The present workshop proposal aims to analyze change and resilience in ancient individuals and society, in particular with respect to acculturation and enculturation phenomena occurring in times of krisis, as in the Hellenistic Age and Late Antiquity, taking into account the modern definition of acculturation and enculturation concepts.
Essentially, acculturation is defined as the extent to which people are participating in the cultural norms of the dominant group while maintaining the norms of their original culture. Rather, the term enculturation can be helpful in more fully describing the experiences of these individuals, considering enculturation as the process of socialization to and maintenance of the norms of one’s cultural heritage, including the salient values, ideas, and concepts. Based on this definition, it can be explained that the “cultural maintenance” process that is described above might be better represented with the broader terminology of enculturation.
With these premises, focusing on the Hellenistic age and Late Antiquity as two turning points that marked radical changes “in the ancient political systems, social structures, religious beliefs, philosophical thinking, economic models and cultural trends”, we intend to explore policies and strategies of transition, transformation and mutation with related repercussions on the level of collective and individual perception and creation of new patterns of adaptation, absorption or even resistance capable of facing the collapse of ontologies that results from transformation and, thus, of ensuring the survival of groups and individuals.
In this perspective, the main topics of the workshop sessions are:
perception and rationalization of change by ancient individuals and societies;
development of forms of religious resilience to cope with processes of ontological blur, anxiety and discontinuity (e.g., attempts to manage and adapt to change; compensation for the negative consequences of transformation; planning for the future);
effects of change on human behaviour and society;
methods and strategies for detecting and measuring real and long-lasting changes in antiquity, in the face of the absence of immediate effects on society.
We encourage responses from a diverse range of methodological perspectives (historical, religious, anthropological, sociological, cognitive, etc.) and with multidisciplinary approaches (from historiography, philosophy and literature to documentary and material evidence).
References:
Berry, J.W. (1980). Acculturation as varieties of adaptation. In A.M. Padilla (Ed.), Acculturation: Theory, models and some new findings (pp. 9-25). Boulder, CO: Westview.
Cecconi, G.A., Gabrielli, C. (eds.). (2011), Politiche religiose nel mondo antico e tardoantico: poteri e indirizzi, forme del controllo, idee e prassi di tolleranza. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Firenze, 24-26 settembre 2009. Bari, Edipuglia.
Melvile J. Herskovits, Man and his Works, The Science of Cultural Anthropology. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1948.
Who were the first Hellenistic civic communities using the term Soter as an epithet of euergetic rulers? And by which traditional deities were they inspired? When did Soter first turn from a denomination used in occasional acclamations and/or local honorific practice into a standard royal epithet? What factors and specific needs prompted the passage of the epithet Soter from one dynasty to another? Did Soter ever change its field of applications as it became an increasingly common epithet of Hellenistic kings, civic benefactors, and Roman generals? And finally, do different sources cast a diverging light on the use of soteria as a point of encounter between civic and monarchic agendas?
Soteria is a prominent word in the vocabulary of Greek religious and political history and a category intimately connected with the techniques of, and expectations for, resilience in times of crises, both at the societal and individual level. Scholarship has repeatedly investigated the success of this concept in Hellenistic culture, identifying it as a crucial field prompting contacts and transfers from religion to politics, and vice versa.
At the collective level, soteria has received particular attention as regards the relationships between civic communities and political leaders, both internal and external. However, the vast documentation about the link between soteria and the resilience of civic communities in the Hellenistic world is far from having been fully exploited. To date, we can count on a satisfactory understanding of why soteria was considered as an effective category to describe the expectations of communities undergoing periods of severe crisis as well as to fashion the (self-)representation of monarchs and other major political figures as religious figures. However, this general understanding still lacks a detailed analysis of the specific factors, agents, and contexts that promoted the diffusion of soteria as an efficient concept and consequently underlie the creation of a durable cultural tradition.
In order to contribute to this research, we must go back to a fine-grained study of sources. Accordingly, this paper will reassess the diffusion of the epithet Soter in use for Hellenistic rulers with a fresh focus on what aspects made its use different from context to context, and with the related purpose of identifying points of rupture and change in the tradition, beyond the more known surface of similarities and continuities.
The refusal of isotheoi timai by some emperors and members of the imperial family, attested by literary, epigraphic and papyrological sources, has always attracted the attention of the scholars (see already S. Lösch, Deitas Jesu und Antike Apotheose, Rottenburg a. N. 1933). The establishment of what has been defined “a system of exchange” linking subjects and ruler, rested on Roman acceptance of the cult, so while the rejection of these honours certainly speaks in favour of the flexibility of the system, it nonetheless requires an explanation. In an article which has become the standard work on the subject, M.P. Charlesworth (PBSR 15, 1939) argued for an “Augustan formula”, a tradition of polite refusal set up by Augustus and followed by some of his successors. Cases of refusal attested earlier than the age of Augustus are often mentioned in later studies, but never deeply discussed. The present paper intends to focus on the rejection of cult honours by Marcus Tullius Cicero and Vaccius Labeo from Kyme. Most recently Christopher P. Jones (in Hommage à Jean-Louis Ferrary: Philorhômaios kai philhellèn, Paris 2019) has asked whether beside the intention not to burden the provincials with further expenses, Cicero “felt that such honors were due to gods rather than humans” (p. 478). A close examination of ad Q. fratrem I.1.26 and ad Att. V.21.7 can be helpful to fully understand the nature of Cicero’s concerns and to grasp similarities and distinctions with the later examples of refusals.
The paper looks at the phenomenon of cult transfer within relationships between different political and cultural entities in the Hellenistic world. Famous examples, such as the transfer of Cybele to Rome, or that of Sarapis to Alexandria, illustrate that even in a highly volatile and changing political landscape the resilience of religious traditions was enormous. On first sight, the appropriation of cult images and deities by Hellenistic and Roman rulers was an expression of one-sided power relations in which local religious identities were violated at the core. However, close examination reveals the processes and implications of such cult transfers as symbolic and open-ended. Ultimately, the religious factor allowed local players to emphasise strong cultural identities well beyond the reach of their political sphere of influence and to turn a situation of crisis into one of opportunity.