The underlying theme of Three Centuries of Greek Culture under the Roman Empire is the idea that, under Roman rule, Greek culture was still alive and dynamic and continued to exert a degree of cultural domination, either real or apparent. So, we hope to analyse the meanings of concepts such as “Greek” or “Greece” in the Empire. Are we right to assume that there was a clear opposition between Greek and Roman? Or would it be more accurate to speak of a “Graeco-Roman world”? It would certainly be possible to make a list of “elements of identity”, on both sides —Greek and Roman—, but, in this case, where should the borders between identity and community be placed? Three Centuries of Greek Culture under the Roman Empire presents several approaches to the period between the second and fourth centuries AD from a variety of angles, perspectives and disciplines. Until now, this time has usually been considered to be the junction of the decline between the classical world and the emergence of the medieval world; however, this book establishes a basis for considering the Imperial period as a specific stage in cultural, historical and social development with a distinct personality of its own.

This book explores the cultural conflicts of the second-century CE Roman Empire, through the perspective of Greek writings. The specially commissioned essays investigate the intellectual and social tensions in the era which gave rise to Christianity.

Hellenism and Empire explores identity, politics, and culture in the Greek world of the first three centuries AD, the period known as the second sophistic. The sources of this identity were the words and deeds of classical Greece, and the emphasis placed on Greekness and Greek heritage was far greater then than at any other time. Yet this period is often seen as a time of happy consensualism between the Greek and Roman halves of the Roman Empire. The first part of the book shows that Greek identity came before any loyalty to Rome (and was indeed partly a reaction to Rome), while the views of the major authors of the period, which are studied in the second part, confirm and restate the prior claims of Hellenism.

TransAntiquity explores transgender practices, in particular cross-dressing, and their literary and figurative representations in antiquity. It offers a ground-breaking study of cross-dressing, both the social practice and its conceptualization, and its interaction with normative prescriptions on gender and sexuality in the ancient Mediterranean world. Special attention is paid to the reactions of the societies of the time, the impact transgender practices had on individuals’ symbolic and social capital, as well as the reactions of institutionalized power and the juridical systems. The variety of subjects and approaches demonstrates just how complex and widespread "transgender dynamics" were in antiquity.

Greeks wrote mostly on papyrus, but the Romans wrote solemn religious, public and legal documents on wooden tablets often coated with wax. This book investigates the historical significance of this resonant form of writing; its power to order the human realm and cosmos and to make documents efficacious; its role in court; the uneven spread - an aspect of Romanization - of this Roman form outside Italy, as provincials made different guesses as to what would please their Roman overlords; and its influence on the evolution of Roman law. An historical epoch of Roman legal transactions without writing is revealed as a juristic myth of origins. Roman legal documents on tablets are the ancestors of today's dispositive legal documents - the document as the act itself. In a world where knowledge of the Roman law was scarce - and enforcers scarcer - the Roman law drew its authority from a wider world of belief.