Erich S. Gruen - Böcker

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.

Available for the first time in paperback, with a new introduction that reviews related scholarship of the past twenty years, Erich Gruen's classic study of the late Republic examines institutions as well as personalities, social tensions as well as politics, the plebs and the army as well as the aristocracy.

This book is an examination of the impact of Greek learning, literature, and religion on central aspects of Roman life in the middle Republic. Acclaimed historian Erich S. Gruen discusses the introduction of and resistance to new cults, the relationship between Roman political figures and literary artists schooled in Greek, and the reaction to Hellenic philosophy and rhetoric by the Roman elite. This book contributes new and important information on the place of Greek culture in Roman public life.

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.

The interaction of Jew and Greek in antiquity intrigues the imagination. Both civilizations boasted great traditions, their roots stretching back to legendary ancestors and divine sanction. In the wake of Alexander the Great's triumphant successes, Greeks and Macedonians came as conquerors and settled as ruling classes in the lands of the eastern Mediterranean. Hellenic culture, the culture of the ascendant classes in many of the cities of the Near East, held widespread attraction and appeal. Jews were certainly not immune. In this thoroughly researched, lucidly written work, Erich Gruen draws on a wide variety of literary and historical texts of the period to explore a central question: How did the Jews accommodate themselves to the larger cultural world of the Mediterranean while at the same time reasserting the character of their own heritage within it? Erich Gruen's work highlights Jewish creativity, ingenuity, and inventiveness, as the Jews engaged actively with the traditions of Hellas, adapting genres and transforming legends to articulate their own legacy in modes congenial to a Hellenistic setting.Drawing on a diverse array of texts composed in Greek by Jews over a broad period of time, Gruen explores works by Jewish historians, epic poets, tragic dramatists, writers of romance and novels, exegetes, philosophers, apocalyptic visionaries, and composers of fanciful fables--not to mention pseudonymous forgers and fabricators. In these works, Jewish writers reinvented their own past, offering us the best insights into Jewish self-perception in that era.

Erich S. Gruen investigates a remarkable phenomenon in religious and literary history: the freedom with which Jewish writers in antiquity retold and recast, sometimes distorted or bypassed, biblical narratives that ostensibly had the status of sacred texts. Gruen asks the question of what prompted such tampering with tales that carried divine authority, and what implications this widespread practice of liberal revising had for attitudes toward the sacrality of the scriptures in general.Gruen focuses upon writings of the Second Temple period, an era of the deep integration of Jewish history and the Greco-Roman world. Gruen brings to the task the training of a classicist and ancient historian rather than that of a biblical textual critic or a rabbinics scholar, not pursuing the commentaries of the later rabbis with their very different approaches, methods, and goals. As such, Gruen's emphasis rests upon narrative rather than legal matters, the haggadic rather than the halakhic. The former lends itself most readily to the creative instincts of the re-tellers.

Erich S. Gruen investigates a remarkable phenomenon in religious and literary history: the freedom with which Jewish writers in antiquity retold and recast, sometimes distorted or bypassed, biblical narratives that ostensibly had the status of sacred texts. Gruen asks the question of what prompted such tampering with tales that carried divine authority, and what implications this widespread practice of liberal revising had for attitudes toward the sacrality of the scriptures in general.Gruen focuses upon writings of the Second Temple period, an era of the deep integration of Jewish history and the Greco-Roman world. Gruen brings to the task the training of a classicist and ancient historian rather than that of a biblical textual critic or a rabbinics scholar, not pursuing the commentaries of the later rabbis with their very different approaches, methods, and goals. As such, Gruen's emphasis rests upon narrative rather than legal matters, the haggadic rather than the halakhic. The former lends itself most readily to the creative instincts of the re-tellers.

