Two professors from the Collège de France will be speaking on the morning of November 21 :
Pr Frantz Grenet : Les Huns avaient-ils un hinterland centrasiatique ?
Pr Jean-Luc Fournet : L'acculturation à travers les formes et les mots : approches croisées de l'archéologie et de la philologie
Please note that the symposium will be broadcast live on www.inrap.fr
Symposium presentation
The ability of one state to exert its influence or domination over another cannot be summed up in strength alone. Power is not only military, but also ideological, legal, economic and cultural. It manifests itself through a range of possible behaviors, from the hard form, coercion or domination by arms, to the softest, the attractiveness of its values, its political or legal models, or its integration policy, the nature and importance of which archaeology can grasp. In this sense, few political organizations have been credited with such a massive cultural impact as the Roman Empire. Although the Roman army was the most important of all military powers, the Empire, surprisingly, was able to control vast territories with limited military and administrative forces.
How did the Roman model spread, influencing areas such as architecture, cities, food, language and agriculture ?
Using the Roman case as a starting point, but also in a comparative spirit, this symposium will reflect on the various mechanisms by which an Empire can impose its domination through " soft " methods.
