Miguel John Versluys has produced a stimulating and thought-provoking agenda to reinvigorate study of the Roman world, with its myriad social, political and economic connections between Rome and the diverse cultures and communities that fell within and beyond the boundaries of its empire. He teases out the explicitly anti-colonial nature in recent decades of specifically Anglo-Saxon discussions of Rome and its empire in response to Romanization. He also sets these particular understandings of what it meant to live within that empire in a comparative context with other scholarly traditions that engage with Roman studies. He advocates both globalization theories and material-culture perspectives to reconsider aspects addressed by Romanization as a means of pushing the discussion beyond Romans and Natives, where ultimately it still lingers in the guise of much more recent perspectives, which emphasize imperialism. The critical evaluation of Romanization of the 1990s in the Anglo-Saxon tradition was not a unique process for Anglo-Saxon scholarship engaged in study of colonizing cultures, however. Parallels can be seen in contemporary Anglo-Saxon scholarship of the Greek world as well. Does this mean that the potential Versluys sees for Roman studies in the marriage of globalization and material-culture approaches can apply to Greek studies too?
The Greek ‘world’
During the 1990s, Anglo-Saxon scholars of the Greek world dismantled their own framework of colonial–native study, Hellenization. The Hellenization model is quite different from Romanization, however, for a number of reasons, beginning with the way the ‘world’ of the Greeks was created and interpreted. Unlike in the Roman period, the overseas settlements founded by the Greeks between the ninth and seventh centuries B.C. were not part of a national political agenda of conquest and territorial control. They were not necessarily civic foundations, either. Rather, groups of merchants, craftsmen and others seeking social, economic and political opportunities set forth to found new cities elsewhere in the Mediterranean, sometimes encouraged by political patrons, but not always on behalf of a city. As a result, the ‘world’ that they created was more loosely defined and flexibly articulated. Furthermore, this ‘world’ was shaped by the parallel, contemporary settlement process undertaken by the Phoenicians.
By convention, we call these overseas settlements colonies, but this has been the subject of debate, derived from comparative analysis between the Greek and Roman colonial processes and impacts. Some have suggested that they be regarded simply as culture contact or private enterprise, since they were not state-directed in the way that Roman colonization was (Osborne Reference Osborne, Fisher and van Wees1998; Gosden Reference Gosden2004). For others, both are unsatisfactory alternatives (Hodos Reference Hodos2006, 19–22). First, culture contact alone is too vague and broad to characterize the specific developments born of residential situations. It is particularly through long-term settlement of individuals and groups that contact and communication become regularized (at least in eras before electronic communications). Such settlements and contexts generate far more numerous and complex networks of collaboration beyond trade and gift exchange, which can be maintained without settlement. Thus the permanent nature of these settlements is a key feature in understanding their role in the networks of sociocultural developments between diverse groups in active communication with one another. Second, Greek colonization represents the movement of individuals and groups who collectively identified themselves with a certain social coherence that stood in contrast to others. The same may be argued for Phoenician colonization too. The groups of Greeks (and Phoenicians) who settled overseas often created new sites (and were sometimes co-resident), rather than moving into extant settlements, and many of the material forms, religious practices and even political forms of governance that they utilized we broadly characterize as Greek (or Phoenician), with diversities of practice within this general commonality. Therefore their collective organization and self-determination, and relationship with material culture, mean that these settlements are not evidence of mere private enterprise, either. These individuals created their own means of governance, which led to these settlements evolving into Greek (or Phoenician) city states, and their impact on their neighbours was notable (but not necessarily direct or instantaneous). Our recognition of these Greek and Phoenician overseas settlements as colonies therefore derives from the sociocultural nature of ‘colony’ in today's use, rather than the term's political aspects (cf. Osborne Reference Osborne, Fisher and van Wees1998). With regard to comparisons with Roman colonies, therefore, we need to distinguish carefully the role politics played in colonial foundations. Political concerns were likely one of a number of considerations that underwrote the Greek and Phoenician impetus to settle on foreign shores, but they were not the only ones. The different role politics played is perhaps one of the fundamental distinctions between the world of the Greeks (and Phoenicians) and the world of the Romans as generated by colonization. This does not mean that we need to discard the terms ‘colony’ or ‘colonization’ altogether, however.
