Immigrant Neighborhoods in Classical Athens, Imperial Rome, and Tang Chang’An
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara My Neighbor the Barbarian: Immigrant Neighborhoods in Classical Athens, Imperial Rome, and Tang Chang’an A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Ryan Russell Abrecht Committee in charge: Professor Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, Chair Professor John Lee Professor Paul Spickard Professor Anthony Barbieri-Low June 2014 The dissertation of Ryan Russell Abrecht is approved. __________________________________________________ John W. I. Lee __________________________________________________ Paul Spickard __________________________________________________ Anthony Barbieri-Low __________________________________________________ Elizabeth DePalma Digeser June 2014 My Neighbor the Barbarian: Immigrant Neighborhoods in Classical Athens, Imperial Rome, and Tang Chang’an Copyright © 2014 by Ryan Russell Abrecht iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my parents, who make everything possible. iv VITA OF RYAN RUSSELL ABRECHT June 2014 EDUCATION Bachelor of Arts in History, Boston College, May 2003 (summa cum laude) Master of Arts in History, Pennsylvania State University, August 2006 Doctor of Philosophy in History, University of California, Santa Barbara, June 2014 (expected) PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT 2004-2006: Teaching Assistant, Department of History and Religious Studies, Pennsylvania State University 2009-2012: Teaching Assistant, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara Summer 2012, 2013: Teaching Associate, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara 2013-2014: Teaching Assistant, Writing Program, University of California, Santa Barbara PUBLICATIONS “Jerusalem in the Roman Period.” Photographic essay for Oxford Biblical Studies Online (www.oxfordbiblicalstudies.com), November 2010. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome (New York: 2009). Entries include: “Theodosius I,” “Theodosius II,” “Historia Augusta,” “Aemilius Paullus,” “Flaminius, Gaius,” “Flamininus, Titus Quinctius,” “Tarquin the Proud,” “Horatii,” “Scipio Aemilianus,” “Fabius Maximus,” and “Horatius Cocles.” AWARDS Humanities Special Fellowship, 2008, 2013 Dick Cook Memorial Award for Outstanding Service, 2013 Graduate Dissertation Fellowship, 2013 J. Bruce Anderson Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2014 FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Roman History Studies in Greek History with Professor John W. I. Lee Studies in World History with Professor Paul Spickard Studies in Chinese History with Professor Anthony Barbieri-Low v ABSTRACT My Neighbor the Barbarian: Immigrant Neighborhoods in Classical Athens, Imperial Rome, and Tang Chang’an by Ryan Russell Abrecht How does gaining an empire change the conqueror? Why is the assimilation of new populations, goods, and ideas sometimes seen as a marker of a people’s greatness, and at other times as a dangerous threat from within? This project analyzes immigration to three capital cities: Athens (5th-4th centuries BCE), Rome (1st-4th centuries CE), and Chang’an, capital of Tang dynasty China (7th-10th centuries CE). It analyzes ancient textual and archaeological evidence through the lens of borderland theory to argue that the boundaries surrounding immigrant neighborhoods transformed each of these iconic cities into urban borderlands where ideas of social otherness had physical analogues. It was in these urban borderlands that the problem of how to accommodate new populations into existing structures of imperial domination was worked out. In their respective heydays, Athens, Rome, and Chang’an functioned as centers of government, economic powerhouses, global schools, sites of religious pilgrimage, and tourist attractions. Many of the diverse immigrants they attracted vi settled in the neighborhoods at the center of this analysis: Athens’ port of Piraeus, Rome’s Trans Tiberim district, and Northwest Chang’an. These communities stood out as “small worlds” within their cities at large, where ethnic, linguistic, and cultural differences overlapped with physical boundaries such as rivers, roads, and walls. Residents carved out places for themselves in their new homes by learning how to skillfully navigate these boundaries. Whether by traversing the urban landscape during their daily commute, participating in civic or religious ceremonies, or attending festivals and entertainments, newcomers came into contact with locals on a daily basis. These interactions blurred lines between “us” and “them” in ways that called into question the limits of national identity and, depending on the circumstances, could either fan the flames of xenophobia or nurture new cultural syntheses. In this sense, life at the center of the Athenian, Roman, and Tang empires resembled that on their outer frontiers, where “civilized” insiders and “barbarian” outsiders lived poised between intimate coexistence and violent rejection. Assessing these imperial capitals as urban borderlands allows us see that this tension was not an aberration or strictly a regional phenomenon. It was quite literally built into the heart of all three empires. