Introduction

Reading Flavian Rome

Dados Bibliográficos

ID20054080
AutoresA J Boyle (autor correspondente)
Ano2003
Páginas1-67
Data de publicação2003-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoCHAPTER
PeriódicoFlavian Rome (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/9789004217157_002
OpenAlexW797867007
ISBN9789004217157
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas13

This introductory chapter of the book Flavian Rome; Culture, Image, Text outlines some of the similarities and differences characterising Roman politics, society and culture at the centre of the empire during the climactic years of the first century CE. Power was necessarily the determining node of Roman culture. At Rome spectacle and politics were the same. As republican generals had always known, spectacle was integral to the operation of Roman power. At consular inaugurations, temple dedications, religious festivals, theatrical shows, aristocratic funerals, triumphal processions, Roman spectacle displayed and confirmed the social and political hierarchy, and enabled large-scale acquiescent participation by the Roman people in a system marked by an overtly uneven distribution of power. Rome was always a theatrical or even amphitheatrical culture in which performance, role-play, display and viewing were constitutive features. Keywords: amphitheatrical culture; Flavian Rome; political hierarchy

Ancient history · Ancient Rome · Art · Hierarchy · Political science · Politics · Roman Empire · Spectacle · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History · Law