Flavian Responses to Nero's Rome - 20-21-22/01/2016, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

The Flavian age (69-96 AD) is commonly seen as a reaction to the preceding Neronian era. Scholars have shown, for instance, how the Flavians opposed the last Julio-Claudian ruler, Nero, and took the first, Augustus, as their example in creating a new dynasty. Similarly, the Flavian epic poets have been interpreted as opposing Lucan’s Neronian epic Bellum Civile and imitating Virgil’s Augustan epic Aeneid, while Quintilian criticized the decadent style of Seneca. The Flavian epics, however, also reveal continuities. The pervasive presence of civil wars, for instance, brings Lucan’s epic to mind, and Statius’ Thebaid seems to take up where Seneca’s tragedy Oedipus left off. Furthermore, ancient writers have already noted the remarkable similarities between the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties, which both started with a good founder (Augustus and Vespasian) and ended with a bad ruler (Nero and Domitian).

This conference brings together archeologists, ancient historians, and classicists to explore how the Flavian age is related to the Neronian age. To what extent was there continuity or change? And how did rulers, authors, and poets perceive and react to this change of the guard?

FECHA/DATE/DATA: 20-21-22/01/2016

LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: Doelenzaal - Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Mark Heerink (University of Amsterdam & VU University Amsterdam) INFO: flavian.responses@gmail.com

INSCRIPCIÓN/REGISTRATION/REGISTRAZIONE: 20€ día/day/giorno

PROGRAMA/PROGRAM/PROGRAMMA:

Wednesday 20 January (9.00-17.00)

Andrew Gallia (University of Minnesota): Nero's Divine Stepfather and the Flavian Regime

Lauren Ginsberg (University of Cincinnati): iam Poppaeae fulget imago: Remembering Poppaea in the Octavia

Tim Stover (Florida State University): imitatio, aemulatio, and Ludic Allusion: Channeling Lucan in Thebaid 1

Stefano Rebeggiani (University of Southern California): Sometimes they come back: Domitian, Nero, and Statius' Thebaid

Alexander Heinemann (Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg): Setting up, Looking at and Tearing down Imperial Portraits from Nero to Domitian

Eric Moormann & Aurora Raimondi Cominesi (RadboudUniversity Nijmegen): Flavian Architecture on the Palatine: Continuity or Break?

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (University of Cambridge): Flavian Herculaneum: was there a 'new morality'?

Thursday 21 January (9.30-15.30)

Ruurd Nauta (Groningen University): Martial and Calpurnius Siculus: Poetics, Patronage, Panegyric

Mark Heerink (University of Amsterdam & VU University Amsterdam): Virgil, Lucan, and civil war in Valerius Flaccus

Steve Mason (Groningen University): Flavius Josephus on Nero

Verena Schulz (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich): Historiographical Responses to Flavian Responses to Nero

Michiel van der Keur (VU University Amsterdam) & Marco van der Schuur (Groningen University): Silius tragicus: Silius Italicus on Senecan tragedy and the epic tradition

Andrew Zissos (University of California, Irvine): Flavian Responses to Seneca the Younger

Friday 22 January (9.30-13.30)

Annemarie Ambühl (Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz): The Flavians and Their Women: Re-Writing Neronian Transgressions?

Elena Merli (University of L’Aquila): an non videtur tibi Nero modo modo fuisse? Elements of continuity between the ages of Nero, Domitian and Trajan

Christiane Reitz (University of Rostock): Neronian Suicide in Flavian Poetry

Alessandro Barchiesi (University of Siena): Inescapable Empire