ROMANA
The Roman Turn among
Jews, Greek Pagans, and Christians
Courtesy of Tel Dor Archaeological Project, Photographer: Gabi Laron
ROMANA's Objectives
ROMANA investigates how Roman imperial culture permeated Jewish, Greek-Pagan, and Christian intellectual traditions, shaping the very discourses that came to define the West. Exposing the strategies of cultural interaction between imperialist forces and a range of minority groups, it explores how intellectual and cultural discourses of Greek elites, Christian groups, as well as Hellenistic and rabbinic Judaism and their engagements with the dominant force of empire alternated between imitation, resistance, and redefinition. The project redraws the traditional map of the Roman Empire to challenge its sharp dichotomy between Rome and the provinces and demonstrates the deep entanglements of each group of “provincial” elites despite their claim to cultural purity.
The project focuses on three trajectories, philosophical, literary and legal, which will be shown to be doubly entangled: with one another and with Roman discourses. Although these strands are presented separately for clarity, they are deeply interconnected, and a central aim of the project is to examine how they inform one another.
Its method will be close, comparative and cultural readings of entire corpora of texts in Greek, Hebrew/Aramaic and Latin, grounded in the available manuscripts. The analysis will move through Jewish-Hellenistic, Greco-Roman and Christian writings into Rabbinic literature and the texts that contest the spaces between them. In doing so, the project will generate new insights in fields that have thus far been overwhelmingly studied in double isolation or through limited keyword-based digital searches. The study will adhere strictly to the chronological progression of the sources, ensuring that earlier texts are thoroughly analyzed before connecting them to later ones. Particular attention will be given to the first century CE, a period for which we have an exceptionally rich and diverse corpus of philosophical, literary, and legal writings.
Principal Investigator
Current Fellows
Visiting and Affiliated Fellows
The ROMANA project welcomes ongoing applications for affiliation or visiting fellowships at various academic ranks, ranging from graduate students to professors. Such fellows will be considered for a stipend, depending on their qualifications and the availability of funding, and will participate during their stay in the research activities of the group (see also the profile of the visiting and affiliated fellows 2024-2026).
News and Events
International Conferences and Workshops
ROMANA advances its objectives is through the organization of international conferences and workshops.
Past Events
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Competing Elites: Constructing Religious Authority in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Age
HUJI, 4-6 May, 2025 - Joint Session with ROMANA on May te 6th.
The conference “Competing Elites” marks the conclusion of a three-year research project at the Mandel Scholion Center (HUJI) entitled “The Emergence of Local Elites in Late Antiquity: Between West and East.” During this period, our research group has focused on the role and nature of local elites, especially in Judaism, investigating how they emerged and what defined their authority. This conference aims to analyze the overall findings of the group and extend the research by introducing broader comparative perspectives. Please note the Joint session with ERC Project ROMANA on May 6 th: "Constructing Elites through Expertise in Roman law"
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The 53rd Annual Conference of the Israel Society for the Promotion of Classical Studies, June 11-12, 2025, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a Panel dedicated to the project: with presentations by Prof. Maren Niehoff, Maeve McMahon, Joshuah Werrett, and Matthew Van Zile
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The 19th World Congress of Jewish Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. August 5th, 2025 With the participation of Prof. Niehoff and Oz Tamir.
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Die Erfindung des Dekalogs: A Series of conferences at the University of Jena by Prof. M. Niehoof. 3-6.11.2025 By Prof. Maren Niehoff
Upcoming Events
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Roman Law in non-legal Writings: Romans, Greeks, Jews and Christians. A conference at the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung in Munich, 4– 6 February 2026.Conveners: Maren R. Niehoff and Ulrike BabusiauxThe conference aims at exploring a new comparative perspective, namely that of Roman law in pagan, Jewish and Christian texts that do not belong to the genre of legal texts. Searching for traces of Roman law in the writings of philosophers, rhetoricians, historians, literary and poetic authors as well as Bible exegetes will allow us to estimate the impact of Roman legal thinking on the different disciplines and to reconstruct aspects of Roman law at earlier periods for which we lack contemporary professional sources. The assumption of the conference is that Latin, Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic speakers, whether Pagan, Jewish or Christian, all participated in their particular way in contemporary debates about Roman jurisprudence, which consolidated in the imperial age as a most sophisticated system.Travel grants available for doctoral students and postdocs.
