Rome, Global Dreams, and the International Origins of an Empire

Rome, Global Dreams, and the International Origins of an Empire PDF Author: Sarah Davies
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004411909
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
In Rome, Global Dreams, and the International Origins of an Empire, Sarah Davies explores how the Roman Republic evolved, in ideological terms, into an “Empire without end.” This work stands out within imperialism studies by placing an emphasis on the role of international-level norms in shaping Roman imperium.

Rome, Global Dreams, and the International Origins of an Empire

Rome, Global Dreams, and the International Origins of an Empire PDF Author: Sarah Davies
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004411909
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book

Book Description
In Rome, Global Dreams, and the International Origins of an Empire, Sarah Davies explores how the Roman Republic evolved, in ideological terms, into an “Empire without end.” This work stands out within imperialism studies by placing an emphasis on the role of international-level norms in shaping Roman imperium.

Imperial Power, Provincial Government, and the Emergence of Roman Asia, 133 BCE-14 CE

Imperial Power, Provincial Government, and the Emergence of Roman Asia, 133 BCE-14 CE PDF Author: Bradley Jordan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198887116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
What ambitions lay behind Roman provincial governance? How did these change over time and in response to local conditions? To what extent did local agents facilitate and contribute to the creation of imperial administrative institutions? The answers to these questions shape our understanding of how the Roman empire established and maintained hegemony within its provinces. This issue of imperial hegemony is particularly acute for the period during which the political apparatus of the Roman Republic was itself in crisis and flux—precisely the period during which many provinces first came under Roman control. Imperial Power, Provincial Government, and the Emergence of Roman Asia, 133 BCE-14 CE uses a case study of the province of Asia to focus closely on the formation and evolution of the Roman empire's administrative institutions. Comparatively well-excavated, Asia's rich epigraphy lends itself to this detailed study, while the region's long history of autonomous civic diplomacy and engagement with a range of Roman actors provide vital evidence for assessing the ways in which Roman empire and hegemony affected conditions on the ground in the province. Asia's unique history, moving from allied kingdom to regularly assigned provincia to a reconquered and reorganized territory, offers an insight into the complex workings of institutional formation. From an investigation of the institutions which emerged in the province over a long first century (133 BCE-14 CE), Bradley Jordan considers the discursive power of official utterances of the Roman state, and the strategies employed by local actors to negotiate a favourable relationship with the empire.

Contested Pasts

Contested Pasts PDF Author: Jennifer Finn
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472220101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Taking as a key turning point the self-fashioning of the first Roman emperor Augustus, author Jennifer Finn revisits the idea of “universal history” in Polybius, Justin, and Diodorus, combined with the Stoic philosophy of determinism present in authors like Plutarch and Arrian. Finn endeavors to determine the ways in which Roman authors manipulated narratives about Alexander’s campaigns—and even other significant events in Mediterranean history—to artificially construct a past to which the Romans could attach themselves as a natural teleological culmination. In doing so, Contested Pasts uses five case studies to reexamine aspects of Alexander’s campaigns that have received much attention in modern scholarship, providing new interpretations of issues such as: his connections to the Trojan and Persian wars; the Great Weddings at Susa; the battle(s) of Thermopylae in 480 BCE and 191 BCE and Alexander's conflict at the Persian Gates; the context of his “Last Plans”;” the role of his memory in imagining the Roman Civil Wars; and his fictitious visit to the city of Jerusalem. While Finn demonstrates throughout the book that the influence for many of these narratives likely originated in the reign of Alexander or his Successors, nevertheless these retroactive authorial manipulations force us to confront the fact that we may have an even more opaque understanding of Alexander than has previously been acknowledged. Through the application of a mnemohistorical approach, the book seeks to provide a new understanding of the ways in which the Romans—and people in the purview of the Romans—conceptualized their own world with reference to Alexander the Great.

The Epic World

The Epic World PDF Author: Pamela Lothspeich
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000912167
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 661

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Book Description
Reconceptualizing the epic genre and opening it up to a world of storytelling, The Epic World makes a timely and bold intervention toward understanding the human propensity to aestheticize and normalize mass deployments of power and violence. The collection broadly considers three kinds of epic literature: conventional celebratory tales of conquest that glorify heroism, especially male heroism; anti-epics or stories of conquest from the perspectives of the dispossessed, the oppressed, the despised, and the murdered; and heroic stories utilized for imperialist or nationalist purposes. The Epic World illustrates global patterns of epic storytelling, such as the durability of stories tied to religious traditions and/or to peoples who have largely "stayed put"; the tendency to reimagine and retell stories in new ways over centuries; and the imbrication of epic storytelling and forms of colonialism and imperialism, especially those perpetuated and glorified by Euro-Americans over the past 500 years, resulting in unspeakable and immeasurable harms to humans, other living beings, and the planet Earth. The Epic World is a go-to volume for anyone interested in epic literature in a global framework. Engaging with powerful stories and ways of knowing beyond those of the predominantly white Global North, this field-shifting volume exposes the false premises of "Western civilization" and "Classics," and brings new questions and perspectives to epic studies.

