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Chomse, S. 2018. ‘Instability and the sublime in Martial’s Liber spectaculorum’ in D. A. Krasne and L. Donovan Ginsberg eds. After 69 CE: Writing Civil War in Flavian Rome. Berlin: 387-410

Krasne, D. A. and L. Donovan Ginsberg eds. After 69 CE: Writing Civil War in Flavian Rome. Berlin, 2018

This chapter explores tensions produced by the irreconcilable contradictions of epigram’s simultaneous monumentality and ephemerality. She argues for a concinnity between the transformative building programs of Martial’s text and Flavian Rome: the deconstruction and reconstruction of the Julio-Claudian and Neronian into the Flavian, the monumental disassembled and cannibalized into the differently monumental, is a project that equally well describes the Liber Spectaculorum and the city which serves as its canvas and backdrop. Even the very spectacula it narrates are built from fragments of a former monumentum, as Lucan’s grand epic of civil war is torn apart to provide the raw materials for Martial’s narration of the Colosseum’s uenationes. This chapter finds civil war remembered and reformed by Martial; metaphorised as the great destabiliser. With Rome still trembling in the wake of the fall of Nero and the subsequent civil clashes of 69 CE, instability is the implicit order of the day as the new Colosseum opens its doors. In the Liber Spectaculorum, bellum ciuile is blurred backwards into bellum Neronis: thus destabilised, the memory of civil war can be reformed. Nero’s Domus aurea––the private pleasure palace of a tyrant in this text––becomes the cosmic palace of the people, where Lucan’s civil war games are performed anew as spectacular tricks. Beneath these monumental transformations the same architecture inheres and the same proportions loom. Neither Nero nor civil war are forgotten, but the thrill of the sublime allows Martial to change their form and to connect with a poetic legacy that makes an unlikely monumentum of his unstable opus.

Roman Social History: Recent Interpretations

1975

One of the main growth-points in the study of the classical period is in social history. This is also a field of research in which the Greek or Roman historian benefits particularly from an acquaintance with the work of his colleagues in mediaeval and modern history. In the hope that two-way communication may be useful, I shall try in this article to indicate some of the main trends in recent work in Roman social history and to mention those books and articles which seem to offer the most useful comparative material. The focu~ will be on the period of the late Republic and early Principate , with 200 B.C. and A.D. 200 as approximate termini at either end, and priority will be given to work written in English, to recent publications (which can generally be relied upon to give bibliography) and to work which is not only useful, but comprehensible to the non-classicist. 1 I apologise for any inadvertent or ill-advised omissions: if I fail to mention a work, it does not necessarily fail to meet these criteria. The questions asked by Roman social historians are similar to those asked by mediaeval or modern historians. Because these tend to be the sort of questions the Romans did not ask, or the sort to which their historiographers did not give an answer, the sources are recalcitrant. They are also scanty or patchy. Data come not from archives, but from scattered notices in the historians, who were concerned primarily with politics, war and the upper class; from other Greek and Latin literature, biographies, plays, poetry, private letters, novels, forensic oratory, technical writings, philosophy; from the only "counter-cultural" literature which flourished in the Graeco-Roman world, Jewish and Christian writings-* Department of Classical Studies, University of Ottawa. This article is an offshoot of more specialised research sponsored by the Canada Council in 1971-1973. I am also indebted to my colleague Dr. C.M. Wells for many improvements of matter and presentation , and for supplying my deficiencies in fields in which he is an authority. Any sins of omission and commission which remain are my own, and like any anthology this list reflects personal taste. 10 "Introduzione a Ronald Syme , Th e Roman Revolution," in A. MOMIGLIANO , Terzo contributo al/a storia degli studi classici e de/ mondo antico (Rome : Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1966) : 729-737 ; p. 730: " Syme ha ' namierizzato' la constituzione di Augusto. " But Momigliano does not claim that the Namierisation was deliberate. 11 L.c. (n .5) , p. 113.

William J. Dominik, ‘Vergil’s Geopolitics’, in W. J. Dominik, J. Garthwaite and P. Roche (eds), Writing Politics in Imperial Rome (Leiden/Boston: E. J. Brill 2009) 111–132.

