Ceremony and Power: Performing Politics in Rome between Republic and Empire - Softcover

Sumi, Geoffrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0472036661 ISBN 13: 9780472036660

Publisher: University of Michigan Press, 2015

Synopsis

In Ceremony and Power, Geoffrey Sumi is concerned with the relationship between political power and public ceremonial in the Roman Republic, with particular focus on the critical months following Caesar's assassination and later as Augustus became the first emperor of Rome. The book traces the use of a variety of public ceremonies, including assemblies of the people, triumphs, funerals, and games, as a means for politicians in this period of instability and transition to shape their public images and consolidate their power and prestige. Ultimately, Sumi shows that the will of the people, whether they were the electorate assembled at the comitia, the citizen body at the contio, the spectators at the theater, the crowd at the triumph, or mourners at a funeral, strongly influenced the decisions and actions of Roman aristocrats.

About this title

About the Author:

Geoffrey Sumi is Professor of Classics at Mount Holyoke College, USA.

Review:

Geoffrey Sumi has written a book that should be on every Roman historian's shelves."-Allen M. Ward, New England Classical Journal "This is a well-written, informative and useful book ... an excellent example and an important one, with which those who teach this period in schools should become familiar."-John Murrell, The Journal of Classics Teaching

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0472036661
• ISBN 13: 9780472036660
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 378