Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome

Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome

Par Charles Guérin & Martin T. Dinter

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Editor's note

Cultural memory is a framework which elucidates the relationship between the past and the present: essentially, why, how, and with what results certain pieces of information are remembered. This volume brings together distinguished classicists from a variety of sub-disciplines to explore cultural memory in the Roman Republic and the Age of Augustus. It provides an excellent and accessible starting point for readers who are new to the intersection between cultural memory theory and ancient Rome, whilst also appealing to the seasoned scholar. The chapters delve deep into memory theory, going beyond the canonical texts of Jan Assmann and Pierre Nora and pushing their terminology towards Basu's dispositifs, Roller's intersignifications, Langlands' sites of exemplarity, and Erll's horizons. This innovative framework enables a fresh analysis of both fragmentary texts and archaeological phenomena not discussed elsewhere.


Charles Guérin, is professor of Latin Literature at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Sorbonne University. He has published monographs on the rhetorical notion of persona (2009, 2011) and on witness testimony in the Roman courts of the first century BC ("La Voix de la verité", 2015). In addition he has edited and co-edited several volumes on ancient rhetoric, oratory, declamation, and literature. He serves on the executive committee of "L'Année Philologique".

Martin T. Dinter is reader in Latin Literature and Language at King's College London. He is the author of "Anatomizing Civil War: Studies in Lucan's Epic Technique" (2012) and co-editor of "A Companion to the Neronian Age" (2013), three volumes entitled "Reading Roman Declamation with focus on Quintilian" (2016), "Calpurnius Flaccus" (2018) and "Seneca the Elder" (2020) and editor of the "Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy" (Cambridge, 2019).