What was life like for Jews settled throughout the Mediterranean world of Classical antiquity--and what place did Jewish communities have in the diverse civilization dominated by Greeks and Romans? In a probing account of the Jewish diaspora in the four centuries from Alexander the Great's conquest of the Near East to the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 C.E., Erich Gruen reaches often surprising conclusions.By the first century of our era, Jews living abroad far outnumbered those living in Palestine and had done so for generations. Substantial Jewish communities were found throughout the Greek mainland and Aegean islands, Asia Minor, the Tigris-Euphrates valley, Egypt, and Italy. Focusing especially on Alexandria, Greek cities in Asia Minor, and Rome, Gruen explores the lives of these Jews: the obstacles they encountered, the institutions they established, and their strategies for adjustment. He also delves into Jewish writing in this period, teasing out how Jews in the diaspora saw themselves. There emerges a picture of a Jewish minority that was at home in Greco-Roman cities: subject to only sporadic harassment; its intellectuals immersed in Greco-Roman culture while refashioning it for their own purposes; exhibiting little sign of insecurity in an alien society; and demonstrating both a respect for the Holy Land and a commitment to the local community and Gentile government. Gruen's innovative analysis of the historical and literary record alters our understanding of the way this vibrant minority culture engaged with the dominant Classical civilization.

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.

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.

Few encounters in antiquity have had more profound consequences than that between Greek culture and Republican Rome. Focusing on the ruling elites of the middle and later Republic, for whom Hellenic literature, religion, and visual arts were at once intimidating and appealing, Erich S. Gruen offers a compelling account of the assimilation and adaptation of Greek culture by the Romans.Gruen examines such key cultural developments in the history of Republican Rome as the adaptation of the legend of Troy to create a special place for Rome within Hellenic traditions and Cato's campaign to distinguish Roman cultural achievements by defining them in contrast to those of the Greeks. He describes the diverse purposes—civic, religious, and political—for which the Romans used Greek art, as well as the reshaping of Hellenic models to express a distinctively Roman character in historical reliefs, portraiture, and comic drama. The book treats a variety of means whereby the Greek legacy was molded to suit the living Roman tradition. Gruen shows that this complex process of cultural transformation served to sharpen the Romans' sense of their own values their national character, and their international image.Demonstrating that the Roman response to Hellenism was far more subtle and dynamic than has generally been acknowledged, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome will be welcomed as an outstanding contribution by readers interested in ancient history, classical literature, and the history of art.

Few encounters in antiquity have had more profound consequences than that between Greek culture and Republican Rome. Focusing on the ruling elites of the middle and later Republic, for whom Hellenic literature, religion, and visual arts were at once intimidating and appealing, Erich S. Gruen offers a compelling account of the assimilation and adaptation of Greek culture by the Romans.Gruen examines such key cultural developments in the history of Republican Rome as the adaptation of the legend of Troy to create a special place for Rome within Hellenic traditions and Cato's campaign to distinguish Roman cultural achievements by defining them in contrast to those of the Greeks. He describes the diverse purposes—civic, religious, and political—for which the Romans used Greek art, as well as the reshaping of Hellenic models to express a distinctively Roman character in historical reliefs, portraiture, and comic drama. The book treats a variety of means whereby the Greek legacy was molded to suit the living Roman tradition. Gruen shows that this complex process of cultural transformation served to sharpen the Romans' sense of their own values their national character, and their international image.Demonstrating that the Roman response to Hellenism was far more subtle and dynamic than has generally been acknowledged, Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome will be welcomed as an outstanding contribution by readers interested in ancient history, classical literature, and the history of art.

This is an illuminating collection of essays that explore the idea of cultural identity in the ancient Mediterranean. Cultural identity is a slippery and elusive concept. When applied to the collective self-consciousness among people or nations, it becomes all the more difficult to define or grasp. In recent decades scholars have focused on the 'other' - the alien, the unfamiliar, the different, perceived or conceived as the opposite - to highlight the virtues and advantages of the self. While this influential idea continues to hold sway, the time has come for a more nuanced and complex understanding of how the various societies of the ancient Mediterranean shaped their sense of identity. The twenty-four essays in this volume examine the subject from a variety of angles, encompassing a broad range of cultures: Greek, Persian, Jewish, Phoenician, Egyptian, Roman, Gallic, and German - and an impressive array of topics.

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.

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.

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?