Undamning Domitian? Reassessing the Last Flavian princeps: Introduction

Abstract

This introductory chapter contextualizes the contributions of the various articles and their interdiscursive approach in combining material culture and literary evidence. It offers an overview of the difficulties of parsing a hostile historiographical tradition on the emperor Domitian, and the ideological as well as chronological fault-lines created by authors who very often straddled the Flavian and post-Flavian periods, turning from enthusiastic support of the emperor to damning critique; the particular challenges to the material evidence posed by Domitian’s damnatio, and the physical as well as literary forms of oblivion that “erased” the last Flavian emperor; the gaps, absences, revisions, and overwritings that complicate accurate understanding of Domitian’s character, achievements, and historical record.

Flavian Responses to Nero's Rome

“…8 Recent studies have examined Flavian literature in its socio-political context more widely, too. The volume on fides in Flavian literature, edited by Augoustakis, Buckley, and Stocks (2019), widens the scope from literature to its connections with society by examining the Flavian reconceptualization of Roman fides and its importance as a foundational principle of and for Flavian Rome, investigating how this concept 'binds the Flavian dynasty to an Augustan and more broadly Julio-Claudian past, overwriting Nero'. 9 In addition to the scholarly focus on Flavian literature, we have also seen interdisciplinary studies of the Flavian era and its (dis)connections with the Neronian period and the Julio-Claudian era more broadly, especially in relation to issues of dynasty and succession.…”

“…19 Some of these studies have focused on specific ways in which the Flavian dynasty and Flavian society more generally relate to the Julio-Claudian past and/or to Roman cultural consciousness more broadly. The aforementioned volume on fides in Flavian literature, edited by Augoustakis, Buckley, and Stocks (2019), is a good example of this approach, which takes a particular concept or topic and investigates how this concept works to create a connection with some aspects of the Julio-Claudian dynasty but distances itself from others. Another recent and excellent example is offered by Ginsberg and Krasne's edited volume After 69 CE -Writing Civil War in Flavian Rome on the theme of bellum civile in Flavian literature.…”

“…The volume on literary genres in the Flavian age edited by Bessone and Fucecchi (2017), examines the system and evolution of genres in the context of contemporary transformations of society and culture, highlighting a marked consciousness of the social and pragmatic function of literature as evidenced by its occasional poetry and celebrations of imperial civilization. 9Augoustakis, Buckley, and Stocks (2019) 8. Other recent examples are the volume on Campania in the Flavian Poetic Imagination, edited byAugoustakis and Littlewood (2019) and the special issue of Phoenix on philosophical currents in Flavian literature, edited byKeith (2018).…”

Flavian Responses to Nero's Rome

“…For critical reassessments of Domitian's character and his political agenda, see ; Southern (1997); Gering (2012); Morelli (2014); cf. also the special issue of Illinois Classical Studies (Undamning Domitian: Reassessing the Last Flavian princeps) edited by Augoustakis, Buckley, and Stocks (2019). On interdependencies between Nero's and Domitian's images, see above, n. 9.…”

“…Quotation fromAugoustakis, Buckley, and Stocks (2019) 8. Select important works on Nero and the Flavians includeGriffin (1984);; 65-78;;Davies (2000);Kragelund (2000) 512-515; Flower (2006); Kramer and Reitz (2010); Bönisch-Meyer et al (2014); Cordes (2017); Varner (2017); Schulz (2019).…”