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Offering unparalleled scope, A Companion to Hellenistic Literature in 30 newly commissioned essays explores the social and intellectual contexts of literature production in the Hellenistic period, and examines the relationship between Hellenistic and earlier literature. Provides a wide ranging critical examination of Hellenistic literature, including the works of well-respected poets alongside lesser-known historical, philosophical, and scientific prose of the period Explores how the indigenous literatures of Hellenized lands influenced Greek literature and how Greek literature influenced Jewish, Near Eastern, Egyptian, and Roman literary works
Rolf Strootman brings together various aspects of court culture in the Macedonian empires of the post-Achaemenid Near East. During the Hellenistic Period (c. 330-30 BCE), Alexander the Great and his successors reshaped their Persian and Greco-Macedonian legacies to create a new kind of rulership that was neither 'western' nor 'eastern' and would profoundly influence the later development of court culture and monarchy in both the Roman West and Iranian East.Drawing on the socio-political models of Norbert Elias and Charles Tilly, After the Achaemenids shows how the Hellenistic dynastic courts were instrumental in the integration of local elites in the empires, and the (re)distribution of powe...
Recent scholarship has recognized that Philip II and Alexander the Great adopted elements of their self-fashioning and court ceremonial from previous empires in the Ancient Near East, but it is generally assumed that the advent of the Macedonian court as a locus of politics and culture occurred only in the post-Alexander landscape of the Hellenistic Successors. This volume of ground-breaking essays by leading scholars on Ancient Macedonia goes beyond existing research questions to assess the profound impact of Philip and Alexander on court culture throughout the ages. The papers in this volume offer a thematic approach, focusing upon key institutional, cultural, social, ideological, and icon...
Empires of the Sea brings together studies of maritime empires from the Bronze Age to the Eighteenth Century. The volume develops the category of maritime empire as a specific type of empire in both European and 'non-western' history.
This collaborative volume examines revolts and resistance to the successor states, formed after Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian empire, as a transregional phenomenon. The editors have assembled an array of specialists in the study of the various regions and cultures of the Hellenistic world - Judea, Egypt, Babylonia, Central Asia, and Asia Minor - in an effort to trace comparisons and connections between episodes and modes of resistance. The volume seeks to unite the currently dominant social-scientific orientation to ancient resistance and revolt with perspectives, often coming from religious studies, that are more attentive to local cultural, religious, and moral frameworks. ...
How encounters with the Roman Empire compelled the Jews of antiquity to rethink their conceptions of Israel and the Torah Throughout their history, Jews have lived under a succession of imperial powers, from Assyria and Babylonia to Persia and the Hellenistic kingdoms. Jews and Their Roman Rivals shows how the Roman Empire posed a unique challenge to Jewish thinkers such as Philo, Josephus, and the Palestinian rabbis, who both resisted and internalized Roman standards and imperial ideology. Katell Berthelot traces how, long before the empire became Christian, Jews came to perceive Israel and Rome as rivals competing for supremacy. Both considered their laws to be the most perfect ever writte...
Empires of the Sea brings together studies of maritime empires from the Bronze Age to the Eighteenth Century. The volume aims to establish maritime empires as a category for the (comparative) study of premodern empires, and from a partly ‘non-western’ perspective. The book includes contributions on Mycenaean sea power, Classical Athens, the ancient Thebans, Ptolemaic Egypt, The Genoese Empire, power networks of the Vikings, the medieval Danish Empire, the Baltic empire of Ancien Régime Sweden, the early modern Indian Ocean, the Melaka Empire, the (non-European aspects of the) Portuguese Empire and Dutch East India Company, and the Pirates of Caribbean.
"Conversations With Food" offers readers an array of essays revealing the power of food (and its absence) to transform relationships between the human and non-human realms; to define national, colonial, and postcolonial cultures; to help instantiate race, gender, and class relations; and to serve as the basis for policymaking. Food functions in these contexts as items in religious or secular law, as objects with which to bargain or over which to fight, as literary trope, and as a way to improve or harm health—individual or collective. The anthology ranges from Ancient Greece to the posthuman fairy underworld; from the codifying of French culinary heritage to the strategic marketing of 100-...
At the centre of the Roman empire stood the emperor and the court surrounding him. The systematic investigation of this court in its own right, however, has been a relatively late development in the field of Roman history, and previous studies have focused on narrowly defined aspects or on particular periods of Roman history. This book makes a major contribution to understanding the history of the Roman imperial court. The first volume presents nineteen original essays covering all the major dimensions of the court from the age of Augustus to the threshold of Late Antiquity. The second volume is a collection of the ancient sources that are central to studying that court. The collection includes: translations of literary sources, inscriptions, and papyri; plans and computer visualizations of archaeological remains; and photographs of archaeologic sites and artworks depicting the emperor and his court.
Plundering and taking home precious objects from a defeated enemy was a widespread activity in the Greek and Hellenistic-Roman world. In this volume literary critics, historians and archaeologists join forces in investigating this phenomenon in terms of appropriation and cultural change. In-depth interpretations of famous ancient spoliations, like that of the Greeks after Plataea or the Romans after the capture of Jerusalem, reveal a fascinating paradox: while the material record shows an eager incorporation of new objects, the texts display abhorrence of the negative effects they were thought to bring along. As this volume demonstrates, both reactions testify to the crucial innovative impact objects from abroad may have.