Colonial Geopolitics and Local Cultures in the Hellenistic and Roman East (3rd century BC - 3rd century AD)

Colonial Geopolitics and Local Cultures in the Hellenistic and Roman East (3rd century BC - 3rd century AD) presents contributions taken in the main from a panel held during the Celtic Conference in Classics 2014 (Edinburgh, Scotland, June 25-28th 2014), but also incorporates a number of papers given previously at another panel which convened at Mamaia (Romania, September 23-27th, 2012). What changes in the material culture can we observe, when a state is overwhelming a local population with soldiers, katoikoi, and civil officials or merchants? One of the main concerns of local geopolitics was the central question of how agricultural land was distributed to the Greek or Roman colonists after it had been seized from the native population? In what way did the state watch over and administer the colonised territories? What were the exact social, legal, cultural and political relationships between the natives and the newcomers? Did the language of the colonists dominate the local vernacular language or not, and in what way? Did onomastics change or not in particular regions over centuries? What were the mutual influences between native and colonial cultures? This collection addresses these questions, focusing on the Hellenistic and Roman East.

Hadrien Bru is a French historian and epigrapher working on Hellenistic and Roman Anatolia and Near East, Maitre de Conferences HDR in Ancient History at the University of Bourgogne-Franche Comte (Besancon). His notable publications include: L'Asie Mineure dans l'Antiquite : echanges, populations et territoires (2009), Le pouvoir imperial dans les provinces syriennes. Representations et celebrations d'Auguste a Constantin (31 av. J.-C.-337 ap. J.-C.) (2011), L'Anatolie des peuples, cites et cultures (IIe millenaire av. J.- C.-Ve siecle ap. J.-C.) (2013) and La Phrygie Paroree et la Pisidie septentrionale aux epoques hellenistique et romaine. Geographie historique et sociologie culturelle (2017). Adrian George Dumitru is a Romanian historian of the Hellenistic world. He holds a PhD from the Universities of Bucharest and Paris IV Sorbonne and his research focuses principally on the Seleucid kingdom and the city of Byzantion. He is the author of a number of papers dedicated to those subjects (his most recent deals with the neglected topic of the tyrants of the Hellenistic Near East) and he also teaches seminars on Roman history at the University of Bucharest. Nicholas V. Sekunda holds a PhD from Manchester University. He has held research positions at Monash University in Melbourne and at the Australian National University in Canberra. He currently holds the post of Head of Department of Mediterranean Archaeology at Gdansk University. He has participated in excavations in England, Poland, Iran, Greece, Syria and Jordan, and now co-directs excavations at Negotino Gradite in the Republic of North Macedonia. Nicholas is the author of a number of books concerning Greek Warfare.