Galatai and Galli - Delphi and the Hellenistic Innovations in Barbaromachy (original) (raw)
2022
After the disturbances caused in the early 270s BCE by several forays of barbarians – soon called either Galatai or Keltoi in our sources – Delphi became an anchor for a vigorous strain of barbaromachic innovations, knowledge-ordering, and mythologization. Resources for these innovations included the tradition of Delphi’s preservation from the alleged Persian attack, the already-existing imagery from ethnographies of northern peoples, ideas about divine epiphany, and some mythistorical narratives such as the brigandage of Orchomenian Phlegyans. The different Hellenistic polities, dynasties and koina had widely differing motives for their use of the Delphic sanctuary as a conceptual hub for narratives of barbarian hubris and the defence of Hellas, but what is common to all is the creative reapplication of existing knowledge base that had connections to either the spatial, ritual or mythical aspects of Apollo’s sanctuary. This paper will discuss Delphi’s role as an ideological and epistemological hub for Greek and Roman barbaromachic narratives from the Galatian invasions until the Late Republic. Many of the literary sources from the most fertile, Hellenistic period of innovations are fragmentary in nature, but enough has been preserved for us to draw some conjectures about the different uses that the Galatian attack was put to among the Greeks and even in inter-cultural communication. As the ‘new universal barbarians’ (Marszal 2000, 222), Galatae/Galli offered a common template for ancient debates on identity, belonging, piety, ritual, and Hellenicity. The paper will also propose that Delphi may have been instrumental for the Roman adoption of the ethnonym Galli as a common name tag for their North-Italian adversaries. The epistemological anchoring of Roman elite’s barbaromachic posturing on Delphi is clearly visible in the literary and epigraphic sources.
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The 2021 Brandeis AGRS Graduate Conference. Cracking Open the Contact Zone: Imperialism and Indigenous Interaction in Antiquity, 9-10th April, 2021
Panhellenic Sanctuaries were spaces of acute political struggle and entangled dynamics of communication. The conditions of the Roman imperial period in the Hellenistic East offer exceptional material evidence for understanding the fragile and erratic views of both conqueror and conquered. Accordingly, this paper reevaluates L. Aemilius Paullus’ monument at Delphi in a comprehensive fashion: rather than isolated elements, a concise examination of each of its main components is proposed and then integrated into a thorough and contextualized explanation for its imperialistic message. A close examination of the pillar will be undertaken. Firstly, its battle frieze and architecture both possess styles, techniques and themes rooted in Hellenistic culture, which by the III II centuries BCE were starting to be integrated by Italian elites. This makes this Delphic monument a landmark for the study of artistic Mediterranean communication within the geopolitical framework of a Panhellenic space, particularly warfare and warrior principles shared by Roman aristocracy and Hellenistic monarchies. Secondly, by dealing with its Latin and Greek inscriptions, a tense coexistence of epigraphical habits can be attested: imperialistic Roman spoil of war and Late Hellenistic Panhellenic votive offering. Therefore, Paullus’ pillar can be understood, not in the sense of a brusque and unilateral Roman imperialistic symbol imposed on the Greek world, but as a cultural hybrid device. On the one hand, it is an imperator’s traditional reuse of war spoils in an experimental, unique and personal manner for self promotion while dealing with specific Graeco-Roman historical conditions, namely the Hellenistic acceptance of Roman conquest and the second century BCE senatorial surveillance of triumphant Roman commanders. On the other hand, the Delphic rehash of this monument as a political platform in traditional Late Hellenistic terms, with a nuanced and equal exchange of prestige and benefactions between Roman, Greek and local authorities.
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