Publisher Description

This book explores ancient Rome under the impact of monarchy and as one of the structures which shaped the monarchy itself.

Explores the dynamic interactions among Latin poets, artists, and audiences in constructing and critiquing imperial power in Augustan Rome.

This volume explores the interrelationship of the literature, monuments, and urban landscape of Augustan Rome. Targeting scholars of both literature and material culture, its interdisciplinary studies range from canonical authors (such as Cicero, Livy, and Ovid) to iconic monuments (such as the Rostra, Pantheon, and Meridian of Augustus).

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.

Columbarium tombs are among the most recognizable forms of Roman architecture and also among the most enigmatic. The subterranean collective burial chambers have repeatedly sparked the imagination of modern commentators, but their origins and function remain obscure. Columbarium Tombs and Collective Identity in Augustan Rome situates columbaria within the development of Roman funerary architecture and the historical context of the early Imperial period. Contrary to earlier scholarship that often interprets columbaria primarily as economic burial solutions, Dorian Borbonus shows that they defined a community of people who were buried and commemorated collectively. Many of the tomb occupants were slaves and freed slaves, for whom collective burial was one strategy of community building that counterbalanced their exclusion in Roman society. Columbarium tombs were thus sites of social interaction that provided their occupants with a group identity that, this book shows, was especially relevant during the social and cultural transformation of the Augustan era.