Publication details
The Production of Ideology: Honorific Statuary for Senatorial Aristocracy in the Tetrarchic Period (293-324)
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2020 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://ams.ceu.edu/2020.htm |
| Keywords | epigraphy; late antiquity; sentorial order; tetrarchy |
| Description | Examining the self-representation of the late imperial senatorial aristocracy, I look at honorific language and patterns of self-display in the inscriptions set up for the senatorial office-holders both in Rome and in provinces. Honorific statuary was the site in which the ideological self-representation of the ruling order was acted out and the field in which this representation was equally contested. I maintain that this type of evidence allows one to trace concurrently the public image of the senatorial aristocracy and of the emperor in the tetrarchic period. It will be argued that the honorific monuments erected for the senatorial aristocracy in the age of tetrarchy articulated official expressions of imperial ideology internalized by the ordo senatorius. I conclude with the account of the ideological role of public epigraphic monuments translating the official discourse as part of rituals of ideological recognition in the shaping of senatorial self-understanding. |