E. Muñiz Grijalvo, "Processions and the construction of Roman imperial power", in E. Muñiz Grijalvo-A. del Campo Tejedor (eds.), Processions and the construction of communities: History and comparative perspectives, London-New York: Routledge, 2023, 125-140. (original) (raw)
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or you will live as in a theater in which the spectators are the whole world" (Dio 52.34.2). Dio's citing of an insight he imagines Maecenas having offered to Octavian more than two centuries earlier employs the truth of hindsight. Dio's Maecenas also counseled the young master of the Roman empire on how he might "enjoy fully the reality of monarchy without the odium attached to the name of 'King'" (52.40.2), and that he should "adorn this City with utter disregard for expense and make it magnificent with festivals of every kind" (52.30.1). Dio knew just how well Octavian and his successors had taken such advice to heart. Inside Rome's imperial theaters the spectators were presented with dazzling entertainments calculated to impress them with the glory of their patron, the princeps, whose performative presence added to the excitement and splendor of the occasion. The formal public spectacles -pervasive, massive, and influential as they were -demand our attention. But such performances are only the most obvious example of how the spectacular and the theatrical became progressively embedded in every aspect of public life during Augustus' reign. Indeed, the very city itself, according to Strabo (5.3.8), became a vast mise-en-scène "presenting to the eye the appearance of a stage-painting, offering a spectacle one can hardly draw away from." Its inhabitants too, ruler and ruled alike, were exhorted by the symbols, mythology, poetry, art, and architecture of the age to conceive themselves as actors in a great historical pageant: the expansion, perfection, and celebration of Roman power and Roman achievement. This theatricalization of perception and experience was a major defining element of the language, style, ceremony, and metaphors through Cambridge Collections Online
The Emperor as Impresario: Producing the Pageantry of Power
The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus, 2005
or you will live as in a theater in which the spectators are the whole world" (Dio 52.34.2). Dio's citing of an insight he imagines Maecenas having offered to Octavian more than two centuries earlier employs the truth of hindsight. Dio's Maecenas also counseled the young master of the Roman empire on how he might "enjoy fully the reality of monarchy without the odium attached to the name of 'King'" (52.40.2), and that he should "adorn this City with utter disregard for expense and make it magnificent with festivals of every kind" (52.30.1). Dio knew just how well Octavian and his successors had taken such advice to heart. Inside Rome's imperial theaters the spectators were presented with dazzling entertainments calculated to impress them with the glory of their patron, the princeps, whose performative presence added to the excitement and splendor of the occasion. The formal public spectacles -pervasive, massive, and influential as they were -demand our attention. But such performances are only the most obvious example of how the spectacular and the theatrical became progressively embedded in every aspect of public life during Augustus' reign. Indeed, the very city itself, according to Strabo (5.3.8), became a vast mise-en-scène "presenting to the eye the appearance of a stage-painting, offering a spectacle one can hardly draw away from." Its inhabitants too, ruler and ruled alike, were exhorted by the symbols, mythology, poetry, art, and architecture of the age to conceive themselves as actors in a great historical pageant: the expansion, perfection, and celebration of Roman power and Roman achievement. This theatricalization of perception and experience was a major defining element of the language, style, ceremony, and metaphors through Cambridge Collections Online
Images and Emperors in the Fourth Century AD
In this paper, I will outline the main traits of the research field of Imagology, and raise the question how it could be applied to the study of Roman emperorship, in order to prepare the ground for discussion at the Images and Emperors Conference at Soeterbeeck, Radboud University (17-19 September 2015). Firstly, an example of how different peoples create mutual images of each other will be treated, which will be placed within a research context of Imagology. Then, we will pass to the application of imagological concepts on episodes from Classical Antiquity – especially pertaining to Constantine the Great -, whereafter the theme of emperorship in general will be treated in this context. The paper will end with some considerations about how to use imagological concepts in the study of ancient literature pertaining to emperorship.
