Mirrors and Masks in the Roman Empire : Encounter, Performance and Metamorphosis

This book explores the ways in which masks and mirrors mediated encounters, enabled performances and effected visual and social metamorphoses across the Roman empire.The complex and multifaceted roles played by masks and mirrors in Roman culture has been the subject of several sophisticated analyses, though to date there has been a lack of significant scholarly engagement with geographical context.This volume explores the experiences of classical mirror and mask users in the Roman provinces, from Gaul and Africa to Asia Minor and the Levant.It explores how particular themes are instantiated across a range of imperial contexts, as well as offering carefully selected case studies for detailed analysis. At once confrontational and evasive, enabling and terrifying, mirrors and masks hold extraordinary resonance as objects, images and metaphors.As such, they had the capacity to mediate encounters, enable performances and effect visual and social metamorphoses in myriad different ways throug