Empire and Religion in the Roman World

by Harriet I. Flower (Editor)

Overview

The inspiration for this volume comes from the work of its dedicatee, Brent D. Shaw, who is one of the most original and wide-ranging historians of the ancient world of the last half-century and continues to open up exciting new fields for exploration. Each of the distinguished contributors has produced a cutting-edge exploration of a topic in the history and culture of the Roman Empire dealing with a subject on which Professor Shaw has contributed valuable work. Three major themes extend across the volume as a whole. First, the ways in which the Roman world represented an intricate web of connections even while many people's lives remained fragmented and local. Second, the ways in which the peculiar Roman space promoted religious competition in a sophisticated marketplace for practices and beliefs, with Christianity being a major benefactor. Finally, the varying forms of violence which were endemic within and between communities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108934244
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/19/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Harriet I. Flower is Andrew Fleming West Professor of Classics at Princeton University. She is the author of Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (1996), The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (2006), Roman Republics (2010) and The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden: Religion at the Roman Street Corner (2017), which received the Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit from the Society of Classical Studies in 2018 . She has also edited The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (2nd edition, 2014).

Table of Contents

Part I. Empire: 1. Germs and Empire: The Agency of the Microscopic Kyle Harper; 2. Imperial Integration on Rome's Atlantic Rim Carlos Noreña; 3. The Ambitions of Government: Sovereignty and Control in the Ancient Countryside Clifford Ando; 4. Contingency and Context: The Origins of the Jewish War against Rome Erich S. Gruen; Part II. Religion: 5. The First Christian Family of Egypt Sabine R. Huebner; 6. Missionaries, Pious Merchants, Freelance Religious Experts, and the Spread of Christianity Éric Rebillard; 7. Christian Piety in Late Antiquity: Contexts and Contestations Claudia Rapp; 8. Ausonius at the Edge of Empire: Consular Poetics as Cognitive Improvisation Mark Vessey; 9. Peregrinationes in Psalmos Catherine Conybeare; 10. Muhammad's Rivals: Prophets in Late Antique Arabia Glen W. Bowersock; Epilogue: 11. Brent Shaw: An Intellectual Profile Peter Brown.