[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
This book has its origin in a panel at the Ninth Celtic Conference in Classics held at University College Dublin, Ireland, in 2016. It contains 14 papers divided into three main thematic parts of approximately equal size followed by a fourth part containing a single chapter synthesizing the results of all the previous chapters. The title of the book is somewhat misleading because the focus lies mainly on the fourth and early fifth centuries AD. Most chapters analyse a single event or a topic relating to a relatively short time span of several decades at most, but several chapters do attempt a longer survey of a topic over several centuries. However, developments during the pre-Antonine and post-Theodosian periods receive attention only in these longer, survey-type chapters. Furthermore, late antiquity ends with the reign of Justinian I (527-565), as far as this volume is concerned.
The first part, entitled ‘Ritual and Spatial Dynamics’, contains four chapters. In the first, Christoph Michels uses the letters of Cornelius Fronto, the tutor of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, the adopted sons of Antoninus Pius, to highlight the inconsistency between theory and practice which manifests in the contrast between the desire of Antoninus to be a civilis princeps (a representation echoed in narrative sources) and the reality of his treatment of courtiers such as Fronto, who once had to promise to kiss the emperor on the chest and hands in apology for missing the celebration of the anniversary of his accession due to illness. In the second chapter, Christian Rollinger traces the changing function and appearance of the imperial bodyguard units, whether the praetorian guard during the imperial period or the scholae palatinae during the fourth century, with an emphasis on their role at the key moments of imperial accessions, triumphs, and funerals. In the third chapter, Verena Jaeschke and Caillan Davenport analyse the impact of regular imperial residence upon the physical infrastructure of cities such as Trier, Milan, and Antioch, in which emperors spent much of their time during the period c. 284-324 following the abandonment of the ‘court-in-capital’ model of governance in favour of a mobile court. They also compare the building programmes of the Tetrarchic emperors in their provinicial residences to that of Maxentius, as he continued the ‘court-in-capital’ model of governance. Finally, Audrey Becker analyses how leaders of the imperial court acted to assert their power during the period between the death of one emperor and the coronation of the next, with the emphasis on their manipulation of the ceremonies to suit their agendas. The analysis focusses on four case examples, the events following the deaths of Constantine I (337), Zeno (491), Anastasius (518), and Justinian I (565).
The second part, entitled ‘Individual and Community at Court’, contains five chapters. Benjamin Kelly analyses the imperial court as a type of ‘emotional community’ that shares similar values concerning the expression of emotions. He contrasts the condition of the second-century court, when the members of the court seem to have shared similar values, to the condition of the court during the late fourth century, when consensus about emotional norms is far less evident. He explains this change in terms of the greater social diversity of late Roman courts. Harries surveys the changing role of jurists at the imperial court from that of occasional advisor and member of the consilium principis under Augustus to that of full-time official with the title of quaestor sacri palatii in the late fourth century, with particular attention to the careers of Papinian and Ulpian during the second century. Kevin Feeney argues that late Roman emperors used the appointment of senior officials as an opportunity to promote a consistent political programme in a way that was not possible for earlier emperors. To prove his point, he analyses the appointments made by Julian upon his accession as sole emperor in November 361 and those made by Jovian following his succession to Julian in June 363. Meaghan McEvoy examines the status of the magistri militum during the period from the rise to prominence of Stilicho in 395 to the death of Ricimer in 472. She argues that their domination of contemporary emperors was not at all secretive, but widely acknowledged in the most public manner so that there was a clear consensus that they should effectively share in the emperor’s power. Finally, Anja Busch analyses the role played by imperial women with the status of Augusta at the imperial court in the east during the rule of the Theodosian dynasty. She emphasizes that the title of Augusta brought no formal responsibilities with it, but that successive Augustae were able to assert their power at court nonetheless by capitalizing upon either their motherhood or their pious virginity.
The third part, ‘The Politics of Access’, contains four chapters. Fabian Schulz analyses the four audiences that bishop Athanasius of Alexandria had with emperor Constans I at Milan, Trier, and Aquileia, between 342 and 345. He uses the detail which Athanasius provides concerning these audiences to emphasize the key role played by the local bishop in facilitating each audience. Daniëlle Slootjes examines how bishops Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius of Constantinople sought to persuade the courtiers of Theodosius II to influence the emperor to their side in the theological dispute concerning the use of the title Theotokos for the Virgin Mary. She highlights the surprising result that Cyril of Alexandria triumphed over Nestorius despite the latter’s physical proximity to the emperor and his court, a fact that proves the support of the right courtiers could be more important than personal access to the emperor. Next, Martijn Icks draws mainly upon the work of bishop Synesius of Cyrene and the poet Claudian to show the continued importance of accessibility and visibility of the emperor during the early fifth century. This contrasts with the traditional image of the inaccessible and invisible Oriental despot at a time when the emperors enjoyed an increasingly secluded lifestyle. Finally, Caillan Davenport investigates the depiction of encounters between the emperor and various types of visitors to his court, whether petitioners, ambassadors, or accused criminals, across a wide range of literary sources from the first to the fourth centuries AD, from the Acts of the Alexandrians and Philo’s Embassy to Gaius to Sulpicius Severus’ Life of St Martin of Tours and the Life of Melania the Younger. He argues that these accounts prove that the imperial court was primarily viewed in terms of people rather than of physical structures.
