The Hellenistic West

Rethinking the Ancient Mediterranean

Jonathan R. W. Prag, Josephine Crawley Quinn

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781107032422
• eBook ISBN:
  9781107777019
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Although the Hellenistic period has become increasingly popular in research and teaching in recent years, the western Mediterranean is rarely considered part of the 'Hellenistic world'; instead the cities, peoples and kingdoms of the West are usually only discussed insofar as they relate to Rome. This book contends that the rift between the 'Greek East' and the 'Roman West' is more a product of the traditional separation of Roman and Greek history than a reflection of the Hellenistic-period Mediterranean, which was a strongly interconnected cultural and economic zone, with the rising Roman republic just one among many powers in the region, east and west. The contributors argue for a dynamic reading of the economy, politics and history of the central and western Mediterranean beyond Rome, and in doing so problematise the concepts of 'East', 'West' and 'Hellenistic' itself.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Figures
• Colour plates
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The view from the East
• 2 Hellenistic Pompeii: between Oscan, Greek, Roman and Punic
• 3 The ‘Hellenistics of death’ in Adriatic central Italy
• 4 Hellenistic Sicily, c. 270–100 BC
• 5 Trading across the Syrtes: Euesperides and the Punic world
• 6 Strangers in the city: élite communication in the Hellenistic central Mediterranean
• 7 Monumental power: ‘Numidian Royal Architecture’ in context
• 8 Representing Hellenistic Numidia, in Africa and at Rome
• 9 Hellenism as subaltern practice: rural cults in the Punic world
• 10 Were the Iberians Hellenised?
• 11 Epigraphy in the western Mediterranean: a Hellenistic phenomenon?
• 12 Heracles, coinage and the West: three Hellenistic case-studies
• 13 On the significance of East and West in today’s ‘Hellenistic’ history: reflections on symmetrical worlds, reflecting through world symmetries
• Bibliography
• Index