Books by Panayiotis Christoforou
Cambridge University Press, 2023
How was the Roman emperor viewed by his subjects? How strongly did their perception of his role s... more How was the Roman emperor viewed by his subjects? How strongly did their perception of his role shape his behaviour? Adopting a fresh approach, Panayiotis Christoforou focuses on the emperor from the perspective of his subjects across the Roman Empire. Stress lies on the imagination: the emperor was who he seemed, or was imagined, to be. Through various vignettes employing a wide range of sources, he analyses the emperor through the concerns and expectations of his subjects, which range from intercessory justice to fears of the monstrosities associated with absolute power. The book posits that mythical and fictional stories about the Roman emperor form the substance of what people thought about him, which underlines their importance for the historical and political discourse that formed around him as a figure. The emperor emerges as an ambiguous figure. Loved and hated, feared and revered, he was an object of contradiction and curiosity.
Papers by Panayiotis Christoforou
How was the Roman emperor viewed by his subjects? How strongly did their perception of his role s... more How was the Roman emperor viewed by his subjects? How strongly did their perception of his role shape his behaviour? Adopting a fresh approach, Panayiotis Christoforou focuses on the emperor from the perspective of his subjects across the Roman Empire. Stress lies on the imagination: the emperor was who he seemed, or was imagined, to be. Through various vignettes employing a wide range of sources, he analyses the emperor through the concerns and expectations of his subjects, which range from intercessory justice to fears of the monstrosities associated with absolute power. The book posits that mythical and fictional stories about the Roman emperor form the substance of what people thought about him, which underlines their importance for the historical and political discourse that formed around him as a figure. The emperor emerges as an ambiguous figure. Loved and hated, feared and revered, he was an object of contradiction and curiosity.
Quaderni di Storia, 2023
ABSTRACT. This paper is a study of the word vis in Tacitus and its use to describe the power of t... more ABSTRACT. This paper is a study of the word vis in Tacitus and its use to describe the power of the Roman emperorship. Vis encompasses meanings that map onto different spheres of activity, not only denoting strength, force, violence and power: it often is used to capture an idea or a term, just as we use ‘force’ (sc. force of the laws) in English. More specifically, vis is another word for the power held by an individual (whether a magistrate or not) in the Republic. Vis becomes a specific way to summarise an emperor’s power, which connects it to offices in the Roman past, such as the tribunate, censorship, dicta- torship and kingship. Thus, it can be a useful tool with which to think critically about what the Roman emperor is and what his powers were perceived to be in Tacitus, an au- thor of immeasurable impact on the theorisation of the principate.
Historia, 2021
This paper explores Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium, which describes the embassy of Jewish Alexandrians ... more This paper explores Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium, which describes the embassy of Jewish Alexandrians to Caligula in A. D. 40. In the Legatio, Philo engages critically with the idea of the Roman emperorship in his descriptions of Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula. This paper analyses Philo’s complex critique of Roman rule, which includes a polemical analysis of Gaius’ conduct, and shows critical engagement with imperial ideology. Through his erudite perspective, Philo provides us with an early interpretation of the emperorship, which is informed by his background as a Jewish philosopher and statesman, an interest in exemplarity and a focus on the future.
Historia 70, 2021
This paper explores Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium, which describes the embassy of Jewish Alexandrians ... more This paper explores Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium, which describes the embassy of Jewish Alexandrians to Caligula in A.D. 40. In the Legatio, Philo engages critically with the idea of the Roman emperorship in his descriptions of Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula. This paper analyses Philo’s complex critique of Roman rule, which includes a polemical analysis of Gaius’ conduct, and shows critical engagement with imperial ideology. Through his erudite perspective, Philo provides us with an early interpretation of the emperorship, which is informed by his background as a Jewish philosopher and statesman, an interest in exemplarity and a focus on the future.
The Journal of Hellenic Studies
Historia 70, 2021
This paper explores Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium, which describes the embassy of Jewish Alexandrians ... more This paper explores Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium, which describes the embassy of Jewish Alexandrians to Caligula in A.D. 40. In the Legatio, Philo engages critically with the idea of the Roman emperorship in his descriptions of Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula. This paper analyses Philo’s complex critique of Roman rule, which includes a polemical analysis of Gaius’ conduct, and shows critical engagement with imperial ideology. Through his erudite perspective, Philo provides us with an early interpretation of the emperorship, which is informed by his background as a Jewish philosopher and statesman, an interest in exemplarity and a focus on the future.
