Contested Pasts
The University of Michigan Press (Verlag)
978-0-472-13303-1 (ISBN)
Taking as a key turning point the self-fashioning of the first Roman emperor Augustus, author Jennifer Finn revisits the idea of “universal history” in Polybius, Justin, and Diodorus, combined with the Stoic philosophy of determinism present in authors like Plutarch and Arrian. Finn endeavors to determine the ways in which Roman authors manipulated narratives about Alexander’s campaigns—and even other significant events in Mediterranean history—to artificially construct a past to which the Romans could attach themselves as a natural teleological culmination. In doing so, Contested Pasts uses five case studies to reexamine aspects of Alexander’s campaigns that have received much attention in modern scholarship, providing new interpretations of issues such as: his connections to the Trojan and Persian wars; the Great Weddings at Susa; the battle(s) of Thermopylae in 480 BCE and 191 BCE and Alexander's conflict at the Persian Gates; the context of his “Last Plans”;” the role of his memory in imagining the Roman Civil Wars; and his fictitious visit to the city of Jerusalem. While Finn demonstrates throughout the book that the influence for many of these narratives likely originated in the reign of Alexander or his Successors, nevertheless these retroactive authorial manipulations force us to confront the fact that we may have an even more opaque understanding of Alexander than has previously been acknowledged. Through the application of a mnemohistorical approach, the book seeks to provide a new understanding of the ways in which the Romans—and people in the purview of the Romans—conceptualized their own world with reference to Alexander the Great.
List of Images
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 Contested Pasts: Alexander the Great and Determinist History
Great Man History and Determinism
Alexander, the Romans, and Determinist History
Alexander and Augustus
Roman Historiography and Alexander the Great
Chapter Contents
Chapter 2 Trojan War Reprisals
Alexander arrives at Susa: a Prelude
Susa and the Greek World
Alexander and Troy
In the Ages of Heroes: Trojan War 2.0
Thrice Reprised: The Romans and the Trojan War
Chapter 3 Writing Rivalry: The Persian Wars and the Battle of Thermopylae
Prelude
The Romans at Thermopylae
Thermopylae and the Succession of Empires
Re-writing Thermopylae
Subverting Spartan History
Chapter 4 Imagining Imperial Power Figures
The Context of the “Last Plans”
The Campaigns Against the Carthaginians and the West
The Road to the Pillars of Hercules
The Synoecism of Peoples from Europe and Asia
The Construction of Temples
The Tomb of Philip
Conclusion
Chapter 5 Alexander in Civil War(s)
Introduction
Antony and Octavian
Pompey’s Imitatio Alexandri and the Sertorian Wars
History Rewritten: Two Alexanders
Chapter 6 Con(text)s of Invention: Alexander the Great at Jerusalem
Tyre
Babylon
Jerusalem
Inventing History in the 1st century CE
Alexandria
Conclusion
Contested Pasts: Conclusion
Contested Pasts: Bibliography
| Erscheinungsdatum | 06.04.2022 |
|---|---|
| Verlagsort | Ann Arbor |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Gewicht | 333 g |
| Themenwelt | Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-472-13303-9 / 0472133039 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-472-13303-1 / 9780472133031 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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