Emma Dench
Biographic Data
| ID | 1421704 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Emma Dench |
| GIVEN NAMES | Emma |
| FAMILY NAME | Dench |
| SIGNATURE | DENCH E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University Press |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 97 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Greek City of the Roman Empire: Questions of Identity
The variety of recent scholarly approaches to identity issues concerning Greek cities of the Roman Empire illustrates the continued entanglement of modern ideas and ideals of power, politics, empires, and nations with classical antiquity. Modern treatments have often veered between binary and essentialist thinking about the relative behaviour of ‘Greeks’ and ‘Romans’, reproducing older idealizations of autonomy as an intrinsically Greek trait, an…
Cognition, the Future, and the Romans (on M. Popkin and D. Ng, Future Thinking in Roman Culture)
he 'future thinking' of the title of Maggie L. Popkin and Diana Y. Ng's edited volume is not, as I had originally assumed, a slightly awkward way of expressing socio-specific ways of thinking about the future in the Roman world.Instead, it stands in more narrowly for prospection, the distinctively human ability to 'pre-experience' both things that we have already experienced, and things that we have not, and to act on the basis of this ability (1…
Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World
This, then, is the lay of the different parts of our inhabited world; but since the Romans occupy the best and the best-known portions of it, having surpassed all former rulers of whom we have record, it is worthwhile, even though briefly, to add the following account of them . . . Of this whole country that is subject to the Romans, some is indeed ruled by kings, but the Romans retain the other part, calling it "provincial" (eparchian), and send…
Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity
This chapter argues that certain traits associated with the Second Sophistic have attracted a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention in recent years: preoccupation with the past, Greekness, and the quirky performance of multiple identities. It emphasizes that these traits coexist with articulations of being and belonging that appeal less to early twenty-first-century sentiment, such as common descent, heredity, and “purity.” Finally, it f…
Cicero and Roman identity
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
The Roman historians and twentieth-century approaches to Roman history
“Why do scholars not contemplate the possibility that we perceive historical truth differently from the ancients?” (Woodman 1988: 202) / In his Rhetoric in Classical Historiography, A. J. Woodman challenged notions of the nature of the “historical” texts of classical antiquity, and specifically their relationship with “historical truth” as understood by “modern historians.” His focus on rhetoric evokes Hayden White's highly influential (and, in m…
Ethnography and History
As a result particularly of the reception of Herodotus' Histories and Herodotean traditions, ethnographical material became by the Hellenistic period a more or less standard feature of ancient historical narratives. A modern reader might associate such material primarily with disciplines other than history, such as human geography or anthropology. However, when ancient historians engage in traditions of delineating the lands and customs of “other…
Beyond the Rubicon. Romans and Gauls in Republican Italy
Throughout the middle and late Republican periods (fourth to first centuries BC) the Romans lived in fear and loathing of the Gauls of northern Italy, caused primarily by their collective historical memory of the destruction of the city of Rome by Gauls in 387 BC. By examining the literary evidence relating to the historical, ethnographic, and geographic writings of Greeks and Romans of the period - focusing on invasion and conflict - this book a…
Serious Nudity
Romulus' Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian
Modern treatments of Rome have projected in highly emotive terms the perceived problems, or the aspirations, of the present: 'race-mixture' has been blamed for the collapse of the Roman empire; more recently, Rome and Roman society have been depicted as 'multicultural'. Moving beyond these and beyond more traditional, juridical approaches to Roman identity, Emma Dench focuses on ancient modes of thinking about selves and relationships with other …
From Barbarians to New Men: Greek, Roman, and Modern Perceptions of Peoples of the Central Apennines
Hugh Last Fellowship: Roman identities and Italian voices
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Images of Italian Austerity from Cato to Tacitus
This paper discusses the origins of the images of austere Italians that are widespread in Roman literature of the late Republic and early Empire. Images of Italian austerity are seen within the context of a Roman ideology of incorporation that makes use of éléments of classical Athenian, and Southern Italian, idéologies of relations with other peoples, such as Greeks versus barbarians, town-people versus country people, and the characterisation o…
The Archaeology of Central and Southern Roman Italy: Recent Trends and Approaches
For the historian of the Roman period, the archaeology of Central and Southern Italy raises (and sometimes provides answers to) a fascinating variety of questions. The Pontine plain and the valleys of the Liri and Sacco were the areas first affected by Roman expansion beyond the Latial plain, and it was here that the Romans tested and perfected the techniques of organization and control of territory that were to be used with such success elsewher…
Mountain Society
In the present chapter, the first task is to identify what were really the preoccupations of ancient authors: for example, it will become clear that modern preoccupation with pastoralism in the Central Apennines is not echoed by ancient authors for our period. Ancient authors were, however, interested in the mountainous landscape of the Central Apennines, the social organization of the area, and in the effect of the environment on moral character…
Appendix
Title Pages
Editions and Abbreviations
Subject Classical History Ancient Greek History Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
Greek Contexts
