Ancient Borderlands Research Focus Group

Sarah Davies leads us through an examination of the conceptual boundary of Roman imperium, and changes brought to Rome by the establishment of Roman military authority in Carthage and Corinth. As the expansion of the Republic attained a sort of critical mass, feedback from the frontiers brought change to the center. In Borderlands Theory, the idea that the inscription of the borderland itself begins the process of change is a fundamental concept. Engaging heavily with core-periphery models, and studies of ethnic change in the Hellenistic world, Davies examines the rhetoric of the center, in order to understand how Rome was able to cope with its new status and imperial boundaries as it renegotiated its own identity in the Mediterranean world. Likewise, Davies also makes explicit the link between the internal transformation of the conceptual boundary, defined by the Roman idea of imperium, and the real political ramifications of the year 146 BCE.