This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
Today most adults have a conception of the lives of Roman emperors derived from TV or film. Few can discuss how the nature of ancient biography shapes the modern conception of the Roman emperor. Biography was a genre developed under the Roman Empire, most notably by Suetonius. This can be seen as a response to the presence of the Emperor (or Princeps), but is also the genre which created a cultural memory that was shot through with the morals associated with good and bad; virtue and vice. Few dead emperors were ever seen a paradigms for the virtuous life, whereas the living ones provided moral exemplars. The module is designed to unpick our modern image of the emperors to reveal how this literary genre from antiquity constructs our image of the past. The module will focus mainly on the author Suetonius, but will also include Tacitus' Agricola and Annals.
Total Contact Hours: 20
• Critical Summary (1,200 words) – 30%
• Essay (2,500 words) – 70%
Indicative Reading List
Barrett, A. (1989) Caligula – the Corruption of Power, London: Routledge
Champlin, E. (2003) Nero, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press
Elsner, J. and Masters, J. (1994) Reflections of Nero: Culture, History and Representation, London: Duckworth
Ferrill, A. (1982) Caligula: Emperor of Rome, London: Thames and Hudson
Levick, B. (1990) Claudius, London: Routledge
Levick, B. (1999) Vespasian, London: Routledge
Morgan, G. (2006). 69 AD: The Year of the Four Emperors, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Wallace-Hadrill, A. (1983) Suetonius, London: Duckworth
Winterling, A. (2009), Politics and Society in Imperial Rome, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
8.1 Demonstrate understanding of how the Roman emperor was represented in later times after his death or murder;
8.2 Evaluate the role of biography in ancient culture and as a genre in modern culture for the representation of the past;
8.3 Demonstrate academic skills fundamental to their future learning within the discipline including the evaluation of ancient evidence, modern representations, and the evaluation of modern scholarship;
8.4 Demonstrate appreciation of the interdisciplinary nature of Ancient History and Classical Studies;
8.5 Evaluate existing knowledge within the discipline of the Roman emperor from antiquity and the deployment of that knowledge in more recent times to create a popular image of this figure from antiquity in the recent past;
8.6 Demonstrate understanding of ancient literature and of the use of evidence for the writing of history;
8.7 Grasp the distinctive position occupied by the emperor in Roman society and critically evaluate more recent representations of the Roman emperor;
8.8 Demonstrate knowledge of the ancient genre of biography and understand how that genre differs from its modern equivalent.
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