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Overview

Title: Celebrity, Fame, and Infamy in the Hellenistic World

Editor:��Dr. Riemer A. Faber (University of ��ݮ��Ƶ)

Date: 2020

Imprint: University of Toronto Press (hosted by De Gruyter)

Series: Phoenix Supplementary Volumes

Language: English

eBook ISBN: 978-1-4875-3178-2

Extent: 276 pages; 41 b&w illustrations; 2 b&w tables

Resources

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Summary

This volume traces the roots of modern ideas of celebrity, fame, and infamy back to the Hellenistic world. Through case studies that range from Cleopatra and Alexander the Great to poets, officials, and historians, contributors explore how public personas were fashioned, circulated, contested, and remembered around the Mediterranean. Essays examine strategies of self-promotion and reputation making—across coins, inscriptions, literature, performance, and visual culture—alongside social and political systems that rewarded notoriety or punished it (damnatio memoriae). The collection shows how mobility, networks, and media created transregional audiences and transformed individual ambition into durable cultural memory.

“Celebrity, Fame, and Infamy in the Hellenistic World offers a new and unparalleled contribution to Hellenistic studies: a fascinating exposé of multimedia self-promotion from Alexander the Great to Antony’s Cleopatra. This interdisciplinary collection also demonstrates that the lives of the rich and famous, and oftentimes infamous, were as interesting to ancient audiences around a Mediterranean basin linked by efficient communication and international travel as they are to moderns tuned in to contemporary social media.”

“If celebrities are mirrors of society, we are in terrible shape. This volume shows that our misery has deep historical roots… Knowledgeable and entertaining, the collection reminds readers of the long cultural legacy at play each time they hit the ‘follow’ button.”

“The scholarship is uniformly sound and the essays reflect the latest work on their respective topics. The bibliographies are extensive and comprehensive.”

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Table of Contents

Introduction: Distinctives of Hellenistic Celebrity, Fame, and Infamy — Riemer A. Faber

1. Fama and Infamia: The Tale of Grypos and Tryphaina — Sheila L. Ager
2. Models of Virtue, Models of Poetry: The Quest for “Everlasting Fame” in Hellenistic Military Epitaphs — Silvia Barbantani
3. Can Powerful Women Be Popular? Amastris: Shaping a Persian Wife into a Famous Hellenistic Queen — Monica D’Agostini
4. Remelted or Overstruck: Cases of Monetary Damnatio Memoriae in Hellenistic Times? — François de Callataÿ
5. Ptolemaic Officials and Officers in Search of Fame — Christelle Fischer-Bovet
6. Lemnian Infamy and Masculine Glory in Apollonios’ Argonautica — Judith Fletcher
7. The “Good” Poros and the “Bad” Poros: Infamy and Honour in Alexander Historiography — Timothy Howe
8. Writing Monarchs of the Hellenistic Age: Renown, Fame, and Infamy — Jacqueline Klooster
9. Creating Alexander: The “Official” History of Kallisthenes of Olynthos — Waldemar Heckel

Back Matter

• References
• Contributors
• Index
• Phoenix Supplementary Volumes series list

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About the Editor

Dr. Riemer A. Faber is Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of ��ݮ��Ƶ.

Topics / Subjects

• Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Classical Studies
• Greek; Greek Authors

Bibliographic Data

• eBook publication date: April 2, 2020
• eISBN: 978-1-4875-3178-2
• Main content: 276 pages
• Illustrations: 41 b&w illustrations; 2 b&w tables