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The presence of Rome in early Christian texts: SNTS seminar at the General Meetings, Regensburg 2025 (tbc SNTS 2026-2027). While the Roman Empire as a context of emerging Christianity has become the focus of increased interest, especially in the area of archeology, the full potential of the topic has barely been recognized. It is the aim of this seminar to explore Roman features pertaining to law, philosophy and literature and contextualize them in broader trends in the Roman Empire.Co-conveners: Prof. Maren R. Niehoff; Prof. Dr. Stefan Krauter
Weekly Events
The ROMANA project fosters intensive interdisciplinary research, which is generated and discussed in three central platforms during the week: the weekly seminar, where work-in-progress is presented, and two readings groups led by graduate students, where central texts are read and discussed in the original languages. During the 2024-2025 academic year Sergio Marin led a reading group on Seneca’s notions of the Self, which he later expanded into a Hevruta study supported by additional funding from the Hebrew University, and culminating in an international workshop at the end of the year. In parallel, David Sabato led a reading group on the rabbinic Midrash Genesis Rabbah. In 2025-6, Sergio Marin continues the exploration of Seneca, this time focusing on the connection between philosophy and literature. In addition, Joshua Werrett leads another reading group on Christian heresies during the first semester, while Sabrina Inowlocki will lead a reading group on Eusebius’ Martyrs of Palestina during the second semester.
Reading Groups
Seneca Seminar: 📅 Start Date: Wednesday, October 29th, 2025
📖 Topic: Philosophy and Community – Seneca, Ep. 73
🕥 Time: 12:30-14:00
📍 Format: Hybrid — Faculty of Humanities (Room 6727, Building 47) Floor 6, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem + Online
🔗 Registration is required: To register or request further information, please contact: sergio.maringarcia@mail.huji.ac.il
Early Christian Heresiology Seminar: 📅 Start Date: Nov 4, 2025 📖 Topic: 🕥 Time: 10:30-12:00📍 Faculty of Humanities (Room 6727, Building 47) Floor 6, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
📖 Topic: This course explores the emergence of Christian heresiology from the second to fifth centuries AD, taking Irenaeus’ Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses) as its central text. Through close reading of Against Heresies, we will examine how Irenaeus constructed categories of “proto-orthodoxy”, “orthodoxy”, and “heresy”, focusing on his engagement with different branches of early Christianity, especially the various Gnostic strands which challenged what eventually became “orthodox” so heavily. Building outward from Irenaeus, the class will explore how other writers – e.g., Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Epiphanius, Cyprian, and Augustine – expanded, contested, or transformed heresiological discourse in response to new controversies, including Montanism, ascetic movements, Manichaeism, and Donatism. The course highlights heresiology’s literary strategies, its theological arguments, its role in shaping authority within the early church, and what it can tell us about the reality of “heterodox” Christian groups.
🕥 Time: 10:30-12:00
📍 Format: Hybrid — Faculty of Humanities (Room 6727, Building 47) Floor 6, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem + Online
🔗 Registration is required: To register or request further information, please contact: sergio.maringarcia@mail.huji.ac.il
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Monographs Resulting from the Project
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Maren R. Niehoff, Philo of Alexandria, Translation, Introduction and Commentary; Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series; Leiden: E.J. Brill, forthcoming in early 2026
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A. Judith Göppinger, Moribus antiquis res stat Judaea virsique. Exempla in Flavius Josephus’ Antiquitates Judaicae, Leiden et al. (Brill) 2025.
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Sabrina Inowlocki, Pamphilus and Book Culture at Caesarea (Provisional title), Cambridge University Press (under contract).
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David Sabato, The Sages of Yavneh: A Journey into the Origins of Tannaitic Halakhah, Magness Press, Jerusalem 2025.
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Joshua Werrett, The Visions of Zosimos of Panopolis: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press (under contract).
