Alain Duplouy and Roger W. Brock (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198817192
- eISBN:
- 9780191858727
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198817192.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
Citizenship is a major feature of contemporary national and international politics. It is also a legacy of ancient Greece. The concept of membership of a community appeared in Greece some three ...
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Citizenship is a major feature of contemporary national and international politics. It is also a legacy of ancient Greece. The concept of membership of a community appeared in Greece some three millennia ago as a participation in the social and political life of small-scale communities, but only towards the end of the fourth century BC did Aristotle offer the first explicit statement about it. Though long accepted, the Aristotelian definition remains deeply rooted in the philosophical and political thought of the classical period, but it probably fails to account accurately for the previous centuries or the dynamics of the emergent cities. Focusing on archaic Greece, this collective enquiry, bringing together renowned international scholars, aims at exploring new routes to archaic citizenship, exemplifying the living diversity of approaches to archaic Greece and to the Greek city. If the Aristotelian model has long been applied to all Greek cities regardless of chronological issues, historians are now challenging Aristotle’s theoretical definition and are looking for other ways of conceiving citizenship and community, setting the stage for a new image of archaic cities, which are no longer to be considered as primitive or incomplete classical poleis. Driven by this same objective, the essays collected here have not, however, been tailored to endorse any specific view. Each contributor brings his or her own national background and approaches to archaic citizenship through specific fields of enquiry (law, descent, cults, military obligations, associations, civic subdivisions, athletics, commensality, behaviours, etc.), often venturing off the beaten track.Less
Citizenship is a major feature of contemporary national and international politics. It is also a legacy of ancient Greece. The concept of membership of a community appeared in Greece some three millennia ago as a participation in the social and political life of small-scale communities, but only towards the end of the fourth century BC did Aristotle offer the first explicit statement about it. Though long accepted, the Aristotelian definition remains deeply rooted in the philosophical and political thought of the classical period, but it probably fails to account accurately for the previous centuries or the dynamics of the emergent cities. Focusing on archaic Greece, this collective enquiry, bringing together renowned international scholars, aims at exploring new routes to archaic citizenship, exemplifying the living diversity of approaches to archaic Greece and to the Greek city. If the Aristotelian model has long been applied to all Greek cities regardless of chronological issues, historians are now challenging Aristotle’s theoretical definition and are looking for other ways of conceiving citizenship and community, setting the stage for a new image of archaic cities, which are no longer to be considered as primitive or incomplete classical poleis. Driven by this same objective, the essays collected here have not, however, been tailored to endorse any specific view. Each contributor brings his or her own national background and approaches to archaic citizenship through specific fields of enquiry (law, descent, cults, military obligations, associations, civic subdivisions, athletics, commensality, behaviours, etc.), often venturing off the beaten track.
Anna-Maria Hartmann
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198807704
- eISBN:
- 9780191845529
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198807704.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Religions
Greco-Roman mythology and its reception are at the heart of the European Renaissance, and mythographies—texts that collected and explained ancient myths—were considered indispensable companions to ...
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Greco-Roman mythology and its reception are at the heart of the European Renaissance, and mythographies—texts that collected and explained ancient myths—were considered indispensable companions to any reader of literature. Despite the importance of this genre, English mythographies have not gained sustained critical attention, because they have been wrongly considered mere copies of their European counterparts. This monograph studies the English mythographies written between 1577 and 1647 by Stephen Batman, Abraham Fraunce, Francis Bacon, Henry Reynolds, and Alexander Ross. By placing their texts into a wider, European context, it reveals the unique English take on the genre. The book unfolds the role myth played in the wider English Renaissance culture (religious conflicts, literary life, natural philosophy, poetics, and Civil War politics) and shows, for the first time, the considerable explanatory value it holds for the study of English Renaissance literature. Finally, this book is a contribution to the history of myth philosophy. It reveals how early modern England answered a question we still find fascinating today: what is myth?Less
Greco-Roman mythology and its reception are at the heart of the European Renaissance, and mythographies—texts that collected and explained ancient myths—were considered indispensable companions to any reader of literature. Despite the importance of this genre, English mythographies have not gained sustained critical attention, because they have been wrongly considered mere copies of their European counterparts. This monograph studies the English mythographies written between 1577 and 1647 by Stephen Batman, Abraham Fraunce, Francis Bacon, Henry Reynolds, and Alexander Ross. By placing their texts into a wider, European context, it reveals the unique English take on the genre. The book unfolds the role myth played in the wider English Renaissance culture (religious conflicts, literary life, natural philosophy, poetics, and Civil War politics) and shows, for the first time, the considerable explanatory value it holds for the study of English Renaissance literature. Finally, this book is a contribution to the history of myth philosophy. It reveals how early modern England answered a question we still find fascinating today: what is myth?
