Lisa Cordes

In der literarischen Diskussion nach ihrem Tod erscheinen Nero und Domitian als größenwahnsinnige Tyrannen, in der Panegyrik zu ihren Lebzeiten werden sie überschwänglich gepriesen. Angesichts dieser Diskrepanz hat man in den Übersteigerungen des Herrscherlobs versteckte Kritik am Kaiser vermutet. Der Band betrachtet das disparate Bild mit einem neuen, kommunikationstheoretischen Ansatz als Resultat von Prozessen der Kodierung und Umkodierung von Herrscherrepräsentation. Während das Motiv der Transgression in der Panegyrik für Nero und Domitian eine zentrale Rolle spielt, wird in der Selbstdarstellung ihrer Nachfolger darauf verzichtet. Mit dem Wechsel der Macht geht also ein Wechsel der Codes einher, mittels derer diese Macht beschrieben wird. So erfahren Aspekte, die in der panegyrischen Kodierung der Repräsentation als positiv konnotierte Grenzerweiterung gedeutet wurden, gemäß den Codes der jeweils neuen Dynastie eine Umkodierung als negativ konnotierte Grenzverletzung. Die Arbeit analysiert die sprachlichen Mechanismen, die diesen Prozessen zugrunde liegen. Damit eröffnet sie neue Perspektiven auf die literarische Repräsentation der beiden mali principes und auf Modi politischer Kommunikation im frühen Prinzipat.

Nero und Domitian, die bis heute nicht nur in der Populärkultur als mali principes gelten, sind bislang zumeist einzeln oder im Kontext ihrer eigenen Dynastien untersucht worden. Dieser Band unternimmt erstmals den Versuch, die Herrscherrepräsentation beider Kaiser im Vergleich zu analysieren. Durch eine solche komparative Herangehensweise sollen die spezifischen Profile ihrer Herrschaft, Kontinuitäten und Brüche in ihrer Repräsentation sowie Transgressionen bestehender Normen herausgearbeitet werden. Dafür werden die Darstellungen beider Kaiser in den verschiedenen Medien in der Literatur, in Inschriften, Bildnissen und Münzen aus der Perspektive mehrerer altertumswissenschaftlicher Fachdisziplinen betrachtet. Ziel ist es, so die verschiedenen Strategien und Praktiken ihrer Repräsentation zu untersuchen und dabei die Diskurse der neronischen und domitianischen Herrschaft nachzuzeichnen.

This paper analyses the use of female sermocinatio in Seneca the Elder’s
Controversia 1.2. The gender status of the ‘prostitute-priestess’, who is at the centre of the Controversia, is ambiguous, as she is depicted at times as a weak virgo, at times a manly virago, who may, or may not, be suitable for priesthood. The paper shows how this ambiguity is employed in the first-person speech that the declaimers put into the woman’s mouth. Focusing on their rhetorical, literary, and aesthetic dimensions, the paper analyses these sermocinationes, and the alleged ‘interactions’ that they initiate between the woman and the advocates, first with regard to the excerpts from the declaimers’ individual speeches, second with regard to the Controversia as it is compiled by Seneca. With a view to this declamatory ‘womanufacture’, the paper demonstrates the importance of a holistic approach to Seneca’s ‘collages’. Moreover, by looking at parallels in Roman comedy and the ancient novel, it shows how the Controversia combines the construction of gender with a self-conscious discussion of the declamation’s fictional genre.

The paper analyses how the category of age is used in the literary discourses that surround Nero and his Flavian successors. Focusing on the young principes Nero and Domitian, it analyses how their youth is depicted positively in the panegyrics of their lifetime and recoded negatively in the posthumous critical texts. Regarding the depiction of the emperor's age, we need to differentiate between earlier and later Flavian responses to the Neronian representation. While Vespasian uses his old age as a counterpoint, Domitianic poetry creates a contrast by encoding his youth differently from its Julio-Claudian anti-model. These different depictions concern not only the individual emperor, but also touch upon general questions relating to the political system of the early principate, in particular the topic of dynasty and succession.

