O Império Romano em cartas: glórias romanas em papel e tinta (Plínio, o Jovem e Trajano 98/113 d.C.) (original) (raw)
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Virtue, Consensus, and Authority without Tradition: Cicero’s De imperio Cn. Pompei
Cicero’s first speech as praetor before a contio meeting, De Imperio Cn. Pompei, gives us a sense of the early stages of the development of imperial metaphor. De imp. Cn. Pomp. is an ingenious attempt at articulating a vocabulary of consensus for its audience, which consisted of a large swath of Roman inhabitants in addition to the reading public cultivated by Cicero. It reveals to us the creation of several different areas of public discourse. Many biographers of Cicero and historians of the Roman republic seek the impulses toward their creation in the socio-economic position of Cicero himself, and in his own original assimilation of Greek rhetorical techniques to Roman circumstances. But this explanation is clearly insufficient to explain the public appeal of the extension of the idea of personal patronage (clientela) into the realm of foreign affairs, for instance, and its institutionalization in the late republic and early empire. Certainly, emphasizing the virtus and auctoritas of Rome as compared with its foreign peers and allies was one important way in which the Roman ruling class could legitimate its own imperialist ideology. But the appeal of the argument was also an eminently popularis one. Metaphorical claims to ancestry and precedent consequently play a prominent role in the opening speech of Cicero’s praetorship: they provide a “pre-text” for Roman imperium as it was embodied by first the late republican warrior-generals, and then the emperor himself. They lay the necessary rhetorical groundwork for linking populist claims to imperial politics. This paper will concentrate on three of these: the relationship of Roma/socius as imitative of the traditional Roman relationship of patronus/cliens; the idea that virtus historically grounds the claim of the Roman people to rule over groups that might alternatively have been imagined as peers or rivals within the world of the Hellenistic Mediterranean; and the idea that there is a kind of auctoritas that belongs to the Roman people as a whole.
Pliny's paneg. 82-88 and Trajanic Literature and Culture
MAIA, 2019
This article offers a close reading of chapters 82-88 of Pliny’s Panegyricus. It examines the ways in which the literary texture and techniques of the Panegyricus reflect and shape the social and political climate of the Trajanic age. it is suggested that Pliny’s portrait of Trajan’s otium connects to the contemporary discourse of the recovery of the body politic after Domitian’s tyranny, as well as to Pliny’s own literary career. This paper also discusses how Pliny presents Trajan’s wife and sister, Pompeia Plotina and Ulpia Marciana, as models for how subjects should imitate the emperor, the supreme exemplar.
Abstract (English Version): A Greek Lawgiver in the Epitome of Pompeius Trogus: Justin’s account of Lycurgus This paper aims to explore the perception of the “other” in Latin historiography, analyzing a passage on a Greek lawgiver, Lycurgus of Sparta, in Justin's Epitome of Pompeius Trogus. The purpose is to examine how a Latin writer defines and describes an ancient lawgiver from the Greek tradition, and how Lycurgus can be relevant for the Roman readers during the Imperial Age. In his Epitome of Pompeius Trogus, Justin summarizes, in fact, some crucial information on Lycurgus and his constitution. In the account from the third book, the author provides a biographical sketch on the lawgiver and a summary of the traditional Spartan laws (such as frugal customs, land distribution, the prohibition of gold and silver coins). A closer look at Justin's exposition reveals some elements that this text has in common with Plutarch and other Greek sources. Since Trogus was presumably active during the Augustan age, it is also important to remark that Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus is a later text than the Historiae of Trogus. A re-examination of Justin's text might, therefore, help us to clarify which traditions about Sparta's kosmos the imperial author had selected and included in his Epitome. The taste for anecdotes and moralizing contents is probably one of the reasons why Justin preserves, in the summary of the third book, not only the laws of Sparta but also biographical details on Lycurgus. Thus, this account testifies an interest in the Greek lawgiver as a moral exemplum in the imperial age, appropriate for both Trogus' and Justin's period.
