The memory of the Roman Republic exercised a powerful influence on several generations of Romans who lived under its political and cultural successor, the Principate or Empire. Empire and Memory explores how (and why) that memory manifested itself over the course of the early Principate. Making use of the close relationship between memoria and historia in Roman thought and drawing on modern studies of historical memory, this book offers case-studies of major imperial authors from the reign of Tiberius to that of Trajan (AD 14–117). The memory evident in literature is linked to that imprinted on Rome's urban landscape, with special attention paid to the Forum of Augustus and the Forum of Trajan, both which are particularly suggestive reminders of the transition from a time when the memory of the Republic was highly valued and celebrated to one when its grip had begun to loosen.

Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture

Preface. 1 Latin and Indo-European. 2 The Languages of Italy. 3 The Background to Standardization. 4 'Old' Latin and its Varieties in the Period c.400--150 BC. 5 The Road to Standardization: Roman Latin of the Third and Second Centuries BC. 6 Elite Latin in the Late Republic and Early Empire. 7 Sub-Elite Latin in the Empire. 8 Latin in Late Antiquity and Beyond. Glossary. Appendix: The International Phonetic Alphabet. Bibliography of Reference and Other Works. Index.

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The Blackwell history of the Latin language

Statius' Silvae, written late in the reign of Domitian (AD 81–96), are a new kind of poetry that confronts the challenge of imperial majesty or private wealth by new poetic strategies and forms. As poems of praise, they delight in poetic excess whether they honour the emperor or the poet's friends. Yet extravagant speech is also capacious speech. It functions as a strategy for conveying the wealth and grandeur of villas, statues and precious works of art as well as the complex emotions aroused by the material and political culture of empire. The Silvae are the product of a divided, self-fashioning voice. Statius was born in Naples of non-aristocratic parents. His position as outsider to the culture he celebrates gives him a unique perspective on it. The Silvae are poems of anxiety as well as praise, expressive of the tensions within the later period of Domitian's reign.

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Statius' silvae and the poetics of empire

Introduction 1. Sexual virtue on display: the cults of pudicitia and honours for women 2. Traditional narratives and Livy's Roman history 3. Valerius Maximus: the complexities of past as paradigm 4. Subversive genres: testing the limits of pudicitia 5. Declamation: what part of 'no' do you understand? 6. Sexual virtue on display II: oratory and the speeches of Cicero 7. Imperial narrative, imperial interventions.

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Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome

Christ Circumcised: A Study in Early Christian History and Difference

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Augustan Poetry and the Roman Republic

The fact that Virgil's poetry exhibits many points of contact with the literature of the past is beyond dispute. What to make of this fact is much less certain. The view taken here is that the poetics of intertextuality is one of Virgil's most powerfully evocative tools for communicating ideas, for establishing his place in the literary canon, and for eliciting the reader's active collaboration in making meaning. In this essay I shall try to suggest something of what attention to the intertext can do to enhance the appreciation of Virgil's poetry. The phenomenon of 'intertextuality' (or 'allusion', 'imitation', 'reference', etc.) is present in all poetry and, to some extent, in all language. Some poets deliberately cultivate an allusive style, and thus encourage their readers' expectation of seeing through one text to its source or model. Virgil alludes constantly to a wide range of authors, and we are fortunate in possessing complete texts of many of his favourite works, both Greek and Latin. In the case of works now lost, we rely on ancient summaries and modern collections of fragments. In fact much of our knowledge about early Latin poetry derives from ancient students of Virgilian intertextuality, who quote many of the fragments we now possess to illustrate their influence on Virgil.

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The Virgilian Intertext

It was once believed that the ancients invented and perfected certain genres and that the works they left might serve as models for later writers. Today belief in ideal patterns is a distant memory, and our interest in genre takes other forms. Classicists, by engaging with the specific problems presented by Greek and Roman literature and with the speculative discourse taking place throughout literary studies, have developed very different approaches to genre from the ones that prevailed in the past; but outside of classics, it appears that a traditional (and, now, outmoded) conception of the role that genre plays in classical literature continues to hold sway. This conception has a distinguished pedigree, and in fact derives from classical genre theory. But the practice of ancient writers was much more sophisticated than anything that classical theory could account for, and it is mainly on this practice that classicists now base their understanding of ancient ideas about genre.1 In this essay, I will briefly run over some familiar aspects of classical genre theory, but will be mainly concerned to illustrate how attention to the practice of ancient writers has led to an outlook on Greek and especially Roman literary genres that is very different from the traditional story and that has much more to contribute to the contemporary discourse about genre.

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Classical Genre in Theory and Practice

Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations

The Latin language is popularly imagined in a number of specific ways: as a masculine language, an imperial language, a classical language, a dead language. This book considers the sources of these metaphors and analyses their effect on how Latin literature is read. It argues that these metaphors have become idees fixes not only in the popular imagination but in the formation of Latin studies as a professional discipline. By reading with and more commonly against these metaphors, the book offers a different view of Latin as a language and as a vehicle for cultural practice. The argument ranges over a variety of texts in Latin and texts about Latin produced by many different sorts of writers from antiquity to the twentieth century.

Joseph Farrell

Papers

Augustan Poetry and the Roman Republic

The Virgilian Intertext

Classical Genre in Theory and Practice

Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations

Latin Language and Latin Culture: From Ancient to Modern Times