Sergio Yona
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198786559
- eISBN:
- 9780191828829
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198786559.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
Over the centuries leading up to their composition many genres and authors have emerged as influences on Horace’s Satires, which in turn has led to a wide variety of scholarly interpretations. This ...
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Over the centuries leading up to their composition many genres and authors have emerged as influences on Horace’s Satires, which in turn has led to a wide variety of scholarly interpretations. This study aims to expand the existing dialogue by exploring further the intersection of ancient satire and ethics, focusing on the moral tradition of Epicureanism through the lens of one source in particular: Philodemus of Gadara. An Epicurean philosopher who wrote for a Roman audience and was one of Horace’s contemporaries and neighbors in Italy, offers a range of ethical treatises on subjects including patronage, friendship, flattery, frankness, poverty, and wealth. This book offers a serious consideration of the role of Philodemus’ Epicurean teachings in Horace’s Satires and argues that the central concerns of the philosopher’s work not only lie at the heart of the poet’s criticisms of Roman society and its shortcomings, but also lend to the collection a certain coherence and overall unity in its underlying convictions. It provides an examination of the deep and pervasive influence of this moral tradition on Horace’s satiric poetry which also manages to reveal something of the poet behind the literary mask or persona through its elucidation of the philosophically consistent nature of Horace’s self-representation in these poems.Less
Over the centuries leading up to their composition many genres and authors have emerged as influences on Horace’s Satires, which in turn has led to a wide variety of scholarly interpretations. This study aims to expand the existing dialogue by exploring further the intersection of ancient satire and ethics, focusing on the moral tradition of Epicureanism through the lens of one source in particular: Philodemus of Gadara. An Epicurean philosopher who wrote for a Roman audience and was one of Horace’s contemporaries and neighbors in Italy, offers a range of ethical treatises on subjects including patronage, friendship, flattery, frankness, poverty, and wealth. This book offers a serious consideration of the role of Philodemus’ Epicurean teachings in Horace’s Satires and argues that the central concerns of the philosopher’s work not only lie at the heart of the poet’s criticisms of Roman society and its shortcomings, but also lend to the collection a certain coherence and overall unity in its underlying convictions. It provides an examination of the deep and pervasive influence of this moral tradition on Horace’s satiric poetry which also manages to reveal something of the poet behind the literary mask or persona through its elucidation of the philosophically consistent nature of Horace’s self-representation in these poems.
Daniele Miano
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198786566
- eISBN:
- 9780191828843
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198786566.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE, Ancient Religions
This book focuses on the Latin goddess Fortuna, one of the better known deities in ancient Italy. The earliest forms of her worship can be traced back to archaic Latium, and she was still a widely ...
