'Different Perspectives: War and Autocracy in Flavian Prose'; key-note paper at a conference on War and Autocracy in Flavian Literature, Nottingham 14-15 September 2016

Activity: Talk or presentation typesInvited talk

Description

This paper has two aims: to integrate Frontinus’ Strategemata more fully into discussions of Flavian literature and history (goaded, not least, by its recent omission from Frédéric Hurlet’s survey of Flavian literature towards the start of the 2016 Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome); and to use that text and other examples of ‘Flavian’ prose (particularly Tacitus’ Histories and Josephus’ Jewish War) to explore the relationships which ancient and modern writers construct between texts and contexts. The bulk of the paper will look at the ways in which war and autocracy are represented within Frontinus’ Strategemata; but it will also use the Strategemata as a case study for examining the challenges inherent in relating the content of a text to its Flavian context (both the perils of extrapolating from context to text, and vice versa). Along the way, it will reflect on the uses to which Flavian and post-Flavian prose is often put in the interpretation of Flavian verse (with some cross-reading of Frontinus’ Strategemata and Silius Italicus’ Punica to focus discussion), and on the roles played by different genres (not just different texts) in shaping cultural, literary and academic discourse. With Frontinus’ help, it will also consider the universality (not just the Flavian particularity) of war and autocracy as cultural and literary themes – and indeed the interplay between contextual specificities and long-established paradigms/cultural memory in the (Flavian) evolution of these themes.
Period14 Sept 201615 Sept 2016
Event title'Different Perspectives: War and Autocracy in Flavian Prose'; key-note paper at a conference on War and Autocracy in Flavian Literature, Nottingham 14-15 September 2016
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