Public Rituals and Performance: The Ceremonial Staging of Imperial Authority under Diocletian
The Tetrarchy as Ideology: Reconfigurations and Representations of an Imperial Power, ed. by F. Carlà-Uhink and C. Rollinger, 2023
In parallel with the well-known innovations in the imperial insignia and audience ceremonies (attested by historical sources from the late fourth century onwards), the tetrarchic period saw the development of a new, highly ritualised style of communication between the emperors and the wider public, which will later become an essential characteristic of late antique and Byzantine official self-representation. The new ideology of the joint imperial rule was conveyed and visualised through the organisation of complex public ceremonies, staging in ritual terms the relation of the emperors with one another, as well as with the other social and political forces which constituted the Roman state: the Senate, the army, the bureaucratic elite, the local aristocracies, and the citizens. The traditional ceremonies of the earlier periods, especially the advent and the triumph, underwent profound changes in their rituals and were thus filled with new meanings, perfectly coherent with those expressed by the new insignia and audience etiquette. Textual and visual sources from the fourth century and later allow us an appreciation of these performative changes, although limited to those exceptional events (usually taking place in the city of Rome or in other capital cities) which made their way into the Romans’ cultural memory by being remembered in literary works, as well as in official or private monuments. Through these descriptions, we can grasp some essential characters of the official tetrarchic ideology as they were staged for, and viewed by, the citizens of the most important urban centres of the empire. In contrast with previous imperial ceremonies, the main ritual innovations of the tetrarchic period are aimed not only at emphasising the physical presence of the emperor in front of the people, but also at isolating him from his retinue, conveying to the observer a much more hierarchical image of the imperial power. The episodes examined will include: the official meeting between Diocletian and Maximian, which took place in Milan in AD 288; the staging of Diocletian’s and Galerius’ joint military leadership during the Persian campaign of AD 296-297; and the solemn ceremony held in Rome in AD 303, celebrating at once the twentieth anniversary of Diocletian and Maximian’s joint rule and their triumph over the Persians. Particular attention will be devoted to the latter episode, which is particularly well documented by visual sources (including numismatic evidence), and which will be remembered as the last triumphal ceremony in the history of Rome.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/social-dynamics-of-roman-imperial-imagery/introduction/5C34B27B23A00E6B170A0ECFCFD49792 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108891714.001 The introductory chapter explores the methodology of approaching imperial imagery, from definitions and categorisations to modes of analysis. Defining imperial imagery as imagery that relates to imperial power, the authors reject universal models that purport to encompass all aspects of the production and use of such images in favour of context-based approaches which focus on the ways in which they became embedded in local image systems. The authors single out social dynamics, a term borrowed from economics, sociology, and psychology indicating how large-scale phenomena are the sum of many individual interactions. Social dynamics gives a way to understand how and why imperial imagery was created and used in Roman society at all levels. Imperial imagery had roles to play beyond the emperor’s own sphere, and he was often neither its author nor its audience; instead, individuals used imperial images to communicate with their immediate neighbours, geographically and socially. Multiple users and viewers across the spatial and social spectrums of the empire (and beyond) brought their own experiences to imperial images, and to understand them, we must analyse them in their local contexts.
Papers of the British School at Rome 82 (2014): 73-107, 2014
The Colosseum is well understood as a dynastic monument that was key to the Flavian building programme and to Flavian ideology. From this point of view it has been approached as the fulfilment of Augustus's ambition for a large-scale amphitheatre, as serving to diminish Nero's memory as it was constructed on the atrium of his dismantled Golden House, and as a victory monument built with the spoils of the Jewish War. One important political aspect of this dynastic monument has been largely overlooked: its connection with emperor worship. Outside Rome, it is well known that amphitheatres served as a venue for the procession and placement of imperial cult images; in Rome, the Circus Maximus and the theatres were venues for the display of imperial images and attributes brought in during their respective pompae. Through the deployment of textual, topographical and visual evidence, this article demonstrates that the Colosseum also had a pulvinar that displayed images and attributes of the gods and divi brought in during the pompa. The location of the pulvinar and the mechanisms by which it was serviced are explored, as are the ideological implications of cultic activity in the Colosseum.Il Colosseo è considerato un monumento dinastico, chiave del programma edilizio e dell'ideologia flavia. Da questo punto di vista è stato considerato in molti modi: compimento del desiderio di Augusto di un anfiteatro di grandi dimensioni, o ancora la sua edificazione è stata letta come volontà di oblio di Nerone, essendo stato costruito sull'atrio della demolita Domus Aurea e anche come monumento legato alla vittoria di un evento bellico, costruito con le prede della guerra giudaica. Tuttavia un importante aspetto politico di questo monumento dinastico è stato ampiamente tralasciato: la sua connessione con il culto imperiale. Al di fuori di Roma, è ben noto come gli anfiteatri servissero come sede per la processione e per collocarvi le immagini di culto imperiali. In Roma il Circo Massimo e i teatri erano sedi in cui venivano esibiti le immagini imperiali e gli attributi portati durante le rispettive pompae. Attraverso l'analisi di testi, fonti topografiche e iconografiche, il presente articolo dimostra come il Colosseo fosse fornito anche di un pulvinar, in cui venivano esposte immagini e attributi degli dei e divi portati nella processione. Vengono esaminati la localizzazione del pulvinar e il meccanismo di manutenzione, nonché le implicazioni ideologiche dell'attività cultuale all'interno del Colosseo.