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This book focuses on the Latin goddess Fortuna, one of the better known deities in ancient Italy. The earliest forms of her worship can be traced back to archaic Latium, and she was still a widely recognized allegorical figure during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The main reason for her longevity is that she was a conceptual deity, and had strong associations with chance and good fortune. When they were interacting with the goddess, communities, individuals, and gender and age groups were inevitably also interacting with the concept. These relations were not neutral: they allowed people to renegotiate the concept, enriching it with new meanings and challenging established ones. The geographical and chronological scope of this book is Italy from the archaic age to the late Republic. In this period Italy was a fragmented, multicultural and multilinguistic environment, characterized by a wide circulation of people, customs, and ideas, in which Rome played an increasingly dominant role. All available sources on Fortuna have been used: literary, epigraphic, and archaeological. The study of the goddess based on conceptual analysis will serve to construct a radically new picture of the historical development of this deity in the context of the cultural interactions taking place in ancient Italy. The book also aims at experimenting with a new approach to polytheism, based on the connection between gods and goddesses and concepts.Less
This book focuses on the Latin goddess Fortuna, one of the better known deities in ancient Italy. The earliest forms of her worship can be traced back to archaic Latium, and she was still a widely recognized allegorical figure during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The main reason for her longevity is that she was a conceptual deity, and had strong associations with chance and good fortune. When they were interacting with the goddess, communities, individuals, and gender and age groups were inevitably also interacting with the concept. These relations were not neutral: they allowed people to renegotiate the concept, enriching it with new meanings and challenging established ones. The geographical and chronological scope of this book is Italy from the archaic age to the late Republic. In this period Italy was a fragmented, multicultural and multilinguistic environment, characterized by a wide circulation of people, customs, and ideas, in which Rome played an increasingly dominant role. All available sources on Fortuna have been used: literary, epigraphic, and archaeological. The study of the goddess based on conceptual analysis will serve to construct a radically new picture of the historical development of this deity in the context of the cultural interactions taking place in ancient Italy. The book also aims at experimenting with a new approach to polytheism, based on the connection between gods and goddesses and concepts.
Thomas Harrison and Elizabeth Irwin (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198803614
- eISBN:
- 9780191842016
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198803614.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Charles W. Fornara’s Herodotus. An Interpretative Essay (1971) was a landmark publication in the study of Herodotus. It is well known in particular for its main thesis that the Histories should be ...
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Charles W. Fornara’s Herodotus. An Interpretative Essay (1971) was a landmark publication in the study of Herodotus. It is well known in particular for its main thesis that the Histories should be read against the background of the Atheno-Peloponnesian Wars during which Herodotus wrote. However, it also includes penetrating discussion of other issues: the relative unity of Herodotus’ work; the relationship between Herodotus’ ethnographies and his historical narrative; and the themes and motifs that criss-cross the Histories, how ‘history became moral and Herodotus didactic’. Interpreting Herodotus brings together a team of leading Herodotean scholars to look afresh at the themes of Fornara’s Essay, in the light of the explosion of scholarship on the Histories in the intervening years. What does it mean to talk of the unity of the Histories, or Herodotus’ ‘moral’ purpose? How can we reconstruct the context in which the Histories were written and published? And in what sense might the Histories constitute a ‘warning’ for his own, or for subsequent, generations?Less
Charles W. Fornara’s Herodotus. An Interpretative Essay (1971) was a landmark publication in the study of Herodotus. It is well known in particular for its main thesis that the Histories should be read against the background of the Atheno-Peloponnesian Wars during which Herodotus wrote. However, it also includes penetrating discussion of other issues: the relative unity of Herodotus’ work; the relationship between Herodotus’ ethnographies and his historical narrative; and the themes and motifs that criss-cross the Histories, how ‘history became moral and Herodotus didactic’. Interpreting Herodotus brings together a team of leading Herodotean scholars to look afresh at the themes of Fornara’s Essay, in the light of the explosion of scholarship on the Histories in the intervening years. What does it mean to talk of the unity of the Histories, or Herodotus’ ‘moral’ purpose? How can we reconstruct the context in which the Histories were written and published? And in what sense might the Histories constitute a ‘warning’ for his own, or for subsequent, generations?
Tom Phillips and Armand D'Angour (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198794462
- eISBN:
- 9780191835988
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198794462.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book explores the interaction between music and poetry in ancient Greece. Although scholars have long recognized the importance of music to ancient performance culture, little has been written ...
