Rome The Cosmopolis

A collection of essays exploring key aspects of the relationship between Rome and its empire.

"This is an outstanding synthesis of dazzling intellectual range and temporal sweep that teems with original apercus. Tracing the development of ancient ideas about the community of mankind, Richter shows how Greekness evolved from an ethnic and regional category in self-conscious opposition to 'barbarian' into a potentially universal form of cultural identity that even ethnic 'barbarians' might claim" -- Maud W. Gleason, Stanford University.

Explores the dynamic interactions among Latin poets, artists, and audiences in constructing and critiquing imperial power in Augustan Rome.

This book presents: 1) an urban-studies panorama on the emergence of a built/landscape continuum following the anthropic expansion at the geographic scale and the consequent demise of the city/country divide; 2) an in-depth theoretical analysis of disparate landscape constructs, culminating in the proposal of a comprehensive spatial paradigm addressing both manmade and natural contexts; 3) the in-situ transcription of the proposed spatial paradigm into a landscape installation implementing a territorial narrative in the Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico. Foreword by Peter G. Rowe and afterword by Elisa C. Cattaneo. By virtue of its openness, fluidity, and volatility, fluctuating between heterogeneity and diversity, today’s built/landscape continuum exhibits analogies with distinct notions of landscape. The book determines an open-ended classification of contemporary space-making strategies exceeding the urban and metropolitan ambit, through a comparative anatomy of global case studies ranging from hard to soft: geotechnics or applied geographies, machinic micro-ecologies, aesthetic prostheses for operative metabolism, cybernetic utopias, atmospheric assemblages, psychic spheres, creole horizons, semiotic landscapes, geopolitical landscapes, geophilosophical excavations. The proposed spatial paradigm, accommodating aggregates of artificial and living systems, physical and mental spaces, and machinic and cultural landscapes, intends to reconcile the traditionally opposed ‘scientific-cognitive-metabolist’ and ‘cultural-geophilosophical-territorialist’ visions of the landscape. The resulting model transcends the exhausted myths of urban space, metropolitanism, and their filiations, in favor of a new form of urbanity and its attributes. Parts of the work were developed in the frame of research projects of Universidad de Monterrey and Parque Ecológico Chipinque and the IDAUP of UniFE and Polis. The target audience of the book is researchers, teachers, and advanced students engaged in landscape and urban studies with a prevalent focus on theory. The book can also benefit professional and institutional audiences looking for ethical/methodological orientation.

Provides insight into Roman life of the second century A.D.

This study is devoted to the channels through which geographic knowledge circulated in classical societies outside of textual transmission. It explores understanding of geography among the non-elites, as opposed to scholarly and scientific geography solely in written form which was the province of a very small number of learned people. It deals with non-literary knowledge of geography, geography not derived from texts, as it was available to people, educated or not, who did not read geographic works. This main issue is composed of two central questions: how, if at all, was geographic data available outside of textual transmission and in contexts in which there was no need to write or read? And what could the public know of geography? In general, three groups of sources are relevant to this quest: oral communications preserved in writing; public non-textual performances; and visual artefacts and monuments. All of these are examined as potential sources for the aural and visual geographic knowledge of Greco-Roman publics. This volume will be of interest to anyone working on geography in the ancient world and to those studying non-elite culture.

This book explores the cultural conflicts of the second-century CE Roman Empire, through the perspective of Greek writings. The specially commissioned essays investigate the intellectual and social tensions in the era which gave rise to Christianity.