A paper by Christopher Dart, University of Melbourne, for the Ancient World Seminar at 1:00 on Monday 15 April in Arts West North Wing 556 and via Zoom.
To receive the Zoom link please email Dr Edward Jeremiah (edwardj@unimelb.edu.au).
The paper takes as its starting point the sources for the history of the Roman triumph under the Republic, in particular the “fasti” triumphales and Livy’s history. The progressive monopolisation of this important and ancient Republican ritual by Augustus and his immediate successor Tiberius implies important considerations about what contemporary sources do and don’t say about the history of the triumph. Arguably the greatest literary work of the Augustan Era, Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita, sits uneasily with the regime under which it was written. Interpreting the position of Livy’s monumental history of the Republic in relation to other sources will be discussed, using the example of triumphs by two strongman politicians from the era of the Second Punic War, Claudius Marcellus and Fabius Maximus.
Dr. Christopher J. Dart is currently an ARC-funded Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. His research focuses on the socio-political history of the Roman Republic and early empire. He is the author of The Social War, 91 to 88 BCE: A History of the Italian Insurgency against the Roman Republic (Routledge, 2014) and co-editor of the forthcoming book How Republics Die: Creeping Authoritarianism from the Ancient to the Modern World.
Classical Association of Victoria 