Sage Roman Visitors to Ilium revised (original) (raw)

Troy as Proto-Tourist Attraction in Alexanders Saga and Kirialax Saga

The site of ancient Troy nowadays enjoys the reputation of a popular tourist attraction. It is less generally known, however, that Troy had already been regarded by classical and late antiquity as a highly attractive proto-tourist site endowed with meaningful mythical, historical and cultural associations. As such, Troy was ideally suited to attract the most notable personalities of classical and late antiquity, for example Xerxes, Alexander the Great, the Roman general Sulla, Julius Caesar, the emperors Hadrian and Julian the Apostate etc., who can be regarded as proto-tourists like many of their contemporaries visiting Troy. Like the antiquity, the medieval period also expressed its fascination with Troy in numerous poems and prose texts. Troy found its way in medieval Icelandic literature as well and it is the purpose of this article to compare two medieval Icelandic accounts of a visit to Troy, the first account focusing on the visit undertaken by the historical Alexander the Gr...

Roman Troy and Trojan Rome: Evolution from Mythological Legend to Imperialism and Beyond

The mythological city of Troy and the historic city of Ilion have long seduced scholars of archaeology, history, and literature. Yet, despite nearly two centuries of excavation, age-old questions remain unanswered, truths still buried in the ancient earth of Hisarlik. Since. 1870 archaeologists and those enamored of Homer’s city have searched for information to substantiate the stories of the epic poem. Thus Priam’s Troy, regardless of whether it truly existed, has been the primary focus of excavations until the 1990’s, despite abundant mentions of the city’s Hellenistic and Roman periods in the texts of ancient authors and archaeological evidence indicating over a millennium of habitation. Due to the fact that most archaeological research has focused on the Bronze Age city of Troy, this paper will focus on the periods that are given less archaeological and scholarly consideration, with particular attention paid to the Hellenistic and Roman city of Ilion.

Troy, Italy, and the Underworld (Lucan, 9, 964–999)

2012

one of the protagonists of Lucan's Pharsalia, disappears from the scene for a long time after the Battle of Pharsalus. He reappears at the end of Book 9, when he pays a visit to the ruined city of Troy. The function and the source of this historically unsupported scene are both worth examining. Earlier research disclosed as the literary source of the Troy scene the episode in Aeneid Book 8, when Evander shows Aeneas the future site of Rome. While fully accepting that, I would like to present another possible source that might have as much effect on the constructing of Lucan's Troy as the Evander-scene: the katabasis in Book 6 of the Aeneid. Definite parallelisms can be identified between the two scenes on both motivic and textual levels. Furthermore, the connection between these three scenes can be proved on the level of content, since by examining them together the real purpose of the Troy scene can be decoded: Lucan predicts Rome's destruction in this episode.

Future City in the Heroic Past: Rome, Romans, and Roman Landscapes in Aeneid 6–8

Urban Dreams and Realities in Antiquity, 2014

Arma virumque canō? "Arms and the Man I sing …"1 So Vergil begins his epic tale of Aeneas, who overcomes tremendous obstacles to find and establish a new home for his wandering band of Trojan refugees. Were it metrically possible, Vergil could have begun with "Cities and the Man I sing," for Aeneas' quest for a new home involves encounters with cities of all types: ancient and new, great and small, real and unreal. These include Dido's Carthaginian boomtown (1.419-494), Helenus' humble neo-Troy (3.349-353) and Latinus' lofty citadel (7.149-192).2 Of course, central to his quest is the destiny of Rome, whose future greatness-empire without limit (1.277-278)-Jupiter prophesies to Venus as recompense for the destruction of her beloved Troy, but whose foundation ultimately depends on Aeneas' success at establishing a foothold in Italy (1.257-296). Although Rome's (notional/traditional) foundation will occur several centuries after Aeneas's final victory, Vergil has his hero interact with the future city in several ways, including two well-known passages. In the first (8.95-369) he tours Evander's Pallanteum, the physical site of future Rome, taking delight in his surroundings and learning local lore (8.310-312, 359), yet he fails to perceive that this

FEELING AT HOME: NOTES OF A JOURNEY BY A ROMAN TRAVELLER IN THE 2ND CENTURY PERGAMON

Meltem İzmir Akdeniz Akademisi Dergisi-Journal of the Izmir Mediterranean Academy, 2020

Western Anatolia was one of the first regions to come under the rule of the Roman Empire. For the region, the 2 nd century AD was marked by urban development that accelerated thanks to the ongoing period of peace under the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean. Without the burden of wars, cities concentrated all their efforts on trade and urbanization. While implementing a certain program envisaged by the empire, the ancient Greek cities of Anatolia preserved their identity and culture, while they welcomed the new elements of the Roman identity. Thus, the Roman cities of 2 nd century AD in western Ana-tolia were not created from nothing but rather adapted from a Greek past to a Roman future. In this respect, becoming Roman was equivalent to the creation of a Mediterranean identity through integrating the fragmented identities of the pre-Roman world into a unity. This paper discusses the transformation of post-Hellenistic western Anatolia into the Ro-man Imperial period with the help of an imaginary journey based on historical facts. The discussion focuses on 2 nd Century AD Pergamon to examine urbanization and architecture as transformation tools.

Troy, Italy, and the Underworld

Graeco-Latina Brunensia, 2012

Julius Caesar, one of the protagonists of Lucan’s Pharsalia, disappears from the scene for a long time after the Battle of Pharsalus. He reappears at the end of Book 9, when he pays a visit to the ruined city of Troy. The function and the source of this historically unsupported scene are both worth examining. Earlier research disclosed as the literary source of the Troy scene the episode in Aeneid Book 8, when Evander shows Aeneas the future site of Rome. While fully accepting that, I would like to present another possible source that might have as much effect on the constructing of Lucan’s Troy as the Evander–scene: the katabasis in Book 6 of the Aeneid. Definite parallelisms can be identified between the two scenes on both motivic and textual levels. Furthermore, the connection between these three scenes can be proved on the level of content, since by examining them together the real purpose of the Troy scene can be decoded: Lucan predicts Rome’s destruction in this episode.

“THE ILIAD” AND EVIDENCE THAT MANY DETAILS ABOUT TROY AND THE TROJAN WAR CAME FROM ANCIENT LYCIA

While the Iliad, by ‘Homer’ is not an account of history, but a work of epic poetry, analogous to modern ‘historical fiction’, nonetheless the history – the real events influencing it – has intrigued humanity since it was created close to 3000 years ago. If we look at the Iliad from the point of view of a poet, it soon becomes clear that Homer wanted to create a very big war, so he chose the most strategic and largest city that the Achaeans could attack, which he thought was the city at the entrance to the Dardanelles, a strategic location commanding seatrade between the Aegean and Black Seas. A fortified city there has been excavated by archeologists but it does not exactly agree with what was expected, based on the details in the Iliad. Let’s be realistic. If Homer learned about there having been a major fortified city called Troy centuries before his time, he will have only experienced its ruins, and maybe learned of an invasion centuries earlier. This would inspire a tale, but what Homer would lack would be details. He had to obtain details from elsewhere in his experiences. This paper proposes that Homer had been a military official in an invasion in his time of a location, also with a citadel, further south on the coast, at what is now southwest Turkey, which was ancient Lycia. Proof of this lies within the Iliad itself, in the author’s many references to Lycia, and in particular to using an alternative name for Scamander – Xanthos – which is the river in Lycia around which the original Lycian civilization developed. This paper studies the details given in the Iliad with geographical information about the location of ancient Lycia to prove this case.