This article explores the dynamic between crowds and emperors in Plutarch’s Galba and Otho, and T... more This article explores the dynamic between crowds and emperors in Plutarch’s Galba and Otho, and Tacitus’ Histories, concentrating on the historiographical representation of military crowds and their interactions with emperors during a time of deep political crisis. This article combines literary and historical approaches, stressing how literary representations, though stylised, can reveal important and relevant historical conclusions.
Abstract: In response to Edward Champlin’s work over the last decade on the legacy of the Emperor... more Abstract: In response to Edward Champlin’s work over the last decade on the legacy of the Emperor Tiberius, and in particularly to his article ‘Mallonia’ in Histos 9, this article places other passages in Suetonius’ Life of Tiberius under similar scrutiny, arguing that this analysis is particularly fruitful in teasing out the fictitious qualities of several anecdotes about that Emperor. It also suggests the utility of using such anecdotes in understanding the discourse and thought-world about an Emperor. Whilst perhaps obscuring the complete reconstruction of Tiberius’ true character, it can lead to how that emperor was perceived as part of his legacy, which is historically significant in its own right.
Conference and Seminar Papers by Panayiotis Christoforou
An exploration of Philo Judaeus illuminating text detailing the context and history of the Jewish... more An exploration of Philo Judaeus illuminating text detailing the context and history of the Jewish Alexandrian embassy to the Emperor Gaius, with a particular concentration on the depiction of the three Roman emperors, being Augustus, Tiberius, and Gaius, assessing their merits and deficiencies.
The idea for this paper comes from my interest in the temporal aspect of historical writing. The ... more The idea for this paper comes from my interest in the temporal aspect of historical writing. The aspect in particular that I want to comment on is the problem of safe distance, and in particular, the act of criticising the Roman Emperor. Briefly, the logic follows that one could safely lampoon an emperor who is long dead. However, I want to challenge this conception.
The challenge rests upon interpreting both the act of criticism through historical writing and the nature of the position of Emperor in more universalising ways. In other words, that they transcend the temporal context in which they were formed. This is based on the ideas of Constantin Fasolt in his the Limits of History, which explores the connection between history and politics in the early modern period. In short, I argue that the nature of the imperial position meant that the ‘safe distance’ of the past was a mirage, and that historical challenges of the emperor’s past had implications in their present. I will look to analyse a few authors within this framework, which includes Tacitus, Dio, and Plutarch. Numerous problems abound from this issue, and I hope to delineate some in this paper.
In the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon commented on the longevity of the Roman empir... more In the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon commented on the longevity of the Roman empire, despite its symptoms of ruin: ‘the story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it subsisted so long.’ Gibbon’s point was to elevate the role of corruption that had rotted the empire to its core, but the apparent success in longevity of the Roman system nonetheless needed, and perhaps still needs, explanation.
In a conference that stresses the period of transition between polities throughout world history, the subject of this paper is rather focused on an institution of perceived ‘continuity' throughout the history of the Roman world in the common era: the Emperor. From its inception in the time of Augustus, the idea of the emperor and its reception has had a powerful history, from Augustus to the Carolingians; from Constantine to the Paleologians. This did not mean that the role of emperor did not change over time within its context.
The subject of this paper is the scale of continuity and change in the emperor’s long history, between what made the emperor relevant and malleable to his context, and what made the institution recognisable and connected with its past. As such, it is a problematisation of the perceived permanence of the emperor; an appreciation of the consistencies and alterations over the longue durée. To achieve this, this paper will explore three periods in the Emperor’s history: the Augustan Principate, the end of the Western Empire, and Byzantium in the late medieval period. This will be in order to compare and contrast the similarities and differences of the ideological position of the emperor in these contexts, and how it changed in the later periods of transition.
Delivered at 'Creating the Image of the Emperor' workshop, Durham University, November 2014
In ... more Delivered at 'Creating the Image of the Emperor' workshop, Durham University, November 2014
In the modern age, it is perhaps a product of our society that places great importance on the opinions and perceptions of a wide array of people, be it for politics, social issues, advertising etc. The assertion that everyone’s opinions or thoughts matter on any given issue is a powerful one; and perhaps one that shouldn’t be so dismissed. The question then becomes about how to retroject this assertion into history, i.e find the opinions of people in periods of history where such data was not recorded. The easy answer would be oblivion. The thoughts have been lost to history because they did not have any discernible impact on society, and were therefore rightfully lost. Or even that because they are lost, there is no point in any attempt to reconstruct them, being that it could be a red herring, leading down the road to speculation and pseudo- history.
