Belonging and Isolation in the Hellenistic World

Light cover of Belonging and Isolation in the Hellenistic World with ancient ruins and mountains.

Overview

Title: Belonging and Isolation in the Hellenistic World

Editors: Dr. Sheila L. Ager; Dr. Riemer A. Faber (University of Waterloo)

Date: 2013

Imprint: University of Toronto Press

Series: Phoenix Supplementary Volumes

Extent: 416 pages

ISBNs: Hardcover 978-1-4426-4422-9 · PDF 978-1-4426-9944-1

Resources

Summary

The Hellenistic period is often celebrated for its cosmopolitan reach, but broader horizons also produced new tensions of identity and community. This volume gathers leading international scholars to explore how individuals and groups navigated belonging and exclusion from the level of local poleis to the oikoumenē—“the inhabited world.” Drawing on social, artistic, economic, political, and literary perspectives, the essays map the opportunities and constraints of life around the Hellenistic Mediterranean: intercultural poetics and ethnicity; systems and networks that knit the sea together; Alexandria as an invented metropolis; social in-groups and out-groups; and “island” case studies that link geopolitics with geopoetics. The collection reframes cosmopolitanism by showing how mobility, institutions, and memory shaped identities from Asia Minor to the Aegean and Levant.

“A solid collection on an important topic, Belonging and Isolation in the Hellenistic World is extremely comprehensive, well informed, useful, and up-to-date.”

— Nicholas Rauh, Purdue University

“Belonging and Isolation in the Hellenistic World makes a significant contribution to an exciting area of scholarly exploration. Representing a mix of accomplished scholars from a variety of disciplines, this stimulating volume is an enjoyable read with gems throughout.”

— Joan Burton, Department of Classics, University of Maryland

Table of Contents

Introduction: Belonging and Isolation in the Hellenistic World — Themes and Questions — Sheila L. Ager & Riemer A. Faber

Part One: Intercultural Poetics and Identity

  1. “If I Am from Syria – So What?”: Meleager’s Cosmopoetics — Regina Höschele
  2. Invective from the Cultural Periphery: The Case of Hermeias of Kourion — Peter Bing
  3. Genre and Ethnicity in the Epigrams of Meleager — Kathryn Gutzwiller

Part Two: On the Margins? Ethnicity and Hellenicity

  1. Belonging and Isolation in Central Anatolia: The Galatians in the Graeco-Roman World — Altay Coşkun
  2. The Importance of Being Aitolian — Joseph Scholten
  3. Democracy in the Hellenistic World — Glenn Bugh

Part Three: Symploke — Mediterranean Systems and Networks

  1. Polybios and International Systems Theory — Arthur Eckstein
  2. Networks in the Hellenistic Economy — Gary Reger
  3. Diplomacy and the Integration of the Hasmonean State — Claude Eilers

Part Four: Alexandria — The Invention of a City

  1. Founding Alexandria in the Alexandrian Imagination — Andrew Erskine
  2. The Birth Myths of Ptolemy Soter — Daniel Ogden
  3. “Alexandrianism” Again: Regionalism, Alexandria, and Aesthetics — Craig I. Hardiman

Part Five: Integration — Social In-Groups and Out-Groups

  1. Staging the Oikos: Character and Belonging in Menander’s Samia — Christina Vester
  2. Making Yourself at Home in the Hellenistic World — Ruth Westgate
  3. Mère-patrie et patrie d’adoption à l’époque hellénistique: Réflexions à partir du cas des mercenaires crétois de Milet — Patrick Baker

Part Six: Insulae — Geopolitics and Geopoetics

  1. “Entirely Ignorant of the Agora” (Alkiphron 1.14.3): Fishing and the Economy of Hellenistic Delos — Ephraim Lytle
  2. De l’ouverture au repli: Les prêts du sanctuaire de Délos — Léopold Migeotte
  3. Connections, Origins, and the Construction of Belonging in the Poetry of Kallimachos — Mary Depew

Back Matter

  • References
  • Contributors
  • General Index

About the Editors

Dr. Sheila L. Ager is Professor of Ancient History and Dean of Arts at the University of Waterloo.

Dr. Riemer A. Faber is Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Waterloo.

Publication Details

  • Publisher: University of Toronto Press
  • Year: 2013
  • Pages: 416
  • ISBNs: Hardcover 978-1-4426-4422-9; PDF 978-1-4426-9944-1