Augusto il fondatore
La rinascita di Roma e il mito romuleo
by Antonietta Castiello
For Rome and the Romans alike, the Roman civil wars brought about the end of an era. They also reconfigured Roman identity for good. The clash between factions prompted a fratricidal struggle, leading to citizens fighting citizens and to kinspeople killing each other. Anybody could be an enemy, a hostis. Only Octavian was able to put an end to the civil wars and to this climate of universal distrust. He alone could give back to his fellow citizens a history and a purpose in which they could recognise themselves. Antonietta Castiello shows in her study how Octavian, later Augustus, was able to bring Rome back to life: not physically, but symbolically. Through a juxtaposition never made fully explicit, Augustus managed to enter the hearts of the Romans as their new leader, a charismatic ruler who could easily be assimilated to the Pater Patriae par excellence, Romulus. The revival of the figure of Romulus allowed Augustus and those who recognised in him the leadership of the first founder to breathe new life into the Romans’ legendary past: an intentional history linked to the birth of the city, the creation of its first sacred boundary, the pomerium, and in general to the myth of fratricide, a myth so brutally symbolic that it was open to an Augustan re-interpretation.
For Rome and the Romans alike, the Roman civil wars brought about the end of an era. They also reconfigured Roman identity for good. The clash between factions prompted a fratricidal struggle, leading to citizens fighting citizens and to kinspeople killing each other. Anybody could be an enemy, a hostis. Only Octavian was able to put an end to the civil wars and to this climate of universal distrust. He alone could give back to his fellow citizens a history and a purpose in which they could recognise themselves. Antonietta Castiello shows in her study how Octavian, later Augustus, was able to bring Rome back to life: not physically, but symbolically. Through a juxtaposition never made fully explicit, Augustus managed to enter the hearts of the Romans as their new leader, a charismatic ruler who could easily be assimilated to the Pater Patriae par excellence, Romulus. The revival of the figure of Romulus allowed Augustus and those who recognised in him the leadership of the first founder to breathe new life into the Romans’ legendary past: an intentional history linked to the birth of the city, the creation of its first sacred boundary, the pomerium, and in general to the myth of fratricide, a myth so brutally symbolic that it was open to an Augustan re-interpretation.
- By (author) Antonietta Castiello
Other Titles in this Series
Pharao und Priester – Sakrale Affirmation von Herrschaft durch Kultvollzug
Das Tagliche Kultbildritual im Neuen Reich und der Dritten Zwischenzeit
Volume 23
Alexandrinische Mosaikglaseinlagen
Die Typologie, Systematik und Herstellung von Gesichterdarstellungen in der ptolemaischen Glaskunst
Volume 22
Marmor – Masse – Monumente
Vorfertigung, Standardisierung und Massenproduktion marmorner Bauteile in der romischen Kaiserzeit
Volume 121
Hercules in der Spatantike
Die Rolle des Heros im Spannungsfeld von Heidentum und Christentum
Volume 89
Historiographie, Ethnographie, Utopie
Gesammelte Schriften, Teil 4. Studien zur griechischen Historiographie
Volume 18.4
Papyrus Ebers und die antike Heilkunde
Akten der Tagung vom 15.-16.3.2002 in der Albertina der Universitat Leipzig
Volume 7
Isis im Romischen Reich
Teil 1: Die Gottin im griechisch-romischen Agypten. Teil 2: Adaption(en) des Kultes im Westen
Volume 109
Romische Graber augusteischer und tiberischer Zeit im Westen des Imperiums
Akten der Tagung vom 11. bis 14. November 2010 in Trier
Volume 63
Antike Lebenswelten: Konstanz – Wandel – Wirkungskraft
Festschrift fur Ingomar Weiler zum 70. Geburtstag
Volume 25
Der Althistoriker Michail Rostovtzeff
Wissenschaft und Politik im vorrevolutionaren und bolschewistischen Russland (1890-1918)
Volume 142
Inszenierung der Antike
Prasentationskonzepte in offentlichen Antikenmuseen des 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland
Volume 99
Livius, Dionysios, Augustus, Machiavelli
Ein diskursanalytischer Vergleich der romischen Fruhgeschichte bei Livius und Dionysios von Halikarnassos und die Rezeption ihrer livianischen Darstellung im Werk des Niccolo Machiavelli
Volume 88
Interkulturalitat in der Alten Welt
Vorderasien, Hellas, Agypten und die vielfaltigen Ebenen des Kontakts
Volume 34
Städtebau im vorrömischen Judäa und Nabatäa
Zwischen einheimischer Tradition und griechisch-römischen Einflüssen
Volume 186
Die private Munifizenz der romischen Oberschicht in Mittel- und Suditalien
Eine Untersuchung lateinischer Inschriften unter dem Aspekt der Fursorge
Similar Books
Contesting Labeled Identities
The Sociology of Gentilics in Biblical and Northwest Semitic Literature
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Epigraphic “Shades” from Hellenistic Thrace
Contextualizing Inscriptions in Greek from Thracian Tombs
Epiphanies of the Divine in the Septuagint and the New Testament
Fifth International Symposium of the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti (CJHNT), 14-17 May 2015, Nottingham
Gold, Silver and Glass: Power Networks, Cultural Identities, Technology Transfers and Agency across the Old World (7th Century BC – 1st Century AD)
Proceedings of a Conference Held at the British Museum, 16–18 June 2023
Language and Power in the Roman Empire and Early India
Hierarchy, Ambiguity, and the Art of Reading the Signs in Cosmopolitan Cultures
Late Antique villae in the Balkans (3rd–7th c. AD): Current Research Questions and Perspectives
HAEMUS Companion to the Late Antique Balkans 1
Volume 4
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
Roman Copies, Collecting, and Culture in the Bay of Naples and Beyond
Papers in Honor of Eugene J. Dwyer
The Compositional History of the Book of Kings
An Analysis of the Evaluative Frameworks in 1 Kings 14–2 Kings 25
Zooarchaeology of Ancient Greek Sanctuaries in Southwestern Sicily
Faunal Analysis from Selinus and Akragas as Evidence of Differences in the Treatment of Animals for Ritual Purposes
