Egyptian Things

Translating Egypt to Early Imperial Rome

Edward William Kelting

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9780520402188
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520402195
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

After the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, Rome finally took control of Egypt. This occupation simultaneously facilitated and circumscribed the exchange of goods, people, and ideas along the paths carved across Rome’s burgeoning empire. In this book, Edward Kelting sets out to recapture one of these systems of exchange: the vibrant literary tradition known as Aegyptiaca—or “Egyptian things”—in which culturally mixed authors wrote about Egypt for a Greek and Roman audience. These authors have been dismissed as not really “Egyptian,” and their contemporary popularity has been ignored. But as Kelting powerfully argues, this genre in fact constitutes a vibrant intellectual tradition, developed from heterogeneous influences but deeply engaged with Egypt’s pharaonic past. In contrast to usual narratives of Roman domination, Kelting uncovers a complex project of political engagement and cultural translation in which Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all participated.
 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Roman Egypt and Rome’s “Egypt”
• PART ONE. INTRODUCING AEGYPTIACA
• PART TWO. EGYPT’S ANIMALS: FROM REPRESENTATION TO CULTURAL TRANSLATION
• PART THREE. WHAT’S EGYPTIAN FOR “PHILOSOPHER”?
• Conclusion: Acoreus, Aegyptiaca, and the Question of Cultural Influence
• Works Cited