A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic by Evans Jane DeRose;

Author:Evans, Jane DeRose;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Published: 2013-02-18T16:00:00+00:00

At issue is the problem that was posed by Mattingly: “what makes Romanization and Hellenization particularly unhelpful constructs is that the terms are used to describe both process and outcome, so that the terms have become their own explanation” (Mattingly, 2009: 285–6). Often we have little evidence for the social and ritual contexts of objects found in tombs, objects that because of their provenience or style are used to define cultural periods. These objects then come to define cultural “processes” like Orientalization, Hellenization or Romanization that are then turned into outcomes defined by external phenomena, as in the terminology we use for the Etruscans: Orientalizing, Classical or Etrusco-Roman. The question of influence and diffusion is connected to the phenomenon of imported objects, imported styles and even, in some cases, imported artisans. The importation of skilled artisans and artists has been well studied in the earlier periods in Etruria, but probably would have continued into the Hellenistic period, just as Etruscan artists would have traveled elsewhere, for instance to Rome at the end of the sixth century to work on the Capitoline temple. But if identity is culturally constructed rather than ethnically determined, then artifacts “produced through the interactions of humans, and also productive in relationships with themselves – generate a hybridity that may be defined as cultural, rather than ethnic” (Antonaccio, 2009: 50). This complexity would certainly apply to those objects that are tied to the so-called “Hellenization” of Etruria, such as the ubiquitous Greek vases, and the Etruscan and Italic copies, that are found virtually at every Etruscan site and in every Etruscan context, whether domestic, religious or funerary (Reusser, 2002). The multitude of Greek imports is often interpreted as cultural dominance: “Etruria remained ­permanently ‘colonized’ by this civilization, which it absorbed with unflagging enthusiasm” (Braudel, 2001: 154). That these objects had a high social value to the Etruscans, in spite of whatever their value might have been to the Greeks, is clear from the way that they were privileged as dedications or prominently displayed at Etruscan banquets, as depicted in Etruscan wall painting. But if they were certainly valued, how were they perceived? Would an Etruscan patron have cared whether a vase was genuinely Greek or a good Etruscan copy? Would these objects have been perceived as Greek or as foreign? Did the Greek inscriptions on the vases matter? The concept of “Hellenization” would suggest so and indicate an Etruscan interest in trying to be like the Greeks, in accepting and aping Greek culture. But the very ubiquity of these ceramics in Etruscan contexts can also be used to argue that their “Greekness” really did not matter all that much. To the Etruscans what might have been more important would have been the novelty and visual quality of the ceramics, much in the way that Chinese export porcelain might have been perceived in eighteenth-century Europe. The latter may have spawned all sorts of “orientalisms” in the decorative arts, but no one would argue for the “Orientalization” of Europe in this period.

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