Centre and Periphery in the Hellenistic World.

Centre and Periphery in the Hellenistic World. For the past five years, the Danish Research Council has generouslyfunded a project to enable Danish ancient historians. classicalphilologists and archaeologists to update and expand their understandingof hellenistic history - a period, beginning with Alexander the Great,which, ever since the studies of Droysen, Rostovtzeff and Tarn Tarn, department, FranceTarn(tärn), department (1990 pop. 343,400), S France, in Languedoc. Albi is the capital.Tarn, river, FranceTarn,river, c. , has beenseen as marking a major transformation, on all fronts and at all levels,in the Mediterranean. Although it is a local initiative, scholarsoutside Denmark have also benefitted: some by being invited toparticipate in a series of colloquia col��lo��qui��a?n.A plural of colloquium. on specified themes, many more byreading the conference papers contained in the series of handsomelyproduced books, Studies in Hellenistic civilization Hellenistic civilization.The conquests of Alexander the Great spread Hellenism immediately over the Middle East and far into Asia. After his death in 323 B.C., the influence of Greek civilization continued to expand over the Mediterranean world and W Asia. . Centre andperipheryis the fourth volume of the series, and the third of thecongresses to be published; more are planned for the coming years. It isin the very nature of such an undertaking that it will broach broach(broch) a fine barbed instrument for dressing a tooth canal or extracting the pulp. broachn.A dental instrument for removing the pulp of a tooth or exploring its canal. newquestions and approaches to problems, rather than produce final answers.So these published conference proceedings provide us with food forthought, not firm conclusions, and the present volume is no exception.Its theme is 'centre and periphery' as a conceptstructuring political, social, economic and cultural relationships. Inessence the idea seems obvious: the fact that the centre (of power,consumption, production etc.) is in a particular location has importantimplications for places peripheral to it; so will a shift in thephysical placing of the centre. But the very simplicity of the conceptmakes it peculiarly powerful (cf. Bilde, p. 317). Further, its apparenttriteness hides a mass of intricate problems and complexities: whodefines the centre? the centre of what? is there more than one? do thoseon 'the periphery', in one perspective, regard themselves asperipheral? The questions are endless and multilayered, and many aretaken up by the contributors to this volume.Two contributions stand out for their breadth of vision,chronologically and geographically. Most striking is Cunliffe, who looksat developments in Iberia between c. 1000 and the 3rd century BC, onlyjust brushing the period labelled 'hellenistic'. Theconventional historical divisions relevant to the eastern Mediterraneanworld are simply not very meaningful in the 'far west':'hellenising' begins early in the 5th century; from then onIberia displays distinctive artistic styles, alongside markedsocio-political developments. The great caesura cae��su��raalso ce��su��ra ?n. pl. cae��su��ras or cae��su��rae1. A pause in a line of verse dictated by sense or natural speech rhythm rather than by metrics.2. in Greek history hasleft little mark. Cunliffe has a telling way of pointing up the sheercomplexities involved (p. 78):'... there is no such thing as a simple core-periph-eryrelationship, a core-periphery interaction is merely a mechanism ofarticulation forming a single component in a much more complex system.In many ways it can be likened to a ganglion ganglion:see nervous system. ganglionAggregate of nerve-cell bodies outside the central nervous system (CNS). The spinal ganglion contains the nerve-cell bodies of the nerve fibres that carry impulses toward the CNS (afferent neurons in dorsal in a nervous system.'Randsborg, too, focusses on long-term shifts in patterns of exchangeby centring his article on developments in the 'barbariannorth' (i.e south and central Europe Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. In addition, Northern, Southern and Southeastern Europe may variously delimit or overlap into Central Europe. ) and placing the Aegean worldon the 'periphery'. Both Cunliffe's and Randsborg'sarticles are instructive: if we move our gaze away from what are usuallyperceived as the centres of action (Greece and Rome), then thehellenistic period The Hellenistic period (4th - 1st century BC) is a period in the times in world history history of the Mediterranean region usually considered to stretch from the death of Alexander the Great to the defeat of Cleopatra. dwindles in importance as a meaningful unit. The'northern edge' is also studied by Skydsgaard (a short pieceon Olbia and Borysthenes, diverging somewhat from Randsborg) and Kaul.The latter tries to define the origin of the magnificent Gundestropcauldron (perhaps produced in northern Thrace c.100 BC) and its possibleroute to Denmark (via the Cimbri, who had received it as a token ofalliance from the Scordisi?).The value of the long-term view is supported by Alcock in anexcellent, lucid paper (a more detailed version is now published inMorris 1978). She, too, argues strongly against the traditionalscholarly focus on the 'progress of hellenization', whichblinds us to profound, gradual changes in demography demography(dĭmŏg`rəfē), science of human population. Demography represents a fundamental approach to the understanding of human society. and agriculturalexploitation (cf. p. 164). Using survey data, she charts a decline inthese basic