Landscapes of Greece: monuments and memorable places

Chorus discussants: Marissa Faerber, Cassie Rogg, Alex Gilbert-Bono, Tim Carey, Alex Yuly, Alexandria Hartley

Please have provocative comments/questions/discussion points posted by 8 pm on Wednesday March 4!

Posted at Mar 04/2009 10:27AM:
Marissa Faerber: Although memory can never truly be considered a passive engagement, nostalgia can often play a negative role. In what ways can nostalgia hinder the practice of memory? Using Susan Alcock’s example of the Achaian landscape case study (from the ‘Imperial Nostalgia” short story), we can see how the past was selectively written – and rewritten. With practices like these – and the subjective nature of memory – will it ever be possible to achieve an account of the past free from bias?

(Cassie Rogg) It is clear from Sue Alcock’s book that though Rome stole Greek freedom and independence, it wasn’t as quick to abolish the memories of its rich past and influential cultural practices. I was also interested by her discussion of “imperial nostalgia”, which is not necessarily the “painful desire to return” to a previous time, but thoughts of a favored and revered past in comparison to a seemingly “unworthy” present. Did the Romans as well as the Greeks feel this sense of imperial nostalgia, or is it the natural reaction of the oppressed society? How did the Roman quality of life change when they assimilated into Greek, and especially Athenian society? On the other hand, did the Greek standard of living improve, especially after so many moved from the countryside to more urban centers?

Certain significant alterations made to the ancient Greek landscape by the Romans that Alcock mentions include the spatial transformation of the Athenian Agora, movement or displacement of ancient temples (Temple of Ares?), and the endless battling and transfer of power over centuries in places like Crete and the ancient city of Ephesus. These sorts of places are like palimpsests, as they are historically and culturally multi-layered, and thus become sites of “hybrid” memories. Alcock suggests this term when describing the extreme mutability and mobility of memory and when two distinct cultures are juxtaposed or merged, (like the Greek and Roman into Greco-Roman), there is an inevitable interaction and emergence of a new awareness which aims to reconcile the ancient heritage of the site with the cultural aesthetic and order of the present society. Like Marissa, I was wondering if this notion of hybrid memory, which becomes apparent in studying a place/landscape’s evolution, can ever be unbiased or is it always the filtered result of that which the privileged elite has selected to be most appropriate to remember?

It might be also be interesting to relate Davis’s discussion of monuments, such as different countries’ versions of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, (memorials at Paris’s L’Arc de Triomphe and Athen’s Syntagma Square) as examples that evoke both feelings of collective national identity, as well as hybrid memory. Would these monuments be considered unbiased representations, since they stand for something that is defined, yet undefined? How does a long history of occupation change the effect and interpretation of a monument such as this?

Tim Carey - On p. 88 in Sue Alcock’s book, there is a quote from a text by Millar detailing the many ways that the emperor was visible in the Greek city – from the names of buildings to “sanctuary complexes” like the one at Aphrodisias. I found it interesting, then, that a style of architecture originally practiced by a democratic society then morphed into an architectural style of an Empire and imperialism, but in the modern age we once again consider this classical style of architecture to be associated with democracy, given its use in government buildings in cities all over the world. Does this mean that the Roman attempts to imprint themselves on the cityscape were ineffective in the long run? Or is this simply a result of Greek civilization being older and more revered, considering Lucius Cicero’s remark that “there is no end to it in this city; wherever we walk, we set foot on historic ground”?

It was also interesting how the idea of the void as memorial space came up again with the discussion of the Athenian Agora and how empty spaces can be just as sacred and revered as something constructed. The Roman changes to the Agora, then, seemed almost like an ancient version of “urban sprawl”, with the city encroaching on the traditionally empty space, while at the same time reducing the possibility for democratic assemblies. On that same note, the idea of memory as a means of resistance was repeated a few times - the idea that the Messenian’s may have continued the burial cult as a symbol of the “resistance movement” was also interesting, as was the idea that an attempt to move a population to a new city was met with so much disagreement that the majority of the population fled back to their original home because they identified more with its name (p. 48). Both show a certain tie between kinship and its ties to the land.

I was also interested in the different reactions of different cities to the imprint of Roman rule. Some obviously resisted it, but Aphrodisias, for example, embraced it so much that they built their almost sycophantic Sebasteion of their own accord. Were the Aphrodisian elites simply trying to garner approval from the Romans, or had they actually fully embraced their new identity?

