire. The first section discusses ways in which Greek writing responds to Roman rule. This section ranges widely and takes snapshots from six writers—Artemidorus, Plutarch, Lucian, Basil of Caesarea, Galen, and Josephus—from which to show the complexities involved in thinking about Greek literature and its attendant critical issues, including how we might read ‘resistance’ and how Hellenisms relate to Christianities, and Jewish and other identities. The second section focuses more closely on Greek poetry and pantomime, and the third section on the romance novels and Greek prose fiction, including a brief look at a couple of texts that possibly show Egyptian influences.

V. The Second Sophistic and Imperial Greek Literature

2005 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 74-89
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Roman Greece ◽  
Fourth Century Bce

This book has focused so far upon the extraordinary popularity of epideictic oratory in the first three centuries of the Roman empire, the ‘Second Sophistic’ in Philostratus’ sense (notwithstanding its distant roots in the fourth century BCE). We have seen that these declamations were performance pieces, and that issues of identity were explored through the observation of the sophist’s body; that language and style were heavily theorized, but also highly experimental; and that the interpretation of these ingenious, mobile texts demands considerable resourcefulness and attentiveness. What I want to explore in this final chapter is the points of intersection between these aspects of sophistic literature and the wider literary culture of Roman Greece. I shall focus particularly on two areas, which are central to both oratorical declamation and wider literary culture: ‘the self and exotic narrative.

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