Monuments and Rhetorical Materiality

Abstract

AbstractChapter 3 explores imperial Greek engagement with the layered, multi-temporal physicality of monumental cityscapes and memorial landscapes in the Roman empire through an analysis of their own monuments and establishes the dense materiality of contemporary Greek rhetorical culture with its interweaving of text and artefact. It does so by: a) analysing several examples of multivalent monuments, focusing particularly on Herodes Attikos; b) examining the use of text to shape and control monumental meaning in the literature of Aelius Aristeides, Arrian, and Pausanias; and c) demonstrating how these two streams of culture are fundamental to the Greek paideutic system via the example of Lucian. The chapter provides an overview of how these factors impact imperial Greek commemorative aspiration and process, and sets up the contiguous exploration of literary and material expression as the best means of elucidating it. It argues that elite imperial Greeks use both the monumental and the literary to signal their innovations and relevance while creating and exploiting a powerful cultural framework in which to embed them.