Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Latin literature of the empire tends to be categorized by periods referring to emperors or imperial dynasties, the most notable being the Augustan, Neronian, and Flavian ages. While this kind of periodization often obscures the continuities in the development of Latin literature (see the warning of Nisbet 1995 : 391 “periodization in literature is even more misleading than it is in history”), the changing circumstances of the relationship between literature and political power under the empire make such chronological markers useful. Beginning with Augustus, Latin literature is increasingly drawn into imperial circles and literary patronage comes close to being an imperial monopoly ( Wallace-Hadrill 1996 : 292). Writers, like the aristocracy (and the two were usually the same), had to learn how to deal with the necessity of coping in a world that now had an emperor in it. The emperors did not commission these writers, nor did they necessarily dictate what they wrote, but they were able to exert unique pressures. Most importantly, the emperors were always present as potential readers and this changes the nature and interpretation of Latin literature profoundly. Juvenal proclaims shortly after the accession of Hadrian in 117 ce that “both the hope and the motive for writing lie with the emperor” ( Satires 7). There were also, increasingly, consequences for what was written. The ... log in or subscribe to read full text