The Comet of 44 B.C. and Caesar's Funeral Games

The Comet of 44 B.C. and Caesar's Funeral Games
Author: John T. Ramsey
Publisher:
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1997
Genre: History
ISBN:

This unique collaboration between a classicist and physicist at the University of Illinois at Chicago is the first work to combine the evidence from both China and Rome for the spectacular daylight comet of 44 BC, perhaps the most famous comet in antiquity. This investigation, which alsoexamines allusions to this comet in astrological literature from later antiquity, sheds new light on the significance of the comet as a powerful symbol in the political propaganda that launched Augustus' career.

The Poetics of Power in Augustan Rome

The Poetics of Power in Augustan Rome
Author: Nandini B. Pandey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2018-10-11
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1108422659

Explores the dynamic interactions among Latin poets, artists, and audiences in constructing and critiquing imperial power in Augustan Rome.

A Companion to Julius Caesar

A Companion to Julius Caesar
Author: Miriam Griffin
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 555
Release: 2015-07-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1119062357

A Companion to Julius Caesar comprises 30 essays from leading scholars examining the life and after life of this great polarizing figure. Explores Caesar from a variety of perspectives: military genius, ruthless tyrant, brilliant politician, first class orator, sophisticated man of letters, and more Utilizes Caesar’s own extant writings Examines the viewpoints of Caesar’s contemporaries and explores Caesar’s portrayals by artists and writers through the ages

Strange Heavens

Strange Heavens
Author: Philip J. Imbrogno
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2018-12-08
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0738756113

The Wonders of the Sky at Night You'll Never Look at the Stars the Same Way Again The infinite expanse of the night sky has long been the source of mystery and wonder. Strange Heavens explores the myths, religions, and spiritual experiences that have emerged from humanity's profound relationship with the celestial sphere. Join author Philip J. Imbrogno on a journey through time as he describes the ancient fascination with the constellations and the Milky Way, the influence of the great astronomers and explorers of the Renaissance, the evolution of science fiction, and the role of space in the popular imagination. Discover unique perspectives on the role of gods, goddesses, aliens, angels, and other supernatural beings. Learn about the role of the heavens in ancient Greek philosophy as well as fascinating insights from the early astronomers of China and India. Whether you're a serious observer of the skies or someone with a casual interest, this book shares perspectives and ideas that will change your relationship with the strange heavens forever.

Leading Rome from a Distance, 300 BCE–37 CE

Leading Rome from a Distance, 300 BCE–37 CE
Author: Ralph Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2024-10-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350325422

Roman political leaders used distance from Rome as a key political tool to assert pre-eminence. Through the case studies of Caesar's hegemony, Augustus's autocracy, and Tiberius's reign, this book examines how these figures' experiences and manipulations of absence established a multipolar focus of political life centred less on the city of Rome, and more on the idea of a single leader. The Roman expansion over Italy and the Mediterranean put the political system under considerable stress, and eventually resulted in a dispersal of leadership and a decentralization of power. Absent generals rivalled their peers in Rome for influence and threatened to surpass them from the provinces. Roman leaders, from Sulla to Tiberius, used absence as a mechanism to act autonomously, but it came at the cost of losing influence and control at the centre. In order to hold influence while being split off from the decision-making powers of the geographical nucleus that was Rome, communication channels to mitigate necessary absences were developed during this period, such as travel, intermediate meetings, letters (propaganda writings) and a complex network of mediators, ultimately forming the circle from which the imperial court emerged. Absent leadership, as it developed throughout the Late Republic, a hitherto neglected issue, eventually became a valuable asset in the institutionalising process of the autocracy of Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius.

Ovid, Aratus and Augustus

Ovid, Aratus and Augustus
Author: Emma Gee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2000-03-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521651875

The astronomical material in Ovid's Fasti has been overlooked. It is this material which is the subject of this book.

Politeness and Politics in Cicero's Letters

Politeness and Politics in Cicero's Letters
Author: Jon C. R. Hall
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2009-05-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0195329066

This is a fresh examination of the letters exchanged between Cicero and his correspondents, during the final decades of the Roman Republic. Drawing upon sociolinguistic theories of politeness, it explores the distinctive conventions of epistolary courtesy that shaped formal interaction among men of the Roman elite.

Celestial Inclinations

Celestial Inclinations
Author: Anne-Marie Lewis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 561
Release: 2023
Genre: Astrology and politics
ISBN: 0197599648

"Celestial Inclinations: A Life of Augustus provides a new perspective on the life and career of the first Roman emperor Augustus (63 B.C.-A.D. 14) and presents the case that Augustus used his knowledge of the celestial sphere in various ways to confirm for himself and convey to others that the heavens supported his activities on earth and his inevitable greatness. The book is based on fresh assessments of relevant ancient historical, literary, astronomical, astrological, and artistic sources for the years prior to and during the life of Augustus. The book combines these sources with astronomical sky maps and astrological diagrams to offer fresh interpretations of critical events in the life of Augustus at a time when the celestial sphere had come to play an important cultural and political role. Topics include the identification of the celestial object that appeared at the ludi in honor of Caesar in 44 B.C.; the Battle of Actium; the iconography of the Tellus Relief Panel on the Ara Pacis Augustae; the Ludi Saeculares; Augustus' major building projects in Rome; and Augustus' interactions with major figures of the period such as Cicero, Caesar, Agrippa, and Antonius"--

China's Early Empires

China's Early Empires
Author: Michael Nylan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 671
Release: 2010-11-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521852978

Shows how recent archaeological discoveries have enriched our perception of the cultural history of China in the Classical era.

The Cosmic Viewpoint

The Cosmic Viewpoint
Author: Gareth D. Williams
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2012-04-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199742510

Seneca's Natural Questions is an eight-book disquisition on the nature of meteorological phenomena, ranging inter alia from rainbows to earthquakes, from comets to the winds, from the causes of snow and hail to the reasons why the Nile floods in summer. Much of this material had been treated in the earlier Greco-Roman meteorological tradition, but what notoriously sets Seneca's writing apart is his insertion of extended moralizing sections within his technical discourse. How, if at all, are these outbursts against the luxury and vice that are apparently rampant in Seneca's first-century CE Rome to be reconciled with his main meteorological agenda? In grappling with this familiar question, The Cosmic Viewpoint argues that Seneca is no blinkered or arid meteorological investigator, but a creative explorer into nature's workings who offers a highly idiosyncratic blend of physico-moral investigation across his eight books. At one level, his inquiry into nature impinges on human conduct and morality in its implicit propagation of the familiar Stoic ideal of living in accordance with nature: the moral deviants whom Seneca condemns in the course of the work offer egregious examples of living contrary to nature's balanced way. At a deeper level, however, The Cosmic Viewpoint stresses the literary qualities and complexities that are essential to Seneca's literary art of science: his technical enquiries initiate a form of engagement with nature which distances the reader from the ordinary involvements and fragmentations of everyday life, instead centering our existence in the cosmic whole. From a figurative standpoint, Seneca's meteorological theme raises our gaze from a terrestrial level of existence to a more intuitive plane where literal vision gives way to 'higher' conjecture and intuition: in striving to understand meteorological phenomena, we progress in an elevating direction - a conceptual climb that renders the Natural Questions no mere store of technical learning, but a work that actively promotes a change of perspective in its readership.