Combines material and literary cultural approaches to the study of the reception of Augustus and his age during the reign of the emperor Domitian

Table of contents

Table of Contents
 
List of Contributors
List of Figures
 
Introduction (Raymond Marks and Marcello Mogetta)
 
Part I: Urban Narratives
1. Assemblages and Appropriation of Augustan Art and Topography in Flavian Rome (Diane Atnally Conlin)
2. Domitian and the Augustan Altars (Megan Goldman-Petri)
3. Legacy Revisited: Augustus and Domitian in the Imperial Fora and the Roman Forum (Daira Nocera)
 
Part II: Gods and Models
4. Identifying Demi-Gods: Augustus, Domitian, and Hercules (Eric M. Moormann and Claire Stocks)
5. Arcahne and Lucretia: A Domitianic Perspective? (Emma Buckley)
 
Part III: From Nero to Augustus
6. Looking Back When Foretelling the Future: Panegyric Prophecies in Augustan, Neronian and Domitianic Poetry (Lisa Cordes)
7. Parce Pater: Martial’s “Augustan” Commentary on Domitianic Rome in Epigram 5.7 (Virginia Closs)
8. The Return of Jupiter: Aeneid 1, Punica 1, and Silius’ Post-Lucanian Theology (Ludovico Pontiggia)
 
Part IV: Poetic Journeys
9. Revisiting Ovid’s House of Somnus in Statius’ Thebaid (Emma Scioli)
10. Quid restat profugis? “Victorious Exile” in Silius Italicus’ Punica (Clayton Schroer)
11. Augustan to the End: Poetry, Politics and Memory in Statius’ Silvae Book 4 (Jean-Michel Hulls)
 
Part V: History and Reception
12. An Ambiguous Attitude: Augustus and Domitian’s Policy towards Senators and Freedmen (Egidio Incelli)
13. Domitian’s Aftermath: Nerva’s Rome and the Augustan Legacy in Sculpture and Coinage (Nathan Elkins)
 
Bibliography and Abbreviations
 

Description

The legacy of the Roman emperor Augustus and the culture of his age was profound and immediately evident after his death in 14 CE. His first four successors based their claims to rule on kinship with him, thus establishing the Julio-Claudian dynasty (14–68 CE), and plied an evolving form of the Principate, the political arrangement Augustus carved out for himself. His building and restoration programs gave the city an “Augustan” appearance that remained relatively unchanged throughout subsequent reigns. And, among literary luminaries of his age, figures such as Horace and Ovid left an indelible mark on the poetic practices of future generations while Virgil insinuated himself still more deeply into the Roman psyche. But it was after the reigns of Augustus’ own descendants, oddly enough, that we witness the most spirited and thoroughgoing engagement with the Augustan past; during the reign of the emperor Domitian, the third and last ruler of the subsequent Flavian dynasty (81–96 CE), there was a veritable Augustan renaissance.

This volume represents the first book-length treatment of the reception of Augustus and his age during the reign of Domitian. Its thirteen chapters, authored by an international group of scholars, offer readers a glimpse into the fascinating history and culture of Domitian’s Rome and its multifaceted engagement with the Augustan past. Combining material and literary cultural approaches and covering a diverse range of topics—art, architecture, literature, history, law—the studies in this volume capture the rich complexity of the Augustan legacy in Domitian’s Rome while also revising our understanding of Domitian’s own legacy. Far from being the cruel tyrant history has made him out to be, Domitian emerges as a studious, thoughtful cultivator of the Augustan past who helped shape an age that not only took inspiration from that past, but managed to rival it.

Raymond Marks is Associate Professor, Department of Ancient Mediterranean Studies, University of Missouri.

Marcello Mogetta is Assistant Professor, Department of Ancient Mediterranean Studies, University of Missouri.

“This volume serves as an excellent starting point to re-evaluate pre-conceived notions of Domitian’s reign and provides a comprehensive study of the reception of Augustus’ legacy during the final decades of the 1st century CE. By examining Domitian’s reign through the lens of its Augustan Legacy, the reader gains an appreciation for how it was not only particular emperors that drew on Augustus’ memory to serve their own political purposes but also artists, poets, and architects." – Gwynaeth McIntyre, University of Otago
 

- Gwynaeth McIntyre

"Marks and Mogetta have produced a volume whose groundbreaking and nuanced contributions manifestly attest to the pervasive and multifaceted engagement of Domitian and his age with the rich literary and material cultural legacy of the Augustan past."
The Classical Review

- The Classical Review