Dionysus and Politics
Constructing Authority in the Graeco-Roman World
Preview
Book Description
This volume presents an essential but underestimated role that Dionysus played in Greek and Roman political thought. Written by an interdisciplinary team of scholars, the volume covers the period from archaic Greece to the late Roman Empire.
The reader can observe how ideas and political themes rooted in Greek classical thought were continued, adapted and developed over the course of history. The authors (including four leading experts in the field: Cornelia Isler-Kerényi, Jean-Marie Pailler, Richard Seaford andRichard Stoneman) reconstruct the political significance of Dionysus by examining different types of evidence: historiography, poetry, coins, epigraphy, art and philosophy. They discuss the place of the god in Greek city-state politics, explore the long tradition of imitating Dionysus that ancient leaders, from Alexander the Great to the Roman emperors, manifested in various ways, and shows how the political role of Dionysus was reflected in Orphism and Neoplatonist philosophy.
Dionysus and Politics provides an excellent introduction to a fundamental feature of ancient political thought which until now has been largely neglected by mainstream academia. The book will be an invaluable resource to students and scholars interested in ancient politics and religion.
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Filip Doroszewski, Dariusz Karłowicz
Part I
Dionysus and the Polis
- Dionysos, the Polis and Power
- The Politics of Euripides’ Bacchae and the Preconception of Irresolveable Contradiction
- On the Necessity of Dionysus: the Return of Hephaestus as a Tale of the God that Alone Can Solve Unresolvable Conflicts and Restore an Inconsistent Whole
- Alexander and Dionysus
- Dionysos against Rome? The Bacchanalian Affair: a Matter of Power(s)
- Augustus and the Neoi Dionysoi
- The State as Crater: Dionysus and Politics in Plutarch’s Lives of Crassus, Antony and Caesar
- Dionysus and Legitimisation of Imperial Authority by Myth in First- and Second-Century Rome: Caligula, Domitian and Hadrian
- The Role of Bacchus/Liber Pater in the Severan Religious Policy: the Numismatic and Epigraphic Evidence
- The Rule of Dionysus in the Light of the Orphic Theogony (Hieroi Logoi in 24 Rhapsodies)
- Dionysus in the Mirror of Late Antiquity: Religion, Philosophy and Politics
Cornelia Isler-Kerényi
Richard Seaford
Dariusz Karłowicz
Richard Stoneman
Part II
Dionysus in Rome
Jean-Marie Pailler
Fiachra Mac Góráin
Filip Doroszewski
Sławomir Poloczek
Małgorzata Krawczyk
Part III
Late-Antique Reflection on Dionysus
Marek Job
David Hernández de la Fuente
Index
Editor(s)
Biography
Filip Doroszewski is Assistant Professor at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, Poland. His recent publications include a co-edited volume Nonnus of Panopolis in Context III (2021) and a monograph Orgies of Words. Mystery Terminology in the Paraphrase of St. John’s Gospel by Nonnus of Panopolis (forthcoming).
Dariusz Karlowicz is a Polish philosopher and a lecturer at Warsaw University, Poland. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the philosophical magazine ‘Political Theology’. His books in English include The Archparadox of Death: Martyrdom as a Philosophical Category (2016) and Socrates and Other Saints (2017).
Reviews
"Réunissant les articles de plusieurs spécialistes du dieu Dionysos, l’ouvrage constitue un point de repère important pour les futures recherches sur le rapport entre l’imaginaire bachique et la représentation du pouvoir. Le choix d’une chronologie large guide le public dans l’évolution de l’imaginaire dionysiaque et de son lien avec les processus de construction de l’autorité politique dans les mondes grec et romain. La lecture des diverses contributions permet également d’envisager d’autres pistes de recherche qui pourraient être explorées en lien avec la thématique du volume."
(Bringing together articles from several specialists of the god Dionysus, the book constitutes an important point of reference for future research on the relationship between the bacchanalian imagination and the representation of power. The choice of a broad timeline guides the audience in the evolution of the Dionysian imaginary and its link with the process of construction of political authority in the Greek and Roman worlds. Reading the various contributions also makes it possible to consider other avenues of research that could be explored in line with the theme of the volume.) - Kernos