Religious Networks in the Roman Empire
The Spread of New Ideas
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:30th Nov '17
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
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- Hardback£90.00(9781107043442)
Examines the relationship between social networks and religious transmission to reappraise how new religious ideas spread in the Roman Empire.
This innovative study applies cutting-edge network methodology to ancient religious data, and uses it to demonstrate that the spread of religious movements in the Roman Empire was the result of social networks, rather than 'inevitable progress'. An essential resource for students and scholars of ancient history, archaeology and religious studies.The first three centuries AD saw the spread of new religious ideas through the Roman Empire, crossing a vast and diverse geographical, social and cultural space. In this innovative study, Anna Collar explores both how this happened and why. Drawing on research in the sociology and anthropology of religion, physics and computer science, Collar explores the relationship between social networks and religious transmission to explore why some religious movements succeed, while others, seemingly equally successful at a certain time, ultimately fail. Using extensive epigraphic data, Collar provides new interpretations of the diffusion of ideas across the social networks of the Jewish Diaspora and the cults of Jupiter Dolichenus and Theos Hypsistos, and in turn offers important reappraisals of the spread of religious innovations in the Roman Empire. This study will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of ancient history, archaeology, ancient religion and network theory.
'Particularly engaging.' History Today
ISBN: 9781107655041
Dimensions: 230mm x 153mm x 18mm
Weight: 500g
334 pages