Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome

Explores how cultural memory theory intersects with the literature, politics, history, and archaeology of Republican and Augustan Rome.

Martin T. Dinter (Edited by), Charles Guérin (Edited by)

9781009327756, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 May 2023

400 pages, 15 b/w illus. 2 maps
23.5 x 15.8 x 3.1 cm, 0.85 kg

Cultural memory is a framework which elucidates the relationship between the past and the present: essentially, why, how, and with what results certain pieces of information are remembered. This volume brings together distinguished classicists from a variety of sub-disciplines to explore cultural memory in the Roman Republic and the Age of Augustus. It provides an excellent and accessible starting point for readers who are new to the intersection between cultural memory theory and ancient Rome, whilst also appealing to the seasoned scholar. The chapters delve deep into memory theory, going beyond the canonical texts of Jan Assmann and Pierre Nora and pushing their terminology towards Basu's dispositifs, Roller's intersignifications, Langlands' sites of exemplarity, and Erll's horizons. This innovative framework enables a fresh analysis of both fragmentary texts and archaeological phenomena not discussed elsewhere.

Part I: 1. Introduction: cultural memory in republican and Augustan Rome Martin Dinter
Part II. Writing Cultural Memory: 2. War and cultural memory at the beginnings of Latin literature Thomas Biggs
3. Creating Roman memories of Plautus Anthony Corbeill
4. Comedy and its pasts Martin Dinter
5. Semper manebit: poetry and cultural memory theory in Cicero's de legibus Joshua Hartman
6. Varro and the re-foundation of Roman cultural memory through genealogy and humanitas Irene Leonardis
7. Cultural memory, from monument to poem: the case of the temple of Apollo Palatinus in the Augustan poets Bénédicte Delignon
8. Monumenta and the fallibility of memory in the odes Samuel Beckelhymer
9. Constructing cultural memory in ovid's fasti: the case of servius tullius and fortuna Darja Šterbenc Erker
Part III. Politicising Cultural Memory: 10. Sulla's dictatorship rei publicae constituendae and Roman republican cultural memory Alexandra Eckert
11. Remembering differently: the exemplarity of populares as a site of ideological contest in late republican oratory Evan Jewell
12. Cultural memory and political change in the public speech of the late Roman republic Catherine Steel
13. Remembering M. Brutus: from mixed and hostile perspectives Kathryn Tempest
14. The making of an exemplum: Cato's road to uticensis in Roman cultural memory Mark Thorne
Part IV. Building Cultural Memory: 15. Sites of exemplarity and the challenge of accessing the cultural memory of the republic Rebecca Langlands
16. The festival of the lupercalia as a vehicle of cultural memory in the Roman republic Krešimir Vukovi?
17. Inscriptions on the capitoline: epigraphy and cultural memory in livy Morgan Palmer
18. Cultural memory and the role of the architect in vitruvius' de architectura Edwin Shaw
Part V. Locating Cultural Memory: 19. Exchanging memories: coins, conquest, and resistance in Roman Iberia Alyson M. Roy
20. Cicero and Clodius together: the porta romana inscriptions of Roman ostia as cultural memory Christer Bruun
21. Augustan cultural memories in Roman Athens Muriel Moser
22. Different pasts: sing and constructing memory in Augustan Carthage and Corinth Gunther Schörner
Indices
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]