Urban Disasters and the Roman Imagination

Published by De Gruyter 2020

Urban Disasters and the Roman Imagination

Edited by: Virginia M. Closs and Elizabeth Keitel

Volume 104 in the series Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110674736

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book affords new perspectives on urban disasters in the ancient Roman context, attending not just to the material and historical realities of such events, but also to the imaginary and literary possibilities offered by urban disaster as a figure of thought. Existential threats to the ancient city took many forms, including military invasions, natural disasters, public health crises, and gradual systemic collapses brought on by political or economic factors. In Roman cities, the memory of such events left lasting imprints on the city in psychological as well as in material terms. Individual chapters explore historical disasters and their commemoration, but others also consider of the effect of anticipated and imagined catastrophes. They analyze the destruction of cities both as a threat to be forestalled, and as a potentially regenerative agent of change, and the ways in which destroyed cities are revisited — and in a sense, rebuilt— in literary and social memory. The contributors to this volume seek to explore the Roman conception of disaster in terms that are not exclusively literary or historical. Instead, they explore the connections between and among various elements in the assemblage of experiences, texts, and traditions touching upon the theme of urban disasters in the Roman world.

Author / Editor information

Virginia M. Closs and Elizabeth E. Keitel, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.

Reviews

"[...] the book offers a new and broad perspective especially on literary discussions about the power of disasters, real and imagined, the commemoration of catastrophes in the Roman world as well as the ideological and literary models and topoi applied to such disasters. As a result, it is valuable especially for specialists in the fields of catastrophes and urban disasters, who are looking for fresh and stimulating perspectives. [...] The translations of the numerous quoted Latin texts are well done." Saskia Kerschbaum in: BMCR 2021.05.28.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
List of Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	XI
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: Literary Elaborations of the Urbs Capta Motif
Urban Disasters and Other Romes The Case of Veii C. S. Kraus Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
“One city captures us” Lucan’s Inverted Roman Disaster Narrative Timothy Joseph Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
Pliny’s Telemacheia Epic and Exemplarity under Vesuvius Jacques A. Bromberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
Part II: The Causes of Urban Disasters
Rome’s Sicilian Disaster Invective and the City in Cicero’s Verrines Isabel Köster Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
Winning Too Well Pompey’s Victories as Urban Disaster at Rome Jessica H. Clark Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
Urbs/Orbis Urban Cataclysm in Lucretius’ De rerum natura Jason Nethercut Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
Horace on Moral Clades in Odes 3.6 and the Carmen saeculare Andreas T. Zanker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
Part III: Commemoration of Disasters
The Unmaking of Rome Nero, Seneca, and the Fire(s) of 64 in the Roman Imagination Virginia Closs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Josephus’ Memory of Jerusalem A Study in Urban Disaster Honora Howell Chapman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
The Sacks of Rome, 390 BCE–2017 CE Joseph Farrell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
List of Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Index Locorum Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
General Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Scholars of Roman history, culture, and literature; scholars of disaster studies and Roman urbanism.
Pages
- Front matter: 11
- Main content: 286
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 18
- Coloured Illustrations: 9
Keywords: Urban Disaster; Cultural Memory; Latin Literature; Roman History

eBook

Published: September 21, 2020
ISBN: 9783110674736

Hardcover

Published: September 21, 2020
ISBN: 9783110674699