Table Of ContentROME AND AMERICA
Rome and America provides a timely exploration of the Roman and
American founding myths in the cultural imagination. Defying the
usualideologicalcategories,DeanHammerarguesfortheexceptional
nature of the myths as a journey of Strangers, and also traces the
tensionscreatedbythemythsinattemptstoanswerthequestionof
whoWeare.Thewide-rangingchaptersreassessRomanantecedents
and American expressions of the myth in some unexpected places:
early American travelogues, Westerns, bare-knuckle boxing, early
American theater, government documents detailing Native
American policy, and the writings of Noah Webster, W. E. B. Du
Bois,BookerT.Washington,andCharlesEastman.Thisinnovative
volumeculminatesinaninterpretationofthecurrentcrisisofdem-
ocracy as a reversion of the community back to Strangers, with
suggestions of how the myth can recast a much-needed discussion
ofidentityandbelonging.
dean hammer is John W. Wetzel Professor of Classics and
Professor of Government in the Department of Government at
Franklin and Marshall College. He has written extensively on the
ancient and modern world. His books include Roman Political
Thought: From Cicero to Augustine (Cambridge, 2014), Roman
Political Thought and the Modern Theoretical Imagination (2008),
The Iliad as Politics: The Performance of Political Thought (2002),
The Puritan Tradition in Revolutionary, Federalist, and Whig
Political Theory: A Rhetoric of Origins (1998), and, as editor,
ACompaniontoGreekDemocracyandtheRomanRepublic(2015).
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Published online by Cambridge University Press
ROME AND AMERICA
Communities of Strangers, Spectacles of Belonging
DEAN HAMMER
FranklinandMarshallCollege
Published online by Cambridge University Press
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Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781009249607
doi:10.1017/9781009249621
©DeanHammer2023
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Firstpublished2023
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names:Hammer,Dean,1959–author.
title:RomeandAmerica:communitiesofstrangers,spectaclesofbelonging/DeanHammer,
FranklinandMarshallCollege,Pennsylvania.
description:Cambridge;NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,2023.|Includes
bibliographicalreferencesandindex.
identifiers:lccn2022034146(print)|lccn2022034147(ebook)|isbn9781009249607
(hardback)|isbn9781009249614(paperback)|isbn9781009249621(ebook)
subjects:lcsh:UnitedStates–Civilization–Romaninfluences.|Nationalcharacteristics,
American.|Nationalcharacteristics,Roman.|UnitedStates–History.|Rome–History.
classification:lcce169.1.h2572023(print)|lcce169.1(ebook)|ddc973–dc23/eng/
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To my mom and departed dad
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Contents
ListofFigures pageix
Preface xi
Introduction 1
RecallingRome 3
LivedExperienceandNarrativeIdentity 6
TheOrganizationoftheBook 10
1 Memory,Identity,andViolence:FoundingintheAeneid
andTheOutlawJoseyWales 16
VirgilandtheDislocationofMemory 20
JoseyandtheAmericanFounding 42
Exceptionalism 55
2 ImaginingPurity:TheCorrosiveStrangerandtheConstruction
ofaGenealogy 58
TheStranger 62
ClaimingaPast 63
Washington,DuBois,andtheBurdenofMemory 85
3 TheWildStrangerandtheConquestofSpace 96
IdentityandSpace 97
TheSamnites 102
NativeAmericans 109
CharlesEastman,Horace,andthePersistenceofBodilyMemory 118
4 PlayingCulture:CombatSpectaclesandtheActingBody 132
InterpretingtheCombatBody 134
Gladiators 136
Boxing 158
PlayingtheGladiatorintheEarlyAmericanTheater 173
ArenasofIdentity 181
vii
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viii Contents
5 TheExperienceofPoliticsandtheCrisesofTwoRepublics 185
TheCrisisoftheRomanRepublic 190
TheCrisisofAmericanDemocracy 202
FinalThoughts 239
SelectBibliography 243
Index 249
Published online by Cambridge University Press
Figures
4.1 MosaicFloorwithCombatbetweenDaresandEntellus, page139
175–200ce.
4.2 FragmentofaCommemorativeReliefDepictingaStanding 141
SecutoragainstaRetiarius,thirdcenturyce.
4.3 ReliefDepictingDefeatedGladiatorAwaitingVerdict 148
ofSpectators,ca.30bce.
4.4 MarbleRelieffromHalicarnassusCommemoratingeitherthe 151
ReleasefromServiceortheDischargeafteraDrawbetweenTwo
FemaleGladiators,AmazonandAchillia,secondcenturyce.
4.5 GravestonefortheGladiatorSaturninus,Smyrna,third 156
centuryce.
4.6 LithographofTomHyer. 167
4.7 TheJohnL.Sullivan-JakeKilrainBoxingMatchatRichburg, 169
Miss.
4.8 TheBattlebetweenCrib[Cribb]andMolineaux. 172
4.9 Mr.EdwinForrest(TheAmericanTragedian,)asSpartacus, 178
TheGladiator.
ix
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