Erich S. Gruen

Includes new introduction dated July 1994.

The Last Generation of the Roman Republic

Paul Cartledge

Peter Garnsey

The Hellenistic period (approximately the last three centuries B.C.), with its cultural complexities and enduring legacies, retains a lasting fascination today. Reflecting the vigor and productivity of scholarship directed at this period in the past decade, this collection of original essays is a wide-ranging exploration of current discoveries and questions. The twelve essays emphasize the cultural interaction of Greek and non-Greek societies in the Hellenistic period, in contrast to more conventional focuses on politics, society, or economy. The result of original research by some of the leading scholars in Hellenistic history and culture, this volume is an exemplary illustration of the cultural richness of this period. Paul Cartledge's introduction contains an illuminating introductory overview of current trends in Hellenistic scholarship. The essays themselves range over broad questions of comparative historiography, literature, religion, and the roles of Athens, Rome, and the Jews within the context of the Hellenistic world. The volume is dedicated to Frank Walbank and includes an updated bibliography of his work which has been essential to our understanding of the Hellenistic period.

Essays in Culture, History, and Historiography

Hellenistic Constructs

This book collects twenty two previously published essays and one new one by Erich S. Gruen who has written extensively on the literature and history of early Judaism and the experience of the Jews in the Greco-Roman world. His many articles on this subject have, however, appeared mostly in conference volumes and Festschriften, and have therefore not had wide circulation. By putting them together in a single work, this will bring the essays to the attention of a much broader scholarly readership and make them more readily available to students in the fields of ancient history and early Judaism. The pieces are quite varied, but develop a number of connected and related themes: Jewish identity in the pagan world, the literary representations by Jews and pagans of one another, the interconnections of Hellenism and Judaism, and the Jewish experience under Hellenistic monarchies and the Roman empire.

Essays on Early Jewish Literature and History

The Construct of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism

In his contribution to the fragmentary Jewish historians of Hellenistic times and their treatment of the biblical tradition Erich Gruen shows not only that the fragments disclose a remarkable range and diversity of texts, but also that their authors’ engagement with biblical texts was more light-hearted in tone, deliberately idiosyncratic, and, far from parochial in temperament, tended to connect with Hellenic and Near Eastern cultures in order to set Jewish traditions into a broader context. These historians did not see their mission primarily as setting the record straight. They provided arresting twists on biblical tales, alternative versions, provocative variations, and, almost always, some entertainment value. The sacrality of the Scriptures remained untouched.

Fragmentary Jewish Historians and Biblical History

In these fictive creations, Jewish writers reinvented their own past, offering us vital insights into Jewish self-perception.

The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition

Heritage and Hellenism

In this revisionist study of Roman imperialism in the Greek world, Gruen considers the Hellenistic context within which Roman expansion took place. The evidence discloses a preponderance of Greek rather than Roman ideas: a noteworthy readiness on the part of Roman policymakers to adjust to Hellenistic practices rather than to impose a system of their own.

The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome

Gruen studies the Hellenization of Rome during the middle Republic years, where changes in arts, religion and philosophy, and politics altered Roman public life by introducing Greek learning.

Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy

Imperialism in the Roman Republic

This study raises that difficult and complicated question on a broad front, taking into account the expressions and attitudes of a wide variety of Greek, Roman, Jewish, and early Christian sources, including Herodotus, Polybius, Cicero, Philo, and Paul. It approaches the topic of ethnicity through the lenses of the ancients themselves rather than through the imposition of modern categories, labels, and frameworks. A central issue guides the course of the work: did ancient writers reflect upon collective identity as determined by common origins and lineage or by shared traditions and culture?

Ethnicity in the Ancient World – Did it matter?

Prevalent among classicists today is the notion that Greeks, Romans, and Jews enhanced their own self-perception by contrasting themselves with the so-called Other--Egyptians, Phoenicians, Ethiopians, Gauls, and other foreigners--frequently through hostile stereotypes, distortions, and caricature. In this provocative book, Erich Gruen demonstrates how the ancients found connections rather than contrasts, how they expressed admiration for the achievements and principles of other societies, and how they discerned--and even invented--kinship relations and shared roots with diverse peoples. Gruen shows how the ancients incorporated the traditions of foreign nations, and imagined blood ties and associations with distant cultures through myth, legend, and fictive histories. He looks at a host of creative tales, including those describing the founding of Thebes by the Phoenician Cadmus, Rome's embrace of Trojan and Arcadian origins, and Abraham as ancestor to the Spartans. Gruen gives in-depth readings of major texts by Aeschylus, Herodotus, Xenophon, Plutarch, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, and others, in addition to portions of the Hebrew Bible, revealing how they offer richly nuanced portraits of the alien that go well beyond stereotypes and caricature. Providing extraordinary insight into the ancient world, this controversial book explores how ancient attitudes toward the Other often expressed mutuality and connection, and not simply contrast and alienation.

Rethinking the Other in Antiquity

A G Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus Paul Cartledge

A compelling account of the assimilation and adaptation of Greek culture by the Romans during the middle and later Republic.

Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome

Cultural identity in the classical world is explored from a variety of angles.

Erich S. Gruen

About

Books

Join the club