Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective

Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective PDF Author: Richard Flower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107328667
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
This innovative study illuminates the role of polemical literature in the political life of the Roman empire by examining the earliest surviving invectives directed against a living emperor. Written by three bishops (Athanasius of Alexandria, Hilary of Poitiers, Lucifer of Cagliari), these texts attacked Constantius II (337–61) for his vicious and tyrannical behaviour, as well as his heretical religious beliefs. This book explores the strategies employed by these authors to present themselves as fearless champions of liberty and guardians of faith, as they sought to bolster their authority at a time when they were out of step with the prevailing imperial view of Christian orthodoxy. Furthermore, by analysing this unique collection of writings alongside late antique panegyrics and ceremonial, it also rehabilitates anti-imperial polemic as a serious political activity and explores the ways in which it functioned within the complex web of presentations and perceptions that underpinned late Roman power relationships.

Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective

Emperors and Bishops in Late Roman Invective PDF Author: Richard Flower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107328667
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Get Book

Book Description
This innovative study illuminates the role of polemical literature in the political life of the Roman empire by examining the earliest surviving invectives directed against a living emperor. Written by three bishops (Athanasius of Alexandria, Hilary of Poitiers, Lucifer of Cagliari), these texts attacked Constantius II (337–61) for his vicious and tyrannical behaviour, as well as his heretical religious beliefs. This book explores the strategies employed by these authors to present themselves as fearless champions of liberty and guardians of faith, as they sought to bolster their authority at a time when they were out of step with the prevailing imperial view of Christian orthodoxy. Furthermore, by analysing this unique collection of writings alongside late antique panegyrics and ceremonial, it also rehabilitates anti-imperial polemic as a serious political activity and explores the ways in which it functioned within the complex web of presentations and perceptions that underpinned late Roman power relationships.

Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire

Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004370927
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire offers new critical analysis of the textual depictions of a series of emperors in the fourth century within overlapping historical, religious and literary contexts.

Emperors and Emperorship in Late Antiquity

Emperors and Emperorship in Late Antiquity PDF Author: María Pilar García Ruiz
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004446923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
In this volume, nine contributions deal with the ways in which imperial power was exercised in the fourth century AD, paying particular attention to how it was articulated and manipulated by means of literary strategies and iconographic programmes.

Christ the Emperor

Christ the Emperor PDF Author: Nathan Israel Smolin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019768954X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
The Roman Empire of the fourth century AD, ruled by the Emperor Constantine the Great, was a society marked by social, religious, and political transformation as the empire came under the influence of the Christian Church. To understand how this period's emperors and bishops, among other political and social actors, thought about and enacted political theory, Nathan Israel Smolin turns to theological sources, revealing an age of profound political, social, and religious ferment, in which ideas and structures fundamental to the history of the following millennia were developed and contested--ideas that continue to shape our world today.

Gaining and Losing Imperial Favour in Late Antiquity

Gaining and Losing Imperial Favour in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Kamil Cyprian Choda
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004411798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
The volume Gaining and Losing Imperial Favour in Late Antiquity studies fundamental dynamics of the political culture of the Later Roman Empire (4th and 5th centuries A.D.) by examining how people rose in and fell from the emperor’s favour.

The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity

The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity PDF Author: Caillan Davenport
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192865234
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity examines the Roman imperial court as a social and political institution in both the Principate and Late Antiquity. By analysing these two periods, which are usually treated separately in studies of the Roman court, it considers continuities, changes, and connections in the six hundred years between the reigns of Augustus and Justinian. Thirteen case studies are presented. Some take a thematic approach, analysing specific aspects such as the appointment of jurists, the role of guard units, or stories told about the court, over several centuries. Others concentrate on specific periods, individuals, or office holders, like the role of women and generals in the fifth century AD, while paying attention to their wider historical significance. The volume concludes with a chapter placing the evolution of the Roman imperial court in comparative perspective using insights from scholarship on other Eurasian monarchical courts. It shows that the long-term transformation of the Roman imperial court did not follow a straightforward and linear course, but came about as the result of negotiation, experimentation, and adaptation.

