Goldhill Simon. Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire

Cambridge University Press, 2001. — 404 p.These especially commissioned essays open up a fascinating and novel perspective on a crucial era of Western culture. In the second century CE the Roman empire dominated the Mediterranean, but Greek culture maintained its huge prestige. At the same time, Christianity and Judaism were vying for followers against the lures of such an elite cultural life. This book looks at how writers in Greek from all areas of Empire society responded to their political position, to intellectual authority, to religious and social pressures.