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction: Centering Empire…………………………………………………….1 II. Chapter One: Living on the Edge………………………………………………...18 III. Chapter Two: Centripetal Forces………………………………………………..68 A. Athens……………………………………………………………………69 B. Rome……………………………………………………………………..90 C. Chang’an………………………………………………………………..126 IV. Chapter Three: Small Worlds……………………………………………….....156 A. The Piraeus: Port of Athens………………………………………….....170 B. Trastevere: The Regio Across the River………………………………..192 C. Northwest Chang’an: Gateway to Central Asia………………………...233 V. Chapter Four: Urban Borderlands……………………………………………....258 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………......296 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Borders of the Roman Empire…………………………………………...35 Figure 2. The German limes……………………………………………………......37 Figure 3. The Athenian Empire…………………………………………………….72 Figure 4. The Roman Empire……………………………………………………....94 Figure 5. The Tang Empire………………………………………………………..128 Figure 6. The Piraeus and Athens………………………………………………....170 Figure 7. Votive offering honoring Bendis………………………………………..183 Figure 8. Imperial Rome (major features)………………………………………....192 Figure 9. Trastevere (southern sector)……………………………………………..196 Figure 10. Gaionas’ sacred pool dedication…………………………………….....207 Figure 11. Relief dedication of Julius Aurelius Heliodorus…………………….....212 Figure 12. Latin inscription from “the third cohort of the Galbensians”…………..215 Figure 13. Palmyrene inscription from “the third cohort of the Galbensians”…….216 Figure 14. Sui-Tang Chang’an…………………………………………………......233 Figure 15. Social map of Tang Chang’an……………………………………….....241 ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. 17 vols. Berlin: Berolini, apud G. Reimerum, 1862-. IG Inscriptiones Graecae. 14. vols. Berolini: G. de Gruyter, 1913-. IGR Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes. 4 vols. Roma: L'Erma, 1906–27. IGUR Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae. 4 vols in 5 parts. Rome: Instituto italiano per la storia antica, 1968-. ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. 3 vols in 5 parts, 1892–1916. Berolini: Weidmann, 1974. PIR Prosopographia imperii Romani saeculi. 3 vols. Berolini: De Gruyter, 1933. P. Mich. Michigan papyri. Chico, CA: Scholar’s Press, 1931-. P. Oxy Oxyrhynchus Papyri. London: British Academy, 1898-. x Introduction: Centering Empire Like waves hitting a beach, imperial projects produce wide landscapes that are changed beyond recognition and often strewn with debris. Empires are, after all, born from expansion and exploitation. Their histories inevitably entail one community gaining control over others, settling among them, and absorbing them into a larger political and socioeconomic entity through a combination of coercive military, economic, and cultural mechanisms.1 Empires vary considerably in organization and levels of formality, ranging from highly centralized territorial states to flexible nomadic confederations to mercantile hegemonies whose trade networks stretch around the globe.2 Yet they always have a center: a heartland that produces the institutions of hierarchical control that allow one people to dominate others, and the national myths that grant them a mandate to rule.3 This centers is often metropolitan in nature. At the heart of most empires, we find an imperial city.4 After the tides of empire recede, it becomes possible to more clearly see the profound changes they have wrought on conquered peoples and territories alike. 1 Alejandro Colás, Empire (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), 6. 2 Gregory E. Areshian, “Introduction: Variability and Complexity in Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Studies of Empires,” in Empires and Diversity: On the Crossroads of Archaeology, Anthropology, and History, ed. Gregory E. Areshian (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2013), 1-20; Barbara Bush, Imperialism and Postcolonialism (London: Pearson Education Limited, 2006), 22-42. 3 Colás, Empire, 7, 117. 4 There are, of course, exceptions. Nomadic empires such as the Mongol or Turkic confederations, for example, do not typically expand from core cities and may lack native traditions of urbanism entirely. It is interesting to note, however, that this tends to change after empire has been achieved, either through new urban development in the heartland (such as that which occurred at the Mongol Empire’s capital at Karakorum) or through conquest of preexisting cities (for example, Seljuk Baghdad or Ottoman Istanbul). 1 Since the dismantling