The sense of ‘world’ that these Greek and Phoenician colonies helped to create was fostered through a series of social, religious, cultural, economic and political networks alongside the geographic networks of contact and communication. The continuation and expansion of these networks shaped cultural practices and beliefs among all who engaged with one another, while also concurrently generating sharply defined differences. This is how we are able to discuss collectively the Greeks and at the same time distinguish individual city states from one another. It is also why we are able to distinguish Greeks from others, whether Phoenicians, Etruscans, Sicilians etc. (and to distinguish between, e.g., Carthaginians and Motyans too). This paradox of shared practices and sharply defining differences is one of the features of globalization.
Critics of the application of globalization frameworks to the ancient world often focus on the extent of the connections between groups, arguing that the world was not wholly connected then. For this reason, some have advocated using oikumene to characterize the known world of the time (e.g. Seland Reference Seland2008), as, indeed, Versluys discusses in his contribution with regard to the Romans. Herodotus is the first to introduce oikumene to conceptualize the known inhabited world. His descriptions extend from defined lands to boundaries defined only by lack of human knowledge. By the Hellenistic period, the term firmly has a more social nuance as a synonym for a ‘civilized’ Greek-speaking world (Hall Reference Hall2002, 221), and this usage continues through late antiquity (Osterloh Reference Osterloh, Irichinschi and Zellentin2008, 195). This social facet is evident even in Herodotus, since, despite his focuses on geographic ethnography, the Other is the non-Greek-speaking barbaros, who thus also lacks Greek culture and its civilizing forces (Shahar Reference Shahar2004, 54–64). The descriptions of the populations inhabiting Africa are a case in point: each becomes more and more fantastical the further into the interior of the African landmass one moves, while still living in a land that Herodotus describes, and that therefore might be regarded, as ‘known’ to his oikumene. Oikumene itself therefore comes with the baggage of cultural superiority on the part of the ancient author. Furthermore, not all of the populations discussed by Herodotus and others who speak of an oikumene actually engaged with the Greeks and Phoenicians, or Romans, in their respective global eras, and so while they might have been considered to be known by ancient authors, in the sense that their regions were inhabited and therefore part of the oikumene concept, they were not part of the network of contact and communication that generates a global concept of ‘world’. For these reasons, I suggest that oikumene is not necessarily an appropriate substitute to describe the multiple networks of connectivity and difference we see within a globalization model, for which we need to characterize both the social and geographic expanses covered. An oikumene may arise as an explicit outcome of interconnectivity, however, since its conceptions represent some aspects that we would expect to find in a complex network of sociocultural contact and communication. It does not, however, represent the whole of the framework.
The rejection of Hellenization
Despite the differences between Greek and Roman colonial processes, there are nevertheless parallels between their two scholarly traditions. One is the rejection of the colonial metanarrative, and the other is the increasing use of globalization interpretative frameworks to understand the social complexities that arose from colonial settlement.
