Literature and Culture in the Roman Empire, 96–235
Cross-Cultural Interactions

Discovers new connections and cross-fertilisations between different cultural, linguistic and religious communities in the Roman Empire.

Alice König (Edited by), Rebecca Langlands (Edited by), James Uden (Edited by)

9781108493932, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 April 2020

424 pages, 6 b/w illus. 1 map
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.6 cm, 0.72 kg

This book explores new ways of analysing interactions between different linguistic, cultural, and religious communities across the Roman Empire from the reign of Nerva to the Severans (96–235 CE). Bringing together leading scholars in classics with experts in the history of Judaism, Christianity and the Near East, it looks beyond the Greco-Roman binary that has dominated many studies of the period, and moves beyond traditional approaches to intertextuality in its study of the circulation of knowledge across languages and cultures. Its sixteen chapters explore shared ideas about aspects of imperial experience - law, patronage, architecture, the army - as well as the movement of ideas about history, exempla, documents and marvels. As the second volume in the Literary Interactions series, it offers a new and expansive vision of cross-cultural interaction in the Roman world, shedding light on connections that have gone previously unnoticed among the subcultures of a vast and evolving Empire.

Introduction Alice König, Rebecca Langlands and James Uden
Part I. Refiguring Roman and Greek Interactions: 1. Beyond Romans and others: identities in the long second century Myles Lavan
2. The noise-lovers: cultures of speech and sound in second-century Rome James Uden
3. Plutarch and Roman exemplary ethics: cultural interactions Rebecca Langlands
4. Patronage, cultural difference and literary interactivity: the case of Pliny and Plutarch Dana Fields
5. The romance of Republican history: narrative tension and resolution in Florus, Appian and Chariton Adam M. Kemezis
6. Tactical interactions: dialogues between Greece and Rome in the military manuals of Aelian and Arrian Alice König
Part II. Imperial Infrastructure: Documents and Monuments: 7. Constructing a new imperial paradoxography: Phlegon of Tralles and his sources Kelly Shannon-Henderson
8. A formation of a Christian archive? The case of Justin Martyr and an imperial rescript Laura Salah Nasrallah
9. Keeping/losing records, keeping/losing faith: Suetonius and Justin do the document Tom Geue
10. Shaping buildings into stories: architectural ekphrasis and the Epistle to the Ephesians in Roman literary culture J. Albert Harrill
11. Architectural criticism in the Roman world and the limits of literary interaction Christopher Siwicki
12. Dying for justice: narratives of Roman judicial authority in the High Empire Caillan Davenport
Part III. Cultural Translation and Transformation: 13. Bardaisan's disciples and ethnographic knowledge in the Roman Empire Nathanael Andrade
14. Chaldean interactions Johannes Haubold
15. Gilgamos in Rome: Aelian NA 12.21 Steven D. Smith
Afterword. Not there: empire, intertextuality, and absence Natalie B. Dohrmann
References
General index.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], History [HB], Literature & literary studies [D]