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supporters as enemies. Gauly’s article includes important discussions on the effectiveness of the text
and on the relation between literary constructions, authorship and reception. Thomas Schmitz also
studies how text formulates identity. His essay is devoted to Lucian and the complex relationship
between power and Bildung in Imperial Greece. Schmitz reads Lucian’s writing as an expression of
self in a society where Greek paideia was both powerful, as in possession of cultural capital, and
powerless, as in limited access to political command.
The dynamic relationship between text and political power forms the central theme in Christel
Meier’s contribution. By analysing epic texts, she is able to lay bare central medieval poetic
discourses on rule: the panegyric, the exhortative, the utopian, and the critical. Meier emphasizes
the independent position of literature, by stressing its precedence of interpretation in describing,
reflecting and commenting on the ruler. Bernhard Teuber draws our attention to the field of drama.
He explores the tragedies of Seneca, Calderón, Corneille and Racine, and proposes that they all
present different relations between sovereignty, drama and ethical subject. A major point in this very
learned analysis is that seventeenth-century theatre continues to interact with Seneca’s plays in a
staged discussion of the contemporary ruler.
The essays presented in Machtfragen are all of high quality. Some are rather demanding, and with
this huge and multi-faceted topic spanning such a long period, few will probably read the book from
cover to cover. Many scholars are, however, bound to find articles of significant interest to their own
fields in the volume. This goes especially for literary studies. In fact, one could argue that there is a
certain imbalance in the book, with the introduction and the vast majority of essays dealing with the
power of the text. Considering the inclusion of a few pieces on images, ritual and drama, I missed a
discussion on how all these variant types of representation differed and were similar in reflecting and
constructing power. That said, the editors should be acknowledged for having produced an in-depth
collection that provides valuable insights into a complex and powerful field.
University of Gothenburg
[email protected]
Ida Östenberg
doi:10.1017/S0075435810000286
S. TAKÁCS, THE CONSTRUCTION OF AUTHORITY IN ANCIENT ROME AND BYZAN­
TIUM: THE RHETORIC OF EMPIRE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Pp. 167. isbn 978-0521878654. £40.00.
This study of the way in which Rome’s emperor created and maintained authority claims its initial
origins in the author’s familial discussions about the ways in which twentieth-century dictators
employed rhetoric to support their authority, and its immediate inspiration from the political consequences of 9/11 in the United States. Nonetheless, the focus of The Construction of Authority in
Ancient Roman and Byzantium is on the world of Ancient Rome and Byzantium as Takács offers
an analysis of the dynamic behind the establishment of power and legitimacy in the Roman Empire.
T. aims to provide an approachable study of the way in which the emperor’s construction of his
authority changed between the end of the first century b.c. and the establishment of Christianity as
the religion of Rome. In this T. is largely successful, although the most interesting conclusions of this
study — given its initial inspirations — remain unstated.
The scope of this book is broad, both chronologically and geographically, running from the
canonization of Rome’s moral virtues in the middle Republic until the second millennium a.d. and
from east to west, concluding with a comparison of the construction of authority in both Byzantium
and Western Europe after Charlemagne. It is held together at its core through an exploration of the
way in which the same group of moral qualities (virtue, strength, piety, self-sacrifice, and the mos
maiorum) recurred in the establishment of the legitimate authority of any given individual, from the
nobiles of the Republic, to the emperors of the early Principate, and on to the Christian rulers of
Byzantium and Western Europe. The broad time period allows T. to track the gradual changes in
both political systems and rhetoric, highlighting the way that, whilst the key terminology remained
largely the same, emphases and identifications changed. This is particularly the case in the idea of the
pater or parens, which originated in the Republican acclamation pater patriae and which came to be
embodied in the emperor as parens of the state. T. shows how, with the acceptance of Christianity
as a state religion, the heavenly Father superseded the earthly father as the originator of authority
and law. In this process of legitimacy, the emperor became God-the-Father’s figurehead on earth,
receiving the imperial crown from the church and not from the army, senate or people (120). Thus
i. history and culture
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over time, the pagan discourse became a Christian one, refashioning the idea of what qualities legitimately qualified an individual to be an emperor or king. The geographical spread, meanwhile, allows
T. to discuss the differences that emerged in the construction of authority between the Byzantine East
and the post-Carolingian West, leading to the conclusion that in the West, the emperor’s authority
was constructed upon his power to defend the church and the empire, whilst in the East the church
gave authority to the emperor and was the principal guardian of the empire (138).
