Models From the Past in Roman Culture - A World of Exempla

Presents a coherent model for understanding historical examples in Ancient Rome and their rhetorical, moral and historiographical functions.

List of contents

Introduction: the work of examples; 1. Horatius Cocles: commemorating and imitating a great deed; 2. Cloelia: timelessness and gender; 3. Appius Claudius Caecus: positive and negative exemplarity; 4. Gaius Duilius: exemplarity and innovation; 5. Fabius Cunctator: competing judgements and moral change; 6. Cornelia: an exemplary matrona among the Gracchi; 7. Cicero's house and 'Aspiring to Kingship'; Conclusion: exemplarity and stoicism.

About the author

Matthew B. Roller is Professor of Classics at The Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of two earlier books: Constructing Autocracy: Aristocrats and Emperors in Julio-Claudian Rome (2001) and Dining Posture in Ancient Rome: Bodies, Values, and Status (2006). Apart from exemplarity, he is interested in aristocratic competition in the early Roman Empire, and in the younger Seneca's moral philosophy.

Summary

This book investigates historical examples in Ancient Roman culture, presenting a coherent model for understanding their rhetorical, moral, and historiographical functions. It will engage anyone interested in how societies, from Ancient Rome to today, evaluate and commemorate past actors, and invoke them as norms or models for later imitation.

Product details

• Authors: Matthew B. Roller, Matthew B. (The Johns Hopkins University) Roller, Roller Matthew B.
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.03.2018
• EAN: 9781107162594
• ISBN: 978-1-107-16259-4
• No. of pages: 338
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Humanities, art, music > History > Antiquity; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Biographies, autobiographies; HISTORY / Ancient / General, Historiography, Ancient World, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Ancient Rome, Ancient History, Ancient history: to c 500 CE, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, BCE to c 500 CE, BCE period – Protohistory