Constructing Autocracy: Aristocrats and Emperors in Julio-Claudian Rome.

Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langj�igem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Sehr guter Zustand / Very good condition. - Rome�s transition from a republican system of government to an imperial regime comprised more than a century of civil upheaval and rapid institutional change. Yet the establishment of a ruling dynasty, centered around a single leader, came as a cultural and political shock to Rome�s aristocracy, who had shared power in the previous political order. How did the imperial regime manage to establish itself and how did the Roman elites from the time of Julius Caesar to Nero make sense of it? In this compelling book, Matthew Roller reveals a �dialogical� process at work, in which writers and philosophers vigorously negotiated and contested the nature and scope of the emperor�s luthority, despite the consensus that he vas the ultimate authority figure in Loman society. Roller seeks evidence for this �thinking out� of the new order in a wide range of republican and imperial authors, with n emphasis on Lucan and Seneca the 'hunger. He shows how elites assessed he impact of the imperial system on tra- itional aristocratic ethics, and examines ow several longstanding authority rela- onships in Roman society�those of l�er to slave, father to son, and gift- creditor to gift-debtor�became competing models for how the emperor did or should relate to his aristocratic subjects. By revealing this ideological activity to be not merely reactive but also constitutive of the new order, Roller contributes to ongoing debates about the character of the Roman imperial system and about the �politics� of literature. ISBN 9780691050218