Book contents
- The Social Dynamics of Roman Imperial Imagery
- The Social Dynamics of Roman Imperial Imagery
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Altars of the Lares Augusti
- 3 Modelling the Emperor
- 4 Publica numina
- 5 Roman Emperors, Conquest, and Violence
- 6 Court Politics and Imperial Imagery in the Roman Principate
- 7 Local Aspirations and Statues of Emperors in Roman North Africa
- 8 The Altar of P. Perelius Hedulus in Carthage and the Social Aspects of Provincial Image-Making
- 9 Imagines et tituli
- 10 The Imperial Image in Media of Mechanical Reproduction
- 11 When Was an Imperial Image?
- Index
- References
11 - When Was an Imperial Image?
Some Reflections on Roman Art and Imagery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2020
Book contents
- The Social Dynamics of Roman Imperial Imagery
- The Social Dynamics of Roman Imperial Imagery
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Altars of the Lares Augusti
- 3 Modelling the Emperor
- 4 Publica numina
- 5 Roman Emperors, Conquest, and Violence
- 6 Court Politics and Imperial Imagery in the Roman Principate
- 7 Local Aspirations and Statues of Emperors in Roman North Africa
- 8 The Altar of P. Perelius Hedulus in Carthage and the Social Aspects of Provincial Image-Making
- 9 Imagines et tituli
- 10 The Imperial Image in Media of Mechanical Reproduction
- 11 When Was an Imperial Image?
- Index
- References
Summary
Imperial images have been at the heart of historical debates on Roman history for several decades. This paper reflects on the historiographical context in which these debates took place, focusing on two debates in classical studies: the discussion about ‘propaganda’, which highlights the transmission of ideology (how and why imagery was communicated), and the debate about agency (who was communicating with whom). In many ways, this volume, with its emphasis on the social dynamics of imagery, places itself in that debate. Yet, the two larger historiographical debates should themselves be contextualised, as they were heavily influenced by contemporary politics and by the introduction of two major concepts in the social sciences: ‘framing’ and ‘agenda setting’. Political and academic contexts have consistently influenced the study of Roman imperial images. It may be useful to make the importance of ‘contexts’ – geographical and chronological – more explicit. An imperial image is always an image, but only in certain contexts will it have functioned as an imperial image. It may be worthwhile to focus less on what an image is and more on how and when images function in certain ways.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Social Dynamics of Roman Imperial Imagery , pp. 275 - 288Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
References
Alföldi, A. 1970. Die monarchische Repräsentation im römischen Kaiserreiche (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft).Google Scholar
Ando, C. 2000. Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press).Google Scholar
Clarke, J. R. 2003. Art in the Lives of Ordinary Romans: Visual Representation and Non-Elite Viewers in Italy, 100 b.c.–a.d. 315 (Berkeley: University of California Press).Google Scholar
Cooley, A. 1998. ‘The moralizing message of the Senatus Consultum De Cn. Pisone Patre’, G&R 45: 199–212.Google Scholar
Dally, O., Hölscher, T., Muth, S., and Schneider, R. M. 2014. ‘Einführung. Historien – Historie – Geschichte: wohin führen die Medien?’, in Dally, O., Hölscher, T., Muth, S., and Schneider, R. M. (eds.), Medien der Geschichte – Antikes Griechenland und Rom (Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter), 1–36.Google Scholar
DeRose Evans, J. 1992. The Art of Persuasion: Political Propaganda from Aeneas to Brutus (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press).Google Scholar
Eich, A. 2003. ‘Die Idealtypen “Propaganda” und “Repräsentation” als heuristische Mittel bei der Bestimmung gesellschaftlicher Konvergenzen und Divergenzen von Moderne und römischer Kaiserzeit’, in Weber, G. and Zimmermann, M. (eds.), Propaganda, Selbstdarstellung und Repräsentation im römischen Kaiserreich des 1. Jhs. n. Chr. (Stuttgart: Steiner), 41–84.Google Scholar
Elsner, J. 1995. Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
2007. Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Enenkel, K. A. E. and Pfeijffer, I. L. 2005. ‘Introduction’, in Enenkel, K. A. E. and Pfeijffer, I. L. (eds.), The Manipulative Mode. Political Propaganda in Antiquity: A Collection of Case Studies (Leiden; Boston: Brill), 1–12.Google Scholar
Entman, R. M. 1993. ‘Framing: toward clarification of a fractured paradigm’, Journal of Communication 43: 51–8.Google Scholar
Frevert, U. and Braungart, W. (eds.) 2004. Sprachen des Politischen: Medien und Medialität in der Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht).Google Scholar
Giuliani, L. 1986. Bildnis und Botschaft: Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Bildniskunst der römischen Republik (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp).Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Haesler, A. and Dobré, M. 2016. ‘The medial turn in knowledge society’, in Pomazan, V. (ed.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Studies (ICIS 2016): Interdisciplinarity and Creativity in the Knowledge Society (London: Intechopen), 141–7.Google Scholar
Hekster, O. 2003. ‘Coins and messages: audience targeting on coins of different denominations?’, in Erdkamp, P., Hekster, O., de Kleijn, G., Mols, S. T. A. M., and de Blois, L. (eds.), The Representation and Perception of Roman Imperial Power: Proceedings of the Third Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Roman Empire, c.200 b.c.–a.d. 476), Netherlands Institute in Rome, March 20–23, 2002 (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben), 20–35.Google Scholar
