Cosmopolitanism and Empire

Universal Rulers, Local Elites, and Cultural Integration in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-0-19-046566-7
Verlag: OXFORD UNIV PR

Buch, Englisch, 296 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 614 g

Reihe: Oxford Studies in Early Empires

The empires of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean invented cosmopolitan politics. In the first millennia BCE and CE, a succession of territorially extensive states incorporated populations of unprecedented cultural diversity. Cosmopolitanism and Empire traces the development of cultural techniques through which empires managed difference in order to establish effective, enduring regimes of domination. It focuses on the relations of imperial elites with
culturally distinct local elites, offering a comparative perspective on the varying depth and modalities of elite integration in five empires of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. If cosmopolitanism has normally been studied apart from the imperial context, the essays gathered here show that theories
and practices that enabled ruling elites to transcend cultural particularities were indispensable for the establishment and maintenance of trans-regional and trans-cultural political orders. As the first cosmopolitans, imperial elites regarded ruling over culturally disparate populations as their vocation, and their capacity to establish normative frameworks across cultural boundaries played a vital role in the consolidation of their power. Together with an introductory chapter which offers a
theory and history of the relationship between empire and cosmopolitanism, the volume includes case studies of Assyrian, Seleukid, Ptolemaic, Roman, and Iranian empires that analyze encounters between ruling classes and their subordinates in the domains of language and literature, religion, and the
social imaginary. The contributions combine to illustrate the dilemmas of difference that imperial elites confronted as well as their strategies for resolving the cultural contradictions that their regimes precipitated.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lavan, Myles

Payne, Richard E.

Weisweiler, John

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Militärgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte Kunstgeschichte: Klassisch (Griechisch & Römisch)
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Myles Lavan is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of St. Andrews and author of Slaves to Rome: Paradigms of Empire in Roman Culture.

Richard E. Payne is Neubauer Family Assistant Professor at the Oriental Institute and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago and author of A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity.

John Weisweiler is Assistant Professor in the Department of Ancient History at the University of Tübingen.