Juan Manuel Cortés Copete, Elena Muñiz Grijalvo and Fernando Lozano Gómez, Ruling the Greek World. Approaches to the Roman Empire in the East (Potsdamer Alterumswissenschaftliche Beiträge 52), Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2015, 192 pp., ISBN 978-3-515-11135-5 (Edward Dąbrowa)

Summary

Scholars have long been interested in the question of the Greek world's relationship with Rome and its place within the Roman Empire. There are a number of reasons for this, including a tradition of mutual political contacts stretching back to the early second century BCE and their diverse forms, the cultural diff erences which had a significant impact on mutual perception, and the various forms of cooperation between the elites of the Greek-speaking provinces and the emperors. A factor that encourages scholars to study the broad array of issues concerning the relations of the Greek-speaking world with Rome is the large number of literary, epigraphic, numismatic and archaeological sources, with which we can analyse them from various angles. To increase our understanding of these relations, there is much to be gained by examining them from the perspective of phenomena tied to the Greeks’ religion or cultural identity. This is confirmed by most of the articles in the recently published volume Ruling the Greek World. Approaches to the Roman Empire in the East.

This book is the result of the academic conference “Ruling through Greek Eyes,” which took place in Seville in 2008. The idea of this conference came about as a result of research conducted within two grants by scholars working at the university in this city concerning the place of the Greeks in the Roman Empire and Hadrian's philhellenism. The book contains ten articles concerning the theme of the first of these grants (p. 7), written not only by Spanish scholars, but also researchers from France, the United Kingdom and Italy invited to participate in the conference.

The first author is Cristina Rosillo-López (Greek Self-Presentation to the Roman Republican Power, pp. 13‒25), whose article demonstrates how the Greeks attempted to present themselves to the Roman Senate in the second and first centuries BCE. This period displays a sharp divide into two parts. The first is the time when Rome was engaged with Hellenistic rulers and independent Greek poleis seeking help against the aggression of their neighbours or ally. The second was when the Roman Republic became the hegemon of the Mediterranean world, whose favours were sought by legations of dependent peoples and cities aiming to obtain the most desirable decisions for themselves.