1st Edition

The Greek and Roman Trophy From Battlefield Marker to Icon of Power

By Lauren Kinnee Copyright 2018
    176 Pages
    by Routledge

    176 Pages
    by Routledge

    In The Greek and Roman Trophy: From Battlefield Marker to Icon of Power, Kinnee presents the first monographic treatment of ancient trophies in sixty years. The study spans Archaic Greece through the Augustan Principate. Kinnee aims to create a holistic view of this complex monument-type by breaking down boundaries between the study of art history, philology, the history of warfare, and the anthropology of religion and magic. Ultimately, the kaleidoscopic picture that emerges is of an ad hoc anthropomorphic Greek talisman that gradually developed into a sophisticated, Augustan sculptural or architectural statement of power. The former, a product of the hoplite phalanx, disappeared from battlefields as the Macedonian cavalry grew in importance, shifting instead onto coins and into rhetoric, where it became a statement of military might. For their part, the Romans seem to have encountered the trophy as an icon on Syracusan coinage. Recognizing its value as a statement of territorial ownership, the Romans spent two centuries honing the trophy-concept into an empire-building tool, planted at key locations around the Mediterranean to assert Roman presence and dominance.





    This volume covers a ubiquitous but poorly understood phenomenon and will therefore be instructive to upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in all fields of Classical Studies.

    List of Figures, Acknowledgments, Abbreviations, Chapter 1: Introduction, Chapter 2: Grappling with definitions, Chapter 3: Repairing fractured perspectives, Chapter 4: The Greek trophy: written sources, Chapter 5: Visual evidence and the history of the Greek trophy, Chapter 6: Roman adoption and adaptation of the Greek trophy, Chapter 7: Development and dissemination of the 'trophy tableau', Chapter 8: Development of the landscape trophy in the Republic and under Augustus, Chapter 9: Conclusion, Bibliography, Index

    Biography

    Lauren Kinnee is the Director of Art History and Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, USA.

    "In this volume Kinnee offers a comprehensive account of the development of the trophy in Greek and Roman culture. Combining study of the literary and archaeological evidence with insights from anthropology and the history of religions, she offers a provocative new interpretation of the Greek trophy, radically different from the icon of power it later became." - Zahra Newby, University of Warwick, UK

     

    "Kinneeā€™s dissemination of a chronological approach to the trophy and valuable coverage of the development of the Greek trophy and Roman trophy tableau is a historiographical necessity... Her essential book brings new information to light on the trophy." - Bryn Mawr Classical Review