However, this sells the interest of such subject material short. If we take the premise of the workshop, the Roman government, meaning the Senate and Emperor, took great care in how they disseminated their image, suggesting that they were indeed sensitive to the ebbs and flows of opinion and popularity. Therefore, a society that engages in a dialogue of opinions is not so far-fetched, and therefore not an anachronistic retrojection of the social media age. Moreover, this serves to answer the other charge - that their opinions did not matter. In fact, it did seem to matter, and our sources repeatedly report reactions and thoughts of a wider population on the actions of the Emperors. Charges of bias and stylistic issues notwithstanding, there is evidence that can open up a thought-world of opinions from sections of society seen as largely silent and lost to history.
The purpose of my thesis is to collect and compile potential evidence from the ancient sources that point to a perception or opinion of the Emperor from a wider perspective. This will hopefully create a different image of the emperor; one that is constructed from the mosaic of opinion that existed across the Roman Empire. The structure of this informal talk will be as follows: a short discussion on the sources and methods I am using, with a look at a couple of sources in particular to illustrate the point. As such, it is not exhaustive, but hopefully representative of the process and argument that will be used in the thesis.
Delivered at the Plutarch Conference, Edinburgh University.
Syme once characterised Plutarch’s L... more Delivered at the Plutarch Conference, Edinburgh University.
Syme once characterised Plutarch’s Lives of the Caesars, of which only Galba and Otho being still extant, as ‘sliced up narrative history’, as opposed to biography, and only encompassed the ‘narration of two brief reigns’ (Syme (1980) 104-105). The belief that these lives were of lesser quality and interest, in comparison to Suetonius’ de vita Caesarum, and even to Plutarch’s own Parallel Lives, can go some way in explaining the relative neglect these two lives have gotten in scholarship. However, there is much scope for research into these lives, for example concerning discourse and perceptions about the Roman Emperor, particularly in the case of Galba and Otho, which deals with a time of turmoil and upheaval in the history of principate.
The interest in this paper is to explore how Plutarch characterises the relationship between the crowd and the emperor in Galba and Otho. What role do the people have in Plutarch’s narrative? Does their interaction reveal important characteristics of the emperor? How does the demos in these lives compare to others in his other works?
Accordingly, this paper will deal with Plutarchan images of people and princeps in these extant imperial lives, touching on important themes such as the relationship between the crowd and the leader, the place of demagoguery in how to be a good leader, and the role of the crowd in highlighting moral issues.
Alongside this concentration on Plutarch’s method and interests, this paper will also explore a more historical analysis of the relationship between people and princeps. Does the Galba and Otho give an indication of any potentially lower class perspectives of the emperor, which can be compared to with similar evidence in other authors and sources? It is this tentative question that will be explored, and is the primary interest of the thesis to which this paper will hopefully contribute. As such, Plutarch’s Galba and Otho provide an excellent case study.
Delivered at Twists of Fate conference, Harvard University.
In the Annals 2.41.3, Tacitus descr... more Delivered at Twists of Fate conference, Harvard University.
In the Annals 2.41.3, Tacitus describes the mood and reaction of the onlookers to Germanicus’ triumphal parade. It was one of foreboding–a fear that Germanicus would succumb to the same ill-fate as his father, Drusus, and uncle, Marcellus, who had both had ‘popular favour’: sed suberat occulta formido, reputantibus haud prosperum in Druso patre eius favorem vulgi, avunculum eiusdem Marcellum flagrantibus plebis studiis intra inventam ereptum, brevis et infaustos populi Romani amores.
The inspiration for this paper comes from that oft-quoted final line. The ‘fleeting and unblest’ loves of the Roman people–a poignant statement commenting on the demise of popular favourites. An explication of Tacitus’ statement is that the loyalty and love of the Roman People were coincidently unlucky–that their loyalty would signal the doom of the favourite in question. This suggests an interesting conundrum; did the love of the Roman people actually cause the doom of their favourite, or was it a coincidence that heightened loyalty resulted in a shorter lifespan? Of course, the historicity is not the question here, but rather concerns what can be revealed about attitudes to misfortune and how it can be explained.
