Kontaktzone und Rezeptivität unter imperialem Vorzeichen. Das Beispiel Rom. Eine Fußnote zur "komplexen Welt der Kulturkontakte" (original) (raw)

2014, R. Rollinger and K. Schnegg (eds.): Kulturkontakte in antiken Welten. Vom Denkmodell zum Fallbeispiel. Proceedings des internationalen Kolloquiums aus Anlass des 60. Geburtstages von Christoph Ulf, Innsbruck, 26. bis 30. Januar 2009, Leuven 2014, 203-214.

The present paper investigates areas of intense cultural exchange (‘Kontaktzonen’) within the Roman empire. Empires are, by definition, spheres of asymmetric interaction between centre and periphery. Under Roman rule, the Mediterranean power world Christoph Ulf describes in his paper, was transformed from a power vacuum into a hierarchic framework where interaction was channelled through imperial institutions. The paper explores the patterns of acculturation under Roman imperial auspices. Of the many models modern scholarship has generated to illustrate asymmetric interaction, Shmuel Eisenstadt’s dichotomy of ‘little’ vs ‘great’ traditions and the linguistic concept of H-varieties, which carry overt prestige and superpose, but never really supersede, local L-varieties, seem best fit for the purpose of studying the interaction between the imperial centre and the many local peripheries within the Roman world. In the paper, they are tested against three case studies: (1) the architecture of Roman villae in the provinces; (2) sepulchral architecture in Roman Palmyra; and (3) the cult of Apollo Grannus on Rome’s Celtic fringes in Gaul and Germany.