Roman discourse is imbued with ‘Greek’ themes, and provides us with an excellent and comparatively familiar example of the complexity of relations between cultures in ancient Italy. Roman literature begins late, and plunges us into a complex cultural world. The earliest Roman literature presupposes knowledge of ‘Greek’ themes, and suggests the great extent to which Greek and Roman thought were linked. There are examples of clearly self-conscious …
Questions of Identity amongst the Peoples of the Central Apennines
In Chapter 2, ‘Roman Contexts’, I discussed why, when, and how the Romans began to use the ethnic ‘Sabellus’ to refer collectively to Sabines and Samnites after the Social War. The coinage of the ethnic ‘Sabellus’ was not the only means by which Romans grouped various peoples of the Central Apennines together without distinguishing individual tribes: by the Augustan period, these peoples are taken together in the ancient ethnographical tradition,…
Epilogue
Subject Classical History Ancient Greek History Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
Roman Contexts
Not from such parents as these were born the youth who fouled the sea with Punic blood, and brought low Pyrrhus, and Antiochus the Great, and terrible Hannibal, but the manly offspring of country soldiers were they, taught to tum the clods of earth with Sabellian hoes, and to carry home hewn logs to please their strict mother . . . By the Late Republic, it was common for ancient authors to locate moral excellence both in the past and outside the …
Rural Piety, Witches, and Snake-Charmers: Religion in the Central Apennines
In this chapter, I explore the processes of Roman selection and construction of images of religious practices amongst peoples of the Central Apennines. In pursuit of this aim, I do not consider Roman discourse alone. To some extent, archaeology can tell us more about the Roman process of selection by showing what was left out of Roman constructions of religion in the Central Apennines. For example, the Greek and Roman literary sources tend to emp…
From Barbarians to New Men: Greek, Roman, and Modem Perceptions of Peoples of the Central Apennines
The Central Apennine peoples, represented alternately as decadent and dangerous snake-charming barbarians or as personifications of manly wisdom and virtue, as austere and worthy "new men", were important figures in Greek and Roman ideology. Concentrating on the period between the later fourth century BC and the aftermath of the Social War, this book considers the ways in which Greek and Roman perceptions of these peoples developed, reflecting bo…
From Barbarians to New Men: Greek, Roman, and Modem Perceptions of Peoples of the Central Apennines
The Central Apennine peoples, represented alternately as decadent and dangerous snake-charming barbarians or as personifications of manly wisdom and virtue, as austere and worthy "new men", were important figures in Greek and Roman ideology. Concentrating on the period between the later fourth century BC and the aftermath of the Social War, this book considers the ways in which Greek and Roman perceptions of these peoples developed, reflecting bo…
Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity
This chapter argues that certain traits associated with the Second Sophistic have attracted a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention in recent years: preoccupation with the past, Greekness, and the quirky performance of multiple identities. It emphasizes that these traits coexist with articulations of being and belonging that appeal less to early twenty-first-century sentiment, such as common descent, heredity, and “purity.” Finally, it f…
The Archaeology of Central and Southern Roman Italy: Recent Trends and Approaches
For the historian of the Roman period, the archaeology of Central and Southern Italy raises (and sometimes provides answers to) a fascinating variety of questions. The Pontine plain and the valleys of the Liri and Sacco were the areas first affected by Roman expansion beyond the Latial plain, and it was here that the Romans tested and perfected the techniques of organization and control of territory that were to be used with such success elsewher…
Mountain Society
In the present chapter, the first task is to identify what were really the preoccupations of ancient authors: for example, it will become clear that modern preoccupation with pastoralism in the Central Apennines is not echoed by ancient authors for our period. Ancient authors were, however, interested in the mountainous landscape of the Central Apennines, the social organization of the area, and in the effect of the environment on moral character…
Appendix
Title Pages
Editions and Abbreviations
Subject Classical History Ancient Greek History Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
Greek Contexts
Roman discourse is imbued with ‘Greek’ themes, and provides us with an excellent and comparatively familiar example of the complexity of relations between cultures in ancient Italy. Roman literature begins late, and plunges us into a complex cultural world. The earliest Roman literature presupposes knowledge of ‘Greek’ themes, and suggests the great extent to which Greek and Roman thought were linked. There are examples of clearly self-conscious …
Questions of Identity amongst the Peoples of the Central Apennines
In Chapter 2, ‘Roman Contexts’, I discussed why, when, and how the Romans began to use the ethnic ‘Sabellus’ to refer collectively to Sabines and Samnites after the Social War. The coinage of the ethnic ‘Sabellus’ was not the only means by which Romans grouped various peoples of the Central Apennines together without distinguishing individual tribes: by the Augustan period, these peoples are taken together in the ancient ethnographical tradition,…
Epilogue
Subject Classical History Ancient Greek History Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
Roman Contexts
Not from such parents as these were born the youth who fouled the sea with Punic blood, and brought low Pyrrhus, and Antiochus the Great, and terrible Hannibal, but the manly offspring of country soldiers were they, taught to tum the clods of earth with Sabellian hoes, and to carry home hewn logs to please their strict mother . . . By the Late Republic, it was common for ancient authors to locate moral excellence both in the past and outside the …
Rural Piety, Witches, and Snake-Charmers: Religion in the Central Apennines
