Located in the small kingdom of Commagene at the upper Euphrates, the late Hellenistic monument of Nemrud Dag (c.50 BC) has been undeservedly neglected by scholars. Qualified as a Greco-Persian ...hybrid instigated by a lunatic king, this fascinating project of bricolage has been written out of history. This volume redresses that imbalance, interpreting Nemrud Dag as an attempt at canon building by Antiochos I in order to construct a dynastic ideology and social order, and proving the monument's importance for our understanding of a crucial transitional phase from Hellenistic to Roman. Hellenistic Commagene therefore holds a profound significance for a number of discussions, such as the functioning of the Hellenistic koine and the genesis of Roman 'art', Hellenism and Persianism in antiquity, dynastic propaganda and the power of images, Romanisation in the East, the contextualising of the Augustan cultural revolution, and the role of Greek culture in the Roman world.
The First European Briant, Pierre; Elliott, Nicholas
2017, 2017-01-02
eBook
Enlightenment thinkers, searching for ancient models to understand contemporary affairs, were the first to critically interpret Alexander the Great's achievements. As Pierre Briant shows, in their ...minds Alexander was the first European: an empire builder who welcomed trade with the "Orient" and brought Western civilization to its oppressed peoples.
The interaction of Jew and Greek in antiquity intrigues the imagination. Both civilizations boasted great traditions, their roots stretching back to legendary ancestors and divine sanction. In the ...wake of Alexander the Great's triumphant successes, Greeks and Macedonians came as conquerors and settled as ruling classes in the lands of the eastern Mediterranean. Hellenic culture, the culture of the ascendant classes in many of the cities of the Near East, held widespread attraction and appeal. Jews were certainly not immune. In this thoroughly researched, lucidly written work, Erich Gruen draws on a wide variety of literary and historical texts of the period to explore a central question: How did the Jews accommodate themselves to the larger cultural world of the Mediterranean while at the same time reasserting the character of their own heritage within it? Erich Gruen's work highlights Jewish creativity, ingenuity, and inventiveness, as the Jews engaged actively with the traditions of Hellas, adapting genres and transforming legends to articulate their own legacy in modes congenial to a Hellenistic setting. Drawing on a diverse array of texts composed in Greek by Jews over a broad period of time, Gruen explores works by Jewish historians, epic poets, tragic dramatists, writers of romance and novels, exegetes, philosophers, apocalyptic visionaries, and composers of fanciful fables—not to mention pseudonymous forgers and fabricators. In these works, Jewish writers reinvented their own past, offering us the best insights into Jewish self-perception in that era.
In a 1988 conference, American and British scholars unexpectedly discovered that their ideas were converging in ways that formed a new picture of the variegated Hellenistic mosaic. That picture ...emerges in these essays and eloquently displays the breadth of modern interest in the Hellenistic Age.
A distrust of all ideologies has altered old views of ancient political structures, and feminism has also changed earlier assessments. The current emphasis on multiculturalism has consciously deemphasized the Western, Greco-Roman tradition, and Nubians, Bactrians, and other subject peoples of the time are receiving attention in their own right, not just as recipients of Greco-Roman culture.
History, like Herakleitos' river, never stands still. These essays share a collective sense of discovery and a sparking of new ideas—they are a welcome beginning to the reexploration of a fascinatingly complex age.
The Hellenistic West Prag, Jonathan R. W; Quinn, Josephine Crawley
10/2013
eBook
Although the Hellenistic period has become increasingly popular in research and teaching in recent years, the western Mediterranean is rarely considered part of the 'Hellenistic world'; instead the ...cities, peoples and kingdoms of the West are usually only discussed insofar as they relate to Rome. This book contends that the rift between the 'Greek East' and the 'Roman West' is more a product of the traditional separation of Roman and Greek history than a reflection of the Hellenistic-period Mediterranean, which was a strongly interconnected cultural and economic zone, with the rising Roman republic just one among many powers in the region, east and west. The contributors argue for a dynamic reading of the economy, politics and history of the central and western Mediterranean beyond Rome, and in doing so problematise the concepts of 'East', 'West' and 'Hellenistic' itself.
In eighteenth-century England, a long tradition of free composition in Latin gave way to translation of English texts into Latin or (especially) Greek. This new kind of ‘composition’ became popular ...in the reformed boarding (‘public’) schools and in the ancient universities; its social foundations lay in the new bourgeois groups thrown up by the industrial revolution, its cultural foundations in the rise of romantic Hellenism. The practice of this kind of composition became characteristic of the shared masculine world of the public schools, the universities, the London clubs and the Inns of Court. The varieties and development of this practice are surveyed, in the hope of encouraging further and more detailed analysis.
The Hellenistic period (approximately the last three centuries B.C.), with its cultural complexities and enduring legacies, retains a lasting fascination today. Reflecting the vigor and productivity ...of scholarship directed at this period in the past decade, this collection of original essays is a wide-ranging exploration of current discoveries and questions. The twelve essays emphasize the cultural interaction of Greek and non-Greek societies in the Hellenistic period, in contrast to more conventional focuses on politics, society, or economy. The result of original research by some of the leading scholars in Hellenistic history and culture, this volume is an exemplary illustration of the cultural richness of this period.
Paul Cartledge's introduction contains an illuminating introductory overview of current trends in Hellenistic scholarship. The essays themselves range over broad questions of comparative historiography, literature, religion, and the roles of Athens, Rome, and the Jews within the context of the Hellenistic world. The volume is dedicated to Frank Walbank and includes an updated bibliography of his work which has been essential to our understanding of the Hellenistic period.
Biblical Hebrew is known for its creative avoidance of mentioning intimate body parts. Did such euphemisms continue in Greek-speaking Judaism? This article proposes that the “Greek hat” in 2 ...Maccabees 4:12 is not (or at least not only) a literal hat or a vague metaphor for Hellenism, as has been suggested through the centuries. Instead, it is a sly euphemism for a foreskin, and refers to the practice of epispasm, or the restructuring of a penis to reverse the look of circumcision. Such a reading fits well with the text’s anxiety around the gymnasium and its concern for Torah observance.
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