Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power
Nico
Roymans
The research programme entitled The Batavians. Ethnic identity in a frontier situation was launched at the Archaeological Centre of the Free University (ACVU) in Amsterdam in 1999. Supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), it is scheduled for completion in 2004. The study before you is part of this research programme and aims to provide a synthesis of the formation and earliest beginnings of the Batavian identity group in the context of the Roman empire. I have worked on this book with considerable pleasure over the past few years, and am fortunate to have been able to do so in such a stimulating and supportive environment. I therefore wish to thank all my colleagues at the ACVU for their discussions on the many topics touched on in this book and for their critical comments and advice on draft versions of the individual chapters. In particular I would like to thank Joris Aarts, Ton Derks, Fokke Gerritsen, Jan Kolen, Johan Nicolay, Jan Slofstra, and Ivo Vossen. I highly appreciated the enthusiasm and encouragement which Jan Slofstra has always shown toward my research; I am glad that it was possible for us to work together for several years as colleagues at the same institute. For the illustrations and the final layout of the book I am indebted to Bert Brouwenstijn, who was sometimes assisted by Jaap Fokkema. I would also like to express my appreciation to all the people and institutions that have helped in some way to make the publication of this book possible. I am grateful to Louis Swinkels and Annelies Koster of the Museum het Valkhof in Nijmegen for making photographic material available. Jan Thijssen and Harry van Enckevort provided information about some unpublished finds from Nijmegen. I wish to thank the State Archaeological Service (ROB) in Amersfoort for their warm hospitality during my sabbatical leave in 2003. And I would also like to thank the ROB, and W.J.H. Verwers in particular, for granting permission to publish the architectural remains from Kessel. I am grateful to Kees Peeterse (Pansa BV, Nijmegen) for his suggestions about the reconstruction of the temple of Kessel. Curators of various museums have helped me in my examination of the find material, in particular the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, the Noordbrabants Museum in ’s-Hertogenbosch, Museum het Valkhof in Nijmegen, and the Galloromeins Museum in Tongres. I am indebted to Johannes Heinrichs (Cologne), Simone Scheers (Louvain), Jens Schulze-Forster (Marburg) and Colin Haselgrove (Durham) for discussions on interpreting the numismatic material from the Lower Rhine region. I owe a special debt of gratitude to the countless amateur archaeologists who gave me access to their private collections; without them, several chapters in this book could not have been written. And last but not least, I would like to express my appreciation to Annette Visser of Wellington, New Zealand, for translating the bulk of the text into English and for correcting the English of several chapters.
This study explores the theme
of Batavian ethnicity and ethnogenesis in the context of the Early Roman
Empire, starting with the current view of ethnicity as a culturally determined,
subjective construct shaped through interaction with an ethnic 'other'. The
study analyses literary, epigraphic and archaeological sources relating to the
Batavian image and self-image against the background of the specific
integration of the Batavian community into the Roman world. The Batavian
society was exploited by the Roman authorities for the recruitment of auxiliary
soldiers. As a result it developed into a full-blown military community. The
study's main conclusion is that Rome exerted a profound influence on the
formation of the Batavians both as a political entity and as an ethnic group.
The combination of an explicit theoretical framework and a clear presentation
of empirical data makes this book an indispensable work for all those
interested in ethnicity and ethnogenesis in the context of the Roman Empire.
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Author(s)
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Nico Roymans
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Place of Publication
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Amsterdam
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Publisher
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Amsterdam University Press
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Publication year
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2004
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Total pages
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291
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Language
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English
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पुस्तक पढ्नको लागी (To Read This Book ) :-
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