Rome's Cultural Revolution

by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

• ISBN13: 9780521721608
• ISBN10: 0521721601
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill is Professor of Classics at the University of Reading

Table of Contents

List of figures and table	p. viii
List of colour plates	p. xvii
Preface	p. xix
Acknowledgements for illustrations	p. xxiii
Cultures and Identities
Culture, identity and power	p. 3
Dress, language and identity	p. 38
Building Identities
Roman Italy: between Roman, Greek and local	p. 73
Vitruvius: building Roman identity	p. 144
Knowledge and Power
Knowing the ancestors	p. 213
Knowing the city	p. 259
The Consumer Revolution
Luxury and the consumer revolution	p. 315
Waves of fashion	p. 356
Epilogue: a cultural revolution?	p. 441
Bibliography	p. 455
Index	p. 493
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