Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire

by Simon Goldhill

Overview

These especially commissioned essays open up a fascinating and novel perspective on a crucial era of Western culture. In the second century CE the Roman empire dominated the Mediterranean, but Greek culture maintained its huge prestige. At the same time, Christianity and Judaism were vying for followers against the lures of such an elite cultural life. This book looks at how writers in Greek from all areas of Empire society responded to their political position, to intellectual authority, to religious and social pressures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521663175
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/07/2001
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	6.26(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.22(d)

Table of Contents

List of contributors; Introduction: setting an agenda - 'everything is Greece to the wise' Simon Goldhill; Part I. Subjected to Empire: 1. From Megalopolis to Cosmopolis: Polybius, or there and back again John Henderson; 2. Mutilated messengers: body language in Josephus Maud Gleason; 3. Roman questions, Greek answers: Plutarch and the construction of identity Rebecca Preston; Part II. Intellectuals on the Margins: 4. Describing self in the language of the other: Pseudo (?) Lucian at the temple of Hierapolis Jas Elsner; 5. The erotic eye: visual stimulation and cultural conflict Simon Goldhill; 6. Visions and revisions of Homer Froma I. Zeitlin; Part III. Topography and the Performance of Culture: 7. 'Greece is the world': exile and identity in the Second Sophistic Tim Whitmarsh; 8. Local heroes: athletics, festivals, and elite self-fashioning in the Roman East Onno van Nijf; 9. The Rabbi in Aphrodite's bath: Palestinian society and Jewish identity in the High Roman Empire Seth Schwartz; List of works cited; Index of major passages discussed; General index.

Editorial Reviews

"Many of the questions raised by these essays are of intrinsic value for the historian of the early church...Anyone interested in issues of multi-culturalism and cultural identity will find in this book examples and models of necessary scholarly sophistication." Trinity Journal

"...this is an exciting and challenging collection...it raises the bar for studies of the intersecting configurations of identity, culture, and empire.... Goldhill suggests that these essays be taken as snapshots; I offer that he has produced a splendid collage." American Journal of Philology

"Each essay informs; many challenge received assumptions...Goldhill's introduction - a major interpretative essay in itself - critically supplements the bibliography, defines issues, elaborates context, and thus provides thematic unity. To comprehend better the complexities literary, social, and religious of Hellenic societies within the Roman political orbit, read herein with profit and pleasure." CHOICE

"This is a major contribution to our understanding of 'Greekness' in the period of the Second Sophistic. It is an excellent volume deserving wide reading by anyone interested in the question of identity formation in the Roman empire." Religious Studies Review

"The articles [are] persuasive, and the volume as a whole a considerable stimulant for my own researches and teaching....[It provides] useful information and perspectives that need to be engaged by anyone who studies the literature, culture or history of the periods in question. And for those who wish to learn more about thses approaches and this area of study, this volume is very useful indeed." Classical Bulletin

From the Publisher