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Constructing Autocracy : Aristocrats and Emperors in Julio-Claudian Rome / Matthew B. Roller.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2001]Copyright date: ©2001Description: 1 online resourceContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691050218
  • 9781400824090
Subject(s): Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- INTRODUCTION -- PART ONE. ETHICS AND IMPERIAL IDEOLOGY -- Chapter One. THE ETHICS OF CIVIL WAR: COMPETING COMMUNITIES IN LUCAN -- Chapter Two. ETHICS FOR THE PRINCIPATE: SENECA, STOICISM, AND TRADITIONAL ROMAN MORALITY -- PART TWO. FIGURING THE EMPEROR -- Chapter Three. THE EMPEROR'S AUTHORITY: DINING, EXCHANGE, AND SOCIAL HIERARCHY -- Chapter Four. MODELING THE EMPEROR: THE MASTER-SLAVE RELATIONSHIP AND ITS ALTERNATIVES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- GENERAL INDEX
Summary: 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.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400824090

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- INTRODUCTION -- PART ONE. ETHICS AND IMPERIAL IDEOLOGY -- Chapter One. THE ETHICS OF CIVIL WAR: COMPETING COMMUNITIES IN LUCAN -- Chapter Two. ETHICS FOR THE PRINCIPATE: SENECA, STOICISM, AND TRADITIONAL ROMAN MORALITY -- PART TWO. FIGURING THE EMPEROR -- Chapter Three. THE EMPEROR'S AUTHORITY: DINING, EXCHANGE, AND SOCIAL HIERARCHY -- Chapter Four. MODELING THE EMPEROR: THE MASTER-SLAVE RELATIONSHIP AND ITS ALTERNATIVES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- GENERAL INDEX

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

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.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)