patterns in Greece, considerable regional variations in theLevant Levant(ləvănt`)[Ital.,=east], collective name for the countries of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean from Egypt to, and including, Turkey. and a marked growth in Mesopotamia, Iran and Central Asia.Systematic surveys are only sporadically available, so the picture theyproduce is bound to be partial. But, as she points out, they areinvaluable in forcing scholarly thinking away from text determinedpreconceptions. A pendant to Alcock, in that it also relies on surveywork, is the article by Bekker-Nielsen. He explores socio-economicchanges in western Cyprus, from the late 4th century to the early Romanperiod, by concentrating on changes to the road-system in a restrictedregion, which reflect shifts in local political centres.The other nine contributions fall into two broad categories:socio-economic and ideological, although that suggests a greaterhomogeneity of concerns than they display. Shipley's piece paints avery large canvas, challenging the notion that the hellenistic periodsaw a fundamental transformation in economic concepts. Guldager-Bilde (abeautifully argued piece) analyses shifts in the production centres ofmould-made vessels and the emergence of Ephesus as a centre for theirmanufacture. Gabrielsen discusses the fate of the wealthy merchantcentre of Rhodes after the Roman victory at Pydna (168 BC): was itdeliberately marginalized by Rome (the new 'centre') aspunishment for supporting the losing side? As Gabrielsen. argues,despite some losses, Rhodes remained an important, if smaller, economiccentre since it served Rome's interests to retain it. Invernizzicontributes a valuable survey of the great Seleucid city,Seleucia-Tigris. He emphasises that Seleucia displays all thedistinguishing characteristics of a centre, while Antioch in Syria,traditionally seen as the Seleucid capital, has relatively few: for astart, Seleucia was simply much larger than hellenistic Antioch everwas. As he rightly points out, viewing the world through Roman lensesdoes not give us the full picture (pp. 237-9).Bouraselis' article straddles the socio-economic/ideologicalcategories, arguing that for the Greeks Ptolemaic Alexandria became aneconomic and political centre, while for the Ptolemies Greece became the'centre of tradition'. An analogous, but narrower, questionconcerns Engberg-Pedersen, who traces a change in the role ofphilosophers in Athens from the 3rd to the 1st centuries: in the earlierperiod, they maintained their intellectual independence and resisted theblandishments of royal patronage, but eventually they accommodatedthemselves to Roman demands for ideological support. This is notsurprising, given the prevailing political situation in the respectiveperiods: in the 3rd century, rival kings competed to woo philosophers, asituation the latter could use to their advantage; in the 1st century,the political scene had changed dramatically, with the whole easternMediterranean subject to Rome. Hannestad presents an interesting pieceon the Celtic wars: for old Greece they were set into a continuum ofGreek history and compared explicitly to the Persian wars, while thehellenistic rulers used their Celtic victories as a way of emphasisingtheir 'philhellenism'. Nielsen suggests that the models forAugustus' palace in Rome were the royal dwellings of thehellenistic east, which themselves incorporated earlier eastern forms.(Her full-scale study of hellenistic palaces will appear as volume 5 inthis series.) The final piece in the book stands somewhat apart. Bildeuses the figures of two peripheral, albeit famous, figures, Jesus andPaul, to explore the varied meanings of 'centre' in the livesof individuals - individuals, moreover, who reacted to their marginalposition by developing new identities and investing old traditions withnew meanings. Bilde's article gives yet another twist to the myriaduses of the core-periphery concept.There is always a danger that a book of congress-proceedings, howevercarefully the organizers set the theme, ends up as a collection of bitsand pieces, which do not necessarily hang together. Centre and peripheryin the Hellenistic world inevitably suffers from some of the inherentshortcomings of its genre. There is considerable unevenness in subjectsand regions covered and approaches used. Some would argue that it might,therefore, be better not to publish such a book. On balance, I disagree:the occasional weaknesses helped to sharpen my ideas, and some of the(to me) offbeat topics broadened my thinking. There were continuoussurprises and stimulating suggestions, which have certainly enriched myunderstanding of the hellenistic world. In all, the Danish ResearchCouncil and the organisers of the colloquium col��lo��qui��um?n. pl. col��lo��qui��ums or col��lo��qui��a1. An informal meeting for the exchange of views.2. An academic seminar on a broad field of study, usually led by a different lecturer at each meeting. deserve our thanks.AMELIE KUHRT Department of History, University College London “UCL” redirects here. For other uses, see UCL (disambiguation).University College London, commonly known as UCL, is the oldest multi-faculty constituent college of the University of London, one of the two original founding colleges, and the first British ReferenceMORRIS, I. (ed). 1994. Classical Greece Classical Greece, the classical period of Ancient Greece, corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. (i.e. from the fall of the Athenian tyranny in 510 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC). : ancient histories and modernarchaeologies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). .