Urban Dreams and Realities in Antiquity

Adam Kemezis is associate professor in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta and author of Greek Narratives of the Roman Empire under the Severans (Cambridge, forthcoming) and several articles on Imperial Roman literature and history.Contributors are: Ehud Ben Zvi, Christer Bruun, Raymond L. Capra, Fabio Colivicchi, Edward Dandrow, Megan Daniels, Owen M. Ewald, Tanya K. Henderson, Steven Hijmans, Adam M. Kemezis, Eric Kondratieff, Ralph J. Korner, Matthew Maher, Aloka Parasher-Sen, Darryl A. Phillips, Daniel Unruh, Emily Varto, LuAnn Wandsnider, Josef Wiesehöfer and Ian Douglas Wilson.

• ContentsAcknowledgementsList of ContributorsIntroductionAdam M. KemezisPart 1 - City as Space i: Remains on the Ground1 In Defense of Arkadia: The City as a FortressMatthew Maher2 The Mundus of Caere and Early Etruscan UrbanizationFabio Colivicchi3 “Fighting Over a Shadow?”: Hellenistic Greek Cities and Greco-Roman Cities as Fora and Media for Multi-Level Social SignalingLuAnn Wandsnider4 Constructing an Oscan Cityscape: Pompeii and the Eítuns InscriptionsTanya K. Henderson5 Unraveling the Reality of a ‘City’ on the Deccan PlateauAloka Parasher-Sen6 Monumentalising the Ephemeral in Ancient RomeSteven HijmansPart 2 - City as Space ii: Landscapes in Literature7 Future City in the Heroic Past: Rome, Romans and Roman Landscapes in Aeneid 6–8Eric J. Kondratieff8 Reading the Civic Landscape of Augustan Rome: Aeneid 1.421–429 and the Building Program of AugustusDarryl A. Phillips9 The Predatory Palace: Seneca’s Thyestes and the Architecture of TyrannyDaniel B. Unruh10 Imperial Roman Cities as Places of Memory in Augustine’s ConfessionsOwen M. EwaldPart 3 - City as Identity i: Cultures in Stone11 Sacred Exchange: The Religious Institutions of Emporia in the Mediterranean World of the Later Iron AgeMegan Daniels12 Greek Poleis in the Near East and Their Parthian OverlordsJosef Wiesehöfer13 Civic Identity in Roman Ostia: Some Evidence from Dedications (Inaugurations)Christer Bruun14 Chariot Racing in Hispania Tarraconensis: Urban Romanization and Provincial IdentityRaymond L. CapraPart 4 - City as Identity ii: Communities on Paper15 The Seat of Kingship: (Re)Constructing the City in Isaiah 24–27Ian Douglas Wilson16 Remembering Pre-Israelite Jerusalem in Late Persian Yehud: Mnemonic Preferences, Memories and Social ImaginationEhud Ben Zvi17 Memory and the Greek City in Strabo’s GeographyEdward Dandrow18 The Ekklēsia of Early Christ-Followers in Asia Minor as the Eschatological New Jerusalem: Counter-Imperial Rhetoric?Ralph J. Korner19 From Kinship to State: The Family and the Ancient City in Nineteenth-Century EthnologyEmily VartoIndex

"The volume’s structure mirrors its theme, as the groupings themselves reflect qualities of a city—cohesive and planned, yet organic and sprawling. (...) The volume as a whole functions as an extended meditation on the epistemological and theoretical problem referenced in the title—the relationship between urban 'dreams' and urban 'realities.' Although each author displays preferences for certain types of evidence (remains or representations), no one takes the 'dreams' either more or less seriously than the 'realities.' Indeed, central to the volume are two implicit acknowledgements: 1) that the ancient urban 'realities' are inaccessible to the modern scholar except by means of imaginative approaches, and 2) that urban 'dreams' no less 'real' than their material counterparts." Jordan Conley (Boston University)