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This book analyses the procedures, ideas and realities that allowed the people from the Greek East to become a part of the Roman Empire, while both preserving and redeveloping their cultural identity. The volume assesses this complex process both in the traditional Greek cities of the provinces of Achaea and Asia as well as in other areas that had been deeply hellenised for centuries, as the Near East. A common point of departure of the different essays is the notion that granting the Greeks a privileged position within the Roman Empire as a tribute to their civilisation was as possible an option as that of "barbarisation", i.e. the substitution of Greek cultural identity by the Roman one. Between the respect and conservation of political and cultural structures, and their total annihilation and substitution by new realities of undeniable Roman stamp, there existed a wide spectrum of political possibilities with strong cultural and religious undertones. In creating those new options, which Rome either opted for, refused, or transformed, the political and cultural activity of the Greeks themselves, and in particular the oligarchs who ruled the cities in the Mediterranean East, played an important role. This volume attempts to analyse all those new possibilities.

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Cortes Copete, Juan Manuel
Juan Manuel Cortés Copete is Professor of Ancient History, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla. He is an expert in Roman History and Greek Literature in the Roman Empire, with a particular emphasis on the Second Sophistic. He is also interested in the Jews under Roman rule. His most recent research has to do with the unity and diversity in the Roman Empire, and with the formation of a new social identity for the Empire.

Muniz Grijalvo, Elena
Elena Mu¤iz Grijalvo is Professor of Ancient History, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla. She is an expert in ancient Mediterranean religions, with special interest in Greek religion in Roman times, and in Oriental religions which made a success in the Roman world (particularly the cults of Isis and Sarapis). Her most recent research has to do with the ambiguous and blurred frontiers among religions, especially Greek religion and its development in a multi-cultural world.

Lozano Gomez, Fernando
Fernando Lozano is Professor of Ancient History, Universidad de Sevilla. He is an expert in Roman History and Religion. He has focused mainly in the study of emperor worship and the religious transformations that took place during the Roman Empire. He has published widely in both subjects. Dr. Lozano has also concentrated on receptions studies. He has published on XIXth Century Historiography, in particular with the project BAT (Bibliotheca Academica Translationum), led by prof. O. Murray, Oxford University.

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