Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies
Department of Classical Studies
Modern Languages, room 224
University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario Canada
N2L 3G1
Phone: 519-888-4567 ext. 32377
Hellenism, defined as the "adoption or limitation of (elements of) the ancient Greek language, culture, philosophy, etc." (OED) is central to Roman civilization throughout long periods of its history. Yet the matter of what scholars do when they compare different types of Roman Hellenism, and the practical and conceptual issues that such acts of comparison presuppose and raise, have never received a focused study of their own. These pertain to processes of acculturation at Rome, how the Romans' created meaning and identity, the ways in which various art forms expressed cultural values, an
The Peripatetic Critolaus of Phaselis (c. 200-c. 118 BCE) travelled from Athens to Rome in 155 BCE with the Academic Skeptic Carneades and the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon.
The Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies and the Parochial Polis Research Network at McGill University will jointly host a conference on “Localism in the Hellenistic World” in April 2018. The Hellenistic period is generally seen as a time of expanded horizons and shifting frontiers, with a diffusion of Greek culture throughout the Mediterranean and the Near East unprecedented in any previous era.