Book contents
- Empire and Religion in the Roman World
- Empire and Religion in the Roman World
- Copyright page
- Frontispiece
- Contents
- Figures
- Table
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Empire
- Part II Religion
- Chapter 5 The First Christian Family of Egypt
- Chapter 6 Missionaries, Pious Merchants, Freelance Religious Experts, and the Spread of Christianity
- Chapter 7 Christian Piety in Late Antiquity
- Chapter 8 Ausonius at the Edge of Empire
- Chapter 9 Peregrinationes in Psalmos
- Chapter 10 Muḥammad’s Rivals
- Chapter 11 Brent Shaw
- Appendix: Bibliography of Brent D. Shaw’s Publications to 2020
- Index
- References
Chapter 8 - Ausonius at the Edge of Empire
Consular Poetics as Cognitive Improvisation
from Part II - Religion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 August 2021
By
Edited by
Book contents
- Empire and Religion in the Roman World
- Empire and Religion in the Roman World
- Copyright page
- Frontispiece
- Contents
- Figures
- Table
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Empire
- Part II Religion
- Chapter 5 The First Christian Family of Egypt
- Chapter 6 Missionaries, Pious Merchants, Freelance Religious Experts, and the Spread of Christianity
- Chapter 7 Christian Piety in Late Antiquity
- Chapter 8 Ausonius at the Edge of Empire
- Chapter 9 Peregrinationes in Psalmos
- Chapter 10 Muḥammad’s Rivals
- Chapter 11 Brent Shaw
- Appendix: Bibliography of Brent D. Shaw’s Publications to 2020
- Index
- References
Summary
The visual and intertextual effects of Ausonius’ versified riverscape, the Mosella, make it a prize specimen for modern study of late antique Latin poetics and aesthetics. What kind of performance – and then what kind of a book – would this poem originally have been, in the empire of Valentinian and his sons, in the 370s and ’80s? The chapter measures the oddity of the Mosella, and of the poet’s oeuvre, against the background of prior fourth-century Latin opuscular poetizing, to argue that Ausonius’ “poetical fame” (Gibbon) was at once enabled by his profile as an imperial officeholder and an effect of his deliberately stepping aside from it. A following generation of Latin writers, many of whom would style Christian literary careers for themselves, may be seen reprising – if not emulating – the trick that Ausonius performed in improvising a personal poetic subjectivity at the edge of the cognitive ecology of Roman empire.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Empire and Religion in the Roman World , pp. 187 - 211Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
References
Alföldi, A. (1952) A Conflict of Ideas in the Late Roman Empire: The Clash between the Senate and Valentinian I, Oxford.Google Scholar
Ando, C. (2000) Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire, Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Ando, C. (2015) Roman Social Imaginaries: Language and Thought in Contexts of Empire, Toronto.Google Scholar
Bagnall, R. S., Cameron, A., Schwartz, S. R., and Worp, K. A. (1987) Consuls of the Later Roman Empire, Atlanta.Google Scholar
Berger, J.-D., Fontaine, J., and Schmidt, P.-L. (eds.) (2020) Die Literatur im Zeitalter des Theodosius (374–430 n. Chr.), Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike 6.1. Munich.Google Scholar
Bowersock, G. W. (1986) “Symmachus and Ausonius,” in Paschoud, F. (ed.), Colloque genevois sur Symmaque à l’occasion du mille six centième anniversaire du conflit de l’autel de la Victoire, Paris: 1–12.Google Scholar
Brennan, P. (1996) “The Notitia dignitatum,” in Nicolet, C. (ed.), Les Littératures techniques dans l’antiquité romaine: statut, public et destination, tradition, Entretiens sur l’Antiquité Classique 42, Geneva: 147–171.Google Scholar
Brown, P. (1992) Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire, Madison.Google Scholar
Bruggisser, P. (1993) Symmaque ou le rituel épistolaire de l’amitié littéraire. Recherches sur le premier livre de la correspondence, Fribourg.Google Scholar
Cochrane, C. N. (1933) “The Latin Spirit in Literature,” University of Toronto Quarterly 2 (3): 315–338.Google Scholar
Cochrane, C. N. (1940) Christianity and Classical Culture: A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine, Oxford.Google Scholar
Corcoran, S. (1996) The Empire of the Tetrarchs: Imperial Pronouncements and Government AD 284–324, Oxford.Google Scholar
Coşkun, A. (2002a) “Ein geheimnisvoller gallischer Beamter in Rom, ein Sommerfeldzug Valentinians und weitere Probleme in Ausonius’ Mosella,” Revue des Études Anciennes 104: 401–431.Google Scholar
Coşkun, A. (2002b) “Die sogennanten Fasti und der Consularis liber des Ausonius,” Philologus 146: 350–359.Google Scholar
Della Corte, F. (1991) Storia (e preistoria) del testo ausoniano, Supplemento 10 al Bollettino dei Classici, Rome.Google Scholar
Drinkwater, J. F. (1999) “Re-dating Ausonius’ War Poetry,” American Journal of Philology 120: 443–452.Google Scholar
Easterlin, N. (2013) “The Functions of Literature and the Evolution of Extended Mind,” New Literary History 44: 661–682.Google Scholar
Eigler, U. (2003) Lectiones vetustatis: Römische Literatur und Geschichte in der lateinischen Literatur der Spätantike, Munich.Google Scholar
Ford, A. (2002) The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece, Princeton.Google Scholar
Goldhill, S. (1999) “Literary History without Literature: Reading Practices in the Ancient World,” SubStance 88: 57–89.Google Scholar
