O. Hekster, S. Betjes, Sam Heijnen, Ketty Iannantuono, Dennis Jussen, E. Manders, Daniel Syrbe
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Summary Trajan’s status as a model emperor is perhaps most famously expressed in Eutropius’ catchphrase “More fortunate than Augustus, better than Trajan” (Eutr. Brev. 8.5.3). Modern scholarship has similarly stressed Trajan’s exemplary status, assuming that Trajan’s virtues were already a point of departure by which to measure second- and third-century emperors. This article challenges that notion; it argues that Trajan’s status as a model emperor was a late-antique literary construct. Trajan only entered the repertoire of exemplary emperors during the course of the fourth century to become the model emperor in the very late-fourth- and early-fifth century. This development depended on the historical context and ideological demands, as well as on the availability of the then-existing material discussing and depicting the historical Trajan.
期刊介绍:
KLIO is one of the oldest journals in the German-speaking area and contains contributions on the history of ancient Greece and Rome. The essays present new interpretations of traditional sources concerning problems of political history as well as papers on the whole field of culture, economy and society.