This volume focuses on the interface between tradition and the shifting configuration of power structures in the Roman Empire. By examining various time periods and locales, its contributions show the Empire as a world filed with a wide variety of cultural, political, social, and religious traditions. These traditions were constantly played upon in the processes of negotiation and (re)definition that made the empire into a superstructure whose coherence was embedded in its diversity.
Dr. Sven Betjes is lecturer and researcher of Ancient History at Radboud University Nijmegen. He has published articles on ideological expressions of Roman emperors, and takes a particular interest in numismatics and ancient roads.
Prof.dr. Olivier Hekster is Professor of Ancient History at Radboud University Nijmegen and chair of the Impact of Empire network. He has published widely on the role of ideology in ancient Rome, with a particular focus on Roman emperorship.
Dr. Erika Manders is Assistant Professor of Ancient History at Radboud University Nijmegen. She has published a monograph and articles on political culture and religion in the Roman Empire, with particular interest in coins and religious policies of Roman emperors.
List of Figures and Maps
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
âSven Betjes and Erika Manders
Part 1: Tradition in the Formation of the Augustan Empire
1 A Divine Right to Rule? The Gods as Legitimators of Power
âAmber Gartrell
2 Closing a Highway to Heaven
Discontinuities in the Divinisation of Human Beings in Roman Times
âFernando Lozano and Elena Muñiz Grijalvo
3 Womenâs Mediation and Peace Diplomacy
Augustan Women through the Looking Glass
âElena Torregaray Pagola and Toni Ãaco Del Hoyo
4 Republican Traditions, Imperial Innovations
The Representation of the Military Prowess of Augustusâ Family
âFlorian Groll
5 Augustus and Traditional Structures in Egypt
Grand Policies or Ad Hoc Measures?
âLivia Capponi
6 Between Tradition and Innovation
Place Names and the Geography of Power in Late Republican and Early Imperial Hispania
âSergio España-Chamorro
7 Paving the Route of Hercules
The Via Augusta and the Via Iulia Augusta and the Appropriation of Road-Bound Traditions in the Augustan Age
âSven Betjes
Part 2: Tradition and Power in the First and Second Century CE
8 Municipal Elections in the Roman West during the Principate
The Strength of Tradition
âChrister Bruun
9 Plotina and the (Re)Invention of the Tradition of Womanhood
âMargherita Carucci