Public building and civic identity in Augustan and Julio-Claudian Athens.

Despite numerous specialized studies devoted to the history of Roman Athens, systematic examinations of its constituent periods are still not available. This dissertation is a cultural history of building activity within the city during the Augustan and Julio-Claudian principates. The main theme is the historical relationship between public building and socio-political change; secondary themes include the city's relationship with Augustus and his imperial successors, and the phenomenon of town-based euergetism. Chapter One investigates sustained public activity early in Augustus' reign, with a focus on the Temple of Roma and Augustus on the Acropolis. A close sequence of events in the late 20s B.C. is seen to reflect both the cultural values of a traditional elite and a compatible imperial ideology. Chapter Two explores the rebuilding of Athens and its environs in the late first century B.C. This was accomplished largely by local initiative and emotive appeals to the city's past, especially as seen in the Athenian decree regarding the restoration of public properties. Chapter Three examines innovations that occurred simultaneously within the architectural landscape of Athens. Primarily these took the form of imperial benefactions, together with the city's own tributes to Augustus and his successors. Chapter Four looks at the later Julio-Claudian period which saw a shift in the goals of Athenian euergetism, when sites associated with traditional festivals were embellished. This new building trend corresponded with increasing social mobility among the local elite. In brief, the evidence suggests the following general conclusions: (1) The Augustan and Julio-Claudian period represented for Athens a protracted process of transition to imperial rule. (2) Within this process, traditional Athenian elites looked to the city's rich past as a resource to be converted into valuable cultural prestige. (3) Contrastly, the later Julio-Claudian period moved somewhat past this historicizing pattern: euergetism and other forms of public activity were now practiced within the context of an increasingly cohesive provincial and extra-provincial society. These cultural trends anticipated many of the fundamental aspects of the Second Sophistic movement in the Greek world of the second century A.D.PhDAncient historyArchaeologyArchitectureCommunication and the ArtsSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129491/2/9513475.pd