With its seemingly contradictory presentation of events and speakers, ancient erotic poetry raises the question of whether a referential or a non-referential reading is the more appropriate reception. The texts thus create a reading experience that corresponds to Frank Zipfel’s third type of autofiction. Starting from this observation, the paper examines three apologies of erotic poetry (Sen. contr. 6,8; Plin. epist. 4,14; Apul. De mag. 9–13,3) and asks how they deal with the ambiguity resulting from the autofictional character of the poetry. In doing so, the paper sheds new light on the apologies which prove to be more diverse than is generally recognized. Moreover, it investigates the applicability of the concept of autofiction to ancient texts by asking how it has to be modified in order to adequately represent the apologetic argumentation. While the apologies discuss intensively whether the poetry is to be read referentially or nonreferentially, they do not depict the poetic speaker as completely separate from the poet. Rather, they discuss in which regards readers should draw conclusions from the text about the author. A second line of argumentation, which plays a major role in the apologies, but is not sufficiently grasped by the concept of autofiction, concerns the relationship between the poets’ inner and outer textual roles. It is connected in different ways with the question of the fictionality of the poems and opens up additional possibilities of a positive self-representation for the apologist.

By looking at exemplary passages from Cicero’s dialogues and letters, the paper identifies two perspectives that Cicero has on his dialogue speakers, and two types of Uneindeutigkeit concerning their identities and relationships with the extra-textual world. The first type is an ambiguity created by the communicative setting of the dramatic dialogue. It concerns the point of reference of the ‘I’ that speaks and, consequently, may concern the content of what is said. The second type is a vagueness that can be observed in cases where the textual character is described as a kind of ‘hybrid’ created by the blending of several individuals. While the first type is based on the coexistence of two distinguishable perspectives on the dialogue, revealing a binary notion of the relationship between the author and the text-internal speaker,

Der Aufsatz untersucht das auffällige Nebeneinander von Fiktion und faktualer Beteuerung, das für die Lobreden auf Kaiser des 3. und 4. Jhs. charakteristisch ist, und fragt nach der Konsequenz für deren textpragmatischen Status. Er zeigt, dass die antike Panegyrik faktuales und fiktionales Erzählen kombiniert und erklärt dies mit einer impliziten kommunikativen Übereinkunft zwischen Rednern und Publikum, dem panegyrischen Pakt. Das Ergebnis ist relevant für Studien zur antiken Panegyrik, für die seit langem diskutierte Frage nach dem antiken Bewusstsein für Fiktionalität und für die moderne Forschung zu faktualem und fiktionalem Erzählen, die immer mehr die Existenz ‚hybrider‘ Erzählformen betont.

Many texts from antiquity describe and discuss colossal statues. The descriptions are used to evaluate and often criticize the ruler. This paper examines different types of criticism. In the first part, by looking at depictions of Domitian’s equestrian statue (Statius, Martial) and of Nero’s colossus (Martial, Suetonius, Pliny the Elder), I shall concentrate on a method I call the ‘negative re-coding’ of representational elements. After the downfall of the mali principes Nero and Domitian, the critical texts attribute negative meaning to forms of representation which were originally meant to be read affirmatively. The colossus is well suited for this type of criticism. It is ambivalent due to its enormous size and in the sense that it is a man-made object or can be seen as a personified representation of the ruler. In the second part of the paper I am going to concentrate on negative depictions of rulers found in less personalized contexts. First, I shall look at the schematized depictions of tyrants in the late-antique ‘Historia Augusta’. There, the narrative of hubristic Nero who erects a colossal statue of himself and Vespasian’s ‘correction’ of it becomes a topos which is modified in several biographies. As these variations are exaggerated and mostly fictious, the negative images of the emperors seem to aim at entertainment rather than at serious criticism of the individual. Secondly, I will analyze the use of colossal images in Plutarch’s depictions of rulers, looking at the treaty ‘To an uneducated ruler’ and the second speech ‘On the fortune or virtue of Alexander’. Both texts show parallels with the individual criticism of rulers analyzed in the first part of the paper. The modes of depiction we saw there now serve as a kind of paraenetic or exemplary discourse.
The colossal statue proves to be a versatile image which is used to create a wide variety of positive and negative images of rulers. In the Roman principate, we find almost no evidence of explicit criticism of the ruling emperor; but by looking at the example of the colossal statue, the paper shows that this does not prevent critical debate. By discussing the meaning of the colossal format, the texts negotiate the characteristics of the ideal ruler and the possibilities and boundaries of his representation.

Gesprächsrunde zu den wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Konsequenzen der Corona-Pandemie mit Fokus auf den 'Nachwuchs' im weiteren Sinne: auf Schüler*innen, Auszubildende, Studierende, Arbeitsmarkteinsteiger*innen und insbesondere den Wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs.