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Fronto and Aurelius: Contubernium and Solitary Reader

William A. Johnson

in Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities

Fronto was the teacher and friend of Marcus Aurelius. Fronto’s Letters show a man intent on constructing literary culture within the context of the contubernium, an ideal of close connection and ... More

Fronto was the teacher and friend of Marcus Aurelius. Fronto’s Letters show a man intent on constructing literary culture within the context of the contubernium, an ideal of close connection and friendship. His pupil Aurelius, however, shows a strong inclination toward reading habits that privileged the solitary, a set of habits that his contemporaries judged idiosyncratic. The chapter also focuses on the use of excerpts and excerpting in imperial reading culture.Less

Back to Fronto: Doctor and Patient in his Correspondence with an Emperor *

Annelise Freisenbruch

in Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography

This chapter re-evaluates Fronto's letters within the traditions of epistolary scholarship and against the backdrop of a surge of interest in the epistolarity of the letter collections of antiquity. ... More

This chapter re-evaluates Fronto's letters within the traditions of epistolary scholarship and against the backdrop of a surge of interest in the epistolarity of the letter collections of antiquity. Because Fronto has a valuable role to play in the call for a reassessment of the Roman letter-writing voice and identity, his correspondence with his pupil, emperor-in-the-making Marcus Aurelius, is examined. The recurring narrative of sickness and health that features in over eighty of the extant letters between Fronto and Marcus Aurelius is examined, with a particular emphasis on the ailments of the former. This chapter explores the pressing question of whether Fronto and Marcus Aurelius' letters should be regarded as simply reflecting the trend of their age to open up about one's state of health, or whether there is something more pointed, more calculated about such an epistolary narrative.Less

The Frieze Concept & Draft

Martin Beckmann

in The Column of Marcus Aurelius: The Genesis and Meaning of a Roman Imperial Monument

This chapter argues that the designers of the frieze of the Column of Marcus Aurelius did not face the same challenge as did the designer of the frieze of Trajan's Column. The designers of the frieze ... More

This chapter argues that the designers of the frieze of the Column of Marcus Aurelius did not face the same challenge as did the designer of the frieze of Trajan's Column. The designers of the frieze of the Column of Marcus Aurelius did not have to create an entirely new form of architectural sculpture, but rather were able to rely on a model for guidance. At the same time, the existence of a model did not make the task an easy one. To start with, the designers would have had to rely on their own observation and interpretation of their model. Working seventy years after the Column of Trajan was built, these men would not have been able to rely on the advice or information of anyone who had been involved in the original project. Just how well did the designers of the Column of Marcus Aurelius understand their model? Even today, with the benefit of close-up photography and numerous detailed studies, the frieze of the Column of Trajan is far from fully understood.Less

Letters

in Marcus Aurelius in Love

This chapter presents an exchange of letters between Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Cornelius Fronto. The first letter, written by Marcus to Fronto, indicates that Marcus is longing for Fronto. Marcus ... More

This chapter presents an exchange of letters between Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Cornelius Fronto. The first letter, written by Marcus to Fronto, indicates that Marcus is longing for Fronto. Marcus also says: “Should I not burn with love of you when you've written this to me?” In his reply, Fronto makes a proposal to go for a walk down by the river Illyssus. Both letters are dated December 139 CE.Less

The Date & Purpose of the Column

Martin Beckmann

in The Column of Marcus Aurelius: The Genesis and Meaning of a Roman Imperial Monument

This chapter focuses on Adrastus, a former slave but now a freedman of the emperor, who had moved into a new house. Adrastus was not just any official, and his was not just any house. He was the ... More

This chapter focuses on Adrastus, a former slave but now a freedman of the emperor, who had moved into a new house. Adrastus was not just any official, and his was not just any house. He was the procurator or caretaker of the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and his new residence was built just behind the column. The remains of Adrastus's house were found in the year 1777 during excavations beneath the Piazza di Montecitorio, about one hundred meters to the west of the Piazza Colona and the column itself. A lot is known about Adrastus's house because he recorded its construction in a pair of remarkable inscriptions, dating to the year ad 193, that reproduce letters that Adrastus exchanged with the emperor and his servants. The letters were inscribed on a tall marble block that formed the doorpost to the new house.Less

Introduction to Roman Stoicism

Runar M. Thorsteinsson

in Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study of Ancient Morality

This chapter provides a general introduction to Roman Stoicism, especially in relation to the field of ethics. A brief overview is given of the historical setting of the Stoic school in Rome in the ... More

This chapter provides a general introduction to Roman Stoicism, especially in relation to the field of ethics. A brief overview is given of the historical setting of the Stoic school in Rome in the first two centuries CE. Some of the main philosophical characteristics of the school are described, such as the doctrine of universal humanity, and the close relationship between ethics and theology in Stoicism is discussed. The chapter also defines what is meant by the phrase ‘Roman Stoicism’, and lists its main sources, including Cicero, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The Stoic sources which are specifically consulted in the present study are then determined. These include Seneca, Musonius, and Epictetus.Less

Introduction

Martin Beckmann

in The Column of Marcus Aurelius: The Genesis and Meaning of a Roman Imperial Monument

This book focuses on Marcus Aurelius. Born in a villa on the Caelian Hill in Rome in April of ad 121, Marcus was raised by his grandfather, a holder of three consulships and a relative of Hadrian. ... More

This book focuses on Marcus Aurelius. Born in a villa on the Caelian Hill in Rome in April of ad 121, Marcus was raised by his grandfather, a holder of three consulships and a relative of Hadrian. Hadrian took Marcus under his wing and eventually ordered his own chosen successor, Antoninus Pius, to adopt him. On Pius's death in 161, Marcus became emperor; he promptly raised his adoptive brother Lucius Verus to the position of coemperor and took his adoptive father's name. Thereafter he was known as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. All was not smooth, however: various peoples beyond the Roman frontiers seized the opportunity offered by the imperial transition to stir up trouble. Marcus and Verus were ill prepared to deal with these developing crises: neither had gained any practical military experience in their youth, and one of them—Marcus—had never even been outside of Italy.Less

The French Augustinians

Christopher Brooke

in Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau

This chapter details the contemporary assault on Stoic moral psychology from the pens of the French Augustinians. The influence of the Stoic revival of the sixteenth century continued to be felt in a ... More

This chapter details the contemporary assault on Stoic moral psychology from the pens of the French Augustinians. The influence of the Stoic revival of the sixteenth century continued to be felt in a variety of spheres in seventeenth-century France, and gave rise to a variegated landscape which brought about several orientations toward the Stoics. The chapter considers one such orientation in particular — the nascent anti-Stoicism of the 1640s. This took on its distinctive form in the pages of Corneille Jansen's Augustinus (1640), but, as the chapter demonstrates, such an orientation was not by any means confined to narrow Jansenist circles.Less

Introduction

in Marcus Aurelius in Love

In 1815 Angelo Mai found a long-lost treasure of the classical world in the Ambrosian Library in Milan: a palimpsest codex containing, among other works, many of the letters of Marcus Cornelius ... More

In 1815 Angelo Mai found a long-lost treasure of the classical world in the Ambrosian Library in Milan: a palimpsest codex containing, among other works, many of the letters of Marcus Cornelius Fronto and his correspondents, who included the emperor Marcus Aurelius. The events of Marcus's life are known mostly through much later sources, of which the best are the Historia Augusta biographies of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus and a very late condensed version of book 70 of Cassius Dio's history. The letters between Marcus and Fronto from 139 to 145 provide what appears to be direct evidence of a living relationship of some kind. The future emperor, revered as a sort of saint from antiquity onward, is exuberant, slangy, sometimes impudent, and (as he says himself in letter 37) bubbling over with love for Fronto. Were Marcus and Fronto in love? Were they lovers? This book presents only a selection of letters: all the letters from the years 139–48 that testify to the feelings of the correspondents.Less

The Dust of Northern Warfare Choice of location

Martin Beckmann

in The Column of Marcus Aurelius: The Genesis and Meaning of a Roman Imperial Monument

This chapter argues that understanding the rationale behind the location of Adrastus's house is but one of the problems one faces when trying to reconstruct the ancient surroundings of the Column of ... More

This chapter argues that understanding the rationale behind the location of Adrastus's house is but one of the problems one faces when trying to reconstruct the ancient surroundings of the Column of Marcus Aurelius. Our understanding of the function of the column in its broad historical and political context depends in large part on an understanding of the meaning and use of the spaces and structures that surrounded it. Did the column stand in the open, or was it surrounded by other buildings? What sort of buildings? And what relationship, if any, did the column have with these structures? Rapid changes in this area of the Campus Martius during the second century ad make answering these questions a challenge. These changes did not involve new buildings alone: they also relate to the very substance of the Campus itself, for the ground level rose continuously throughout the early imperial period.Less

Marcus Aurelius

C. Kavin Rowe

in One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions

This chapter finishes the discussion of the Stoics with the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The chapter is organized around the six dominant areas of Marcus’s language in his Meditations: Death, God/Nature, ... More

This chapter finishes the discussion of the Stoics with the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The chapter is organized around the six dominant areas of Marcus’s language in his Meditations: Death, God/Nature, Human Beings and Right Judgments, Human Beings and the Possibility of Right Judgments, Philosophy, Society.Less

The Frieze As History

Martin Beckmann

in The Column of Marcus Aurelius: The Genesis and Meaning of a Roman Imperial Monument

This chapter illustrates how the meager and frequently unreliable sources for the history of the reign of Marcus Aurelius make it almost impossible to reconstruct any more than a superficial account ... More

This chapter illustrates how the meager and frequently unreliable sources for the history of the reign of Marcus Aurelius make it almost impossible to reconstruct any more than a superficial account of the main events of his reign. The main literary sources for the period are two: Cassius Dio, a senator and historian who lived in the time of Septimius Severus; and the Historia Augusta, a collection of imperial biographies written in the fourth century. The Historia Augusta is notoriously unreliable, a situation made worse by the fact that its biographical focus means that historical events are normally mentioned out of order. Dio, who should be an outstanding source for this period, has suffered in transmission: his text is only preserved in fragments cobbled together into an abbreviated history in the eleventh century by a Byzantine monk named Xiphilinus.Less

