Empire and the “friction”: searching for new agendas for roman imperialism studies

The paper deals with the phenomenon of Roman imperialism. The current state of research is marked by the rejection of the traditional concepts and approaches (first of all, Romanization theory) which have been criticized for their colonial background and vulgarization of the past reality. Nowadays, most of Roman archaeologists and historians are eager to use globalization concept for the better understanding of socio-cultural transformations that the whole Roman world had experienced. But the mere change of Romanization with Globalization does not solve existing theoretical and methodological problems. So the debate goes on. Recently a concept of “friction” was brought into the discussion. This concept first appeared in Anna Tsing's book from which it has been borrowed by Miguel-John Versluys. He has suggested that it could become a valuable tool for the reconstruction and interpretation of Roman imperialism on different levels (from global one to local one). This paper is the first among Russian publications that considers prospects of the concept developed by Tsing and Versluys for studying of Roman Empire and imperialism. The authors suggests that the metaphor of friction has some considerable potential for research of various socio-cultural interactions within the space of the Roman world (and within ancient Mediterranean if one seeks to broaden chronological limits). Special attention is paid to one of the first attempts to apply Tsing's conceptual ideas to the case-study of the altar erected for Jupiter Heliopolitanus in Roman Siscia.