Greek Narratives of the Roman Empire under the Severans

Cassius Dio, Philostratus and Herodian

Bibliographic Data

ID19904952
AuthorsAdam M Kemezis (University of Alberta, corresponding author)
Year2014
Publication date2014-10-23
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueGreek Narratives of the Roman Empire under the Severans (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9781107477308
OpenAlexW4249701252
Open LibraryOL34558911M
ISBN9781107477308
LanguageEN
Citations received65

The political instability of the Severan Period (AD 193–235) destroyed the High Imperial consensus about the Roman past and caused both rulers and subjects constantly to re-imagine and re-narrate both recent events and the larger shape of Greco-Roman history and cultural identity. This book examines the narratives put out by the new dynasty, and how the literary elite responded with divergent visions of their own. It focuses on four long Greek narrative texts from the period (by Cassius Dio, Philostratus and Herodian), each of which constructs its own version of the empire, each defined by different Greek and Roman elements and each differently affected by dynastic change, especially that from Antonine to Severan. Innovative theories of narrative are used to produce new readings of these works that bring political, literary and cultural perspectives together in a unified presentation of the Severan era as a distinctive historical moment

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Elite · Empire · Identity (music) · Literature · Narrative · Period (music) · Political science · Politics · Roman Empire · Sociology · Vision · Anthropology · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · History · Law · ancient · Cassius dio cocceianus · General · Greek prose literature · Rome

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access