Rome's Cultural Revolution
Cambridge University Press, 11/6/2008
EAN 9780521721608, ISBN10: 0521721601
Paperback, 546 pages, 24.4 x 17 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
The period of Rome's imperial expansion, the late Republic and early Empire, saw transformations of its society, culture and identity. Drawing equally on archaeological and literary evidence, this book offers an original and provocative interpretation of these changes. Moving from recent debates about colonialism and cultural identity, both in the Roman world and more broadly, and challenging the traditional picture of 'Romanization' and 'Hellenization', it offers instead a model of overlapping cultural identities in dialogue with one another. It attributes a central role to cultural change in the process of redefinition of Roman identity, represented politically by the crisis of the Republican system and the establishment of the new Augustan order. Whether or not it is right to see these changes as 'revolutionary', they involve a profound transformation of Roman life and identity, one that lies at the heart of understanding the nature of the Roman Empire.
Part I. Cultures and Identities
1. Culture, power and identity
2. Dress, language and identity
Part II. Building Identities
3. Roman Italy
between Roman, Greek and local
4. Vitruvius
building Roman identity
Part III. Knowledge and Power
5. Knowing the ancestors
6. Knowing the city
Part IV. The Consumer Revolution
7. Luxury and the consumer revolution
8. Waves of fashion
Epilogue
a cultural revolution?
'A brilliant analysis of cultural change, by a historian with an unrivalled mastery of both the literary and the archaeological evidence.' Peter Wiseman, University of Exeter