Posted at Mar 04/2009 06:23PM:
alex hartley: Tim, I think you bring up a few key wonderful points. The question on whether the Aphrodisian elites were trying to gain approval or truly embraced their new identity is a great umbrella as to why any growing city and culture, either growing peacefully, or forcefully, adheres to concepts and aspects of the past or other cultures past and heritage to represent their present and future? There are a few quotes from Sue Alcock's book that I found most intriguing into how people see the relationships in building in a landscape with history, and how it both is both simultaneously changing the future and possibly reinstituting ideas of the past. "Glorious past/unworthy present" "social memory (is) linked to the existing framework of landscape, then changes in one raise the possibility in changes in the other" and the idea to "maintain heritage...and inculcate familiarity and acceptance of the new order." I find these quotes interesting and a link to the questions of Marissa and Cassie ask about Hybrid memory. Personally, looking at how we see these things will always be biased, no?. It doesn't matter what civilization and what time. Usually, we have a very biased account of life, with an emphasis on the elite, and their ideas. Many factors play into that, yes, but even now, in present day America, we hold classical findings, places, architecture, and manifest them into our constructions and views of the past. It is no coincidence that the memories and thoughts and knowledge we have of the importance of the ideals behind Greek and Roman architecture and the "messages" they still convey today about democracy, power, and respect, does not play a central role in this countries fascination in classical architecture. i.e. Washington DC, numerous banks around the US, cemeteries, mausoleums, etc. Does this make our perception totally skewed? Even in ancient times, they remember what they wanted to remember, which is why we(ancient and modern people) will always think that the past was better than the present.

Posted at Mar 04/2009 07:22PM:
Alex G-B: Alcock states, on page 36, “The victorious power’s own sense of history is transformed to reflect success and its consequences, while central authorities prescribe provincial memories in order either to undercut opposition or to encourage compliance.” I used this quote as a perceptive in which to compare her arguments. I’m assuming the “central authorities” are the “conquered” peoples in this scenario. Thus, I interpreted this statement as the victors write the history, and the conquered people’s nostalgia is used, separately, either to agree or disagree with the victors. In my understanding there is little “hybrid memory”, and the conquered people’s memory are used as a type of propaganda to “trick” the people into compliance. What was the motivation of the Romans to adopt, and reuse so much of the Greek way of life? Was it simply for propaganda, or was it because they respected the Greeks? These questions are hard to evaluate from an archeological perspective. However, they are crucial to evaluate the success of the new Greco-Roman culture.

Success has many interpretations, however, I’m interested in how easily, and widespread these “hybrid memories” were accepted. The Greeks were known for their hubris; thus it’s hard to image they would so openly allow this new way of life. For example, their monuments were converted to take new imperialistic meaning. I would image, in light of another country taking over America, Americans would be pissed if the Statue of Liberty was converted for propagandistic reasons. Alock briefly touches on this point on page 70, when she states, “conceivably shared in some of these internal tensions, veering between pride in their heritage, and resentment of the burdens it imposed.” However, Thenlen’s quote on page 98 provides an interesting solution to remorseful people’s, “Instead of dismissing the construction of imagined pasts as romantic, escapist, inaccurate or neurotic, we should try to understand why it is so common.” Is this how the Roman’s were able to manipulate the Greeks? From history, we know the Romans were successful in their plight; and thus one can assume the concept of “hybrid memory” was a lucrative tool in their success. Although, I’m still skeptical about the transition.

keffie: Thanks all for being so thoughtful and posting such extensive comments. I think we will have more than enough to talk about tomorrow. In reading these comments over, however, I think there mght be some confustion about what is meant by hybrid memory and how this plays out 'on the ground.' These are seemingly simple, but actually very complex concepts. What Alcock is pointing to in her discussion of hybrid memories is the co-constitutive nature of the contact between Roman (hegemons) and Greek (subjugated) such that both are changed by the interaction. I think she says it best (p.88):

"The recognition that Greeks in the imperial east engaged with local, regional, and imperial concerns has sometimes led to the application of the formula "Greco-Roman" to what once had been termed "Greek". Yet "Greco-Roman" implies a kind of hyphenated assimilation, a conflation of identities into a single mass. Instead of replacing one essentializing term with another, it seems best to accept the existince of co-existing options, from which individuals and groups would be reconstituting and redefining themselves. Aiding in this process - indeed making it possible - was the flexibility and capaciousness of early imperial memorial spaces and commemorative practices. Complexes such as the Athenian agora or the rituals of Persian War battlefields proved sufficiently multivalent to prompt and contain varied impulses, while on the whole channeling them n certain overriding directions: toward a continued sense of cultural separation, yet away from outright conflict."

But she goes on to mention that the rejection of the term "Greco-Roman" shouldn't belie the fact that that "new categories of identity and novel zones of memory" were being created at this time. Herein lies the crux of hybrid memory - that both hegemon and subject were engaged in the creative process of identity construction, largely based on a sense of the past. She offers the examples of Aphrodisias and Ephesus as illustrations of the complex ways in which the shared present and percieved pasts are materialized within the urban fabric of Greek cities. Both Tim and Alex H. touch on this particular issue - one that has long interested and confounded scholars - and I hope we are able to chew on it a little tomorrow.

