This new collection of essays, commissioned from a range of scholars across the world, takes as its theme the reception of Rome's greatest poet in a time of profound cultural change. Amid the rise of Christianity, the changing status of the city of Rome, and the emergence of new governing classes, Vergil remained a bedrock of Roman education and identity. This volume considers the different ways in which Vergil was read, understood and appropriated; by poets, commentators, Church fathers, orators and historians. The introduction outlines the cultural and historical contexts. Twelve chapters dedicated to individual writers or genres, and the contributors make use of a wide range of approaches from contemporary reception theory. An epilogue concludes the volume. "Romane Memento" will be of interest to literary critics and cultural historians of Late Antiquity, but also to Vergilianists unfamiliar with the literature of the fourth century.
Author Biography
Roger Rees is Lecturer in Classics at Edinburgh University. His first book, Layers of Loyalty in Latin Panegyric 289-307 (Oxford) came out in 2002.