The interest of this paper is to explore the discourse of the wretched fortune of the domus Augusta, with a concentration on the popular aspect. This will include: exploring how misfortune and popularity are related in historiography, what this narrative can reveal about tensions and perceptions between divisions of society, and whether or not this sort of interpretation existed in the lower reaches of society, for which evidence is scanty at best, and what this can tell us about their perceptions of the Roman emperor and his family.
Here, we have an important convergence of themes. The antagonism within the family is accentuated by the popular favour enjoyed by Germanicus, but now, his connection to his past and heritage is brought forward to the attention of the reader. Further, the characteristic of similarity that transcends time is his popularity; intertwined with the hope that Germanicus fulfils his promise–the same promise that ‘intensified’ the sight of the crowd in Annals 2.41.3. As such, this passage contains similar tensions.
Delivered at the Princeton-Oxford exchange conference at Oxford.
The Temple of the Paphian Aphr... more Delivered at the Princeton-Oxford exchange conference at Oxford.
The Temple of the Paphian Aphrodite was one of the most important cult centres in Cyprus during antiquity. Myth connected the island to the Goddess, with authors such as Tacitus and Pausanias commenting on the shrine’s prominence. However, This paper is not about the general cult activities of the site, or how the ancient evidence can showcase what these activities meant for identity in toto. Rather, it is a study of a small number of funerary inscriptions from the site that record the names of an extremely interesting family. Their names suggest Italian, Roman, Egyptian and Cypriot connections, creating an image of a family of multivalent ethnicity that associated themselves with the cult of Aphrodite Paphia. Therefore, this paper is about the potential identity of this family at the beginning of the Roman control of the island. It is a exploratory piece that suggests what they may have felt from what the epigraphy tells us, and perhaps from where they were found. The location of these inscriptions in and around the sanctuary, and their dedications to the goddess are indicative that Aphrodite held a place of importance for the family. Thus, this can be a small window into the connection of religion and identity in Roman Cyprus.
Delivered at AMPAH Conference, UCL, London, and Brasenose and Lincoln College Classics Society, O... more Delivered at AMPAH Conference, UCL, London, and Brasenose and Lincoln College Classics Society, Oxford.
The subject of this paper is on the influence of the Roman past on France’s imperial experiment in Algeria and Tunisia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The objective is to assess the extent to which Rome’s imperial presence in the Maghreb inspired French policy in the region. The first part of the paper is an overview of the historiographical debate on themes in Roman history such as Romanisation, resistance and imperialism. This leads into a discussion on how the nineteenth century scholars and imperial officials viewed the Roman world and how it could have been useful in comparison to their own colonial experiments. The second part of the paper looks at the various ideological and practical ways in which the French used the Roman past to facilitate their rule. This ranges from the use of Roman ruins as markers in the land in the early years of the French conquest, to the study of ancient Roman hydraulic systems and the creation of a foundation myth in literature for the pieds-noirs that created a ‘Latin identity’ or latinité that sought to legitimise their ownership of Algeria.
The evidence presented in this paper highlights the profound effect that Rome had on modern imperialism. With this in mind, research can be undertaken that explores the extent by which modern colonialism affected the study of the ancient world. This can help historians move past the difficulties of political and cultural bias that has risen in the debate, which can be a catalyst for further and deeper understanding of the history of Rome’s North African provinces.
Calls For Papers by Panayiotis Christoforou
The schedule for the upcoming conference on Weberian ideas of authority, on the 3rd December 2016... more The schedule for the upcoming conference on Weberian ideas of authority, on the 3rd December 2016 at the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, University of Oxford.
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Books by Panayiotis Christoforou
Papers by Panayiotis Christoforou
Conference and Seminar Papers by Panayiotis Christoforou
The challenge rests upon interpreting both the act of criticism through historical writing and the nature of the position of Emperor in more universalising ways. In other words, that they transcend the temporal context in which they were formed. This is based on the ideas of Constantin Fasolt in his the Limits of History, which explores the connection between history and politics in the early modern period. In short, I argue that the nature of the imperial position meant that the ‘safe distance’ of the past was a mirage, and that historical challenges of the emperor’s past had implications in their present. I will look to analyse a few authors within this framework, which includes Tacitus, Dio, and Plutarch. Numerous problems abound from this issue, and I hope to delineate some in this paper.