Both Cassie and Marissa bring up the question of bias and whether people (ancient or modern) can look to the past without it. How does Omur's definition of memory as a creative process fit into this, and, do you agree with his suggestion?

Posted at Mar 05/2009 01:59AM:
Alex Yuly: Hey, sorry for not posting my thoughts earlier. Hopefully some of you will get a chance to peek at them before the discussion...otherwise, they can serve as afterthoughts. One thing I found fascinating was the excavation of ruins by the Babylonian rulers that Sue Alcock's mentions. This excavation served to provide a stronger cultural link to the past and to establish greater authority for the state by means of connecting the modern institution to the past. The Romans did much the same thing with Greece, making copies of Classical Greek sculpture and modeling their architecture after the Greek style. However, it seems that these two examples differ in that the Babylonians were not so much creating a hybrid memory as a simple memory of their own past. The Romans sought to hybridize Greek culture into their own. Alcock mentions the concept of "Roman Greece." However, the "Greece" referred to here is only one period of Greek history, namely, the Classical Athenian period. Another interesting point Alcock brings up is the contrast between Roman reverence of the Greek Classical past and the "often brutal domination" (p. 43) of the contemporary Greek world. The Roman leaders clearly did not revere Greece as an entire cultural unit. They revered Greece only insofar as it bolstered their own notion of the kind of Greco-Roman Classicalist culture they wished to create. Alex G-B asks the question above of whether Roman imitation of Greek culture was out of respect or whether it served only as a tool of propaganda. I say that the Romans recognized something in Classical Greek culture that would aid them in uniting their empire, but that they did not necessarily respect Greece as a total cultural unit. Much of this probably came from the Roman bias present as they looked to the past, as Keffie points out above. I don't think that people, ancient or modern, can look to the past without SOME kind of bias. Clearly, all cultures have different collective memories, and the collective memory of a culture, in addition to the personal memories of an individual, will influence the manner in which a person or nation looks at the past, particularly from a standpoint of borrowing elements of culture, as the Romans did with the Greeks.

Keffie: Excellent points, Alex, and as you bring up - understanding the complexities of Alcock's stories is certainly helped by having a solid background in classical history, art, and architecture. This is, why I think, her introduction is so successful - because it proves the temporal and geographic range in which these memory-making practices occur. Moreover, she also highlights the subtlties and complexities of these practices. Perhaps for discussion today we should all be thinking about other, more contemporary cases that support her argument and bring these issues closer to home....

As several of you bring up, perhaps a good place to start is America's use of Greco-Roman heritage (signalled in the use of Greco-Roman art and architecture) as our own memory-making practice.

Posted at Mar 05/2009 04:01PM:
Cassie Rogg: I agree with Keffie that the quote we started the discussion off with today, nostalgia defined as when the "present is tense" and the "past perfect," is a really interesting and unusual way to understand this feeling/phenomenon. Some points brought up that I think are significant, and perhaps contradictory, include nostalgia as a form of resistance to change and forward progression as well as a means of drawing selectively from the past to create a historically and culturally richer future. For example, while the Romans drew heavily from the Greek past as inspiration to construct their growing imperial empire, the Ottomans were perhaps more ethnocentric/less interactive and aimed to substitute their own culture into the Greek framework. Thus, in terms of nostalgia, this practice of more forceful cultural occupation inflicted on the Greeks for centuries by the Ottomans provoked a greater longing for an idealized past and desire to resist change and future progress. In this case, when the attitude towards the present becomes increasingly tense and the past proportionally more perfect, a society is subject to a potentially very 'simple' future.

Posted at Mar 05/2009 08:52PM:
Alex G-B: Nostalgia was the theme of discussion today. As Keffie stated in class, Whitmer’s quote at the beginning of chapter two states the meaning perfectly, “Nostalgia, they say, is an exercise in grammar wherein you find the present tense and the past perfect”. I found the discussion around good nostalgia vs bad nostalgia particularly interesting. When does nostalgia start to create a barrier to change? Change is crucial to the future and progress, thus nostalgia needs to be forgotten at some point. What happens when we forget nostalgia? Does it become memory or history? The quote from my earlier post seems like a credible solution to nostalgia. Thenlen’s states on page 98, “Instead of dismissing the construction of imagined pasts as romantic, escapist, inaccurate or neurotic, we should try to understand why it is so common.” Although this seems to be a sinister thought, it allows nostalgia, in some sense, to become history. History can, its its most basic form, be understood as memory without emotion. Thus, once one has understood nostalgic memories as common, it becomes history. I find it to be impossible to completely forget nostalgia, it just transcends into a different form—history. Once this metamorphosis occurs, then nostalgia transforms into good nostalgia, and can be used for change, and progress for the future.

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology