Être ‘purement grec’ dans l'Empire romain
Résumé
Expressions like “purely Greek”, “absolutely Greek” are found during the imperial
period in writings from authors of the Second and Third Sophistic (from the end of the
first to the beginning of the fifth Century AD), more rarely in epigraphical texts. We first
examine the use and meaning of these expressions, trying to understand how one could
be a “pure Greek” in the Roman Empire. We secondly argue that searching and claiming a
pure hellenism prevented the development of a ‘pensée métisse’ (as Serge Gruzinsky told)
in imperial Greek texts.