Geo­gra­phical, Histor­ical Overview

Assignment Details, Quiz Response Prompt

This time around, quiz responses are to get you acquainted with the geographical and historical background to the material we're dealing with. This isn't a history or geography course, but there is basic groundwork we need to lay.

This assignment's quiz responses are also supposed to help you see how widely throughout the Empire, Greek culture, including its sophistic-literary and athletic aspects, had spread.

For your quiz responses, I want you:

  1. To view and to study three maps/web pages with maps:
  2. To read and to study the following texts:
  3. To put together a really concise time-line, based on readings, of events that seem pertinent to our material: year, event. Write that into your quiz response prompt. By "concise," I mean brief, but not so brief that crucial things are left out. But I don't want a lot of detail, either
  4. Additionally in your quiz response prompt, I want you to do the following based on your study of maps and texts linked-to above:
    • Using maps from #1, indicate some parts of the Empire — city names; ancient provincial/regional names; modern country names are ok, too — where sophists (mostly elite teachers and practitioners of Greek rhetoric under Rome) seem to have been concentrated. Provide the name, dates, and city of at least two sophists from those parts
    • Using the same resources, indicate those parts where sophists were scarce. Provide the name, dates, and city of at least two sophists from those parts
      • See Sinja Küpper's explanation for how to use her map. Clicking on the green dots gives you the names, dates, and cities of sophists. In the white box, make sure that only "Named sophists" is clicked. We don't want unnamed sophists or medical sophists.
    • Using maps and Golden's "Olympic Festival" index entry, list four cities that had Olympic festivals. What were the ancient names of those cities? What are the modern names? What are the modern countries in which those cities are to be found?
  5. Finally for your quiz responses, offer any thoughts you have (a paragraph's worth?) about the regionalism (more local aspect) and the internationalism (a) of Greek rhetorical culture, and (b) of athletic culture under the Roman Empire. Be prepared to share those thoughts in class.

Aim of "Overview" Class. . .

Here, we're especially interested in the relationship between Imperial Rome and the Greek cultural tradition: how, under Roman domination, Greek-speakers in the Roman East drew pride and a keen sense of identity from that tradition, and how Romans made Greek culture a part of their own heritage.

Sophia Kelsou, "Wisdom of Celsus." Library of Celsus, Ephesus
Sophia Kelsou, "Wisdom of Celsus." Library of Celsus, Ephesus

That clearly involved some major developments. . . .

  • For the Roman Republic (509-27 BCE) and early Empire (27 BCE to about 100 CE), we learn of Romans' ambivalence regarding Greece: Greek language and literature as necessary, alongside Latin, for elite Romans to learn, but Greek-speaking peoples of the time as not always deserving the respect of the Romans who had conquered them
  • From about 200 BCE, but especially from the time of Augustus (r. 27 BCE-14 CE) onward, a growing embrace by Romans of Greek culture as "ours" and, eventually, of Greek-speakers as "us"

More. . . .

  • As the years past and as Roman rule solidified in the eastern Mediterranean, features of Roman culture (e.g., gladiatorial combats, Roman-style baths) and politics (Roman citizenship; in 212 CE, the emperor Caracalla declared all free persons in the Roman Empire to be citizens of Rome) took hold in Greek-speaking lands and elsewhere. Increasingly, non-Italians, including Greek-speakers in the East, held important positions in Roman government, including those of senator, consul, and emperor
  • At the same time, Greek writers under the Empire show a reawakened interest in Greek heritage
  • Roman emperors played a role in all this. . .
    • The Roman emperor Nero (r. 54-68) was a lover of all things Greek, especially Greek poetry and music. In 66 CE, he traveled to Greece to tour around and to participate in athletic and poetic festivals
    • A crucial player in fostering a sense of Pan-Mediterranean, Greco-Roman identity was the emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138 CE). Devoted to Greek rhetorical culture and to Greek culture generally, Hadrian oversaw the completion of the temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens and built a library there with a speech-recitation auditorium
    • His successor, Antoninus Pius (r. 138-161), established a "chair" (a professorship) in Greek rhetoric at Athens
    • The emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-180 CE) was also a devotee of rhetoric, both Greek and Latin. More than that, he was a Stoic philosopher and composed his Meditations in Greek
    • Julia Domna (Augusta 211-217 CE), the Syrian wife of the African emperor Septimius Severus (se-vér-us, r. 193-211), the mother of the emperor Caracalla (r. 198-217 CE), and a patron of Philostratus the Greek sophist (170-ca. 250 CE), was deeply interested in Greek literature and philosophy

Much of the above goes to the heart of what this class is about, and it will help to get some historical, geographical, and prosopographical background.

  • Prosopography is the study of historical personages, with a focus on connections — family connections; political, social, professional ties; etc. — and shared characteristics of historical actors. Prosopography has been used by historians of the ancient Mediterranean to build a picture of various aspects of Greek and Roman society and politics.

ascholtz@binghamton.edu
© Andrew Scholtz | Last modified 17 January, 2023