Overview

This authoritative series of essays brings together a group of eminent scholars engaged with Imperial Greece in the first work of its kind to address the art-history, archaeology, numismatics and prose literature of Imperial Greek cities in one volume, covering the period from pre-Imperial Hellenistic developments to the late third century CE. The book provides a wide coverage and is organised into thematic sections including: the overall context of Greek cities in the Roman Empire and their Hellenistic roots; festival culture; prominent figures who shaped Hellenic identity; some key prose-writers of the period; Hellenism in action in the Roman Empire; and further perspectives on Hellenic culture outside the learned mainstreams.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ewen Bowie (Corpus Christi College) ,  Calum Maciver (Lecturer in Classics, University of Edinburgh)
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:  

9781399552455

ISBN 10:   1399552457
Pages:   744
Publication Date:   31 March 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Preface List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Abbreviations Part I: Introduction 1. Introduction. Ewen Bowie Part II: The Hellenistic Prequel 2. Hellenistic Civic Identities: Evolving Intersections of Classical Athens, Paideia, and Democracy Ben Gray 3. Acraephia and its Material Past in the Ptoia of the Late Hellenistic and Early Imperial Period Paraskevi Martzavou Part III: Ephebes and Festivals 4. Religious Visibility According to Ancestral Custom: Greek Festive Traditions, Poetic, Ritual and Other Athena Kavoulaki 5. Gymnasia, Ephebates, and Hellenic Cultural Identity in Imperial Achaea Matthew Evans 6. Celebrating Pythian Games: Hellenism and Local Identity in Civic Festivals of Asia Minor Zahra Newby Part IV: The Claudii Attici 7. Claudius Atticus, Father of Herodes, and the Spartan Agōgē: New Evidence Tony Spawforth 8. Bodies, Landscape, and Entanglement: Reading Herodes Atticus’ Marathonian Monuments through IG ii2 3606 Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis Part V: The Perspectives of Philosophers, Sophists and Litterateurs 9. Eternal City? Delphi, Hellenism, and the Civic in Plutarch Judith Mossman 10. Defining Hellenism: the Ideal Greek City According to Dio and Plutarch Thomas Schmidt 11. The Pride of Being Hellenic in Prusa ad Olympum and Rhodes. Anne Gangloff 12. The Fabric of Hellenic Civic Life in Alexandria According to Strabo, Dio of Prusa and Plutarch Lucia Athanassaki 13. Questioning Greek Civic Identity at the Imperial Symposium: Plutarch and Athenaeus Katerina Oikonomopoulou 14. Aelius Aristides on Smyrna and Rhodes Michael Trapp 15. Imperial Cyzicus: Strabo, Tryphaena, Aristides Janet Downie 16. Festival Athletics in the Imagines of the Elder Philostratus Jaś Elsner and Michael Squire 17. Hellenic Culture and Identity in the Epistles and Other ‘Minor’ works of the Philostratean Corpus Owen Hodkinson 18. Attic Landscapes Re-imagined: Alciphron’s Letters and the City-praise Tradition. Jason König Part VI :Hellenic Traditions in Action 19. The Tomb and Library of Celsus at Ephesus: Converting Roman Power into Local Privilege R. R. R. Smith 20. Communicating by Coinage: Money Talks Ewen Bowie Part VII: Greek Novels 21. Aphrodisias, Latin Poetry, and the Early Greek Novels: The Case of the Ninus and Chione Romances Daniel Jolowicz 22. The Elite, the Dēmos, and the Balance of Power in the Cities of the Ancient Greek Novels (ca. first-third centuries AD) Sophie Lalanne Part VIII: Outside the Ivory Towers 23. Seriously pederastic: The politics of pederasty in Roman Greece. Tim Whitmarsh 24. The Fabric of Hellenism and Popular Culture in the Imperial Greek City: Materiality and Resistance Lucy Grig 25. Christian Greek Literature in the Tradition of Hellenic Paideia in the Mid-third Century Stephen Mitchell 26. Thinking about the Future with Greek Cities Estelle Strazdins Bibliography Index

Reviews

The latest ‘Leventis’ is a fantastically rich and informative collection on Hellenism and the material ‘fabric’ of the early Roman period, authored by experts in several fields and held together by first-rate editing. Students of the literature and the history of this era will enjoy it and learn from it enormously. -- Professor Simon Swain, University of Warwick

The latest ‘Leventis’ is a fantastically rich and informative collection on Hellenism and the material ‘fabric’ of the early Roman period, authored by experts in several fields and held together by first-rate editing. Students of the literature and the history of this era will enjoy it and learn from it enormously. -- Simon Swain, University of Warwick

Author Information

Ewen Bowie was Leventis Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh in 2023, and E. P. Warren Praelector in Classics, Corpus Christi College, Oxford from 1965 to 2007. Calum Maciver is a Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Edinburgh

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