Constructing Literature in the Roman Republic

Constructing Literature in the Roman Republic
Author: Sander M. Goldberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2005-11-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521854610

Becoming Roman Literature examines the problem of Rome's literary development by shifting attention from Rome's writers to its readers. The literature we traditionally call "early " is seen to be a product less of the mid-Republic, when poetic texts began to circulate, than of the late Republic, when they were systematically collected, canonized, and put to new social and artistic uses. Imposing on texts the name and function of literature was thus often a retrospective activity. This book explores the development of this literary sensibility from the Romans' early interest in epic and drama, through the invention of satire and the eventual enshrining of books in the public collections that became so important to Horace and Ovid.

Rome and the Making of a World State, 150 BCE - 20 CE

Rome and the Making of a World State, 150 BCE - 20 CE
Author: Josiah Osgood
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2018-04-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107029899

A new historical survey that recasts the 'fall of the Roman Republic' as part of the rise of a uniquely successful world state.

Constructing Autocracy

Constructing Autocracy
Author: Matthew B. Roller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2016-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691171416

Rome's transition from a republican system of government to an imperial regime comprised more than a century of civil upheaval and rapid institutional change. Yet the establishment of a ruling dynasty, centered around a single leader, came as a cultural and political shock to Rome's aristocracy, who had shared power in the previous political order. How did the imperial regime manage to establish itself and how did the Roman elites from the time of Julius Caesar to Nero make sense of it? In this compelling book, Matthew Roller reveals a "dialogical" process at work, in which writers and philosophers vigorously negotiated and contested the nature and scope of the emperor’s authority, despite the consensus that he was the ultimate authority figure in Roman society. Roller seeks evidence for this "thinking out" of the new order in a wide range of republican and imperial authors, with an emphasis on Lucan and Seneca the Younger. He shows how elites assessed the impact of the imperial system on traditional aristocratic ethics and examines how several longstanding authority relationships in Roman society--those of master to slave, father to son, and gift-creditor to gift-debtor--became competing models for how the emperor did or should relate to his aristocratic subjects. By revealing this ideological activity to be not merely reactive but also constitutive of the new order, Roller contributes to ongoing debates about the character of the Roman imperial system and about the "politics" of literature.

Beyond Greek

Beyond Greek
Author: Denis Feeney
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2016-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674496043

A History Today Best Book of the Year A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, Horace, and other authors of ancient Rome are so firmly established in the Western canon today that the birth of Latin literature seems inevitable. Yet, Denis Feeney boldly argues, the beginnings of Latin literature were anything but inevitable. The cultural flourishing that in time produced the Aeneid, the Metamorphoses, and other Latin classics was one of the strangest events in history. “Feeney is to be congratulated on his willingness to put Roman literary history in a big comparative context...It is a powerful testimony to the importance of Denis Feeney’s work that the old chestnuts of classical literary history—how the Romans got themselves Hellenized, and whether those jack-booted thugs felt anxiously belated or smugly domineering in their appropriation of Greek culture for their own purposes—feel fresh and urgent again.” —Emily Wilson, Times Literary Supplement “[Feeney’s] bold theme and vigorous writing render Beyond Greek of interest to anyone intrigued by the history and literature of the classical world.” —The Economist

The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic

The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic
Author: Harriet I. Flower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 519
Release: 2014-06-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139992384

The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic examines all aspects of Roman history and civilization from 509 to 49 BC. The key development of the republican period was Rome's rise from a small city to a wealthy metropolis, which served as the international capital of an extensive Mediterranean empire. These centuries produced a classic republican political culture, closely associated with the growth of a world empire. They also witnessed the slow disintegration of republican government under the relentless and combined pressure of external commitments, growing internal dissension, and the boundless ambition of successful military leaders. In the second edition of this Companion volume, distinguished European, Canadian, and American scholars present a variety of lively current approaches to understanding the political, military, and social aspects of Roman history, as well as its literary and visual culture. The second edition includes a new introduction, three new chapters on population, slavery, and the rise of empire, and updated bibliographies and maps.

The Roman Audience

The Roman Audience
Author: Timothy Peter Wiseman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0198718357

In an ambitious overview of a thousand years of history, from the formation of the city-state of Rome to the establishment of a fully Christian culture, T. P. Wiseman examines the evidence for the oral delivery of Roman 'literature' to mass public audiences.

Roman Republican Theatre

Roman Republican Theatre
Author: Gesine Manuwald
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2011-06-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139499742

Theatre flourished in the Roman Republic, from the tragedies of Ennius and Pacuvius to the comedies of Plautus and Terence and the mimes of Laberius. Yet apart from the surviving plays of Plautus and Terence the sources are fragmentary and difficult to interpret and contextualise. This book provides a comprehensive history of all aspects of the topic, incorporating recent findings and modern approaches. It discusses the origins of Roman drama and the historical, social and institutional backgrounds of all the dramatic genres to be found during the Republic (tragedy, praetexta, comedy, togata, Atellana, mime and pantomime). Possible general characteristics are identified, and attention is paid to the nature of and developments in the various genres. The clear structure and full bibliography also ensure that the book has value as a source of reference for all upper-level students and scholars of Latin literature and ancient drama.

The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic

The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic
Author: Harriet I. Flower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 519
Release: 2014-06-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107032245

This second edition examines all aspects of Roman history, and contains a new introduction, three new chapters and updated bibliographies.

Slave Theater in the Roman Republic

Slave Theater in the Roman Republic
Author: Amy Richlin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 581
Release: 2017-12-28
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1107152313

Brings the voices of Roman slaves in early comedy to the history of theater and the history of slavery.

Cicero, Greek Learning, and the Making of a Roman Classic

Cicero, Greek Learning, and the Making of a Roman Classic
Author: Caroline Bishop
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2018-12-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 019256479X

The Roman statesman, orator, and author Marcus Tullius Cicero is the embodiment of a classic: his works have been read continuously from antiquity to the present, his style is considered the model for classical Latin, and his influence on Western ideas about the value of humanistic pursuits is both deep and profound. However, despite the significance of subsequent reception in ensuring his canonical status, Cicero, Greek Learning, and the Making of a Roman Classic demonstrates that no one is more responsible for Cicero's transformation into a classic than Cicero himself, and that in his literary works he laid the groundwork for the ways in which he is still remembered today. The volume presents a new way of understanding Cicero's career as an author by situating his textual production within the context of the growth of Greek classicism: the movement had begun to flourish shortly before his lifetime and he clearly grasped its benefits both for himself and for Roman literature more broadly. By strategically adapting classic texts from the Greek world, and incorporating into his adaptations the interpretations of the Hellenistic philosophers, poets, rhetoricians, and scientists who had helped enshrine those works as classics, he could envision and create texts with classical authority for a parallel Roman canon. Ranging across a variety of genres - including philosophy, rhetoric, oratory, poetry, and letters - this close study of Cicero's literary works moves from his early translation of Aratus' poetry (and its later reappearance through self-quotation) to Platonizing philosophy, Aristotelian rhetoric, Demosthenic oratory, and even a planned Greek-style letter collection. Juxtaposing incisive analysis of how Cicero consciously adopted classical Greek writers as models and predecessors with detailed accounts of the reception of those figures by Greek scholars of the Hellenistic period, the volume not only offers ground-breaking new insights into Cicero's ascension to canonical status, but also a salutary new account of Greek intellectual life and its effect on Roman literature.