Cambridge Scholars Publishing Political Religions in the Greco-Roman World: Discourses, Practices and Images

Until the 1980s, historical treatments of ancient religion focused mainly on myth, cult and ritual as a way to interpret the mental structures or primary emotions of ancient peoples, but, in the last few decades, a “political turn” in the study of religion has taken hold. This volume serves to diversify our understanding of the political conceptualizations and implementations of religious practice in the ancient Mediterranean region from the 7th Century BCE to the 4th Century CE, in both Greek and Roman contexts. The underlying question taken up here is: in what situations was Greco-Roman religious practice articulated, communicated, and perceived in political contexts, both real and imagined? Written by experts in the fields of archaeology, linguistics, art history, historiography, political science and religion, the chapters of this volume engage the plurality and the diversity of the Greco-Roman religious experience as it receives and negotiates power relations. About the Author Dr Elias Koulakiotis is Assistant Professor in Ancient Greek History at the University of Ioannina, Greece. He studied Classical Philology in Ioannina, and Anthropology of Ancient Greece at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He received his PhD from the Freie Universität, Berlin, in 2001, and has spent time as a Research Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, at the Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies, Ohio (2006) and at Birkbeck College, London (2011). He is interested in political, religious and cultural aspects of the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds, and is an associate member of the research group “Anthropologie et Histoire des Mondes Antiques”. His publications include Genese und Metamorphosen des Alexandermythos (2006), Marathon: The Day After (with K. Buraselis, 2013) and Alexander the Great: His Expedition and Empire, Illustrated in 100 Rare Historical Maps (with P. Soucacos, 2017). Dr Charlotte Dunn is a Researcher in Hellenistic Studies, whose interests include the life of Alexander the Great and his successors, with a particular focus on the propaganda and political manipulations that these men used to secure power. She received her PhD from the University of Otago, New Zealand, in 2017, and she has published on different aspects of the Successors and their politics, including articles such as “Messene Besieged: A Note on Two (?) Engagements in the Peloponnese” in Acta Classica and “Craterus and the Date of the Delphi Lion Monument” in AHB.