Grafton, A. and Williams, M. (2006) Christianity and the Transformation of the Book, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Green, R. (ed.) (1991) The Works of Ausonius: Edited with Introduction and Commentary, Oxford.Google Scholar
Hassall, M. W. C. and Ireland, R. I. (eds.) (1979) De rebus bellicis, 2 vols., BAR International Series 63, Oxford.Google Scholar
Havelock, E. (1986) The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present, New Haven, CT.Google Scholar
Herzog, R. (ed.) (1989) Restauration und Erneuerung: Die lateinische Literatur von 284 bis 374. n. Chr., Munich.Google Scholar
Honoré, T. (1986) “The Making of the Theodosian Code,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Romanistische Abteilung 103: 133–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, K. (1961) “Social Mobility in the later Roman Empire: The Evidence of Ausonius,” Classical Quarterly 11: 239–249.Google Scholar
Hopkins, K. (1978) Conquerors and Slaves: Sociological Studies in Roman History, Vol. 1, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Johnson, S. F. (2016) Literary Territories: Cartographical Thinking in Late Antiquity, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, A. H. M. (1964) The Later Roman Empire 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey, 3 vols., Oxford.Google Scholar
Kaster, R. A. (1989) Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity, Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Matthews, J. [F.] (1975) Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, A.D. 364–425, Oxford.Google Scholar
Millar, F. (2006) A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408–450), Berkeley and Los Angeles.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mondin, L. (1993) “Storia e critico del testo di Ausonio: a proposito di una recente edizione,” Bollettino di Studi Latini 23: 295–313.Google Scholar
Mondin, L. (ed.) (1995) Decimo Magno Ausonio: Epistole. Introduzione, testo critico e commento, Venice.Google Scholar
Mondin, L. (2003) “La data di pubblicazione della Mosella,” in Cavarzere, A. (ed.), Decimo Magno Ausonio: Mosella, Amsterdam: 189–218.Google Scholar
Nellen, D. (1981) Viri litterati: Gebildetes Beamtentum und spätrömisches Reich im Westen zwischen 284 und 395 nach Christus, 2nd ed., Bochum.Google Scholar
Nicolet, C. (1988) L’Inventaire du monde: géographie et politique aux origines de l’Empire romain, Paris.Google Scholar
Nicolet, C. (1991) Space, Geography and Politics in the Early Roman Empire, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Noreña, C. F. (2011) Imperial Ideals in the Roman West: Representation, Circulation, Power, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Ong, W. J. (1982) Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pucci, J. (2009) “Ausonius’ Ephemeris and the Hermeneumeta Tradition,” Classical Philology 104: 50–68.Google Scholar
Reynolds, L. D. (ed.) (1983) Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, Oxford.Google Scholar
Roda, S. (1981) “Una nuova lettera di Simmaco ad Ausonio? (a proposito di Symm., Ep. IX, 88),” Revue des Études Anciennes 83: 273–280.Google Scholar
Scafoglio, G. (2009) “Tradizione manoscritta e destinazione provinciale nella Mosella,” Les Études Classiques 77: 267–278.Google Scholar
Schmidt, P. L. “D. Magnus Ausonius: Text- und Überlieferungsgeschichte,” in Herzog (1989): 270–277.Google Scholar
Shanzer, D. (1998a) “The Date and Literary Context of Ausonius’ Mosella: Valentinian’s Alemannic Campaigns and an Unnamed Office-Holder,” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 47: 204–233.Google Scholar
Shanzer, D. (1998b) “The Date and Literary Context of Ausonius’ Mosella: Ausonius, Symmachus, and the Mosella,” in Knox, P. and Foss, C. (eds.), Style and Tradition: Studies in Honor of Wendell Clausen, Stuttgart and Leipzig: 284–305.Google Scholar
Shaw, B. D. (2013) Bringing in the Sheaves: Economy and Metaphor in the Roman World, Toronto.Google Scholar
Sivan, H. (1990) “Redating Ausonius’ Moselle,” American Journal of Philology 111: 383–398.Google Scholar
Sutton, J. and Tribble, E. (2011) “Cognitive Ecology as a Framework for Shakespearean Studies,” Shakespeare Studies 39: 94–103.Google Scholar
Teitler, H. C. (1985) Notarii and Exceptores: An Inquiry into Role and Significance of Shorthand Writers in the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. A. (ed.) (1952) A Roman Reformer and Inventor: Being a New Text of the Treatise De rebus bellicis with a Translation and Introduction, Oxford.Google Scholar
Vessey, M. (2012) “The History of the Book: Augustine’s City of God and Post-Roman Cultural Memory,” in Wetzel, J. (ed.), Augustine’s City of God: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: 14–32.Google Scholar
Vessey, M. (2015) “Literature, Literary Histories, Latin Late Antiquity: The State of a Question,” in Stenger, J. (ed.), Spätantike Konzeptionen von Literatur, Heidelberg: 27–39.Google Scholar
Waswo, R. (1997) The Founding Legend of Western Civilization: From Virgil to Vietnam, Hanover.Google Scholar
Weisweiler, J. (2015a) “Making Masters, Making Subjects: Imperial Ideology and Memory Policy in the Early Roman Empire and in the Later Roman State,” in Galinsky, K and Lapatin, K (eds.), Cultural Memories in the Roman Empire, Los Angeles: 66–85.Google Scholar
Weisweiler, J. (2015b) “Domesticating the Senatorial Elite: Universal Monarchy an Transregional Aristocracy in the Fourth Century AD.” in J. Wienand (ed.), Contested Monarchy: Integrating the Roman Empire in the Fourth Century AD, Oxford: 17-41.Google Scholar