The Emperor's New Images – How to Honour the Emperor in the Christian Empire?
2016
This article discusses the sacredness of Roman emperors during the late Roman Empire, in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. as the Empire was gradually Christianized. I shall argue that the imperial ideology with the sacred emperor, which had developed in the preceding centuries, was adopted with a few modifications. The most important of the modifications was "tidying up" of emperor worship using animal sacrifices. Imperial images for the most part retained the associations and connotations they had earlier had with prestige, authority and divinity. In this article, I discuss the difficulties and ambiguities with the sacredness of emperors in the Christianizing Empire, focusing on imperial images. The analysis of a few fourth-and fifth-century Christian writers (for example, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, the anonymous Consultationes Zacchaei et Apollonii, Philostorgius, Severianus of Gabala and Pseudo-Theophilus of Alexandria) reveals a varied and complex set of attitudes towards traditional emperor worship, depending on the socio-political context of the writings. All these views must be examined as part of the debates in which they participate, as in the case of John Chrysostom's homilies in connection with the Riot of Statues in Antioch in 387, or Philostorgius' statements as connected with the disputes between Homoian and Nicene Christians.
This article discusses the sacredness of Roman emperors during the late Roman Empire, in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. as the Empire was gradually Christianized. I shall argue that the imperial ideology with the sacred emperor, which had developed in the preceding centuries, was adopted with a few modifications. The most important of the modifications was " tidying up " of emperor worship using animal sacrifices. Imperial images for the most part retained the associations and connotations they had earlier had with prestige, authority and divinity. In this article, I discuss the difficulties and ambiguities with the sacredness of emperors in the Christianizing Empire, focusing on imperial images. The analysis of a few fourth-and fifth-century Christian writers (for example, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, the anonymous Consultationes Zacchaei et Apollonii, Philostorgius, Severianus of Gabala and Pseudo-Theophilus of Alexandria) reveals a varied and complex set of attitudes towards traditional emperor worship, depending on the socio-political context of the writings. All these views must be examined as part of the debates in which they participate, as in the case of John Chrysostom's homilies in connection with the Riot of Statues in Antioch in 387, or Philostorgius' statements as connected with the disputes between Homoian and Nicene Christians.
Imperial Monumentalism, Ceremony, and Forms of Pageantry
The Oxford World History of Empire, Volume I: The Imperial Experience, 2021
Taking the figure of the obelisk as its organizing principle, this chapter considers the dynamic, performative, and commemorative dimensions of empire. Over time and across cultures, obelisks have come to anchor imperial ceremonial across such broad terrain as ancient Egypt, Augustan Rome, Byzantine Constantinople (New Rome), and Ottoman Kostantiniyye. In surveying these diverse contexts marked by great monoliths, this chapter traces the relationship between imperial ritual as performed in time and over time and the persistent monumental articulations that structured and memorialized those ephemeral performances. By presenting a focused analysis of the dynamic relationship between concrete and ephemeral performances of imperial ceremonial over a nearly global scale, this chapter insists on the importance of a diachronic view of the long interactions of empires from the New Kingdom Egypt to the Ottoman Empire and beyond.