Epigraphical Approaches to the Post-classical Polis: Fourth Century BC to Second Century AD
Paraskevi Martzavou and Nikolaos Papazarkadas
Abstract
This volume illustrates the multiple ways in which epigraphy enables historical analysis of the postclassical polis (city-state) across a world of geographically dispersed poleis: from the Black Sea and Asia Minor to Sicily via the Aegean and mainland Greece. The book looks at themes such as the modes of interaction between polis and ruling powers, the construction of ethnic and social identity, interstate and civil conflict and its resolution, social economics, institutional processes and privileges, polis representations, ethics, and, not least, religious phenomena. The chapters range from ‘ ... More
This volume illustrates the multiple ways in which epigraphy enables historical analysis of the postclassical polis (city-state) across a world of geographically dispersed poleis: from the Black Sea and Asia Minor to Sicily via the Aegean and mainland Greece. The book looks at themes such as the modes of interaction between polis and ruling powers, the construction of ethnic and social identity, interstate and civil conflict and its resolution, social economics, institutional processes and privileges, polis representations, ethics, and, not least, religious phenomena. The chapters range from ‘hard epigraphy’ to sophisticated conceptual studies of aspects of the postclassical polis, and approach the inscriptions both as textual objects and as artefacts. The aim of this volume is to identify the postclassical polis both as a reality and as a constructed concept, not only a monolithic block, but a result of tension in the exercise of different kinds of powers. The chapters in this collective volume show that the postclassical polis, both as a reality and as a representation, is the result of negotiations, ancient and modern; and they also illustrate how much of our understanding of the polis is built on patient, painstaking work on the inscriptions.
Keywords:
conflict,
Epigraphy,
ethics,
hard epigraphy,
identity,
polis,
religious phenomena,
representations,
social economics
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2012 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199652143 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2013 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199652143.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Paraskevi Martzavou, editor
Research Associate in Epigraphy in the Emotions project, Oxford University
Nikolaos Papazarkadas, editor
Assistant Professor, University of California at Berkeley
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