The story of Roman Hellenism--defined as the imitation or adoption of
something Greek by those subject to or operating under Roman
power--begins not with Roman incursions into the Greek mainland, but in
Italy, where our most plentiful and spectacular surviving evidence is
concentrated. Think of the architecture of the Roman capital, the
Campanian towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum buried by Vesuvius, and the
Hellenic culture of the Etruscans. Perhaps "everybody knows" that Rome
adapted Greek culture in a steadily more "sophisticated" way as its
prosperity and might increased. This volume, however, argues that the
assumption of smooth continuity, let alone steady "improvement," in any
aspect of Roman Hellenism can blind us to important aspects of what
Roman Hellenism really is and how it functions in a given context.
As the first book to focus on the comparison of Roman Hellenisms per se,
Comparing Roman Hellenisms in Italy shows that such comparison is
especially valuable in revealing how any singular instance of the
phenomenon is situated and specific, and has its own life, trajectory,
circumstances, and afterlife. Roman Hellenism is always a work in
progress, is often strategic, often falls prey to being forgotten,
decontextualized, or reread in later periods, and thus is in important
senses contingent. Further, what we may broadly identify as a Roman
Hellenism need not imply Rome as the only center of influence. Roman
Hellenism is often decentralized, and depends strongly on local agents,
aesthetics, and materials. With this in mind, the essays concentrate
geographically on Italy to lend both focus and breadth to our topic, as
well as to emphasize the complex interrelation of Hellenism at Rome with
Rome's surroundings. Because Hellenism, whether as practiced by Romans
or Rome's subjects, is in fact widely diffused across far-flung
geographical regions, the final part of the collection gestures to this
broader context.
