Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot PDF
Preview Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot
Alexandria A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot 7788220088__aalleexxaannddrriiaa__..iinndddd 11 0077--0099--22000099 1144::1100::4444 Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity (ASMA) IX ASMA is a series which will be published approximately once a year by Th e Centre for the Study of Antiquity, University of Aarhus, Denmark. Th e Centre is a network of cooperating departments: Greek and Latin, C lassical Ar- chaeology, History, and the Faculty of Th eology. Th e objective of the series is to advance the interdisciplinary study of Antiquity by publishing articles, e.g., conference papers, or independent monographs, which among other things refl ect the current activities of the centre. 7788220088__aalleexxaannddrriiaa__..iinndddd 22 0077--0099--22000099 1144::1100::4488 Alexandria A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot Edited by George Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff Aarhus University Press | 7788220088__aalleexxaannddrriiaa__..iinndddd 33 0077--0099--22000099 1144::1100::4488 Alexandria. A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot © Aarhus University Press and the authors 2009 Cover by Jørgen Sparre Illustration: Roman mosaic from Palestrina. Archaeological Museum © 1990. Photo Scala, Florence – courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali Typeset with Minion eISBN 978 87 7934 745 8 ISSN 1399 2686 Aarhus University Press Langelandsgade 177 DK-8200 Aarhus N www.unipress.dk White Cross Mills Hightown, Lancaster, LA1 4XS United Kingdom www.gazellebookservices.co.uk PO Box 511 Oakville, CT 06779 www.oxbowbooks.com Published with the financial support of The Aarhus University Research Foundation The Danish Research Council for the Humanities 7788220088__aalleexxaannddrriiaa__..iinndddd 44 0077--0099--22000099 1144::1100::4499 PREFACE Th e Centre for the Study of Mediterranean Antiquity at the University of Aarhus is a research forum for the advancement of interdisciplinary studies of Antiquity. Th e dominant activity of the Centre is to arrange seminars and conferences and to publish the contributions from these events in monographs. Additionally, several individual monographs have been published in the Centres series, Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity (ASMA). Th e Centres seminars and conferences are devoted to the study of such signifi cant fi elds and topics that will benefi t from an interdisciplinary approach. Th e publications of the Centre is therefore refl ections of the ongoing process, which binds the various fi elds of activity together at the University of Aarhus, and between our university and the international scholarly community. In May 2004 the Centre hosted an international seminar on Alexandria. Several dis- tinguished colleagues from diff erent countries contributed to this seminar, both as givers of papers and as discussants. Some of these papers have been included in this volume, while other contributions have been added later. First of all, our warmest thanks to the contributors for their professional and scholarly approach and their patience regarding the preparation of this volume. Th e distinguished Members of the Board of the Centre for the Study of Mediterranean Antiquity, deserves our gratitude because of their never failing enthusiasm and encouragement and Aarhus University Research Foundation for making the necessary donations available in the fi rst place; and the Danish Research Council for Culture and Communication for fi nancial support of the publication. Last but not least we extend our gratitude to the research assistants and secretaries, without whose help and support none of this would have happened. Aarhus, December 2008 George Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff Preface 5 7788220088__aalleexxaannddrriiaa__..iinndddd 55 0077--0099--22000099 1144::1100::4499 contents 9 Introduction George Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff part i. alexandria from Greece and eGypt 21 Chapter 1 Alexandria as Place: Tempo-Spatial Traits of Royal Ideology in Early Ptolemaic Egypt Jens A. Krasilnikoff 42 Chapter 2 Theatrical Fiction and Visual Bilingualism in the Monumental Tombs of Ptolemaic Alexandria Marjorie Susan Venit 66 Chapter 3 Language and Race: Theocritus and the Koine Identity of Ptolemaic Egypt George Hinge 80 Chapter 4 Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria Minna Skafte Jensen part ii. rome, Judaism and christianity 97 Chapter 5 Philo as a Polemist and a Political Apologist An Investigation of his Two Historical Treatises Against Flaccus and The Embassy to Gaius Per Bilde 115 Chapter 6 Alexandrian Judaism: Rethinking a Problematic Cultural Category Anders Klostergaard Petersen 78208_alexandria_r1.indd 7 09-10-2009 08:42:48 144 Chapter 7 From School to Patriarchate: Aspects on the Christianisation of Alexandria Samuel Rubenson 158 Chapter 8 Religious Conflict in Late Antique Alexandria: Christian Responses to “Pagan” Statues in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries CE Troels Myrup Kristensen 176 List of Contributors 78208_alexandria_r1.indd 8 09-10-2009 08:43:33 INTRODUCTION George Hinge and Jens A. Krasilnikoff Th e appreciation amongst the international host of scholars of ancient Alexandria as a fi eld of research has been growing these recent years and one can even suggest that it has been accelerating within the past three decades or more. Th e continued interest is manifested in increased knowledge of the material culture of Ptolemaic and Roman Alexandria, and the increase in the publication rate of papyri manuscripts and other evidence from Egypt continues to fuel scholarly debate. Moreover, the growing inter- est among scholars of the humanities worldwide in the mental aspects of past societies invites to develop the tenets of cultural history, language and religion within the wider frame of