William Dominik’s chapter on Vergil examines the concept of "geopolitics," which he refers to generally as constituting the relationship between political and geographical features of the text. Maintaining that “green politics” function as an essential component of the Vergilian narrative, Dominik asserts that political events frequently are treated in terms of the physical world in which they occur. The focus upon the natural environment reveals its vulnerability to the politico-military and urban worlds and the sympathy of the narrator for the environment and its denizens. The conflict that arises in all three poems is attributable to the attempts of man to establish hegemony over the landscape. Through a holistic and intertextual reading of the “book” of Vergil—the Eclogues, Georgics, and the Aeneid—a picture of the natural world emerges in which the “forces of history” and the poet’s sympathetic response to the victims of Rome’s imperial past are emphasized over the “political teleology” of the individual poems.

CJ-Online 2017.03.03, review of Jeremy Armstrong, War and Society in Early Rome: From Warlords to Generals, CUP 2016

Armstrong's new book on warfare in early Rome (c. 570-338 bce) presents us with a much appreciated opportunity to revisit discussions on the significant impact of warfare on (early) Roman society. In six chronological chapters, Armstrong presents his thesis: Roman society from the 6 th to the 4 th centuries bce transformed from a coalition of warlords into a civic society with an army fighting for common goals. He rejects old hellenocentric models (esp. 10-11), instead relying heavily on van Wees highly revisionist 2004 book (Greek Warfare: Myth and Realities). A metanarrative approach is suggested (16), focusing on the big themes (17: a new paradigm).

Venerari contendere adicere: Roman Emulation, Intergenerational Reciprocity, and the Ancient Idea of Progress, Athenaeum 107.1 (2019), pp. 94-127

Over the past few decades, the successful emergence of intertextuality, with its careful investigation of the dynamics of imitation, allusion, and emulation, has effectively challenged the Romantic notions of creativity and individual authorship. In the wide-open field left by the postmodern ‘death of the author’, however, the territory of culture as a network of patterns hiding behind the text has often been restricted within the boundaries of literary culture. In this paper, I will attempt to enlarge such a text-centred perspective by highlighting the often neglected connections between family education, intergenerational reciprocity, and aesthetic thought in Roman culture. Indeed, long before the neoteroi started to seed their poems with ‘Alexandrian footnotes’, there existed at Rome a culturally embedded set of patterns providing concrete instructions on how a Roman had to imitate his models and compete with them. As emblematically attested in aristocratic epitaphs, a young Roman was expected to consciously situate himself in the line of his 'genus', striving to imitate, and possibly to surpass, the virtues of his ancestors – the 'maiores' immortalized by the masks in the 'atria'. By reassessing Cicero’s, Seneca’s, and Quintilian’s approaches to 'aemulatio' and their underlying sociological backgrounds, I will point to several conceptual traits which cross the boundaries between cultural and literary memory and shape the 'Bildung' of such learned writers as Horace: from the faith in the endlessly advancing progress of generations to the fear of reproducing ancestral vices, from the depiction of previous models as stimulatingly imperfect portraits to the creative manipulation of genealogical identities.

