Opposition et résistances a l'Empire d'Auguste a Trajan.

Collegit atque notis illustravit Marina R. Torelli. Prefazione di Emilio Gabba. Pisa, Giardini Editori 1978, cm.18x25, pp.274, brossura con sopraccoperta. Biblioteca degli Studi Classici e Orientali,14. Testo in greco e latino con commento in italiano.

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2006, cm.16x24, pp.291, legatura editoriale con sopraccoperta. Testo in inglese. 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.