In a conference that stresses the period of transition between polities throughout world history, the subject of this paper is rather focused on an institution of perceived ‘continuity' throughout the history of the Roman world in the common era: the Emperor. From its inception in the time of Augustus, the idea of the emperor and its reception has had a powerful history, from Augustus to the Carolingians; from Constantine to the Paleologians. This did not mean that the role of emperor did not change over time within its context.
The subject of this paper is the scale of continuity and change in the emperor’s long history, between what made the emperor relevant and malleable to his context, and what made the institution recognisable and connected with its past. As such, it is a problematisation of the perceived permanence of the emperor; an appreciation of the consistencies and alterations over the longue durée. To achieve this, this paper will explore three periods in the Emperor’s history: the Augustan Principate, the end of the Western Empire, and Byzantium in the late medieval period. This will be in order to compare and contrast the similarities and differences of the ideological position of the emperor in these contexts, and how it changed in the later periods of transition.
In the modern age, it is perhaps a product of our society that places great importance on the opinions and perceptions of a wide array of people, be it for politics, social issues, advertising etc. The assertion that everyone’s opinions or thoughts matter on any given issue is a powerful one; and perhaps one that shouldn’t be so dismissed. The question then becomes about how to retroject this assertion into history, i.e find the opinions of people in periods of history where such data was not recorded. The easy answer would be oblivion. The thoughts have been lost to history because they did not have any discernible impact on society, and were therefore rightfully lost. Or even that because they are lost, there is no point in any attempt to reconstruct them, being that it could be a red herring, leading down the road to speculation and pseudo- history.
However, this sells the interest of such subject material short. If we take the premise of the workshop, the Roman government, meaning the Senate and Emperor, took great care in how they disseminated their image, suggesting that they were indeed sensitive to the ebbs and flows of opinion and popularity. Therefore, a society that engages in a dialogue of opinions is not so far-fetched, and therefore not an anachronistic retrojection of the social media age. Moreover, this serves to answer the other charge - that their opinions did not matter. In fact, it did seem to matter, and our sources repeatedly report reactions and thoughts of a wider population on the actions of the Emperors. Charges of bias and stylistic issues notwithstanding, there is evidence that can open up a thought-world of opinions from sections of society seen as largely silent and lost to history.
The purpose of my thesis is to collect and compile potential evidence from the ancient sources that point to a perception or opinion of the Emperor from a wider perspective. This will hopefully create a different image of the emperor; one that is constructed from the mosaic of opinion that existed across the Roman Empire. The structure of this informal talk will be as follows: a short discussion on the sources and methods I am using, with a look at a couple of sources in particular to illustrate the point. As such, it is not exhaustive, but hopefully representative of the process and argument that will be used in the thesis.
Syme once characterised Plutarch’s Lives of the Caesars, of which only Galba and Otho being still extant, as ‘sliced up narrative history’, as opposed to biography, and only encompassed the ‘narration of two brief reigns’ (Syme (1980) 104-105). The belief that these lives were of lesser quality and interest, in comparison to Suetonius’ de vita Caesarum, and even to Plutarch’s own Parallel Lives, can go some way in explaining the relative neglect these two lives have gotten in scholarship. However, there is much scope for research into these lives, for example concerning discourse and perceptions about the Roman Emperor, particularly in the case of Galba and Otho, which deals with a time of turmoil and upheaval in the history of principate.
The interest in this paper is to explore how Plutarch characterises the relationship between the crowd and the emperor in Galba and Otho. What role do the people have in Plutarch’s narrative? Does their interaction reveal important characteristics of the emperor? How does the demos in these lives compare to others in his other works?
Accordingly, this paper will deal with Plutarchan images of people and princeps in these extant imperial lives, touching on important themes such as the relationship between the crowd and the leader, the place of demagoguery in how to be a good leader, and the role of the crowd in highlighting moral issues.
Alongside this concentration on Plutarch’s method and interests, this paper will also explore a more historical analysis of the relationship between people and princeps. Does the Galba and Otho give an indication of any potentially lower class perspectives of the emperor, which can be compared to with similar evidence in other authors and sources? It is this tentative question that will be explored, and is the primary interest of the thesis to which this paper will hopefully contribute. As such, Plutarch’s Galba and Otho provide an excellent case study.
