Pergamene Culture in Republican Rome -01/03/2018, St Andrews (Scotland)

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Andrea Balbo (Università di Torino)

Maria Broggiato (Università di Roma – La Sapienza)

Alessandro D’Alessio (MiBACT – Colosseo; UNIBAS - SSBA)

Paul Ernst (Université Paris 8 – Université de Caen)

Andrew Erskine (University of Edinburgh)

Myrto Hatzimichali (University of Cambridge – Homerton College)

Nicolas Wiater (University of St Andrews)

The influence of Hellenism on Roman Republic culture is, since antiquity, one of the most unquestionable tenets of Roman cultural history. It is also one of the most misleading and misunderstood: Hellenism indeed was not a monolithic entity, but a conglomeration of different traditions, to which the Romans were exposed at different times, in different ways, and with which they configured different relations and power balances. For instance, the Romans often distinguished between the classical Greek tradition (idealised and openly emulated) and the contemporary Hellenistic production under Roman rule (stigmatised and vilified). On a synchronic level, a common Roman practice in the Middle Republic was the appropriation of notions imported by specific Hellenistic discourses (e.g. Stoic naturalism) and their exploitation against other forms of Hellenism, in support of a supposed Roman ‘superiority’ or ‘authenticity’. The workshop will explore Rome’s ‘special relationship’ with one particular form of Hellenism, the culture of the kingdom of Pergamum, which offered to the Romans of the Middle Republic a ‘gateway’ to Hellenism, in many senses. From Crates’ lectures on grammar to the statues of Galatians, from the cult of the Magna Mater and the Roman foundation myths to the so-called Asianic eloquence, Pergamene culture and its influence were pervasive in Republican Rome, on many different levels, which included literature, art and architecture, philosophy, religion, rhetoric, and grammar. This fact has often been neglected in recent scholarship, which has restricted its focus on a limited number of Hellenistic sources, under the spell of the ‘shadow of Callimachus’ and the bias of late-republican discourses. The workshop will also aim to broaden the study of one of “the most overtly modernizing period of Roman cultural history” (Feeney) more generally, debunking various scholarly traditions about Hellenism and Rome along the way, and to build on recent research into the study of cultural and cross-cultural interactivity itself and the construction of cultural identities.

FECHA/DATE/DATA: 01/03/2018

LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: University of St Andrews (St Andrews, Scotland)

ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Giuseppe Pezzini (St Andrews) (with the support of Alice König, Director of the Centre for the Literatures of the Roman Empire); Respondent: Alessandro Schiesaro (Manchester)

INFO: web - gp63@st-andrews.ac.uk

INSCRIPCIÓN/REGISTRATION/REGISTRAZIONE:

PROGRAMA/PROGRAM/PROGRAMMA:

Programme (Provisional) 9.30–11 Session 1 Pergamum in Republican sources (Giuseppe Pezzini) Showing Rome the way: the Attalids and their friends in the West (Andrew Erskine) Coffe Break 11.30–1 Session 2 Impact and sharing of Pergamene Culture in Rome (Alessandro D'Alessio) Cultural practices of the Italians at Pergamum (Paul Ernst) 1–2.30 Lunch 2.30–4 Session 3 Grammar, philology and literary criticism between Pergamum and Rome (Maria Broggiato) Philosophy in Pergamene Culture (Myrto Hatzimichali) Coffe Break 4.30–6 Session 4 Pergamene influence on Roman oratory and rhetoric in the Republic (Andrea Balbo) Pergamene influence on mid-Republican literary aesthetics (Nicolas Wiater) 7.30pm Conference Dinner