T. argues that a society’s historical understanding of itself is built on both the real, historical
events that actually took place, and an imaginary, historical fiction created from a rhetorical interpretation of this history that could achieve mythical proportions. She narrates the passage of Rome’s
leadership from Republic to Empire to Christian Empire and provides a lucid presentation of the
texts in which the legitimacy of the ruler’s authority is established, but the way in which these two
‘histories’ combine at times remains unclear. Certainly the moral binaries and virtues T. discusses are
important in creating and maintaining or damaging the authority of Rome’s leaders, but what of the
relationship between these discussions of character and authority and the historical figure to which
they refer — worryingly, Cicero’s praise of Caesar in the pro Marcello appears to be taken at face
value (37–9). ‘To problematize’ is a horrible verb indeed, but one wishes that T. gave more space to
the problematic relationship between those who would lead Rome and those who discussed their
virtues as leaders.
In general this book provides an interesting introduction to the way in which authority was
rhetorically constructed in the ancient world. Yet at times it feels that T. is not giving the reader
as much as was promised in the introduction. Indeed the most interesting element of this book is
not actually discussed: the insights that an understanding of these processes in antiquity can bring
to our understanding of the rhetorical creation of legitimacy and authority in general — and in
particular in our modern societies. One footnote on p. 4 notes the way that scholarly inquiries can
serve as political involvement when free speech is limited; nonetheless T. chooses not to draw a
parallel between this idea and the fact that this book was surely (given the time it takes to produce
a book from its from conception to publication) begun during the Bush administration, a period
that saw a heightened use of rhetorical claims about what it meant to be American in the creation
of a legitimate authority for strong executive action. If this criticism seems unduly harsh, then it is
worth remembering that T.’s intended audience is, ‘The person curious about the formative power
of political rhetoric’ (xviii), and that the work’s opening pages suggest that its author wants to
provoke thoughts about these ideas on a wider front. The work does not demand the creation of a
full theoretical or comparative framework for discussing these ideas — but some directional pointers
in the conclusion would be nice.
University of St Andrews
[email protected]
Hannah Swithinbank
doi:10.1017/S0075435810000298
P. Bang, The Roman Bazaar: A Comparative Study of Trade and Markets
in a Tributary Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. xv + 358.
isbn 9-780-52185-532-7. £55.00.
Bang’s book on the Roman Bazaar is a refreshing comparative study of the Roman economy. He
rightly chose another tributary empire, the Mughal Empire, as a case for comparison. There may
be chronological as well as geographical differences between the two states. However, abundant
similarities in their socio-political background, their agrarian structures, the development of their
economies and their centralized imperial fiscal policies make them perfect candidates for a direct
comparison. B. managed to find ample common ground on top of which he built his elaborate
economic theoretical structure. His theory flexibly avoids (not evades) the primitivist-modernist
debate, which dominates all discussions on Western ancient economies since the 1970s. As early as
the first chapter, B. goes far beyond Finley’s substantivist perspective or Rostovtzef’s capitalist ideas.
He claims that his comparison with an Oriental pre-industrial empire allows him to explore further
the issues at hand from an atypical non-eurocentric, non-colonialist viewpoint. The advantages of
such an approach are very useful to the historian, even if many researchers still react negatively to
the prospect. In the following chapters the comparison highlights the extent of the integration of
the Roman economy, the political intervention of the central government, the power of commercial
institutions and their limitations.