All the chapters demonstrate an excellent understanding of their subject matter, with no factual errors, and conclusions that are entirely warranted by the evidence and arguments presented within them. The only slight criticism possible is that, like an increasing number of volumes produced recently even by the best publishers, the secondary bibliographies can sometimes contain surprising omissions. For example, it is disappointing that even though Rollinger discusses the DECVRSIO sestertius of Nero and illustrates his chapter with a large photograph of this type (twice life size), he does not reference any of the publications on its interpretation.[1] It is similarly disappointing that Icks can discuss the withdrawal of the emperor Tiberius to the island of Capri without acknowledging any of the vast literature on that subject.[2]
It does not detract from the merits of individual papers to note that this book falls between two stools in that it is neither a collection of narrowly focussed research papers united only by a broad theme nor a companion or handbook to a topic as these terms are normally understood. There are some excellent chapters that do full justice to what one would expect given the emphasis in the title on both the principate and late antiquity and are of a scope such as one would expect from contributions to companion or handbook. Here I single out the chapter by Rollinger on the changing function of bodyguard units over the centuries and that by Davenport on the literary depiction of encounters at the imperial court over the centuries. Otherwise, the focus can be surprisingly narrow without really contributing much new to the understanding of the subject. However, Davenport and McEvoy do an excellent job in the final chapter of setting those chapters with a perhaps overly narrow focus within their fuller historical context. In short, the approach taken by this volume is different from that adopted by Kelly and Hug in their recent volume on the imperial court up to AD 300, but this has the positive result that there is no significant reduplication of effort, and the two volumes complement rather than compete with one another.[3] While this book was not intended as a continuation of, or companion to, that by Kelly and Hug, it comes close to performing this function. One should not assume that, because one has ordered one volume for the library, one does not need to order the other also.
Authors and Titles
- Great King or Civilis Princeps? Monarchical Ideals and Daily Interaction in the Reign of Antoninus Pius (Christoph Michels)
- Changing the Guard: Guard Units and Roman State Ceremonial from the First to the Fourth Century (Christian Rollinger)
- Cities, Palaces, and the Tetrarchic Imperial Courts (Verena Jaeschke and Caillan Davenport)
- The Court in Constantinople Facing the Death of the Emperor (Audrey Becker)
- Was the Roman Imperial Court an ‘Emotional’ Community? (Benjamin Kelly)
- Jurists as Courtiers from Augustus to Justinian (Jill Harries)
- Court Construction and Regime Change in the Mid-Fourth Century (Kevin Feeney)
- Sharing the Imperial Limelight: The Age of the Magister Militum (Meaghan McEvoy)
- Representatives and Co-Rulers: Imperial Women and the Court in Late Antiquity (Anja Busch)
- Beyond the Veil: Athanasius at the Court of Constans (Fabian Schulz)
- Dynamics of Power: The Nestorian Controversy, the Council of Ephesus of 431, and the Eastern Imperial Court (Daniëlle Slootjes)
- Splendid Isolation: Secluded Emperors and the Spectre of Oriental Despotism (Martijn Icks)
- Envisioning Audiences at the Roman Imperial Court (Caillan Davenport)
- The Evolution of the Roman Imperial Court in Historical Context (Caillan Davenport and Meaghan McEvoy)
Notes
[1] E.g. F. Bubel, ‘Noch einmal Neros Decursio-Sesterz’, in S. Harwardt und J. Schwind (eds.), Corona coronaria: Festschrift für Hans-Otto Kröner zum 75. Geburtstag (Hildesheim, 2005), 49-55; D.R. Smith, ‘The Decursio Sestertius Types of Nero and the Lusus Troiae’, Numismatic Chronicle 160 (2000), 282-89.
[2] E.g. E. Champlin, ‘The Odyssey of Tiberius Caesar’, Classica et Mediaevalia 64 (2013), 199-246; G.W. Houston, ‘Tiberius on Capri’, Greece & Rome 32 (1985), 178-96.
[3] B. Kelly and A. Hug (eds.), The Roman Emperor and His Court c. 30BC-c. AD 300. Volume 1: Historical Essays (Cambridge).