2015. Emperors and Ancestors: Roman Rulers and the Constraints of Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Hochgeschwender, M. 2003. ‘Die Erfindung der USA im Spiegel moderner Propagandatheorien’, in Weber, G. and Zimmermann, M. (eds.), Propaganda, Selbstdarstellung und Repräsentation im römischen Kaiserreich des 1. Jhs. n. Chr. (Stuttgart: Steiner), 103–24.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 2011. ‘Human–thing entanglement: towards an integrated archaeological perspective’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17: 154–77.Google Scholar
Hodge, B. and Tripp, D. 1986. Children and Television: A Semiotic Approach (Stanford: Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
Hölscher, T. 1984. Staatsdenkmal und Publikum: Vom Untergang der Republik bis zur Festigung des Kaisertums in Rom (Konstanz: Universitätsverlag).Google Scholar
1987. Römische Bildsprache als semantisches System. Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse 1987, 2 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter).Google Scholar
Kramer, N. and Reitz, C. (eds.) 2010. Tradition und Erneuerung: Mediale Strategien in der Zeit der Flavier (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter).Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. 1990. Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green).Google Scholar
Lendon, J. E. 2006. ‘The legitimacy of the Roman emperor: against Weberian legitimacy and imperial “strategies of legitimation”’, in Kolb, A. (ed.), Herrschaftsstrukturen und Herrschaftspraxis: Konzepte, Prinzipien und Strategien der Administration im römischen Kaiserreich (Berlin: De Gruyter), 53–63.Google Scholar
Levick, B. 1999. ‘Messages on the Roman coinage: types and inscriptions’, in Paul, G. M. and Ierardi, M. (eds.), Roman Coins and Public Life under the Empire: E. Togo Salmon Papers II (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press), 41–60.Google Scholar
Manders, E. 2012. Coining Images of Power: Patterns in the Representation of Roman Emperors on Imperial Coinage, a.d. 193–284 (Leiden: Brill).Google Scholar
McCombs, M. E. and Shaw, D. L. 1972. ‘The agenda-setting function of mass media’, Public Opinion Quarterly 36: 176–87.Google Scholar
McLuhan, M. 1967. The Medium is the Message: An Inventory of Effects (London: Bantam).Google Scholar
Mitchell, W. J. T. 2005. What do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Niquet, H. 2003. ‘Inschriften als Medium von “Propaganda” und Selbstdarstellung im 1. Jh. n. Chr.’, in Weber, G. and Zimmermann, M. (eds.), Propaganda, Selbstdarstellung und Repräsentation im römischen Kaiserreich des 1. Jhs. n. Chr. (Stuttgart: Steiner), 145–73.Google Scholar
Potter, D. S. 1999. ‘Political theory in the Senatus Consultum Pisonianum’, AJPh 120: 65–88.Google Scholar
Rowan, C. 2012. Under Divine Auspices: Divine Ideology and the Visualisation of Imperial Power in the Severan Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Rudich, V. 1993. Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation (London; New York: Routledge).Google Scholar
Rudich, V. 2015. Religious Dissent in the Roman Empire: Violence in Judea at the Time of Nero (London; New York: Routledge).Google Scholar
Rutledge, S. 2012. Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Scheufele, D. 2000. ‘Agenda setting, priming, and framing revisited: another look at cognitive effects of political communication’, Mass Communication and Society 3: 297–316.Google Scholar
Squire, M. 2009. Image and Text in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Takeshita, T. 2006. ‘Current critical problems in agenda-setting research’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research 18: 275–96.Google Scholar
Van Eck, C., Versluys, M. J., and ter Keurs, P. 2015. ‘The biography of cultures: style, objects and agency. Proposal for an interdisciplinary approach’, Les Cahiers de l’École du Louvre 7: 2–22.Google Scholar
von den Hoff, R. 2011. ‘Kaiserbildnisse als Kaisergeschichte(n): Prolegomena zu einem medialen Konzept römischer Herrscherporträts’, in Winterling, A. (ed.), Zwischen Strukturgeschichte und Biographie: Probleme und Perspektiven einer neuen Römischen Kaisergeschichte zur Zeit von Augustus bis Commodus (Munich: Oldenbourg), 15–44.Google Scholar
Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1982. ‘Civilis princeps: between citizen and king’, JRS 72: 32–48.Google Scholar
Walter, U. 2003. ‘Passage in zwei Welten: “Die Römische Revolution” und die Sprache des Historikers’, in Syme, R., Selzer, C., and Walter, U. (eds.), Die Römische Revolution. Machtkämpfe im antiken Rom: Grundlegend revidierte und erstmals vollständige Neuausgabe (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta), 735–47.Google Scholar
Weaver, D. H. 2007. ‘Thoughts on agenda setting, framing, and priming’, Journal of Communication 57: 142–7.Google Scholar
Whitby, M. 1998. The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in Late Antiquity (Leiden; Boston: Brill).Google Scholar
Witschel, C. 2004. Propaganda für den Princeps? Mechanismen der kaiserlichen Repräsentation im Imperium Romanum (Munich: Habilitation).Google Scholar
Wolters, R. 1999. Nummi Signati: Untersuchungen zur römischen Münzprägung und Geldwirtschaft (Munich: Beck).Google Scholar
2003. ‘Die Geschwindigkeit der Zeit und die Gefahr der Bilder: Münzbilder und Münzpropaganda in der römischen Kaiserzeit’, in Weber, G. and Zimmermann, M. (eds.), Propaganda, Selbstdarstellung und Repräsentation im römischen Kaiserreich des 1. Jhs. n. Chr. (Stuttgart: Steiner), 175–204.Google Scholar
- 1
- Cited by