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This book explores the interaction between music and poetry in ancient Greece. Although scholars have long recognized the importance of music to ancient performance culture, little has been written on the specific effects that musical accompaniment and features such as rhythmical structure and melody would have created in individual poems. The chapters in the first half of the volume engage closely with the evidential and interpretative challenges that this issue poses, and propose original readings of a range of texts, including Homer, Pindar, and Euripides, as well as later poets such as Seikilos and Mesomedes. While they emphasize different formal features, they argue collectively for a two-way relationship between music and language. Attention to the musical features of poetic texts, insofar as we can reconstruct them, enables us to better understand not only their effects on audiences, but also the various ways in which they project and structure meaning. In part two, the focus shifts to ancient attempts to conceptualize interractions between words and music; the essays in this section analyse the contested place that music occupied in Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and other critical writers of the Hellenistic and Imperial periods. Thinking about music is shown to influence other domains of intellectual life, such as literary criticism, and to be vitally informed by ethical concerns.Less
This book explores the interaction between music and poetry in ancient Greece. Although scholars have long recognized the importance of music to ancient performance culture, little has been written on the specific effects that musical accompaniment and features such as rhythmical structure and melody would have created in individual poems. The chapters in the first half of the volume engage closely with the evidential and interpretative challenges that this issue poses, and propose original readings of a range of texts, including Homer, Pindar, and Euripides, as well as later poets such as Seikilos and Mesomedes. While they emphasize different formal features, they argue collectively for a two-way relationship between music and language. Attention to the musical features of poetic texts, insofar as we can reconstruct them, enables us to better understand not only their effects on audiences, but also the various ways in which they project and structure meaning. In part two, the focus shifts to ancient attempts to conceptualize interractions between words and music; the essays in this section analyse the contested place that music occupied in Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and other critical writers of the Hellenistic and Imperial periods. Thinking about music is shown to influence other domains of intellectual life, such as literary criticism, and to be vitally informed by ethical concerns.
William Fitzgerald and Efrossini Spentzou (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198768098
- eISBN:
- 9780191821875
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198768098.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This volume addresses, through a range of different authors and genres, Latin literature’s psychogeographical engagement with space. The volume’s title alludes to Henri Lefebvre’s La Production de ...
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This volume addresses, through a range of different authors and genres, Latin literature’s psychogeographical engagement with space. The volume’s title alludes to Henri Lefebvre’s La Production de l’espace of 1974, a seminal work in what is now called ‘the spatial turn’ in the humanities. Lefebvre stresses that space is to be included among the sites of hegemonic power and ideological contestation in a society and should not simply be thought of as a neutral container for human action, the setting in which it takes place. The contributions to this volume focus mainly on movement, or the mobile subject, in the experience, and making, of space rather than on the fixed monumental space within which that subject moves and acts. The contributions cover a broad terrain, both temporally (from Catullus to St Augustine) and generically (lyric, epic, elegy, satire, epistolography, historiography, autobiography, antiquarianism). They discuss the distinctively Roman experiences of space, and their intersections with empire, urbanism, identity, ethics, exile, and history. From a range of different angles they consider the specifically literary modes of the engagement with space in different genres and authors and pay special attention to the ideological stakes of this engagement.Less
This volume addresses, through a range of different authors and genres, Latin literature’s psychogeographical engagement with space. The volume’s title alludes to Henri Lefebvre’s La Production de l’espace of 1974, a seminal work in what is now called ‘the spatial turn’ in the humanities. Lefebvre stresses that space is to be included among the sites of hegemonic power and ideological contestation in a society and should not simply be thought of as a neutral container for human action, the setting in which it takes place. The contributions to this volume focus mainly on movement, or the mobile subject, in the experience, and making, of space rather than on the fixed monumental space within which that subject moves and acts. The contributions cover a broad terrain, both temporally (from Catullus to St Augustine) and generically (lyric, epic, elegy, satire, epistolography, historiography, autobiography, antiquarianism). They discuss the distinctively Roman experiences of space, and their intersections with empire, urbanism, identity, ethics, exile, and history. From a range of different angles they consider the specifically literary modes of the engagement with space in different genres and authors and pay special attention to the ideological stakes of this engagement.