The Body Politic in Roman Political Thought

The Body Politic in Roman Political Thought PDF Author: Julia Mebane
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009389300
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
How did Roman writers use the metaphor of the body politic to respond to the downfall of the Republic? In this book, Julia Mebane begins with the Catilinarian Conspiracy in 63 BCE, when Cicero and Catiline proposed two rival models of statesmanship on the senate floor: the civic healer and the head of state. Over the next century, these two paradigms of authority were used to confront the establishment of sole rule in the Roman world. Tracing their Imperial afterlives allows us to see how Romans came to terms with autocracy without ever naming it as such. In identifying metaphor as an important avenue of political thought, the book makes a significant contribution to the history of ideas. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Why America Is Not a New Rome

Why America Is Not a New Rome PDF Author: Vaclav Smil
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026228829X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
An investigation of the America-Rome analogy that goes deeper than the facile comparisons made on talk shows and in glossy magazine articles. America's post–Cold War strategic dominance and its pre-recession affluence inspired pundits to make celebratory comparisons to ancient Rome at its most powerful. Now, with America no longer perceived as invulnerable, engaged in protracted fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and suffering the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, comparisons are to the bloated, decadent, ineffectual later Empire. In Why America Is Not a New Rome, Vaclav Smil looks at these comparisons in detail, going deeper than the facile analogy-making of talk shows and glossy magazine articles. He finds profound differences. Smil, a scientist and a lifelong student of Roman history, focuses on several fundamental concerns: the very meaning of empire; the actual extent and nature of Roman and American power; the role of knowledge and innovation; and demographic and economic basics—population dynamics, illness, death, wealth, and misery. America is not a latter-day Rome, Smil finds, and we need to understand this in order to look ahead without the burden of counterproductive analogies. Superficial similarities do not imply long-term political, demographic, or economic outcomes identical to Rome's.

Rome

Rome PDF Author: Greg Woolf
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191626864
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
The idea of empire was created in ancient Rome and even today the Roman empire offers a powerful image for thinking about imperialism. Traces of its monuments and literature can be found across Europe, the Near East, and North Africa - and sometimes even further afield. This is the story of how this mammoth empire was created, how it was sustained in crisis, and how it shaped the world of its rulers and subjects - a story spanning a millennium and a half. Chapters that tell the story of the unfolding of Rome's empire alternate with discussions based on the most recent evidence into the conditions that made the Roman imperial achievement possible and also so durable, covering topics as diverse as ecology, slavery, and the cult paid to gods and men. Rome was not the only ancient empire. Comparison with other imperial projects helps us see what it was that was so distinctive about ancient Rome. Ancient Rome has also often been an explicit model for other imperialisms. Rome, An Empire's Story shows quite how different Roman imperialism was from modern imitations. The story that emerges outlines the advantages of Rome had over its neighbours at different periods - some planned, some quite accidental - and the stages by which Rome's rulers successively had to change the way they ruled to cope with the problems of growth. As Greg Woolf demonstrates, nobody ever planned to create a state that would last more than a millennium and a half, yet the short term politics of alliances between successively wider groups created a structure of extraordinary stability. Rome's Empire was able, in the end, to survive barbarian migrations, economic collapse and even the conflicts between a series of world religions that had grown up within it, in the process generating an imagery and a myth of empire that is apparently indestructible.

The Roman Empire

The Roman Empire PDF Author: Neville Morley
Publisher: Pluto Press
ISBN: 9780745328690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A millennium and a half after the end of the period of its unquestioned dominance, Rome remains a significant presence in western culture. This book explores what the empire meant to its subjects.The idea of Rome has long outlived the physical empire that gave it form, and now holds sway over vastly more people and a far greater geographical area than the Romans ever ruled. It continues to shape our understanding of the nature of imperialism, and thus, however subtly, to influence the workings of the world. Unlike most works on Roman history, this book does not offer a simplistic narrative, with military triumph followed by decline and fall. Instead, it analyzes the origins and nature of Roman imperialism, its economic, social and cultural impact on the regions it conquered, and its continuing influence in discussions and debates about modern imperialism. Exquisitely written, this book is perfect for students of classics and ancient history who want to see another side of the Roman empire.

Rome and Its Frontiers

Rome and Its Frontiers PDF Author: C R Whittaker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134384130
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Do the Romans have anything to teach us about the way that they saw the world, and the way they ran their empire? How did they deal with questions of frontiers and migration, so often in the news today? This collection of ten important essays by C. R. Whittaker, engages with debates and controversies about the Roman frontiers and the concept of empire. Truly global in its focus, the book examines the social, political and cultural implications of the Roman frontiers in Africa, India, Britain, Europe, Asia and the Far East, and provides a comprehensive account of their significance.

The Roman Empire

The Roman Empire PDF Author: Neville Morley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781783715732
Category : Imperialism
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Analyses the origins and nature of the Roman empire, and its continuing influence in discussions and debates about modern imperialism