Romulus' Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian

Modern treatments of Rome have projected in highly emotive terms the perceived problems, or the aspirations, of the present: "race-mixture" has been blamed for the collapse of the Roman empire; more recently, Rome and Roman society have been depicted as "multicultural." Moving beyond these and beyond more traditional, juridical approaches to Roman identity, Emma Dench focuses on ancient modes of thinking about selves and relationships with other peoples, including descent-myths, history, and ethnographies. She explores the relative importance of sometimes closely interconnected categories of blood descent, language, culture and clothes, and territoriality. Rome's creation of a distinctive imperial shape is understood in the context of the broader ancient Mediterranean world within which the Romans self-consciously situated themselves, and whose modes of thought they appropriated and transformed.


Author: Emma Dench
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 08/18/2005
Pages: 454
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.44lbs
Size: 8.59h x 5.79w x 1.18d
ISBN: 9780198150510

About the Author

Emma Dench is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History, Birkbeck College, University of London.

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