Looking like a Roman, looking like a Greek : viewing as cultural performance in the late republic and early empire
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation explores the cultural conundrum captured in Horace's much-quoted aphorism: Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit; Greek art in Rome potentially signals both captive Greece and captivated Rome. Whether plundered or purchased, a Greek masterpiece on display might proclaim Rome's geopolitical and economic ascendancy, or the Romans' own sophistication, but it might also act as compelling evidence of Greece's artistic superiority. I focus on two bodies of evidence for how viewers responded to this semantic instability: Greek and Latin ekphrastic poems written in response to Greek artworks on display in Rome (Chapters 1 and 2); and wallpaintings inscribed with Greek and Latin texts from Rome, Assisi, Pompeii, and Ostia (Chapters 3 and 4). I argue that these ekphrastic texts and inscribed images showcase strategic answers to the question of how to look at Greek art through the eyes of a captor rather than a captive. Ranging from elite texts and grand residences, to the taverns frequented by non-elites, my case studies trace the cultural coding of visualities across the strata of Roman society. The project sheds light on the entanglement of art, empire, and identity in the Graeco-Roman world, demonstrating that viewing was one of the cultural practices through which Greekness and Romanness came to be defined.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2015 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | MacDonald, Carolyn |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Classics. |
| Primary advisor | Trimble, Jennifer, 1965- |
| Thesis advisor | Trimble, Jennifer, 1965- |
| Thesis advisor | Barchiesi, Alessandro |
| Thesis advisor | Connolly, Joy, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Stephens, Susan A |
| Advisor | Barchiesi, Alessandro |
| Advisor | Connolly, Joy, 1970- |
| Advisor | Stephens, Susan A |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Carolyn MacDonald. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Classics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2015. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2015 by Carolyn Sheila MacDonald
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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