'Romanizing' the Empire

Catalog description

The Roman Empire not only united the Mediterranean basin and much of Europe politically but also precipitated an unprecedented (and hardly since repeated) process of linguistic, cultural, and economic integration and convergence within this region. This process has often been discussed by modern scholars of antiquity under the heading of 'Romanization.' In recent decades, simple models of the displacement of indigenous traditions by 'Roman' cultural norms have been thoroughly critiqued and nuanced, but debate remains regarding the extent and intensiveness of cultural homogenization and integration within the empire as well as the mechanisms by which this occurred. Ultimately, we must interrogate the very nature of this process (e.g., as assimilative or syncretic, coercive or collaborative) as well as what it meant to the inhabitants of the empire to be Roman as well as what Roman-ness (Romanitas) means to us in the modern world. To this end, the course will explore a number of discrete but interrelated topics including linguistic transformations, diffusion of religious traditions, popular culture, the spread of urbanism, Roman citizenship, the adoption of Roman law, human migration and mobility, political and economic integration, as well as ethnic and political identities within the Roman Empire from the 1st century BCE to the 5th Century CE.