The Miriam S. Balmuth Lectureship in the Department of Classics at Tufts University was established in 2005 through the vision, generosity, and support of the family and friends of Miriam S. Balmuth, professor of classics, archaeology, and art history at Tufts from 1962 to 2004. Its purpose is to explore the continuing relevance of the study of antiquity to the modern world. Professor David Mattingly’s inaugural lectures, Experiencing Empire: Power and Identity in the Roman World, delivered in April 2006 and published here in expanded form, affirms the merit of a lectureship dedicated to this purpose. Issues of power and identity lie at the core of our interest in the Roman Empire. From the late nineteenth century until the end of the Second World War, Roman rule and the role it played in influencing the identity of the peoples of the empire was viewed in positive terms, reflecting the mostly favorable views of imperialism and colonialism held by classical scholars throughout this period. But with the breakup of the European empires after World War II, assessments of Roman imperialism began to shift, albeit rather cautiously. Indeed, as Mattingly demonstrates in these lectures, classical historians and archaeologists have remained surprisingly hesitant to abandon entirely visions of the Roman Empire from the age of imperialism. His call, for example, to replace the outdated imperial-age concept of Romanization in favor of an approach emphasizing the insights provided by postcolonial studies is a bold attempt to transform the terms of the debate on the meaning of the Roman Empire in the contemporary world.
Mattingly backs up his call for a new vocabulary for interpreting the Roman imperial experience by applying a powerful postcolonial perspective to a diverse array of topics in the history of the empire—the exploitation of landscapes and resources, sexual relations, art, family values, native societies—to create a new and challenging vision of Roman power and imperialism. The empire evoked in these lectures is populated by people whose lives are severely challenged and exploited but also enhanced through their encounters with Roman power, and whose “Roman” identity, as a consequence, is as diverse and localized as we might have every reason to expect from an empire that stretched from the North Sea to the Sahara and the Atlantic to Mesopotamia.
It is with great pleasure, therefore, that I thank David Mattingly for his courage and conviction in preparing the first Miriam S. Balmuth Lectures. They represent an exemplary template on which to build a tradition of scholarship at Tufts that will strengthen the intellectual, cultural, and moral bonds that continue to link antiquity with the contemporary world.
R. Bruce Hitchner
Professor and Chair
Department of Classics
Tufts University