In the Annals 2.41.3, Tacitus describes the mood and reaction of the onlookers to Germanicus’ triumphal parade. It was one of foreboding–a fear that Germanicus would succumb to the same ill-fate as his father, Drusus, and uncle, Marcellus, who had both had ‘popular favour’: sed suberat occulta formido, reputantibus haud prosperum in Druso patre eius favorem vulgi, avunculum eiusdem Marcellum flagrantibus plebis studiis intra inventam ereptum, brevis et infaustos populi Romani amores.
The inspiration for this paper comes from that oft-quoted final line. The ‘fleeting and unblest’ loves of the Roman people–a poignant statement commenting on the demise of popular favourites. An explication of Tacitus’ statement is that the loyalty and love of the Roman People were coincidently unlucky–that their loyalty would signal the doom of the favourite in question. This suggests an interesting conundrum; did the love of the Roman people actually cause the doom of their favourite, or was it a coincidence that heightened loyalty resulted in a shorter lifespan? Of course, the historicity is not the question here, but rather concerns what can be revealed about attitudes to misfortune and how it can be explained.
The interest of this paper is to explore the discourse of the wretched fortune of the domus Augusta, with a concentration on the popular aspect. This will include: exploring how misfortune and popularity are related in historiography, what this narrative can reveal about tensions and perceptions between divisions of society, and whether or not this sort of interpretation existed in the lower reaches of society, for which evidence is scanty at best, and what this can tell us about their perceptions of the Roman emperor and his family.
Here, we have an important convergence of themes. The antagonism within the family is accentuated by the popular favour enjoyed by Germanicus, but now, his connection to his past and heritage is brought forward to the attention of the reader. Further, the characteristic of similarity that transcends time is his popularity; intertwined with the hope that Germanicus fulfils his promise–the same promise that ‘intensified’ the sight of the crowd in Annals 2.41.3. As such, this passage contains similar tensions.
The Temple of the Paphian Aphrodite was one of the most important cult centres in Cyprus during antiquity. Myth connected the island to the Goddess, with authors such as Tacitus and Pausanias commenting on the shrine’s prominence. However, This paper is not about the general cult activities of the site, or how the ancient evidence can showcase what these activities meant for identity in toto. Rather, it is a study of a small number of funerary inscriptions from the site that record the names of an extremely interesting family. Their names suggest Italian, Roman, Egyptian and Cypriot connections, creating an image of a family of multivalent ethnicity that associated themselves with the cult of Aphrodite Paphia. Therefore, this paper is about the potential identity of this family at the beginning of the Roman control of the island. It is a exploratory piece that suggests what they may have felt from what the epigraphy tells us, and perhaps from where they were found. The location of these inscriptions in and around the sanctuary, and their dedications to the goddess are indicative that Aphrodite held a place of importance for the family. Thus, this can be a small window into the connection of religion and identity in Roman Cyprus.
The subject of this paper is on the influence of the Roman past on France’s imperial experiment in Algeria and Tunisia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The objective is to assess the extent to which Rome’s imperial presence in the Maghreb inspired French policy in the region. The first part of the paper is an overview of the historiographical debate on themes in Roman history such as Romanisation, resistance and imperialism. This leads into a discussion on how the nineteenth century scholars and imperial officials viewed the Roman world and how it could have been useful in comparison to their own colonial experiments. The second part of the paper looks at the various ideological and practical ways in which the French used the Roman past to facilitate their rule. This ranges from the use of Roman ruins as markers in the land in the early years of the French conquest, to the study of ancient Roman hydraulic systems and the creation of a foundation myth in literature for the pieds-noirs that created a ‘Latin identity’ or latinité that sought to legitimise their ownership of Algeria.
The evidence presented in this paper highlights the profound effect that Rome had on modern imperialism. With this in mind, research can be undertaken that explores the extent by which modern colonialism affected the study of the ancient world. This can help historians move past the difficulties of political and cultural bias that has risen in the debate, which can be a catalyst for further and deeper understanding of the history of Rome’s North African provinces.