As noted above, the Anglo-Saxon tradition has similarly rejected the Hellenization model of interpretation. Yet as a result of the ways in which the Greek ‘world’ developed, the deconstruction of the Hellenization framework of interpretation has taken two clear and distinct trajectories. The first has been an emphasis on the diversities of ‘being Greek’. This has seen the deconstruction of the notion that Greek colonies were replicas of their mother cities. Instead, scholars have emphasized their diversities. In turn, this has also led to the deconstruction of the concept of the Greeks as a cultural unity, although there remain a sufficient number of common characteristics that we are still able to discuss a collective notion of Greeks (see discussion in Hodos (Reference Hodos, Hales and Hodos2010)). The second emphasis has been on articulating the role of the so-called native populations in the Greek–native relationship (e.g. Dietler Reference Dietler2010; Hodos Reference Hodos2006). Here, this has seen the breakdown of generalizations about the communities that the Greeks came into contact with, especially with regard to their use of Greek material-culture forms, noted initially particularly in pottery forms and styles, and architectural building plans, and subsequently in terms of burial customs and the use of language. Studies in these fields have demonstrated that the use of any of these features was not instantaneous, but gradual, and that only selective aspects of Greek material culture were adapted, and always in a manner appropriate to the local circumstances. As a result, Hellenization as a means of better understanding the nature of these developments has fallen out of favour.
Globalization theory in the Iron Age
The Greeks and Phoenicians, who collaborated in trade and overseas settlement in the Mediterranean and who together created a Mediterranean culture that spanned the ocean, have been separated traditionally by scholarly disciplines. The Greeks have been part of the domain of classical archaeology while the Phoenicians have belonged to Near Eastern archaeology. Each discipline had notably different foundations, the former in the classical languages, and the latter in biblical studies. Only very recently have they begun to converge as scholars have started to reconsider the Mediterranean as a whole, especially during the Iron Age. It is precisely through the use of globalization thinking that the nature of their engagements with one another and their networks of collaboration have become more clear (e.g. Hodos Reference Hodos2009).
Thus globalization theory has been employed to understand the kinds of connection that these two colonizing cultures had with one another, as well as with the local populations with whom they came into regular contact. Such frameworks of interpretation have been instrumental in uniting divided disciplines, highlighting the means of knowledge sharing, and demonstrating the complex, multiple social identities that groups and individuals projected and reflected at any given time. Versluys, therefore, is correct to emphasize connectivity as globalization's key feature, since connectivity underpins its processes. Understanding the processes of globalization as they unfold helps us to move away from fixed identifications and expose cultural developments as they occur.
Material-culture studies in the Iron Age
Greek and Phoenician studies have yet to engage directly with material-culture studies as an explicit framework of interpretation (although it has already been used in recent reinterpretations of the social use of objects in the Aegean Bronze Age; see Knappett (Reference Knappett2005)), whereas post-colonial approaches are now standard in both fields in Anglo scholarship. Although Versluys sidesteps the criticisms of material-culture studies, some direction in how we incorporate explicit study of material is necessary if any such emphasis is to be usefully integrated alongside globalization.
One of the more critical aspects of material-culture theories pertains to the notion that objects can possess agency. Things contribute to the formation of contexts, as well as simply fitting into them, where they are used and understood. While there is no doubt that we, as humans, are influenced by material things, many would still argue that we are the ones to take action in response to a material object; the object itself still does not act. Any relationship between object and human is conditioned by the individual's social experiences, which will be specific and unique, although shaped by and shaping the social values by which that individual acts through the material object. For this reason, Gell's perspective (Reference Gell1998), that objects are agents on behalf of social actors, is more workable in a practical interpretational way. This approach lies more in the specific realm of materiality.
Materiality, which focuses explicitly on the interplay between social and material experiences, may thus be more fruitful for our purposes, since we particularly interrogate how objects and ideas of their value, functions and uses are shared, modified and contrasted between different social groups. We need this intersection. For this reason, we also need networks (e.g. Knappett Reference Knappett2011). Versluys's emphasis on connectivity reinforces this point. Yet there are limitations to network thinking as well. Networks do not always explain the why behind cultural developments, but network thinking highlights connections we might not have been aware of otherwise. It is in the conjoining of network thinking with the social processes underpinning globalization that a much richer understanding develops. And since archaeologists by their very nature engage with study of the material, I believe that Greek scholarship can draw inspiration from Versluys's call to arms to join materializing and globalizing approaches in our study of the past.
