Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture

ISBN-13: 9780199240241 / Angielski / Miękka / 2000 / 436 str.

Harriet I. Flower

Opis

Flower explains why the Roman elite commemorated politically prominent family members with wax masks worn by actors at the funerals of the deceased. She looks at literary sources, legal texts, epigraphy, archaeology, numismatics, and art, tracing the functional evolution of ancestor masks, from the third century BC to the sixth century AD. By putting these masks into their legal, social, and political context, Flower elucidates their central position in the media of the time and their special meaning as symbols of power and prestige.

Recenzje

In addition to an exhaustive discussion of the imagines... the book contains highly plausible, useful, and in some cases... ground-breaking accounts of many other subjects. The documentation is everywhere extensive and clearly presented... and... the argumentation is generally, lucid, and easy to follow... the book is a valuable contribution to scholarship, and I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in any aspect of the ancient Roman world.