Christa Gray, Andrea Balbo, Richard M. A. Marshall, and Catherine E. W. Steel (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198788201
- eISBN:
- 9780191830167
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198788201.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval, European History: BCE to 500CE
This collection of essays explores the oratory of the Roman Republic as practised by everyone apart from Cicero. It addresses the problems arising from the partial and often unreliable evidence for ...
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This collection of essays explores the oratory of the Roman Republic as practised by everyone apart from Cicero. It addresses the problems arising from the partial and often unreliable evidence for these other Roman orators and investigates new ways of interpreting this evidence. The contributors seek to contextualize these fragments and testimonia, both in their original settings and over the course of their subsequent transmission, to explore a range of questions: what was said in the Roman Republic, and what counted as public speech or ‘oratory’ at Rome? Who did the speaking, and to what extent can we identify anonymous speakers? What were the formal and informal scenarios in which public speech took place? What non-verbal signals should be considered together with the speakers’ words? How reliable and selective is our evidence? How does the development of rhetoric as a discipline affect the reception and transmission of public speech? The resulting discussions reshape our understanding of public speech in the Roman Republic and enable us to move the study of Republican oratory decisively beyond Cicero.Less
This collection of essays explores the oratory of the Roman Republic as practised by everyone apart from Cicero. It addresses the problems arising from the partial and often unreliable evidence for these other Roman orators and investigates new ways of interpreting this evidence. The contributors seek to contextualize these fragments and testimonia, both in their original settings and over the course of their subsequent transmission, to explore a range of questions: what was said in the Roman Republic, and what counted as public speech or ‘oratory’ at Rome? Who did the speaking, and to what extent can we identify anonymous speakers? What were the formal and informal scenarios in which public speech took place? What non-verbal signals should be considered together with the speakers’ words? How reliable and selective is our evidence? How does the development of rhetoric as a discipline affect the reception and transmission of public speech? The resulting discussions reshape our understanding of public speech in the Roman Republic and enable us to move the study of Republican oratory decisively beyond Cicero.
Steven J. R. Ellis
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198769934
- eISBN:
- 9780191822711
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198769934.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE, Archaeology: Classical
Tabernae were ubiquitous among all Roman cities, lining the busiest streets and dominating their most crowded intersections, and in numbers not known by any other form of building. That they played a ...
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Tabernae were ubiquitous among all Roman cities, lining the busiest streets and dominating their most crowded intersections, and in numbers not known by any other form of building. That they played a vital role in the operation of the city—indeed in the very definition of urbanization—is a point too often under-appreciated in Roman studies, or at best assumed. The Roman Retail Revolution is a thorough investigation into the social and economic worlds of the Roman shop. With a focus on food and drink outlets, and with a critical analysis of both archaeological material and textual sources, Ellis challenges many of the conventional ideas about the place of retailing in the Roman city. A new framework is forwarded, for example, to understand the motivations behind urban investment in tabernae. Their historical development is also unraveled to identify three major waves—or, revolutions—in the shaping of retail landscapes. Two new bodies of evidence underpin the volume. The first is generated from the University of Cincinnati’s recent archaeological excavations into a Pompeian neighborhood of close to twenty shop-fronts. The second comes from a field survey of the retail landscapes of more than a hundred cities from across the Roman world. The richness of this information, combined with an interdisciplinary approach to the lives of the Roman sub-elite, results in a refreshingly original look at the history of retailing and urbanism in the Roman world.Less
Tabernae were ubiquitous among all Roman cities, lining the busiest streets and dominating their most crowded intersections, and in numbers not known by any other form of building. That they played a vital role in the operation of the city—indeed in the very definition of urbanization—is a point too often under-appreciated in Roman studies, or at best assumed. The Roman Retail Revolution is a thorough investigation into the social and economic worlds of the Roman shop. With a focus on food and drink outlets, and with a critical analysis of both archaeological material and textual sources, Ellis challenges many of the conventional ideas about the place of retailing in the Roman city. A new framework is forwarded, for example, to understand the motivations behind urban investment in tabernae. Their historical development is also unraveled to identify three major waves—or, revolutions—in the shaping of retail landscapes. Two new bodies of evidence underpin the volume. The first is generated from the University of Cincinnati’s recent archaeological excavations into a Pompeian neighborhood of close to twenty shop-fronts. The second comes from a field survey of the retail landscapes of more than a hundred cities from across the Roman world. The richness of this information, combined with an interdisciplinary approach to the lives of the Roman sub-elite, results in a refreshingly original look at the history of retailing and urbanism in the Roman world.