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450

Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity, 350-450 PDF Author: Maijastina Kahlos
Publisher:
ISBN: 019006725X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity reconsiders the religious history of the late Roman Empire, focusing on the shifting position of dissenting religious groups - conventionally called "pagans" and "heretics". The period from the mid-fourth century until the mid-fifth century CE witnessed asignificant transformation of late Roman society and a gradual shift from the world of polytheistic religions into the Christian Empire.This book challenges the many straightforward melodramatic narratives of the Christianisation of the Roman Empire, still prevalent both in academic research and in popular non-fiction works. Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity demonstrates that the narrative is much more nuanced than the simpleChristian triumph over the classical world. It looks at everyday life, economic aspects, day-to-day practices, and conflicts of interest in the relations of religious groups.Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity addresses two aspects: rhetoric and realities, and consequently, delves into the interplay between the manifest ideologies and daily life found in late antique sources. It is a detailed analysis of selected themes and a close reading of selected texts, tracing keyelements and developments in the treatment of dissident religious groups. The book focuses on specific themes, such as the limits of imperial legislation and ecclesiastical control, the end of sacrifices, and the label of magic. Religious Dissent in Late Antiquity examines the ways in whichdissident religious groups were construed as religious outsiders, but also explores local rituals and beliefs in late Roman society as creative applications and expressions of the infinite range of human inventiveness.

Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire

Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire PDF Author: Adrastos Omissi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198824823
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Civil war and usurpation were endemic to the later Roman Empire, with no fewer than 37 men claiming imperial power between 284 and 395 AD. This volume constructs the first comprehensive history of civil war in this period through the ways in which successive dynasties manipulated history to legitimate themselves and to discredit their predecessors.

Emperors and Rhetoricians

Emperors and Rhetoricians PDF Author: Moysés Marcos
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520394976
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Panegyric, the art of publicly praising prominent political figures, occupied an important place in the Roman Empire throughout late antiquity. Orators were skilled political actors who manipulated the conventions of praise giving, taking great license with what they chose to present (or omit). Their ancient speeches are rare windows into the world of panegyrists, emperors, and their audiences. In Emperors and Rhetoricians, Moysés Marcos offers an original, comprehensive look at all panegyrics to and by Julian, who in 355/56 CE promoted himself as a learned caesar by producing his own panegyric on his cousin and Augustan benefactor, Constantius II. During key stages in his public career and throughout the time he held imperial power, Julian experimented with and utilized panegyric as both political communication and political opportunity. Marcos expertly mines this vast body of work to uncover a startlingly new picture of Julian the Apostate, explore anew the arc of his career in imperial office, and model new ways to interpret and understand imperial speeches of praise.

Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity

Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Richard Flower
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192542656
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The topic of religious identity in late antiquity is highly contentious. How did individuals and groups come to ascribe identities based on what would now be known as 'religion', categorizing themselves and others with regard to Judaism, Manichaeism, traditional Greek and Roman practices, and numerous competing conceptions of Christianity? How and why did examples of self-identification become established, activated, or transformed in response to circumstances? To what extent do labels (whether ancient and modern) for religious categories reflect a sense of a unified and enduring social or group identity for those included within them? How does religious identity relate to other forms of ancient identity politics (for example, ethnic discourse concerning 'barbarians')? Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity responds to the recent upsurge of interest in this issue by developing interdisciplinary research between classics, ancient and medieval history, philosophy, religion, patristics, and Byzantine studies, expanding the range of evidence standardly used to explore these questions. In exploring the malleability and potential overlapping of religious identities in late antiquity, as well as their variable expressions in response to different public and private contexts, it challenges some prominent scholarly paradigms. In particular, rhetoric and religious identity are here brought together and simultaneously interrogated to provide mutual illumination: in what way does a better understanding of rhetoric (its rules, forms, practices) enrich our understanding of the expression of late-antique religious identity? How does an understanding of how religious identity was ascribed, constructed, and contested provide us with a new perspective on rhetoric at work in late antiquity?