Craige Brian Champion's Books

Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories

By: Craige Champion

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Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories

By: Craige Champion

Polybius was a Greek statesman and political prisoner of Rome in the second century b.c.e. His Histories provide the earliest continuous narrative of the rise of the Roman Empire. In this original study informed by recent work in cultural studies and on ethnicity, Craige Champion demonstrates that Polybius's work performs a literary and political balancing act of heretofore unappreciated subtlety and interest. Champion shows how Polybius contrived to tailor his historiography for multiple audiences, comprising his fellow Greeks, whose freedom Rome had usurped in his own generation, and the Roman conquerors. Champion focuses primarily on the ideological presuppositions and predispositions of Polybius's different audiences in order to interpret the apparent contradictions and incongruities in his text. In this way he develops a "politics of cultural indeterminacy" in which Polybius's collective representations of political and ethnic groups have different meanings for different audiences in different contexts. Situating these representations in the ideological, political, and historical contexts from which they arose, his book affords new and penetrating insights into a work whose subtlety and complexity have gone largely unrecognized.

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Page Count

358

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520929896

ISBN 13

9780520929890

The Peace of the Gods

Elite Religious Practices in the Middle Roman Republic

By: Craige B. Champion

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The Peace of the Gods

Elite Religious Practices in the Middle Roman Republic

By: Craige B. Champion

The Peace of the Gods takes a new approach to the study of Roman elites' religious practices and beliefs, using current theories in psychology, sociology, and anthropology, as well as cultural and literary studies. Craige Champion focuses on what the elites of the Middle Republic (ca. 250–ca. 100 BCE) actually did in the religious sphere, rather than what they merely said or wrote about it, in order to provide a more nuanced and satisfying historical reconstruction of what their religion may have meant to those who commanded the Roman world and its imperial subjects. The book examines the nature and structure of the major priesthoods in Rome itself, Roman military commanders' religious behaviors in dangerous field conditions, and the state religion's acceptance or rejection of new cults and rituals in response to external events that benefited or threatened the Republic. According to a once-dominant but now-outmoded interpretation of Roman religion that goes back to the ancient Greek historian Polybius, the elites didn't believe in their gods but merely used religion to control the masses. Using that interpretation as a counterfactual lens, Champion argues instead that Roman elites sincerely tried to maintain Rome's good fortune through a pax deorum or "peace of the gods." The result offers rich new insights into the role of religion in elite Roman life.

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298

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691174857

ISBN 13

9780691174853

Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories

By: Craige Champion

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories

By: Craige Champion

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

358

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520929896

ISBN 13

9780520929890

Book's by Craige Brian Champion

Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories

Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories

The Peace of the Gods

The Peace of the Gods

Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories

Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories

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