The story of Roman Hellenism—defined as the imitation or adoption
of something Greek by those subject to or operating under Roman
power—begins not with Roman incursions into the Greek mainland,
but in Italy, where our most plentiful and spectacular surviving
evidence is concentrated. Think of the architecture of the Roman
capital, the Campanian towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum buried by
Vesuvius, and the Hellenic culture of the Etruscans. Perhaps
“everybody knows” that Rome adapted Greek culture in a steadily
more “sophisticated” way as its prosperity and might increased.
This volume, however, argues that the assumption of smooth
continuity, let alone steady “improvement,” in any aspect of
Roman Hellenism can blind us to important aspects of what Roman
Hellenism really is and how it functions in a given context. As the
first book to focus on the comparison of Roman Hellenisms per se,
Comparing Roman Hellenisms in Italy shows that such comparison is
especially valuable in revealing how any singular instance of the
phenomenon is situated and specific, and has its own life,
trajectory, circumstances, and afterlife. Roman Hellenism is always
a work in progress, is often strategic, often falls prey to being
forgotten, decontextualized, or reread in later periods, and thus
is in important senses contingent. Further, what we may broadly
identify as a Roman Hellenism need not imply Rome as the only
center of influence. Roman Hellenism is often decentralized, and
depends strongly on local agents, aesthetics, and materials. With
this in mind, the essays concentrate geographically on Italy to
lend both focus and breadth to our topic, as well as to emphasize
the complex interrelation of Hellenism at Rome with Rome’s
surroundings. Because Hellenism, whether as practiced by Romans or
Rome’s subjects, is in fact widely diffused across far-flung
geographical regions, the final part of the collection gestures to
this broader context.
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