The Fame of Trajan: A Late Antique Invention
Klio, 2022
Trajan’s status as a model emperor is perhaps most famously expressed in Eutropius’ catchphrase “More fortunate than Augustus, better than Trajan” (Eutr. Brev. 8.5.3). Modern scholarship has similarly stressed Trajan’s exemplary status, assuming that Trajan’s virtues were already a point of departure by which to measure second- and third-century emperors. This article challenges that notion; it argues that Trajan’s status as a model emperor was a late-antique literary construct. Trajan only entered the repertoire of exemplary emperors during the course of the fourth century to become the model emperor in the very late-fourth- and early-fifth century. This development depended on the historical context and ideological demands, as well as on the availability of the then-existing material discussing and depicting the historical Trajan.
In this paper we want to offer an approach to Syme's vision of the figure of the imperial advisor, of the people who formed part of the hard core of advisors to the Emperor Augustus, through the analysis of three significant texts of his production as a whole: his best known work, published in 1939, "The Roman Revolution"; a short but important article published in 1961 and the work that constituted his ‘swan song’, "The Augustan Aristocracy", which came out in 1986. En este trabajo queremos ofrecer una aproximación a la visión que Syme tenía de la figura del consejero imperial, de las personas que formaban parte del núcleo duro de asesores del emperador Augusto, a través del análisis de tres textos significativos del conjunto de su producción: su obra más conocida, publicada en 1939, The Roman Revolution; un artículo breve, pero importante, publicado en 1961 y la obra que constituyó su “canto del cisne”, The Augustan Aristocracy, que vio la luz en 1986.
Vigiliae Christianae, 2022
Rufinus’ account of Pliny the Younger’s correspondence with Trajan regarding the treatment of Christians (Ep. 10.96–7) differs from Eusebius’ in three important ways: linking persecution to internal divisions within the Church; accentuating Pliny’s compassion for the Christian dead; and removing his skepticism regarding the Christian worship of a divine Christ. This article analyses these changes in light of Rufinus’ early fifth century context, especially the development of the cult of martyrs in northern Italy, and the Theodosian use of Trajan in imperial representations.
"Studi Classici e Orientali" 67, 2021
Troilus, a native of Side, was the adviser of Anthemius (Emperor Theodosius II’s regent) in the early 5th century AD, although he had no formal office. He was also a sophist (i.e. a skilled and influential rhetorician), and the teacher of rhetoric of several prominent figures in the cultural life of Constantinople. Synesius of Cyrene was also an acquaintance of Troilus: in his letters, Synesius of Cyrene generally defines Troilus as a ‘philosopher’, and only once as a ‘sophist’. The fact that Troilus was interested in philosophy is demonstrated by his "Prolegomena to the Rhetoric of Hermogenes". This work is very probably the only extant writing of Troilus. It is a preparatory reading to rhetorical studies in general (not only to Hermogenes’ rhetoric), and discusses Aristotle’s and Plato’s definitions of rhetoric. The cultural references it contains highlight the meeting points between rhetoric and philosophy in the 5th century, an aspect that was especially evident in the Neoplatonic philosophical school. This paper reconstructs Troilus’ intellectual profile and his relations to the Christian beliefs and institutions, thus contributing to the reflections on the interaction between rhetorical theory and political life in the late antique Roman East.
O. Hekster et al., The Fame of Trajan: A Late Antique Invention, Klio 104:2 (2022), 693-749
2022
Trajan's status as a model emperor is perhaps most famously expressed in Eutropius' catchphrase "More fortunate than Augustus, better than Trajan" (Eutr. Brev. 8.5.3). Modern scholarship has similarly stressed Trajan's exemplary status, assuming that Trajan's virtues were already a point of departure by which to measure second-and third-century emperors. This article challenges that notion; it argues that Trajan's status as a model emperor was a late-antique literary construct. Trajan only entered the repertoire of exemplary emperors during the course of the fourth century to become the model emperor in the very latefourth-and early-fifth century. This development depended on the historical context and ideological demands, as well as on the availability of the then-existing material discussing and depicting the historical Trajan.