Articulating Resistance under the Roman Empire

Explores the diverse forms of elite resistance to and in the Roman Empire, often in subtle and silent ways.

Daniel Jolowicz (Edited by), Ja? Elsner (Edited by)

9781108484909, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 January 2023

300 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.2 cm, 0.61 kg

This book explores the many strategies by which elite Greeks and Romans resisted the cultural and political hegemony of the Roman Empire in ways that avoided direct confrontation or simple warfare. By resistance is meant a range of responses including 'opposition', 'subversion', 'antagonism', 'dissent', and 'criticism' within a multiplicity of cultural forms from identity-assertion to polemic. Although largely focused on literary culture, its implications can be extended to the world of visual and material culture. Within the volume a distinguished group of scholars explores topics such as the affirmation of identity via language choice in epigraphy; the use of genre (dialogue, declamation, biography, the novel) to express resistant positions; identity negotiation in the scintillating and often satirical Greek essays of Lucian; and the place of religion in resisting hegemonic power.

Introduction: Articulating resistance Daniel Jolowicz and Ja? Elsner
Part I. Language and Identity: 1. Linguistic resistance to Rome: A reappraisal of the epigraphic evidence Katherine McDonald and Nicholas Zair
Part II. Genres of Literary Resistance: 2. Courtroom rhetoric in imperial and late antique philosophical dialogues Dawn LaValle Norman
3. Greek declamation and the art of resistance Will Guast
4. Plutarch's parallelism and resistance Eran Almagor
5. A glitch in the matrix: Aphrodisias, Rome and imperial Greek fiction Daniel Jolowicz
Part III. Identity Negotiation: 6. Portraying power: Lucian's imagines and Marcus Aurelius' meditations Nicolò D'Alconzo
7. Satire and the polis in Lucian's Timon or The Misanthrope Aneurin Ellis-Evans
Part IV. Religion and Resistance: 8. Anti-Roman Sibyl(s) Helen Van Noorden
9. Traditions of resistance in Greco-Egyptian narratives Ian Rutherford
10. Julian the emperor and the reaction against Christianity: A case study of resistance from the top Lea Niccolai
Epilogue: Resisting resistance Simon Goldhill.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]