In this chapter, I explore the processes of Roman selection and construction of images of religious practices amongst peoples of the Central Apennines. In pursuit of this aim, I do not consider Roman discourse alone. To some extent, archaeology can tell us more about the Roman process of selection by showing what was left out of Roman constructions of religion in the Central Apennines. For example, the Greek and Roman literary sources tend to emp…
From Barbarians to New Men: Greek, Roman, and Modem Perceptions of Peoples of the Central Apennines
The Central Apennine peoples, represented alternately as decadent and dangerous snake-charming barbarians or as personifications of manly wisdom and virtue, as austere and worthy "new men", were important figures in Greek and Roman ideology. Concentrating on the period between the later fourth century BC and the aftermath of the Social War, this book considers the ways in which Greek and Roman perceptions of these peoples developed, reflecting bo…
Images of Italian Austerity from Cato to Tacitus
This paper discusses the origins of the images of austere Italians that are widespread in Roman literature of the late Republic and early Empire. Images of Italian austerity are seen within the context of a Roman ideology of incorporation that makes use of éléments of classical Athenian, and Southern Italian, idéologies of relations with other peoples, such as Greeks versus barbarians, town-people versus country people, and the characterisation o…
The Archaeology of Central and Southern Roman Italy: Recent Trends and Approaches
For the historian of the Roman period, the archaeology of Central and Southern Italy raises (and sometimes provides answers to) a fascinating variety of questions. The Pontine plain and the valleys of the Liri and Sacco were the areas first affected by Roman expansion beyond the Latial plain, and it was here that the Romans tested and perfected the techniques of organization and control of territory that were to be used with such success elsewher…
Hugh Last Fellowship: Roman identities and Italian voices
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
From Barbarians to New Men: Greek, Roman, and Modern Perceptions of Peoples of the Central Apennines
Romulus' Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian
Modern treatments of Rome have projected in highly emotive terms the perceived problems, or the aspirations, of the present: 'race-mixture' has been blamed for the collapse of the Roman empire; more recently, Rome and Roman society have been depicted as 'multicultural'. Moving beyond these and beyond more traditional, juridical approaches to Roman identity, Emma Dench focuses on ancient modes of thinking about selves and relationships with other …
Beyond the Rubicon. Romans and Gauls in Republican Italy
Throughout the middle and late Republican periods (fourth to first centuries BC) the Romans lived in fear and loathing of the Gauls of northern Italy, caused primarily by their collective historical memory of the destruction of the city of Rome by Gauls in 387 BC. By examining the literary evidence relating to the historical, ethnographic, and geographic writings of Greeks and Romans of the period - focusing on invasion and conflict - this book a…
Serious Nudity
Ethnography and History
As a result particularly of the reception of Herodotus' Histories and Herodotean traditions, ethnographical material became by the Hellenistic period a more or less standard feature of ancient historical narratives. A modern reader might associate such material primarily with disciplines other than history, such as human geography or anthropology. However, when ancient historians engage in traditions of delineating the lands and customs of “other…
The Roman historians and twentieth-century approaches to Roman history
“Why do scholars not contemplate the possibility that we perceive historical truth differently from the ancients?” (Woodman 1988: 202) / In his Rhetoric in Classical Historiography, A. J. Woodman challenged notions of the nature of the “historical” texts of classical antiquity, and specifically their relationship with “historical truth” as understood by “modern historians.” His focus on rhetoric evokes Hayden White's highly influential (and, in m…
Cicero and Roman identity
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity
This chapter argues that certain traits associated with the Second Sophistic have attracted a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention in recent years: preoccupation with the past, Greekness, and the quirky performance of multiple identities. It emphasizes that these traits coexist with articulations of being and belonging that appeal less to early twenty-first-century sentiment, such as common descent, heredity, and “purity.” Finally, it f…
Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World
This, then, is the lay of the different parts of our inhabited world; but since the Romans occupy the best and the best-known portions of it, having surpassed all former rulers of whom we have record, it is worthwhile, even though briefly, to add the following account of them . . . Of this whole country that is subject to the Romans, some is indeed ruled by kings, but the Romans retain the other part, calling it "provincial" (eparchian), and send…
The Greek City of the Roman Empire: Questions of Identity
The variety of recent scholarly approaches to identity issues concerning Greek cities of the Roman Empire illustrates the continued entanglement of modern ideas and ideals of power, politics, empires, and nations with classical antiquity. Modern treatments have often veered between binary and essentialist thinking about the relative behaviour of ‘Greeks’ and ‘Romans’, reproducing older idealizations of autonomy as an intrinsically Greek trait, an…
Cognition, the Future, and the Romans (on M. Popkin and D. Ng, Future Thinking in Roman Culture)
he 'future thinking' of the title of Maggie L. Popkin and Diana Y. Ng's edited volume is not, as I had originally assumed, a slightly awkward way of expressing socio-specific ways of thinking about the future in the Roman world.Instead, it stands in more narrowly for prospection, the distinctively human ability to 'pre-experience' both things that we have already experienced, and things that we have not, and to act on the basis of this ability (1…
History (20 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (19 works) · Art (13 works) · Ancient history (12 works) · Classics (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Aesthetics (8 works)