Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T14:50:42.273Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Politics and spectacles

from Part II - The world of the novel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2008

Tim Whitmarsh
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

The surviving Greek and Latin novels depict a world of cities, but mostly keep Rome itself out of sight. The racy Latin novels by Petronius and Apuleius (and his Greek source) are set in the imperial present, but make few direct remarks about Rome and its emperors. The (more-or-less) chaste, idealising and nostalgic Greek novels by Chariton, Longus, Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus are mostly set in vaguely classical times, when Greek cities were still free. Nevertheless, just as historians write the story of their own times as they tell the story of the past, so too the escapist fictions of the novelists do not escape their imperial context. Some critics interpret the nostalgic setting of the Greek novels as a strategy of withdrawal. On this view, when Alexander and his successors and then Rome rule over Greece and Asia Minor, city-state gives way to empire, and the traditional work of citizenship is no longer as consequential as it once was: elite audiences are drawn to the novels' stories of individuals adrift in a chancy world. Others, by contrast, understand the nostalgic and idealistic Greek novels as an affirmation of a specifically Greek cultural identity and a celebration of the continuation of Greek civic practices after the imposition of Roman hegemony.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×