Leave Hellenization to rest
Unlike Versluys, who suggests a reinvigoration of the Romanization debate from the combined approaches of globalization and material-culture studies, however, I do not advocate a return to the Hellenization debate for Greek scholarship. A Hellenized way of thinking is too unidirectional to characterize and explain the complex social changes that took place during the Iron Age. Hellenization in itself is concerned with the spatial and temporal spread of Greek culture. It overlooks the fact that local populations did not adopt Greek practices outright, but were far more selective and discriminating, and that by the time ‘Greek’ ideas were adopted, they had become normalized such that they had often lost an explicitly ‘Greek’ meaning. It also ignores any influence that the other populations with whom the Greeks came into regular contact through overseas settlement may have had upon the Greeks themselves. The move away from Hellenization has also enabled the Phoenicians and Greeks to be rehabilitated together into the archaeological narrative of the Mediterranean. The activities of the Phoenicians, and their interactions with Greeks and others in the Mediterranean, are an integral aspect of understanding the Greek–non-Greek relationship, especially during the period of Greek colonization. Hellenization simply cannot account for this. Any return to a Hellenizing narrative, rooted in its culture-historical perspective, will be a step back in understanding the constantly evolving nature of any culture or society, and in interpreting the complex, multiple identities its members will have at any given time.
This is not to say that post-colonial views have been sufficiently encompassing. Critics of post-colonial approaches in Greek colonization studies have rightly argued that the impact of the colonists often gets written out of the post-colonial narrative of the Iron Age Mediterranean (Domínguez Reference Domínguez2012). Many such studies instead focus on the limitations of Greek influence and downplay Greek impact, framing the influence of Greek aspects of life solely through indigenous agency and hybridization. As a result, the extent of the role of the Greeks as agents in Greek–non-Greek sociocultural negotiations is ignored. This presents a different kind of one-sided perspective.
For these reasons, a globalization framework is valuable, as it provides a more useful means to reintegrate into discussion those shared practices that gave rise to the Hellenization model in the first place (Hodos Reference Hodos2012). In fact, globalization enables us to examine the balance between the shared traits that allow us to discuss ‘the Greeks’ (or ‘the Phoenicians’) while at the same time acknowledging the differences in the practices of being Greek (or Phoenician). We can also recognize the tension found in the shared practices between different cultural groups and the articulations of their social identities that stand in contrast to the commonalities borne by wider engagement. This is part of the essence of globalization. Globalization studies focus on processes of connectivity; these processes are borne from the networks that connect the wider and local levels of engagement that create a sense of globality. Globalization, therefore, does enable us to move beyond Greeks/Romans and Natives by its very nature of focus on the networks that connect people and facilitate cultural transformation. Indeed, recent studies that view the Roman world through an explicitly globalizing lens reveal very complex social expressions within that world (for examples see Pitts and Versluys (Reference Versluys, Pitts and Versluys2014)). As a result, one can now argue that Rome and its world are both globalized and globalizing.
The same may be said for the Greeks and Phoenicians. The Mediterranean Iron Age as a globalized space – incorporating shared sets of practices and sharply defining differences that articulate local identities – is much more than a collection of decentred communities connected by mobile individuals and groups. For this reason, greater consideration needs to be given to the networks that create the sense of connectedness we witness here at this time. An individual, or even group, may have different identities that are appropriate for different social, cultural or even life-stage contexts. It is the networks linking the actors that help us to untangle these multiple connections. While some of these networks bind people together through common goods and ideas to create the sense of one-placeness that we identify with globalization, the network connections can also be used to differentiate groups from others, especially those outside a particular network. Ultimately, it is the expression of social identities through the use of material culture that underpins human connectivity. In short, the widely shared common characteristics that developed across the Mediterranean during the Iron Age do not reflect Hellenization, or Phoenicianization, but broadly understood Mediterraneanizations tempered by strongly articulated localized identities. For this reason, the integration of material with globalization approaches will create a more rich understanding of the social complexities that evolved during the Iron Age across the Mediterranean.
