Rome, Italy, and the Hellenistic East, c.300-100 BC: archaeology and history

The course studies the interaction and conflict between two powerful Mediterranean cultures - the Hellenistic East and Roman Italy. From both sides there survives abundant material, visual, and written evidence that allows a detailed understanding of the complex process of acculturation that began when the balance of power in the Mediterranean shifted to Rome, and the whole apparatus and technology of Hellenistic high culture became available in Italy.

The course looks first at the Hellenistic kingdoms and royal culture at the height of their power in the third century BC - the Macedonian dynasties ruling from Alexandria, Antioch, and Pella - at their relations with the local peoples they ruled, and at the old city-states that still flourished within and between the Macedonian kingdoms. Particular attention is paid to Attalid Pergamon, the best preserved royal capital, to Athens and Priene as two very different examples of traditional cities, and to the excellently documented example of Macedonian-Greek-Egyptian relations and culture in Ptolemaic Egypt.

Intensified active Roman involvement in the Greek East in the second century BC is studied both through the foreign politics and wars of the period and through the archaeology of Delos, our best example of an eastern port through which Greek goods flowed to Italy. The impact of Hellenistic culture in central Italy and on Roman society is studied in the rich record of contemporary architecture, art, and lifestyles -- at Praeneste and Pompeii, as well as at Rome. The Hellenized culture of Roman private life remained in unresolved conflict with a strongly felt need in public life for a distinctively Roman political and moral identity. The varied products -- mental, visual, material -- of this prolonged culture-conflict are the subject of the course.

Particular attention is paid to the archaeology of the following cities and sites: Pella, Alexandria, Pergamon, Ai Khanoum, Athens, Priene, Praeneste, Pompeii, Rome.
This course is only taught every other Hilary Term: it will next be taught in HT 2013. (Convenor: B. Dignas, Somerville)