Language and Power in the Roman Empire and Early India
Hierarchy, Ambiguity, and the Art of Reading the Signs in Cosmopolitan Cultures
By (author) Karsten Johanning
Paperback (Published)
(July 2026)
ISBN: 9783515141536
6.69 x 9.49 inches
Price: $84.00
In stock
Attempting to bypass earlier and present discussions about Romanization, identity, and globalization, this book confronts the issue of cultural elite integration in the early Roman Empire in a new way by focussing on prestige language as a connecting factor in a Eurasian context. Thus, through a comparison with a central period in early Indian history (around 300 BC–AD 600), Karsten Johanning seeks to add perspectives from Sanskrit to the Greco-Roman cosmopolitanism of both emperors and intellectuals.
Four case studies are structured around different types of signs: on the body, in fictitious literature, in religious discourse, and in topography. Drawing on these, Johanning shows that for cosmopolitans in Rome and India, the ability to read and interpret signs in different contexts was essential for creating both cosmopolitan life-worlds, distinction, and social boundaries. Ancient cosmopolitans, well versed in different intertextual systems, were therefore able to make the most out of the complex hierarchies and inherent ambiguities of the premodern world. Yet the social stakes were always high, especially at the competitive and volatile imperial courts of universal rulers.
Originally trained as a classical guitarist, Karsten Johanning started studying history at the University of Copenhagen at a mature age. He specialized in the cultural history of the Roman Empire, and his book is the revised version of his Ph.D. thesis from 2018. Karsten Johanning teaches history, ancient culture, and Latin at Birkerød Gymnasium (high school), north of Copenhagen.
- By (author) Karsten Johanning
Other Titles in this Series
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Die Darstellung gemeinwohlorientierten Handelns in den frühchristlichen Martyriumsberichten
Religiöses in der politischen Argumentation der späten römischen Republik
Ciceros Erste Catilinarische Rede – eine Fallstudie
From “Roma quadrata” to “la grande Roma dei Tarquini”
A Study of the Literary Tradition on Rome's Territorial Growth under the Kings
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Tutela urbis
Il significato e la concezione della divinità tutelare cittadina nella religione romana
Religiöse Geheimniskommunikation in der Mittleren und Späten Römischen Republik
Separatheit, gesellschaftliche Öffentlichkeit und zivisches Ordnungshandeln
Religions orientales – culti misterici
Neue Perspektiven - nouvelles perspectives - prospettive nuove. Herausgegeben im Rahmen des trilateralen Projektes "Les religions orientales dans le monde greco-romain"
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