Calls For Papers by Panayiotis Christoforou
The challenge rests upon interpreting both the act of criticism through historical writing and the nature of the position of Emperor in more universalising ways. In other words, that they transcend the temporal context in which they were formed. This is based on the ideas of Constantin Fasolt in his the Limits of History, which explores the connection between history and politics in the early modern period. In short, I argue that the nature of the imperial position meant that the ‘safe distance’ of the past was a mirage, and that historical challenges of the emperor’s past had implications in their present. I will look to analyse a few authors within this framework, which includes Tacitus, Dio, and Plutarch. Numerous problems abound from this issue, and I hope to delineate some in this paper.
In a conference that stresses the period of transition between polities throughout world history, the subject of this paper is rather focused on an institution of perceived ‘continuity' throughout the history of the Roman world in the common era: the Emperor. From its inception in the time of Augustus, the idea of the emperor and its reception has had a powerful history, from Augustus to the Carolingians; from Constantine to the Paleologians. This did not mean that the role of emperor did not change over time within its context.
The subject of this paper is the scale of continuity and change in the emperor’s long history, between what made the emperor relevant and malleable to his context, and what made the institution recognisable and connected with its past. As such, it is a problematisation of the perceived permanence of the emperor; an appreciation of the consistencies and alterations over the longue durée. To achieve this, this paper will explore three periods in the Emperor’s history: the Augustan Principate, the end of the Western Empire, and Byzantium in the late medieval period. This will be in order to compare and contrast the similarities and differences of the ideological position of the emperor in these contexts, and how it changed in the later periods of transition.
In the modern age, it is perhaps a product of our society that places great importance on the opinions and perceptions of a wide array of people, be it for politics, social issues, advertising etc. The assertion that everyone’s opinions or thoughts matter on any given issue is a powerful one; and perhaps one that shouldn’t be so dismissed. The question then becomes about how to retroject this assertion into history, i.e find the opinions of people in periods of history where such data was not recorded. The easy answer would be oblivion. The thoughts have been lost to history because they did not have any discernible impact on society, and were therefore rightfully lost. Or even that because they are lost, there is no point in any attempt to reconstruct them, being that it could be a red herring, leading down the road to speculation and pseudo- history.
However, this sells the interest of such subject material short. If we take the premise of the workshop, the Roman government, meaning the Senate and Emperor, took great care in how they disseminated their image, suggesting that they were indeed sensitive to the ebbs and flows of opinion and popularity. Therefore, a society that engages in a dialogue of opinions is not so far-fetched, and therefore not an anachronistic retrojection of the social media age. Moreover, this serves to answer the other charge - that their opinions did not matter. In fact, it did seem to matter, and our sources repeatedly report reactions and thoughts of a wider population on the actions of the Emperors. Charges of bias and stylistic issues notwithstanding, there is evidence that can open up a thought-world of opinions from sections of society seen as largely silent and lost to history.
The purpose of my thesis is to collect and compile potential evidence from the ancient sources that point to a perception or opinion of the Emperor from a wider perspective. This will hopefully create a different image of the emperor; one that is constructed from the mosaic of opinion that existed across the Roman Empire. The structure of this informal talk will be as follows: a short discussion on the sources and methods I am using, with a look at a couple of sources in particular to illustrate the point. As such, it is not exhaustive, but hopefully representative of the process and argument that will be used in the thesis.
Syme once characterised Plutarch’s Lives of the Caesars, of which only Galba and Otho being still extant, as ‘sliced up narrative history’, as opposed to biography, and only encompassed the ‘narration of two brief reigns’ (Syme (1980) 104-105). The belief that these lives were of lesser quality and interest, in comparison to Suetonius’ de vita Caesarum, and even to Plutarch’s own Parallel Lives, can go some way in explaining the relative neglect these two lives have gotten in scholarship. However, there is much scope for research into these lives, for example concerning discourse and perceptions about the Roman Emperor, particularly in the case of Galba and Otho, which deals with a time of turmoil and upheaval in the history of principate.
The interest in this paper is to explore how Plutarch characterises the relationship between the crowd and the emperor in Galba and Otho. What role do the people have in Plutarch’s narrative? Does their interaction reveal important characteristics of the emperor? How does the demos in these lives compare to others in his other works?
Accordingly, this paper will deal with Plutarchan images of people and princeps in these extant imperial lives, touching on important themes such as the relationship between the crowd and the leader, the place of demagoguery in how to be a good leader, and the role of the crowd in highlighting moral issues.
