Book excerpt: This is the first systematic study of Greek classicism, a crucial element of Graeco-Roman culture under Augustus, from the perspective of cultural identity: what vision of the world and their own role in it motivated Greek and Roman intellectuals to commit themselves to reliving the classical Greek past in Augustan Rome? This book will be of interest to scholars working on late Hellenistic and Early Imperial Greek and Roman literature and culture, the Second Sophistic, and ancient cultural identity, as well as intellectual historians of Western thought. All Greek and Latin is translated.