Egyptian Things: Translating Egypt to Early Imperial RomeA free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. After the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, Rome finally took control of Egypt. This occupation simultaneously facilitated and circumscribed the exchange of goods, people, and ideas along the paths carved across Rome’s burgeoning empire. In this book, Edward Kelting sets out to recapture one of these systems of exchange: the vibrant literary tradition known as Aegyptiaca—or “Egyptian things”—in which culturally mixed authors wrote about Egypt for a Greek and Roman audience. These authors have been dismissed as not really “Egyptian,” and their contemporary popularity has been ignored. But as Kelting powerfully argues, this genre in fact constitutes a vibrant intellectual tradition, developed from heterogeneous influences but deeply engaged with Egypt’s pharaonic past. In contrast to usual narratives of Roman domination, Kelting uncovers a complex project of political engagement and cultural translation in which Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all participated. |
Contents
Apion Roman Egypt and the InsiderOutsider Problem | 27 |
Triangulating a Coherently Incoherent Genre | 55 |
Anubis Actium and the Limits of Exoticism | 87 |
Aegyptiaca SethTyphon and HumanAnimal | 116 |
Not Dead Yet Legitimizing ImperialPeriod Hieroglyphic Symbolisms | 143 |
Embracing a Mixed Intellectual | 169 |
Acoreus Aegyptiaca and the Question of Cultural Influence | 197 |
| 209 | |
| 239 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Acoreus Alexandrian Amun animal worship Anubis Apion Apis bull Apuleius astrological authors of Aegyptiaca Balbillus Chaeremon chapter citizenship claims connection creolization cross-cultural cult cultural mixture cultural translation culturally mixed Dillery discussed divine Edfu Egyp Egypt’s animals Egyptian and Greek Egyptian culture Egyptian priests Egyptian religion Egyptian traditions Egyptian-language emperor emphasizes etymology expertise frame gloss gods Greco-Egyptian Greco-Roman Greek and Egyptian Greek and Roman Greek culture Griffiths 1970 Hadrian Hellenistic hieroglyphic script Homer Horus Hyksos identification identity imperial period imperial-era inscriptions intellectual traditions interconnected interpretatio Graeca Isis Jasnow Josephus label language Lucan Manetho Manolaraki narrative obelisk Osiris Osiris myth Pancrates Pancrates's pharaonic philosopher-priest philosophical Pliny Pliny the Elder Plutarch priestly Ptolemaic Pythagoras Pythagoras's Pythagorean religious representation role Roman Egypt Rome Rome’s sacred animals scribal semantics Seth animals Seth/Typhon specific status Stoic symbolic temple Thrasyllus tian Tiberius tion Typhon underline wisdom zoomorphism δὲ καὶ τὴν τῆς τῶν