Community and Identity at the Edges of the Classical World

A timely and academically-significant contribution to scholarship on community, identity, and globalization in the Roman and Hellenistic worlds 

Community and Identity at the Edges of the Classical World examines the construction of personal and communal identities in the ancient world, exploring how globalism, multi-culturalism, and other macro events influenced micro identities throughout the Hellenistic and Roman empires. This innovative volume discusses where contact and the sharing of ideas was occurring in the time period, and applies modern theories based on networks and communication to historical and archaeological data. A new generation of international scholars challenge traditional views of Classical history and offer original perspectives on the impact globalizing trends had on localized areas—insights that resonate with similar issues today.  

 This singular resource presents a broad, multi-national view rarely found in western collected volumes, including Serbian, Macedonian, and Russian scholarship on the Roman Empire, as well as on Roman and Hellenistic archaeological sites in Eastern Europe. Topics include Egyptian identity in the Hellenistic world, cultural identity in Roman Greece, Romanization in Slovenia, Balkan Latin, the provincial organization of cults in Roman Britain, and Soviet studies of Roman Empire and imperialism. Serving as a synthesis of contemporary scholarship on the wider topic of identity and community, this volume: 

• Provides an expansive materialist approach to the topic of globalization in the Roman world  
• Examines ethnicity in the Roman empire from the viewpoint of minority populations 
• Offers several views of metascholarship, a growing sub-discipline that compares ancient material to modern scholarship 
• Covers a range of themes, time periods, and geographic areas not included in most western publications 

Community and Identity at the Edges of the Classical World is a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and graduate students examining identity and ethnicity in the ancient world, as well as for those working in multiple fields of study, from Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman historians, to the study of ethnicity, identity, and globalizing trends in time. 

AARON W. IRVIN is Associate Professor of the Ancient World at Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky. Previously, he was Lecturer at the University of California Los Angeles and California State Polytechnic University. His research examines human organization, government, empire, and religion in the Roman world, and in the Late Bronze Age system of states.