ancient Alexandria. Th is project was conceived in 2002 as part of the continued discussion and charting of the current and future activities of Centre for the Study of Mediterranean Antiquity. Th e Centre board agreed to the simple observation that most of the partakers of the Centre were all somehow researching aspects of Egypt’s culture, history, or religions of the Graeco-Roman period. Further pondering suggested that this rather board scope should be narrowed down to just “Alexandria,” in particular those aspects of the Alex- andrine past, which encompassed the aforementioned aspects of cultural history, history and religion. Th us, although previous research projects have successfully navigated the diffi cult waters of interdisciplinary research much reward was to be expected from the insistence upon the combination of a wide thematic scope examined within the confi nes of the wide chronological spectrum. Consequently, as several contributions demonstrate and observe, the Alexandrine past is notoriously marked by meeting of cultures and frequent and rapid development, which is quite diffi cult to grasp in its totality if the longer perspective is ignored. Additionally, the long-held insistence of the “fact” that Alexandria represented a world totally diff erent from the parallel cultural and political construct of traditional Egyptian culture is also being challenged. And so are diff erent aspects of the religious and philosophical milieus, which developed almost from the foundation of the city to Late Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. As the title of this volume suggests, throughout the entire span of Graeco-Roman antiquity Alexandria represented a meeting place for many ethnic cultures and the city itself was subject to a wide range of local developments, which created and formatted a distinct Alexandrine “culture” as well as several distinct “cultures”. Ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish observers communicated or held claim to that particular message. Hence, Arrian, Th eocritus, Strabo, and Athenaeus reported their fascination of the Alexandrine melting pot to the wider world and so did Philo, Josephus and Clement. Introduction 9 7788220088__aalleexxaannddrriiaa__..iinndddd 99 0077--0099--22000099 1144::1100::4499 As some of the reviewers observed one is in serious danger of being trounced by the sheer amount of information, life, abundance, ingenuity and vigour, which for some time became “Alexandria” by the accomplishment of Fraser’s monolithic Ptolemaic Alexandria from 1972. Fraser’s “antiquarian” (if this word has a positive connotation) reconstruction and “compilation” of Alexandria until the coming of Rome continue to leave us in the state of Strabo, slightly bewildered and overwhelmed. We shall, nonetheless, insist that the Alexandrine melting pot made up a distinct order, one of diff erent not always corresponding, abiding and enduring elements of cultural amal- gamations. Recently, the German professor Christian Meier argued for the existence of “Europe’s special path,” in order to explain the relative success of Europe in dominating the remain- der of the world in the courses of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Meier anchors the beginning of Europe in Greece, more accurately in Athens of the fi fth century BCE, where he focuses on the democratic institutions, citizenship, freedom to debate and a fi rm belief in the positive eff ect of “the debate” for a positive future development. Multiple objections and corrections can be made against Meier’s hypothesis. One is the fact that Europe would not have been what it became without an Alexandria to take in and further develop what it inherited from the Greek and Near Eastern worlds. Time, acceleration and volume are features that dominated the development of Alexandrine history, but also paucity, contemplation and stability. Th e mildly stressed Strabo would have acknowledged both the ambiguities and the “beat” of Alexandria. Here, in the largest city known to mankind – later only surpassed by Rome – the multi- ethnic and internationalised community insisted upon setting the standards in and of a globalised world. Alexandria thus became the centre for communication of scientifi c and scholarly achievements as well as religious novelties, digression and development. Alexandrine “culture” came to signify novelty and speed, but also degeneration and the target of the special versions of early “Orientalism’. In various fashions, the four papers of Part I of the monograph, Alexandria from Greece and Egypt, deals with the relationship between Ptolemaic Alexandria and its Greek past. However, the Egyptian origin and heritage also plays important roles for the arguments. In the fi rst contribution of the volume, Jens A. Krasilnikoff discusses and explores the potentials of humanistic geography as a theoretical tools and approach for the study of the earliest Alexandrine history. Th us, with examples of how Alexandria was created as place, Krasilnikoff argues that the city of Alexander diff ered fundamen- tally form the majority of classical and Hellenistic cities. Th e evidence suggests that the rulers of Alexandria were soon to create their own standards of urbanism, conspicuous consumption and cultural amalgamation in close resonance with a profound exclusive- ness of its royal ideology. Undoubtedly, the heirs of Alexander exercised great impact upon the religions and cultural amalgams of the city. Concurrently, however, they also subscribed to the institutions and traditions of the classical Greek polis, a dominant feature in the ancient literary tradition on and about Alexandria. Paradoxically, the acute need of the fi rst Ptolemaic rulers to create Alexandria into a distinct, unique and self- preserving urban entity in its own right demanded that the city of Alexander was made 10 Alexandria 7788220088__aalleexxaannddrriiaa__..iinndddd 1100 0077--0099--22000099 1144::1100::4499
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