T. Corey Brennan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190250997
- eISBN:
- 9780190875428
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190250997.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical, Ancient Religions
This work aims to synthesize the textual and (massive) material evidence on the empress Sabina (born ca. 85–died ca. 137). The book traces the development of Sabina’s partnership with her husband, ...
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This work aims to synthesize the textual and (massive) material evidence on the empress Sabina (born ca. 85–died ca. 137). The book traces the development of Sabina’s partnership with her husband, the emperor Hadrian (reigned 117–138), and shows the vital importance of the empress for Hadrian’s own aspirations. Sabina accumulated more public honors in Rome and the provinces than any imperial woman had enjoyed since the first empress, Augustus’ wife Livia. Indeed, Sabina is the first woman whose image features on a regular and continuous series of coins minted at Rome. She was the most traveled and visible empress to date. Hadrian also deified his wife upon her death. It is argued that Hadrian meant for Sabina to play a key role in promoting the public character of his rule, and that the emperor’s exaltation of his wife served to enhance his own claims to divinity. Yet the (sparse) literary sources on Sabina put the worst light on the dynamics of her marriage. There is a strong ancient tradition that Hadrian treated his wife little better than a slave, and forced her to suicide. The book fully explores the various (overwhelmingly negative) notions this empress’s life stirred up in historiography, and against the material record proposes a new and nuanced understanding of her formal role. This study of Sabina’s life sheds new light also more widely on Hadrian—including the vexed question of that emperor’s relationship with his supposed lover Antinoös—and indeed on Rome’s imperial women as a group.Less
This work aims to synthesize the textual and (massive) material evidence on the empress Sabina (born ca. 85–died ca. 137). The book traces the development of Sabina’s partnership with her husband, the emperor Hadrian (reigned 117–138), and shows the vital importance of the empress for Hadrian’s own aspirations. Sabina accumulated more public honors in Rome and the provinces than any imperial woman had enjoyed since the first empress, Augustus’ wife Livia. Indeed, Sabina is the first woman whose image features on a regular and continuous series of coins minted at Rome. She was the most traveled and visible empress to date. Hadrian also deified his wife upon her death. It is argued that Hadrian meant for Sabina to play a key role in promoting the public character of his rule, and that the emperor’s exaltation of his wife served to enhance his own claims to divinity. Yet the (sparse) literary sources on Sabina put the worst light on the dynamics of her marriage. There is a strong ancient tradition that Hadrian treated his wife little better than a slave, and forced her to suicide. The book fully explores the various (overwhelmingly negative) notions this empress’s life stirred up in historiography, and against the material record proposes a new and nuanced understanding of her formal role. This study of Sabina’s life sheds new light also more widely on Hadrian—including the vexed question of that emperor’s relationship with his supposed lover Antinoös—and indeed on Rome’s imperial women as a group.
Achilles in Love
The Advent of Pluralism
Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris
Aegean Interactions
Aegina: Contexts for Choral Lyric Poetry
African Athena
Afro-Greeks
The Age of Titans
The Alamanni and Rome 213-496