Alongside this concentration on Plutarch’s method and interests, this paper will also explore a more historical analysis of the relationship between people and princeps. Does the Galba and Otho give an indication of any potentially lower class perspectives of the emperor, which can be compared to with similar evidence in other authors and sources? It is this tentative question that will be explored, and is the primary interest of the thesis to which this paper will hopefully contribute. As such, Plutarch’s Galba and Otho provide an excellent case study.
In the Annals 2.41.3, Tacitus describes the mood and reaction of the onlookers to Germanicus’ triumphal parade. It was one of foreboding–a fear that Germanicus would succumb to the same ill-fate as his father, Drusus, and uncle, Marcellus, who had both had ‘popular favour’: sed suberat occulta formido, reputantibus haud prosperum in Druso patre eius favorem vulgi, avunculum eiusdem Marcellum flagrantibus plebis studiis intra inventam ereptum, brevis et infaustos populi Romani amores.
The inspiration for this paper comes from that oft-quoted final line. The ‘fleeting and unblest’ loves of the Roman people–a poignant statement commenting on the demise of popular favourites. An explication of Tacitus’ statement is that the loyalty and love of the Roman People were coincidently unlucky–that their loyalty would signal the doom of the favourite in question. This suggests an interesting conundrum; did the love of the Roman people actually cause the doom of their favourite, or was it a coincidence that heightened loyalty resulted in a shorter lifespan? Of course, the historicity is not the question here, but rather concerns what can be revealed about attitudes to misfortune and how it can be explained.
The interest of this paper is to explore the discourse of the wretched fortune of the domus Augusta, with a concentration on the popular aspect. This will include: exploring how misfortune and popularity are related in historiography, what this narrative can reveal about tensions and perceptions between divisions of society, and whether or not this sort of interpretation existed in the lower reaches of society, for which evidence is scanty at best, and what this can tell us about their perceptions of the Roman emperor and his family.
Here, we have an important convergence of themes. The antagonism within the family is accentuated by the popular favour enjoyed by Germanicus, but now, his connection to his past and heritage is brought forward to the attention of the reader. Further, the characteristic of similarity that transcends time is his popularity; intertwined with the hope that Germanicus fulfils his promise–the same promise that ‘intensified’ the sight of the crowd in Annals 2.41.3. As such, this passage contains similar tensions.
The Temple of the Paphian Aphrodite was one of the most important cult centres in Cyprus during antiquity. Myth connected the island to the Goddess, with authors such as Tacitus and Pausanias commenting on the shrine’s prominence. However, This paper is not about the general cult activities of the site, or how the ancient evidence can showcase what these activities meant for identity in toto. Rather, it is a study of a small number of funerary inscriptions from the site that record the names of an extremely interesting family. Their names suggest Italian, Roman, Egyptian and Cypriot connections, creating an image of a family of multivalent ethnicity that associated themselves with the cult of Aphrodite Paphia. Therefore, this paper is about the potential identity of this family at the beginning of the Roman control of the island. It is a exploratory piece that suggests what they may have felt from what the epigraphy tells us, and perhaps from where they were found. The location of these inscriptions in and around the sanctuary, and their dedications to the goddess are indicative that Aphrodite held a place of importance for the family. Thus, this can be a small window into the connection of religion and identity in Roman Cyprus.
The subject of this paper is on the influence of the Roman past on France’s imperial experiment in Algeria and Tunisia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The objective is to assess the extent to which Rome’s imperial presence in the Maghreb inspired French policy in the region. The first part of the paper is an overview of the historiographical debate on themes in Roman history such as Romanisation, resistance and imperialism. This leads into a discussion on how the nineteenth century scholars and imperial officials viewed the Roman world and how it could have been useful in comparison to their own colonial experiments. The second part of the paper looks at the various ideological and practical ways in which the French used the Roman past to facilitate their rule. This ranges from the use of Roman ruins as markers in the land in the early years of the French conquest, to the study of ancient Roman hydraulic systems and the creation of a foundation myth in literature for the pieds-noirs that created a ‘Latin identity’ or latinité that sought to legitimise their ownership of Algeria.
The evidence presented in this paper highlights the profound effect that Rome had on modern imperialism. With this in mind, research can be undertaken that explores the extent by which modern colonialism affected the study of the ancient world. This can help historians move past the difficulties of political and cultural bias that has risen in the debate, which can be a catalyst for further and deeper understanding of the history of Rome’s North African provinces.