From Fénelon to Hume

Christopher Brooke

in Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau

This chapter views a series of philosophical exchanges in the eighteenth century, which showcases the back and forth between plausibly Stoic and Epicurean concerns and arguments. It first takes a ... More

This chapter views a series of philosophical exchanges in the eighteenth century, which showcases the back and forth between plausibly Stoic and Epicurean concerns and arguments. It first takes a look at François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, the major opponent from within French Catholicism of the Augustinian tendency towards Epicureanism, before turning to Bernard Mandeville's critique of Shaftesbury. The chapter also studies the moral philosophies of Joseph Butler and Francis Hutcheson, both of whom directed their arguments against Mandeville and in defence of Shaftesbury. In addition, the chapter discusses a persuasive interpretation of David Hume as a somewhat Epicurean and certainly anti-Stoic moral theorist.Less

After Ethnicity: Zeno as Citizen

Daniel S. Richter

in Cosmopolis: Imagining Community in Late Classical Athens and the Early Roman Empire

This chapter examines how Stoicism provided a way of thinking about space, culture, ethnicity, and the relationship of the parts to the whole. It discusses how Athenian intellectuals (or perhaps ... More

This chapter examines how Stoicism provided a way of thinking about space, culture, ethnicity, and the relationship of the parts to the whole. It discusses how Athenian intellectuals (or perhaps better, intellectuals writing in or about Athens) adapted a fifth- and fourth-century Athenian language of lineage and descent to imagine how the various parts of the rapidly shrinking oikoumenê formed a cohesive whole and how post-classical Stoic thought provided a kind of template out of which the monogenic and polygenic ideas of the modern world grew. The focus here is on how the Mediterranean world created Stoic political theory and how Stoic political theory in turn structured a cosmopolitan Mediterranean. The chapter argues that the political thought of the early Stoa is far less universalizing than some have suggested and demonstrates that early Stoic political theory was primarily concerned with the status of outsiders within the classical polis. This chapter focuses on Zeno’s ideas about the unity of mankind as a response to contemporary Athenian debates over the status of “outsiders” within the polis.Less

Marcus the Stoic in Marius the Epicurean

Richard Rutherford

in Pater the Classicist: Classical Scholarship, Reception, and Aestheticism

The figure of Marcus Aurelius in Pater’s novel Marius the Epicurean is examined in order to shed light on Pater’s complex attitude to both pagan philosophy and early Christianity. The novel makes ... More

The figure of Marcus Aurelius in Pater’s novel Marius the Epicurean is examined in order to shed light on Pater’s complex attitude to both pagan philosophy and early Christianity. The novel makes extensive use of Marcus’ own Meditations, but some significant omissions are discussed. An appendix provides evidence of heavy use of the Meditations in chapter 12 of the novel.Less

Planning & Construction

Martin Beckmann

in The Column of Marcus Aurelius: The Genesis and Meaning of a Roman Imperial Monument

This chapter describes the Column of Marcus Aurelius as a complex monument, combining architecture, relief carving, statuary, and an inscription into a single, unified whole. The planning of these ... More

This chapter describes the Column of Marcus Aurelius as a complex monument, combining architecture, relief carving, statuary, and an inscription into a single, unified whole. The planning of these different elements would have been a complicated, multistage process, an understanding of which could provide an idea of the relative significance of the column's different parts in the minds of the people who created it. Which elements were given greatest priority in planning? Which details were decided at the highest level? Were all elements of the column planned at the same time, or were some left to be resolved later? The construction challenges were as great as those of planning: massive blocks of stone had to be quarried in northern Italy, transported to Rome, finished to perfection, lifted to unprecedented heights, and assembled with unfailing accuracy. Some of these challenges, particularly the weight of the blocks and the height to which they were raised, exceeded those faced by the designers of Trajan's Column.Less

Carving the Frieze

Martin Beckmann

in The Column of Marcus Aurelius: The Genesis and Meaning of a Roman Imperial Monument

This chapter shows how it seems an impossible task to determine how many men worked on carving the frieze of the Column of Marcus Aurelius. The most powerful method of determining the number of ... More

This chapter shows how it seems an impossible task to determine how many men worked on carving the frieze of the Column of Marcus Aurelius. The most powerful method of determining the number of carvers at work on the column is to look for the signatures of individual carvers—not written signatures, but stylistic ones. This technique, first pioneered by Giovanni Morelli for the identification of Italian Renaissance painters and later used to great effect by Sir John Beazley for the identification of Greek vase painters, usually relies on identifying peculiarities in the treatment of specific body parts. The method is much more difficult with sculpture than with two-dimensional painting, especially in the case of the Column of Marcus Aurelius, where most of the work must be done from photographs.Less