Hostages and Hostage-Taking in the Roman Empire by Joel Allen

Hostages and Hostage-Taking in the Roman Empire by Joel Allen

This book examines hostage-taking in ancient Rome, which was a standard practice of international diplomacy. Hundreds of foreign hostages, typically adolescents, were detained as the empire grew in the Republic and early Principate. As prominent figures at the center of diplomacy and as 'exotic' representatives of the outside world, they drew considerable attention in Roman literature and other artistic media. Our sources discuss hostages in terms of the geopolitics that motivated their detention, as well as in accordance with other comparable structures of power. Hostages, thus, could be located in a social hierarchy, a family network, in a cultural continuum, or in a sexual role. In these schemes, an individual Roman, or Rome in general, becomes not just a conqueror, but also a patron, father, teacher, or generically male. By focusing on the characterizations of hostages in Roman culture, we glean Roman attitudes toward ethnicity and imperial power.

'Allen earns credit for focusing on hostages, an issue often neglected in the study of Roman historyAllen's approach by relational category is an illuminating one. He succeeds in throwing interesting light on the mindset of the Roman elite culture and its ways of negotiating and producing its power. The proofreading and copy-editing of the book is of consistently high quality.' De novis libris iudicia

Joel Allen is assistant professor of history at Queens College of the City University of New York. He has been a Mellon Fellow at the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780521861830
ISBN 10	0521861837
Title	Hostages and Hostage-Taking in the Roman Empire
Author	Joel Allen
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Year published	2006-05-08
Number of pages	316
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.