Comparing Roman Hellenisms in Italy

Overview

Title: Comparing Roman Hellenisms in Italy

Editors: Basil Dufallo; Dr. Riemer A. Faber

Date: 2023

Imprint: University of Michigan Press

Subjects: Classical Studies; Roman

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Summary

The story of Roman Hellenism—understood as the imitation or adoption of Greek culture by those operating under Roman power—begins not with Rome’s incursions into Greece, but in Italy, where some of the richest surviving evidence is concentrated: the architecture of Rome, the cities of Campania (including Pompeii and Herculaneum), and the Hellenic culture of the Etruscans. This volume challenges the familiar assumption that Roman engagement with Greek culture followed a smooth, continuous trajectory toward greater sophistication.

As the first book dedicated to comparing “Roman Hellenisms” as such, the collection argues that comparison clarifies how each instance of Roman Hellenism is situated and specific—shaped by its local circumstances, agents, aesthetics, and materials. Roman Hellenism is presented here as contingent and often strategic, with complex afterlives that include being forgotten, decontextualized, or reread in later periods. While focused on Italy to emphasize the interrelation of Rome with its surrounding regions, the book’s final section gestures toward the broader diffusion of Hellenism across the Roman world.

Selected Reviews

“This is a valuable and rich contribution to an essential topic in ancient studies. The Roman interaction with Greek culture encompassed most areas of Roman culture. Compartmentalized studies have been the norm, and this broader perspective fills a real need.”

— Karl Galinsky, University of Texas

“This book provides a series of engaging, well-written, and well-conceived essays on a topic that will be of great interest to Greek and Roman scholars alike: Roman Hellenism. The contributors and editors have deftly provided a unified consideration of Roman Hellenism in text and material culture, and they are to be commended for writing a volume that bridges disciplinary divides and showcases how interdisciplinary discussions and analyses can further our understanding of multifaceted concepts like Roman Hellenism.”

— Brenda Longfellow, University of Iowa

“Taken together, the essays in Dufallo and Faber's collection succeed in avoiding the famous trap for edited volumes, where contributions do not always cohere: rather questions are sustained and echoed--and answered, though with complications--across these ten chapters, and perhaps, importantly, appetites are whetted for new research to come.”

— Joel Allen, The Classical Review

Table of Contents

  • List of Illustrations
  • Abbreviations
  • Acknowledgements
  • Introduction — Basil Dufallo and Riemer A. Faber
  1. Pythagoras and Alcibiades in the Comitium, or: The Sculptural Representation of Greek Subjects in the Forum, ca. 320–220 BCE — Roman Roth
  2. Roman Epicureanism — Alison Keith
  3. Augustus’ Hellenistic Divinization in Ovid’s Fasti and Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars — Darja Šterbenc Erker
  4. Hellenic Horses: Domitianic vs. Augustan Hellenism in Statius, Silvae 1.1 — Basil Dufallo
  5. Space and Time, from Greek Myth to Roman Art — Nathaniel B. Jones
  6. The Statues of Nike from Oplontis: Decor et Duplicatio Revisited — Elaine K. Gazda
  7. Revisionist Representations of Early Latin Poetry: Horace and the “Hellenistic” Aesthetics of Ennius — Riemer A. Faber
  8. Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Vergil’s Eclogues, and the Varying Challenges of Greek Genres — Luca Graverini
  9. Roman Hellenism and Republican Architecture: The Genesis of the Corinthian Order — Marcello Mogetta
  10. Portraiture in the Greek East in the Roman Period: The View from the Athenian Agora — Sheila Dillon
  • Epilogue: Cultural Dynamics and Influences — Martin Hose
  • Bibliography
  • List of Contributors

About the Editors

  • Basil Dufallo is Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan.
  • Dr. Riemer A. Faber is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Waterloo.

Bibliographic Data

  • Imprint: University of Michigan Press
  • Publication month/year: April 2023
  • Hardcover ISBN: 9780472133406
  • eBook ISBN: 9780472221127
  • DOI: 10.3998/mpub.12527809