Review of Lifes of a Roman Neighborhood in The Classical Review

S. Kostof's The City Shaped (1991) has inspired innumerable studies of urbanism and continues to provide a guide for those exploring the politics of urban layout, its builders and processes of change. Following K. Lynch and L. Mumford, Kostof argued that we must see the city as 'a human artifact' (Kostof, p. 9), shaped by historic and cultural processes over time both intentional and unwitting. He argued therefore that urban form is 'a receptacle of meaning' that can be understood only with adequate knowledge of those same contexts obtained from a variety of source material such as art, maps and texts. Such is the approach taken in J.'s Lives of a Roman Neighborhood. This is J.'s second book following Campus Martius (2014) and is similarly the first English monograph written about a subject well-researched but never synthesised into one narrative spanning such a time frame. J. focuses on a 'slice of an urban landscape' north of the Tiber Island (p. 2), which, in antiquity, encompassed the Theatre of Balbus, the Crypta Balbi, the Theatre of Marcellus, the perimeter of the Circus Flaminius and numerous other porticoes and temples. Later it would be designated by medieval administrations as the Sant'Angelo rione and enclose the Jewish Ghetto systematically demolished by the Liberal and Fascist governments in their sanitation and excavation campaigns. In ten chronological chapters, each split into major phases of development, J. explores physical aspects of urban change from antiquity to the present day with three Kostof-esque questions in mind: how 'location and topography influence development over time', how 'existing development attracts still further alterations to the landscape' and how 'earlier development may be imprinted upon the landscape or otherwise preserved to influence future changes' (p. 3). To this he adds the relationship between 'development' and 'memory', specifically 'depositories of memory', which, as theorised briefly in the introductory chapter, include ruins, inscriptions and toponyms: the spatial forms in which 'the past seeps through Rome's later urban fabric and often guides future patterns of development' (p. 2). This is ultimately both a study of ancient Roman urbanism and a work of memorialisation. It comes shortly after two edited volumes published by the Impact of the Ancient City project (ERC, Cambridge) that have similarly dealt with how the material and symbolic aspects of Graeco-Roman urbanism interact as they are transmitted: Remembering and Forgetting (2022) and Cities as Palimpsests? (2022), both of which critically question how the past is remembered, layered, stripped back and reconfigured to suit political interests. To address all these ideas in one book across 25 centuries is ambitious, and J.'s discussion is mostly clear and compelling. At times the writing becomes descriptive but is kept lively by strong passages of argumentation particularly in the ancient and Renaissance chapters. J. explores throughout how space is shaped top down, whether this is to manage earthquakes and floods or peoples and pasts. A key theme, therefore, is intention, and J. makes persuasive points about Augustus' motivations siting the Theatre of Marcellus, suggesting the arcades functioned as a form of crowd control or THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

Aelianus Tacticus: A phalanx of problems. – C. Matthew, rev., trans., ed., The Tactics of Aelian, or On the Military Arrangements of the Greeks: A New Translation of the Manual That Influenced Warfare for Fifteen Centuries

Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2016

Table of contents of fascicule 2 Review articles and long reviews N. Rafel Fontanals The elusive state of the 'Tartessos question' in the Iberian peninsula P. van Dommelen Il sacro e il profano: cultural entanglements and ritual practices in the classical world I. E. M. Edlund-Berry Etruria, Rome and Latium: influences on early podium temples M. Gualtieri Landscape changes and the rural economy of the Metaponto region F. Colivicchi The Italic settlement of Civita di Tricarico in Lucania S. Angiolillo La cultura della Sardegna repubblicana S. Bernard A conference on fortification walls in Italy and elsewhere E. L. Wheeler Aelianus Tacticus: a phalanx of problems A. Thein The urban image of the Campus Martius J. A. Latham Movement, experience, and urbanism in ancient Rome P. Gros Le mausolée du "grand bâtisseur" M. Squire Ignotum per ignotius? Pompeii, Vergil and the "Museum of Augustus" L. A. Mazurek Writing a postmodern art history of classical Italy P. Herz Vergöttlichte Kaiser und Kultstatuen R. Ling Recent workshops on ancient surface decoration C. Lightfoot A splendid and well-merited Festschrift on glass M. Vickers True luxury in antiquity E. Bartman Musei Capitolini and Dresden: two state-of-the-art portrait catalogues, including portraits of children S. Treggiari Training for marriage E. Jewell Another social history of Roman "youth", with questions about its restlessness M. George Putting slaves back into the picture E. E. Mayer Was there a culture of the Roman plebs? L. M. Stirling Textiles and children in ancient cemeteries K. M. Coleman A mixed border au naturel E. Cova To each his own? Intimacy in the Roman house A. Russell From public to private, and back again D. S. Potter The organization of the Roman games N. Morley A Festschrift honouring Jean Andreau M. S. Hobson Needs, wants, and unwelcome disciples: neoclassical economics and the ancient Mediterranean R. Laurence Connectivity, roads and transport: essays on Roman roads to speak to other disciplines? P. Faure Histoire et archéologie d'un lieu de pouvoir J. C. Fant A milestone in the history of the Roman trade in stones A. Marzano A workshop on fish-salting V. H. Pennanen New perspectives on Roman funerary art and culture R. Gordon On the problems of initiation A. Gavini Il potere e i culti isiaci o il potere dei culti isiaci? F. S. Kleiner Architectura numismatica in context A. Alexandridis A close study of the emissions of an imperial spouse Table of contents of fascicule 2 (continued) W. E. Metcalf Analyzing the silver coinage from Nero to Trajan E. Marlowe Back to the Age of Anxiety / Età dell'Angoscia M. Junkelmann The army of the Caesars: a compendium on the relationship between archaeology and history J. P. Bodel The diaspora of ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions M. Beckmann New old photographs of the Column of Trajan J. A. Pinto A long-awaited collection on the Pantheon D. C. Keenan-Jones Fountains, lead pipes and water systems in Pompeii, Rome and the Roman West in their cultural and architectural contexts A. Emmerson A synthesis in English on the tombs of Pompeii I. Miliaresis The final report on the structure of the Terme del Nuotatore at Ostia C. Bruun Religion and Christianization at Ostia, c.250-c.800: a complicated story D. Gorostidi Pi A propósito de un estado de la cuestión de la epigrafía de Benevento romana J. V. S. Megaw A conquest-period ritual site at Hallaton (Leics.) J. Lundock Small finds and urbanism in Roman Britain G. Sauron L'art à la péripherie de l'empire: romanisation ou identité? K. Cassibry Enameled "souvenirs" from Roman Britain F. Baratte Le trésor de Berthouville Ph. Leveau & R. Royet Archéologie des campagnes lyonnaises en Val de Saône le long de la voie de l'Océan J. Ruiz de Arbulo Leyendo estatuas, interpretando epígrafes, definiendo espacios de representación en la Galia meridional B. Díaz Ariño Nuevas perspectivas en el estudio de la actividad militar romana en Hispania durante época republicana A. Roth Congès Le temple de la Grange-des-Dîmes à Avenches J. Lund A meticulous study of N African pottery from Augsburg (Raetia) D. R. Hernandez The decorative architecture of Hellenistic and Roman Epirus J. L. Rife Surveying Sikyon from the State to the Land K. W. Slane Pottery from an intensive survey at Sikyon M. Bonifay Afrique(s) romaine(s): une économie socialement imbriquée W. E. Metcalf North Africa's largest known gold hoard J. Freed A Dutch take on Carthage G. Mazzilli La decorazione architettonica di Lepcis Magna in pietra locale G. Claytor Roman taxation in the Hermopolite nome of Egypt M. Parca Petitions written on papyrus: glimpses of non-élite Egyptians in the Roman imperial enterprise J. Elsner The Tetrarchic cult room in the temple at Luxor S. E. Sidebotham A conference on Indo-Mediterranean commerce S. T. Parker The material culture and mission of the Late Roman army on the southeastern imperial frontier T. Kaizer The future of Palmyrene studies C. P. Jones The records of delegations to the oracle at Claros W. Slater The "explosion" and "implosion" of agones G. Kron Palladius and the achievements of Roman agronomy in late antiquity R. Van Dam Rome and imperial barbarism in A.D. 410 A. H. Merrills Yves Modéran's posthumous book on the Vandals A. H. Merrills Confiscation, appropriation and barbarian settlement 30+ years after Goffart B. Anderson In search of late Roman porticoes K. Harper The holy poor M. Nikolic Late-antique and early Byzantine renewable energy R. Ousterhout The final report on two churches at Sardis U. Yiftach Dividing a family estate in the early 6th c. A.D. J. Patrich An archaeological study of Syriac churches J. Clarke The Western reception of Roman homosexuality R. B. Hitchner Beau Geste? A problematic book on the French colonial treatment of Roman antiquities in 19th-c. Algeria and Tunisia W. V. Harris M. I. Rostovtzeff, E. Bickerman, and the history of scholarship J. P. Oleson Addressing the destruction of shipwrecks by trawlers An inventory of mass graves (to accompany an article in JRA 28 [2015]) M. McCormick Tracking mass death during the fall of Rome's empire (II) M. McCormick